Update on Barnet Council Your Choice Safeguarding Committee

UNISON attended a packed Safeguarding Committee on Wednesday 27 November 2013, where residents, services users, parents and carers all spoke in favour of bringing back tour Choice service back in house. For the first time ever UNISON was invited to speak. Initially this request was refused but it went to the vote and UNISON was allowed to speak. Our Branch Chair Helen Davies who has been the UNISON lead on consultation spoke eloquently about the plight of our members.

Later in the meeting a councillor tried to suggest that all the resident activity was all down to the trade unions who are “socialists with a political ideology!” It felt like we had gone back in time to the Victorian era courtesy of the Dr Who Tardis, by the way did anyone see last weeks episode…….

A number or residents and a service user spoke and you can read a full account of the meeting here on Mrs Angry’s Blog here

A sister of one of the services users spoke to the committee had this to say

“in the eight years he has been using Flightways he has had a the safety of a comfortable , intellectually stimulating , creatively stimulating environment and he is incredibly worried that he is going to be thrown back into a situation he was in before he was able to use Flightways of being bussed around from place to place, from a library to a garden centre, from a supermarket to a pub and a fish and chip shop……..the question is …..Can you reassure my brother and his friends that they will have a place that they can go to, a centre they can go to every day where they can feel safe and comfortable?”

The response from the Council was incredible you can listen to it 3 minutes 50 seconds into this video here

You can view the statements made to the Committee here