Category: Local

On Wednesday 3 June 2015 Barnet UNISON attended two meetings at which Education & Skills and Schools Meals staff were informed that the Council were in talks with Capita & Mott MacDonald (Cambridge Education) about taking over their services.

It would be fair to say that the general feeling of the meeting was that the current proposal for privatisation was not supported and there was a strong view from staff that the prospects of the current proposal generating growth were bordering on fantasy.

Today, 8 June at a UNISON meeting staff mandated the branch to write to all Councillors on the Children’s, Education, Libraries and Safeguarding Committee outlining our concerns and seeking a postponement of the process.

UNISON recommendations:

Barnet UNISON strongly recommends that the Council should:

1. Postpone the Competitive Dialogue until the revised Outline Business Plan is completed and agreed by the Children, Education, Libraries and Safeguarding Committee.

2. Revise the financial modelling for trading income in the JVC option as a matter of urgency.

3. Revise the Education and Skills Outline Business Plan to take account of the financial, organisational, risk and operational implications of subcontracting the bulk of the workforce to another private contractor.

4. Seek confirmation from the bidders about their long-term plans for all the Education and Skills services and to reject proposals that involve subcontracting of services, except for obtaining specialist advice and skills.

5. Exclude the Catering Service from the JVC option and retain in-house.

6. Revise the Equalities Impact Assessment for Education and Skills to include a full employment profile of those employed in the services.

7. Re-examine the responsibilities, accountability and the decision making process, contract clauses and the method of monitoring and scrutinising the performance of a major subcontractor.

8. Require open book accounting for the JVC, a profit-sharing agreement and an annual report from the JVC as part of transparency for schools and the public.

You can read our full report here

View flyer click here

 

It sounds amazing especially when you consider:

1. The increased spend on Agency & Consultants

According to local Blogger Mr Reasonable

“In 2012/13 Comensura billed £12.5 million, In 2013/14 it rose to £13.8 million and this year, 2014/15 it has jumped again to £15.5 million.”

http://reasonablenewbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/barnet-council-where-are-savings-who.html

2. The amount of outsourcing that has taken place over the last three years where the following Council services have been transferred to another employer.

1. Your Choice Barnet

2. Housing Options

3. NSL (parking)

4. Capita CSG: Finance, HR, Payroll, Estates, Property Services, Pensions, Revenue & Benefits,

5. Capita Re: Building Control, Environmental Health, Planning, Trading Standards & Licencing

6. Legal Services

7. Registrars & Nationality Services

8. CCTV

9. Music Trust

10. Mortuary Services

3. Why the headline above?

Take a look at this report which was submitted to the Performance & Contract Monitoring Committee on 12 May 2015.

http://barnet.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s23134/Appendix%20A%20-%20Performance%20Report%20Quarter%204%20201415.pdf

Please note the Total Established Position it states there are 3080.00 FTE

Then compare with staffing figures presented to Performance & Contract Monitoring Committee on 11 November 2014.

http://barnet.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s19070/Appendix%20A%20-%20Performance%20Report%20Quarter%202%20201415.pdf

Please note the Total Established Position it states there are 2431.00 FTE

According to the Council’s own staffing data that means an increase of 649 FTE posts in the space on 6 months.

UNISON has been involved in a number of restructures over the last 9 months and staff have been made redundant. There are now staff at risk of redundancy working in children’s centres.

What is worrying it that we have not been informed of where these 649 jobs have been created!

“A huge roll call of services privatised, jobs outsourced around the country, local residents left without vital support – Barnet Unison members are saying enough is enough, writes JOHN BURGESS”

Read article here: http://morningstaronline.co.uk/a-33b4-WHY-WERE-STRIKING-TODAY#.VW4dfM9Vikp

How far does Cameron want to shrink the state? Ask Barnet’s binmen –

Aditya Chakrabortty. Guardian Newspaper

“I’d urge you to support the binmen, care workers, librarians and other council staff striking in Barnet right now.”

“this fight in an outer-London borough forms the frontline of one of the most important battles in Britain today.”

“the cost of interim and agency staff is ballooning from £12.5m two years ago to £15.5m.”

“What you’re seeing in Barnet is not some one-off, but a test case.”

“In David Cameron’s first term, public sector outsourcing almost doubled to £120bn.”

“This makes what’s happening this week in Barnet, and the fight it’s part of, so vital.”

“If you support decent public services, you have to support those strikers in Barnet foregoing pay.”

“And if you want to live in a country run as a democracy, with all its flaws and failings – rather than by big companies answerable to hardly anyone – their cause is yours.”

Read article here: http://t.co/rXCqZWRTF9

#‎BarnetStrikers

 

Chris provided the following message of support on his visit to Barnet today 2 June 2015.

“As a UNISON activist before being elected, I know that Barnet UNISON has been raising the issues of outsourcing & privatisation at the very top of our union.

The attacks from this malevolent, ideological right wing tory council needs to be highlighted.

I know UNISON members in Barnet care about the services they deliver.

Outsourcing of local authority services have never worked, and are being brought back in-house – why? Because that is the most efficient way of running public services.

The running of public services should not be made by faceless directors in company boardrooms.

The new tory government now want to attack working people, by changing strike laws, which under the same criteria would have resulted in 270 tory MPs not being elected.

One rule for the political elite and another for working people.

I send solidarity to all Barnet UNISON members on behalf of the SNP and the SNP Trade Union Group.

We are inspired by your example and in your determination to stand up to Tory attacks against the workers.”

 

Why are we on strike?

Six years ago Barnet Council introduced a policy known as Future Shape which morphed into ‘easyCouncil’*.This imposed a series of tariffs on residents wishing to access a range of services. A basic service would be offered to residents at a fixed price, but ‘fast track’ services might be available if you paid extra.

This approach was quickly abandoned by the consultant driven One Barnet Programme, which led to the following Council Services being outsourced/privatised in the space of three years:

1. Social Care for Adults with disabilities to Your Choice Barnet

2. Housing Options to Barnet Homes

3. Parking Services to NSL

4. Revenues & Benefits, IT, HR & Payroll, Pensions, Health & Safety, Finance, Estates, Property Services, Procurement, Projects all now part of Capita CSG

5. Environmental Health, Planning, Building Control, Hendon Cemetery & Crematorium, Highways, Trading Standards & Licensing all now Capita RE

6. Legal Services

7. Registrars & Nationality Services

8. CCTV

9. Music Trust

10. Public Health

11. Mortuary Services.

Over the past three years our members have seen hundreds of colleagues transferred to other employers. This has often meant redundancy as the new employer has moved jobs out of the borough and Greater London to places as far afield as Belfast, Carlisle, Coventry, Southampton and Darlington.

Now we are in the final phase for what remains of Council services.

Barnet has branded this final phase as the ‘Commissioning Council’.

Very few people know what Commissioning really means, but if you work for the Council we all know it means that we will no longer be working for the Council.

On 3 March 2015 Barnet Council agreed its next Five Commissioning Plans all of which are looking at ‘Alternative Delivery Models’, jargon for working for a different employer.

The Council Services now at risk of outsourcing are:

1. Early Years – 13 Children’s Centres

2. Library Services

3. Adults & Communities services

4. Street Scene Services e.g. Waste & Recycling, Street Cleansing, Parks and Transport

5. Education & Skills and School Meals services.

Speaking to the Council

Over the past six years Barnet UNISON has made numerous, well-documented attempts to speak to the Council. Our voice, however, has been drowned out by expensive consultants who appear to have been running the Council for all this time.

We exhausted the internal procedures to try and avoid having to register a dispute. We finally declared a formal dispute with the Council on 4 December 2014.

Despite this on 12 January 2015 Barnet Council made a decision to put Education & Skills and School Meals services out for sale.

Three big multinational contractors are now bidding to win a contract valued at almost £1bn.

We are still waiting for the Council to return to the negotiating table but time is marching on.

Our members want to work for the Council, they want to be directly accountable to the residents of Barnet.

Our members don’t want to work for an employer which will have to place the shareholders’ legal demands before local residents’ needs.

Our members don’t want to work for an employer which  uses zero hours contracts.

Our members don’t want to work for an employer which will not pay the London Living Wage as a basic minimum.

Our members don’t want to work for an employer which won’t allow their colleagues to belong to their Pension Scheme, and

Our members don’t want to work for an employer which will take jobs out of the borough.

That’s why 87% of our members working for the Council voted ‘Yes’ to taking strike action.

John Burgess

Branch Secretary

Barnet UNISON

 

*easyCouncil is back: at a recent Full Council meeting on 14 April Conservative Councillors decided to adopt an easyCouncil approach to Planning Services. If you have the money you can fast track your request! 

Why we are striking from a Library worker

Library Workers are taking strike action to defend their jobs and the Library Service.  Barnet Council plan to privatise our Libraries, or to hand them over to a “mutual”, or in some cases have them run by “Community groups”.   Some Libraries may be closed, and most will be reduced to 540 square feet in size.  Libraries will be unstaffed for two thirds of their opening hours, with under- 16 year olds being denied access without an adult during these times.  Even when Libraries are staffed, numbers will be reduced by as much as one third of their present levels.

Libraries will become little more than book collection points. The choice of items to borrow or view will be reduced as Libraries are shrunk. Study areas, meeting places, events and activities such as story times for toddlers will be cut due to lack of space and staff. Advice and help from experienced and qualified Library staff will be limited as they are replaced by volunteers and self-service machines.  Unstaffed Libraries may deter many people from visiting as there will be no one to deal with emergencies or anti-social behaviour

Library Workers and other Council staff are only taking strike action after the employers have failed to seriously negotiate with us on the future of Council services.  We ask for your support as we defend our and your Libraries.

Hugh Jordan

 

UNISON Convenor for Library Services