A public sector union has upped the stakes in the battle over pay, by claiming morale among council staff was at an ‘all time low'. The survey, by Unison, of 3,513 local government workers across the UK showed 60% of staff believed morale to have worsened in the last year. Almost half of staff (43%) said staff shortages were due to employees leaving and not being replaced. The majority of redundancies were in the east of England and the North West. It followed the union's rejection of a 0.5% pay offer, which would see 150,000 low-paid local government staff getting 3p extra per hour. Heather Wakefield, Unison head of local government said: ‘Our members are telling us that heavy workloads and staff shortages are increasing stress and forcing down morale. We have already seen redundancies. Staff and services are stretched to breaking point.' She added: ‘Local government staff are already some of the lowest paid in the public sector.'