To turn things around, ‘we need the public sector to play its role as well’, Goodwin says. ‘It is imperative that the government does take measures to improve productivity across the public sector. We can’t just continue increasing taxes without doing anything on public sector productivity. Making the state ‘more productive’ is a code for cutting wages for public sector workers, as Birmingham’s Labour Council is attempting by imposing annual pay cuts of £8,000 on its bin workers. However, this also threatens cutting thousands of public sector jobs.