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Here are some extracts from the claim.

“For the past five years, chief executives and chief officers have been the objects of a deliberate political strategy to suppress senior pay”

“It is now five years since local government chief executives were awarded a cost of living pay increase. Since January 2009, the cost of living (CPI) has increased by 16.56%, yet senior local government staff have received nothing.”

“our members are experiencing an actual cut in their take home pay, as employees’ pension contributions are escalated to a new high of 12.5% – compared to the civil service rate of only 6.85%.”

To view the Pay claim click here

Pay Claim: Seven reasons why our pay claim is fair and just

1. Local government workers have suffered an 18% cut in wages since 2010

A pay freeze and eight years of below inflation pay rises since 1997 mean thousands of local government workers, from across the pay scale, are struggling to make ends meet.

2. Local government: the worst pay and conditions in the public sector

Over half a million, mostly women, mostly part-timers, earn less than the Living Wage. Only in local government and local authority schools are large numbers of public sector employees paid so poorly. No one in local government earns as much for the job they do as other public sector workers doing equivalent jobs elsewhere.

To view more click here

 

 

Campaign Against the Destruction of Disability Support Services (CADDSS) have produced a report on the Your Choice proposed changes to services.

You can read the full report here

Executive Summary 

Your Choice Barnet Ltd (YCB) began operating as a Local Authority Trading Company (LATC) in February 2012. Within months it incurred operating losses and failed to attract new service users and revenue. Barnet UNISON had earlier published a series of highly critical reports on the options appraisal, business case and business plan, which predicted the problems that have since unfolded in YCB.

The core objective of this report is to set out the case for full and continuing engagement with service users, carers and community organisations, together with staff and trade unions and to show how YCB’s current approach is flawed, fails to provide value for money for the taxpayer and therefore unacceptable.

The case for engagement

There are four powerful reasons why YCB should engage with service users, carers and staff in the design, delivery and review of service delivery:

·         The legal case for engagement.

·         The relationship between the quality of employment and the quality of service.

·         Best practice public management and service planning.

·         The important impact of personal budgets on YCB finances.

There is significant evidence, including YCB’s own evidence, that the restructuring proposals will have a negative impact on the delivery and quality of services.

YCB’s pick and mix approach to engagement

YCB’s current approach to engagement is totally inadequate. It ignores the basic principles of engagement (see page 16). Evidence of YCB reports and Board meetings hint at a positive approach, but YCB adopts a minimalist approach in practice. This has led to service users, carers and CADDSS having little trust or confidence in YCB’s approach to engagement. Consequently, CADDSS has drawn up a set of core principles for engagement.

 

YCB suffers from three important democratic gaps that require immediate attention: a Governance Gap because parents do not have a direct representative on the Board; an Engagement Gap because engagement policy and practice is inadequate and unacceptable; and a Transparency Gap because disclosure is selective and limited.

The financial crisis deepens

The roller coaster financial forecasts for YCB between 2010-2012 reflected the way in which the options appraisal, business case and business plan were prepared. Barnet Council chose to ignore the detailed critical analysis and proposals submitted by Barnet UNISON. Instead it stuck to a pre-determined decision to transfer Adult Social Services to a new local authority trading company, supported by its outsourcing consultants and lawyers.

Predictably, YCB was incurring costs within a few months leading to first year losses and the £1m bailout. Despite the £180,000 first year cost saving measures and the financial impact of the restructuring proposals, the financial position is precarious. Some £951,587 of cumulative losses, reduced income and part repayment of the loan and interest, plus achieve the £162,000 budgeted growth income, have to be addressed in 2013-2014.

The case to return the service to in-house provision

There is a very substantive case for returning Your Choice Barnet services back to in-house provision to stabilise the finances of the six services; remove the threat to Barnet tenant’s housing management service with rapid repayment of the £1m bailout; take a more effective and measured approach to the development of services to avoid misuse of public resources in pursuing inappropriate and unachievable commercial objectives; and to prepare a three-year development plan with the engagement of service users, carers and community organisations together with staff and trade unions.

Recommendations

The YCB Board should immediately:

1. Engage in full and continuing engagement with service users, carers and community organisations, together with staff and trade unions, in the design, delivery and review of Adult Social Care services. This should include community meetings and facilitate the submission of proposals for the future of the services. It requires a new Engagement Plan prepared with service user and carer representatives.

 

2. Endorse the seven core engagement principles into the YCB engagement policy and commit to their application in practice (see page 16).

3. Agree not to implement the management and staffing proposals in the Consultation Paper published on 1st March 2013.

4. Immediately terminate the benchmarking contract with Valuing Care Limited and the consultancy contract with Care and Health Solutions Limited.

Barnet Council should:

5. Return YCB services to in-house provision at the earliest practical opportunity.

6. In the short-term, extend the block contract to ease YCB cash flow problems.

7. Prepare a three-year service development plan with service users, carers, s taff and trade unions.

Yesterday and today the media are reporting another story about contractors ripping off the public purse.

“private security company G4S for overcharging tens of millions of pounds on electronic tagging contracts for offenders.”

This branch has been clear from the start that if you use the private sector you need to have the skills and expertise and resources to manage them. In response to our concerns our council has responded by creating the commissioning council in order to manage the private sector using “relationship management” Who comes up with such jargon? In the real world with stories like G4S and Serco the relationship with all private sector contractors taking public money should be very clear: 

“If you are taking public money and you don’t deliver you are not getting paid and if you over charge us then the contract is ripped up and you have to pay, end of story.”

However in order to enforce this you need lots of resources to ensure robust contract monitoring team…..but the catch here is that to do this can mean the business case for outsourcing does not stack up!

So with a history of private sector failures in the public sector what has been the clever thinking? Answer—The Thin Client!

UNISON has written at length about the ‘thin client’ . To put it simply it seeks to reduce the size of the client team down (less people monitoring the contractor) and relies unbelievably upon the contractor reporting itself..?

“You could not make this up but it is true.”

So when you read about G4S (again..Olympics anyone! ) and see they only found out when they started to re-tender, then it shows the ‘light touch’ approach to contract monitoring is simply unacceptable.

“Grayling told MPs that G4S and a second major supplier, Serco, had been overcharging on the existing £700m contract, with the Ministry of Justice being billed for non-existent services that dated back to at least 2005 and possibly as long ago as 1999.”

What does the above say about the culture of the contractors who must have know what they were doing?

(Footnote “the market’s instinctive reaction – 8% off Serco’s share price and 5.5% of G4S’s more lowly rated stock.”)

Did the Coalition government promise better control?

I remember back in 2010 government minister Francis Maude saying this in regards the private sector contracts with the govern­ment:

“We will expect you to be transparent in all your dealings with us and for the terms of the contracts we sign with you to go up online.”

Oh dear, not turned out as he hoped and he is now saying

“The public rightly expects government suppliers to meet the highest standards, and for taxpayers’ money to be spent properly and trans­parently. As a result of what the Justice Secretary outlined earlier today, I am launching an immediate review into government-held G4S and Serco contracts.”

You can read more here and here