UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis has welcomed the Prime Minister's latest initiative "Lets Talk" on public service reform.  He said "This is a positive move.

The Prime Minister will find that the people providing public services and the users of those services will want to talk about the best way to deliver world class services.  "We want to talk about job cuts in the health service and the health service funding cuts.  We want to talk about why we have to have markets and competition in our public services.

"We want to talk about best practice and the use of the private sector in local government and our other services.  We want to talk about what works and what gives users the best value for money, without lining the pockets of big business in the process.  "But the Government has to listen.  It has lost that listening element, this exercise could help it to regain that edge if it genuinely listened to what people had to say.  It would be a great shame to waste that opportunity".