Unions warn their support is vital for public-sector reform

Public-sector unions threatened to scupper plans to extend the private sector's role in running public services yesterday after talks with Tony Blair failed to resolve their rift with the Government.

As Downing Street warned that the unions would not have a veto over Mr Blair's reforms of the public sector, union leaders warned bluntly that the changes could not work if their members withheld their co-operation.

Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, the biggest public-service union, said: "My union has 1.25 million members providing services to the public. If the Government is to achieve its objectives, it needs the support and goodwill of our members to actually do that. It's not a threat – it's a fact of life."

He added: "I don't believe that this Government will want to spend the next two years in conflict with the trade unions about the role of the private company when the clear agenda is that we have got to improve public services."

A spokesman for the GMB general union said: "Our members do have a veto over how the reforms are implemented.

"If the Government wants to turn round public services in four years, it will have to do it with the support of public-sector workers rather than go to war on them."

Union leaders failed to win any substantial concessions from Mr Blair when they had dinner at Downing Street on Wednesday night. "The only thing we agreed on was not to disclose the menu," one union leader said yesterday.

The Labour leadership may provoke a further dispute with the unions by seeking to limit debate on public-private partnerships at the party's annual conference in October. Party officials plan to rule that motions tabled by the unions critical of the Government's plans cannot be discussed because the issue will be considered by a Labour policy commission to be set up next month.

Charles Clarke, the Labour Party chairman who was at Wednesday's meeting, insisted the election victory had given the Government an "absolute mandate" to deliver its promised reforms.

Mr Blair's spokesman said: "We can't achieve the changes we want to see without their [public-sector workers'] support. But in the end, nobody has a veto over that process."