Yes you read right! News just in that Barnet UNISON looks set to be privatised.

Barnet Council has attracted national media attention with its easyCouncil tag, well it looks like the private sector liked the look of the branch and decided to make a bid or maybe did not like the branch and decided to buy it and close it down!

A shocked and bewildered branch secretary John Burgess was caught on camera outside the Town Hall after spending lengthy talks over the future of the UNISON branch and said:

“You can’t make it up. We had no indication that our service was up for privatisation. We thought easyCouncil meant other services not ours! I am shocked but will be issuing a press release once I have had chance to talk to my officers!

We have lots of questions for instance where is the Business Case for this decision? We were not part of the Options Appraisal in fact we did not know that an Options Appraisal was taking place. We demand to see the Options Appraisal. We have heard rumours that TUPE Plus was not included which leaves our members at the mercy of private sector. Not just their Pay, Annual Leave but Pensions as well. We don’t even know if the private company will recognise trade unions it is just unbelievable. What about data protection issues for our members?  This company could export this service out of Barnet and out of the UK which means existing legislation protecting data will be unenforceable! In the dire economic climate exporting jobs out of the borough seems madness at a time when the borough is experiencing rising unemployment.

Where was the consultation with the staff? What resources were given to other service delivery options especially the in-house bid? How can this decision deliver value for money and ensure democratic accountability? We are a Trade Union a democratic organisation our members vote for their reps how we can we demonstrate openness and transparency about decision making and service delivery if the private sector and their shareholders are ‘calling the shots!’ It is unacceptable to use the defence of ‘commercial confidentiality’ to hide details of business cases from our members and we will fight it all the way. It is member’s money and they need to see how and where their money is being spent. 

We will oppose any attempt to turn our branch into easyUnion. We have seen leaked documents suggesting that there would be a significant shift in to the way members paid their subscriptions e.g. a standard charge for a first meeting with a UNISON rep with further charges if representation is required.”

I am seeking urgent meetings and asking for the Options Appraisal decision to be overturned. We are clear that if an Options Appraisal needs to take place it needs to do so in partnership with the Trade Union and its members. We know our service and so do they, we should be working together to put our own in-house bid. We would expect this bid to be resourced.

As you can imagine this has all come as complete surprise.  In light of concerns we have had about the process I need to speak to our national union about whether we can seek a Judicial Review over the decision to privatise our branch.

I would like to send a message to all trade unions across the UK. It appears that belonging to a trade union is seen as threat to the financial institutions that seem to still have the power and influence to decide Government Policy. What is being proposed in Barnet maybe part of a more sinister coordinated campaign to break the trade unions forever. I could not help but be concerned about anti-union frenzy in the media over the BA dispute. What next?  Will it be illegal for a worker to withdraw their labour? I look forward to messages of support for our struggle.

Please Note: Barnet Council has been carrying out a massive transformation entitled Future Shape, we have had no indication that the privatisation of the Barnet UNISON branch was in any way connected.

To read more information on this shocking development click here

Pensioner Betty Martin, the Co chair of the UK Pensioners Strategy Committee is determined to join the demonstration on Monday 22nd March to save the UK’s Resident Sheltered Housing Wardens.  The demonstration starts at 12.00pm in Parliament Square and continues at 1.00pm outside Tory Headquarters, 30 Milbank where a letter will be handed in for the attention of David Cameron.  The message is (Are you going to change the law to protect Resident Sheltered Housing Wardens?  We need to know now, so we can advise the five hundred thousand tenants of sheltered housing and their supporters who to vote for.) 

After the demonstration a delegation of sheltered housing tenants will hand in similar letters at the Liberal Democrat Headquarters for Nick Clegg, and 10 Downing for the Prime Minister.

For more click here

One of our biggest challenges is reaching our schools members. Last term we held a school conference and piloted this approach to contacting members. It was a success and we are doing it again our Conference is on Monday 15th February.

Details in our newsletter click here

This evening and next week a number of local reps have agreed to come in to the Barnet UNISON office to ring our members working in schools.

 

We still need help so if you can come in for a few minutes to help please let the branch know by ringing 0208 359 2088 or email contactus@barnetunison.org.uk

In the meanwhile our office is buzzing with “good evening, my name is ………”

 

“Very useful. A good chance to let UNISON know what sort of practices are going on in schools. Nice to feel listened to!”

“As this is the 1^st meeting, I think that it is too early to comment, as the sessions, if continued will develop, as and who attends”

“I found the amount of support available (on staffing and learning) brilliant”

“Reinforced my understanding of issues involving school support staff”

“I found it enlightening”

“Good to know we are not alone”

This was just some of the positive feedback from those who attended our schools conference. The last comment has a particular resonance. Schools support staff are certainly not alone. We have some 900+ members in schools and yet a lot of you feel alone! 

This has a lot to do with the way in which we organise in schools. It is difficult for you to attend meetings and we do not have representatives in every school – but the issues are so similar… This conference was an attempt to break through that and we have agreed to  

ü      organise meetings in some of the schools present at the conference.

ü      organise a meeting specifically for caretakers as they have yet to have their jobs looked at following the schools remodelling exercise.

ü      Send out the job descriptions for Levels 1,2,3,4 T.A s

ü      Organise a meeting for Nursery Nurses to discuss the key worker aspect to their role. 

It was really shocking to hear how many colleagues are being held at Level 1 T.A. when in fact no one should be on this level for more than a few weeks! This is just one of the issues we will be tackling throughout the year. Colleagues attending were also shocked to hear about the proposed transformation of Whitefield School to National Challenge Trust Status. Whitefield School is one of the first schools we will be holding a meeting. We will be writing more about this campaign to all our schools members. 

Many colleagues found the feedback from National UNISON speaker, Christine Lewis, very informative and people really liked to hear about the training opportunities which are available through the council on the Return2Learn scheme.

There will be another conference which will take place during the next half term. Make sure you don’t miss the next one. Contact the Barnet UNISON office if you are reading this and want us to come to your school and hold a meeting.

 Prize winner receives her min laptop!

Mick Mahoney is branch Secretary for Essex UNISON. Mick has a long history in trade unions. He worked for many years as a docker down in Tilbury, before moving to local government. The work was a big change but the issues facing the workforce remain the same.

Essex UNISON came to our attention last December when news broke that Essex were already looking for someone to run their council services. A journalist contacted the branch to ask if they were aware that all of the council’s services had been ‘bundled up’ as a package for around £4.5 billion.

The Leader Lord Hanningfield is a key figure in Cameron’s team.

In March this year the branch had been told the scheme for mass privatisation had gone on hold, but that was only until the county council elections in May were over. On the day that our branch was being bombarded by journalists looking for a response to the EasyCouncil article in the Guardian, Mick was being interviewed by the BBC over secret plans for mass privatisation of all council servcies by 2012, just in time for the Olympics!

Interestingly, Mick said industrial relations with their employers have been ok, it is only in the last 12 months when these plans first came to light that there has been a significant change.

Essex Council has already appointed IBM as the organisation to lead commissioning on behalf of the Council. Our members know of IBM because of their partnership (SouthwestOne) in Somerset.

Mick is clearly committed to fighting on behalf of his members. Over the years he feels the language of the politicians may have changed but the message is still the same, they are after our members Terms & Conditions and it is only UNISON standing in their way.

Mick is coming with his Assistant Branch Secretary (Bab’s) to address our branch meeting on

Monday 12 October 12 – 2pm, Building 2, Conference room, NLBP.

She: David; He: Goliath  or “Does Essex Excel in Essex Cares?”

 

Babs is an assistant branch secretary in Essex County Council UNISON. Her normal job was as a care assistant. She is utterly committed to trying to get the best results for her members and combating the ever growing attempts at mass privatisation of County Council services. Babs knows what she and her members are up against – the insistent grasping tentacles of large private companies lining up to fatten their profits provided by taxpayers’ money with the assistance of slavish politicians who usually have more in common with a Barclays Finance Director than with a care assistant.  

From her role as a care assistant and assistant branch secretary Babs has found herself leading and involved in campaigns to fight privatisation of social care provision within the Council. For a few years the UNISON branch was successful in preventing the privatisation of their 64 residential care homes. Eventually the privatisers got their way and now all homes are run by Excel. The inspectorate of homes is so impressed with the standards maintained by Excel, it has since enforced the closure of two homes! 

The next battleground for privatisation has been all of the other provisions of adult social care; namely the day centres, the 1,000 strong in-house home help service, OTs and support workers. Consultation started March 2008. There was no in-house bid and the only proposal was to privatise all of those services. Babs, colleagues and pressure groups led a campaign to stop that happening. As the trade unions were able to attend all consultative meetings Babs and UNISON colleagues put forward their arguments. They were able to increase their union membership and hold stalls at the meetings.  

The pressure against privatisation grew so much that the Council came up with a compromise solution: the creation of an ALMO (Arms Length Management Organisation). Anyone who thinks this is a good compromise should speak to those in Barnet Homes where colleagues are seeing the steady erosion of their terms and conditions or Ealing Homes which is now facing total privatisation as the set up has failed. Nonetheless the proposal in Essex foresees the pension scheme as being saved and open to new starters and there will be no 2-tier workforce. The ALMO, Essex Cares, also pays the Council to be able to participate in the union facility time arrangement enabling the staff of Essex Cares to continue receiving union representation from the UNISON branch. Babs reports most of the staff as being positive about Essex Cares but she does not see it as a victory. She thinks her members will regret their initial enthusiasm not least because she sees the increasing agenda of personalisation as a potential real threat to the viability of these services with no democratic control to bend the services to the new challenges. Currently there are some 800 people with personalised budgets in Essex County. 

Babs is now heavily involved in the negotiations and campaigns around Essex attempting to privatise all Council service. As the Council brings in more and more financial services experts she finds herself sitting opposite a financial director of Barclays Bank. We cannot underestimate how daunting this is. But if tenacity and courage is what wins the day Babs would win hands down. We would be foolish to think these attributes in one person is enough on its own. Babs and her colleagues need our support and we need theirs.

 

Come and meet Babs at our Branch meeting lunchtime 12 October.

“Supporting the venerable vulnerable”

Dear members  

I have just finished a month on placement with social work teams across Adults & Children’s services. I was planning on jetting off for a holiday, and try and take things easy when this happened last Friday. I was suddenly bombarded by numerous text messages & emails asking if I had seen the Guardian article. I am not a regular reader, so had to go out and purchase a copy, and what did I find but a Four Page article in a National newspaper. There was also the online version which was quickly spreading to other links to other political commentators. 

The “Easy Council” quip alongside comparisions with Easy Jet & Ryan Air have proved eye catching and have whipped up a media frenzy and comments from the public.  

The political commentators are already saying that Barnet is the test ground for a future Cameron government, interesting to note a quote from a senior conservative figure on Friday

“This is not seen as a blueprint. Barnet have gone their way and that’s fine but there is no wider significance as far as David is concerned,” said a senior Tory source. 

Not that this says anything, it could be that they are simply waiting to see what happens in Barnet. 

For staff working hard in Barnet it must be confusing & disturbing to feel part of an experiment without having any say. If this is an experiment then we should have been told.  

One of the more alarming quotes was from a councillor who when I last checked does not have a brief for adult services but is quoted as saying  

“With council tenants, and I’ll admit I am putting it crudely it has been a lot of ‘my arse needs wiping, and somebody from the council can come and do it for me.’ That attitude is dying out now.” 

When I read that statement after picking myself off the floor, I went to have a look at Fair Access to Care Services (FACS) to check the criteria yourself.  

Public Sector wasting money

What…..we have been making year on year savings (in Barnet almost £80 million in last six years!). Let’s get this right, we are in a recession, not because of public sector failure but because of private sector failure and what is worse our government sat by and let it happen for fear of making an enemy of the City! 

The ink is not even dry on the £Billions of public money being poured into the banks and already there are debates about whether there should be bonuses!  

It really makes me quite angry at the hypocrisy coming out of the national media to public services, in particular the Pension issue. It is not our Pensions that created the recession and to call a £4,000 pension gold plated is diabolical.  

There are around 4 million voters working in public sector, I wonder who they will be voting for because it seems all three mainstream parties are looking to cut their job, pensions and pay! 

Why not rename the Refuse service to the Landfill Service ?

One of the comments in the article refers to the smaller bins, but most members of the public know this will see an escalation in fly tipping. The question is the right one i.e. how do we reduce the amount of landfill? The solution is not going to be easy as providing catchy sound bites. Residents need to hear the truth about the landfill tax which is hanging over the heads of Councils. In Barnet we are being told that if we continue collecting the same amount of refuse in 5 –10 years time we will be taxed so heavily that it could bankrupt the council. One of the implications could be that we would have to raise Council Tax, but this is politically impossible, instead the public attention is directed to scare stories about Ryan Air/Easy Jet.   

Queue jumping!

Not popular in the UK but something introduced in the article. The idea that if you have the money you can pay for a better service has quite understandably provoked outrage as this is being seen as looking after the rich and leaving the rest to a second class service. It is only a few week ago when the public reacted with anger and disbelief at the Americans fear of our NHS. Incredible isn’t it, but they seem to think it is ok that 50 million of their citizens do not have access to health care and another group who do have healthcare are frightened that if they are ill the healthcare organisation may deny them access to the medical aid. If anyone out there thinks that is what should happen to public services in the UK, then let me know I am sure we can organise a cheap ticket, one way ticket to the USA! 

One of the three aims of future shape was “a different relationship with citizens”, it is hard to believe that creating two tier public services is what this aim was seeking to address.  

BNP & Council Housing  

This is the party that exploits the break up of public services. A good example is Council Housing. The break up of Council housing has been both financial madness but has not met the needs of communities. There was a time when we had well built council housing which gave working people access to quality, low cost housing. For our Future Shapists out there looking at disadvantaged families take a good look at the housing opportunities for those families and the services available to them. The break up of council housing has created ghettoes, housing stock has reduced due to right to buy that only those in most need are able to access this service. Councils are putting problems families alongside vulnerable adults & their families, no wonder our sheltered housing residents are petrified at the thought of their warden leaving the service. 

 

It is well documented that the BNP does well where access to services is seen to be restricted to a few. Any policy that will increase disadvantage and deny access to public services must be opposed.  

If the Future Shapist’s lobby within the Council are genuinely interesting in making early interventions and preventing dependency on public services then surely they need to start by looking at the environment we are creating for our residents.

“Tories adopt budget airline service model”(Guardian 28April 2009)

Today Barnet Council was Front Page news in the Guardian newspaper see link

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/aug/27/tory-borough-barnet-budget-airline

For those staff still not registering the implications of the Future Shape consultation, perhaps this will mark the beginning of discussions in team meetings across Council.  

Further links to EasyCouncil story can be found here  

·         http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/aug/27/tory-borough-barnet-budget-airline 

·         http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/aug/27/barnet-council-conservative-party 

·         http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/aug/27/barnet-ryanair-pricing-model 

·         http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/aug/27/localgovernment-conservatives 

·         http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/conservative/6102167/Barnet-council-adopts-easyJet-and-Ryanair-business-model.html  

Phoney War

Since the 6^th July 09 when Cabinet approved the move to Phase Three there has been a ‘Phoney war’ feel about Future Shape. There has been no details on the next Phase, no meetings in which we can begin to try to understand and consult over proposals for services.  

Then this!

Comparisons with Easy Jet and Ryan Air I believe are dangerous & unhelpful in that they play to residents & staff fears that services are going to sold off to the lowest bidder. Using a low cost airline as benchmark for public services does not feel right when you are talking about public services.  

What do you think?  

The last four weeks I have had the privilege of going back into social work teams in both adults & children’s services. I can report now that from the little I have seen staff are doing a brilliant job; working under incredible pressure & public scrutiny.   

I saw first hand the need for some of the Future Shape ideas such as avoiding duplication of tasks (form filling) using an IT system which all social workers and their fellow professionals can access. To address this issue we will need investment and pooling of budgets across other public sector bodies. There is nothing ‘Easy Jet’ about sorting this important issue for social services!  

I understand that this project has been dubbed ‘Easy Council’ catchy, good newspaper headlines but sending out the wrong message for the thousands of hard working staff trying to deliver efficient, quality services across the borough.  

In one of the links above a Barnet Councillor is quoted saying  

“With council tenants, and I’ll admit I am putting it crudely it has been a lot of ‘my arse needs wiping, and somebody from the council can come and do it for me.’ That attitude is dying out now.”

I am concerned that an elected councillor in Barnet has this view. The increasing pressure on spending on Social Care has led to ever more stringent criteria to access services. According to the Council’s Fair Access to Care Services (FACS) you need to meet substantial/critical criteria to get a service which will involve lengthy & detailed assessments.

What next?

Early next week we should be receiving details on the implementation plan for Future Shape. We will be discussing the plan with our members at our branch meeting on

Monday 12 October 12 – 2pm. Conference Room, NLBP

Make sure you come along  

“Do you know better?….Gotta new idea?”

Now is YOUR chance

 •        Have you got a good idea which could save the Council money?

•        Have you got a good idea which could help the Council work better with their partners?

•        Have you got a good idea which will improve access to services for residents?

•        Have you raised you idea at work and nothing has happened?

Here is your chance. 

Send your idea to

myidea@barnetunison.org.uk

We will ensure your idea is sent direct to the Chief Executive. It will be your choice if you want to remain anonymous.