Met's £1 million bill for funding union activists

Scotland Yard spends almost £1 million a year funding trade union activists, it emerged today.

The Met employed 16 full-time union reps at a cost of £886,579 last year, with a further £10,395 going on their "running costs" such as office supplies, photocopying and phone calls. Part-time posts add another £100,000.

Eight of the force's full-time posts are with the Public and Commercial Services Union, while Prospect and Unite have two each. All three unions took part in this week's pensions strike. A further four posts are shared between other unions within the Met.

Costs for 2010/11 rose by more than £100,000 on the previous year, when the bill was £792,226.81.
David Cameron vowed to put an end to taxpayer-funded union activists this week as hundreds of thousands of public servants walked out in the row over pensions. Estimates put the annual cost at £113 million. The bill was revealed in Freedom of Information Requests by the Taxpayers' Alliance.

Its director Matthew Sinclair said: "Taxpayers shouldn't be funding staff to work for trade unions, providing them with a huge activist base to support strikes and freeing up resources for political campaigns."

But a PCS spokesman said the roles were "crucial to the smooth running of the Met". He added: "Our reps work incredibly hard, often in their own time, not just for the benefit of staff but for the organisation, on a wide range of issues such as early dispute resolution, training and health and safety."

The research also showed that Transport for London employs 31 full-time and 371 part-time union reps.

It came as the Standard learned that a move to make high-earners in council houses pay more rent has been dubbed a "Bob Crow law" by ministers. The RMT union boss lives in a housing association property at Woodford Green, despite earning £145,000 a year.