Breaking News: Barnet UNISON respond to YCB letter to our members
Barnet UNISON issued the following letter today 21 August 2014 to all of our members working for Your Choice Barnet (YCB) in response to the YCB letter sent 19 August 2014 here
“Dear Colleague
You will have received a letter from Julie Riley on 19th August regarding the decision to take strike action which is clearly designed to frighten you into not taking strike action. We want to set the record straight on some of the arguments presented in that letter.
It is true YCB was very open to UNISON about its accounts and this enabled UNISON to fully understand the dire financial state of YCB. As YCB have referred to their budget we believe that in the interests of transparency we strongly recommend that all of our members write back to Julie Riley and request a copy of the financial information shared with UNISON. It is important that staff, who are key stakeholders in YCB, can see the facts for themselves.
Contrary to what is contained within the letter UNISON made a number of suggestions, most of which were not accepted:
· Barnet Homes (BH) writes off the £1 million loan
· Barnet Council stop penalising YCB for ‘no shows’
· Barnet Council pays up front to YCB in order to help the cash flow situation
· Barnet Council pays the going rate for the services being offered.
· Barnet Council conducts an immediate investigation as to why Adult Social care services have referred only a handful of referrals in two and half years.
· Senior management and other Service Level Agreement costs imposed on YCB are reduced.
· YCB & Barnet Council find a more efficient way to invoice for services. The current arrangement is that Barnet Group invoices Barnet Council then YCB invoices Barnet Group.
· YCB is allowed to independently procure its own support services and not be forced to use Capita CSG services.
It is important to note that the accounts showed that YCB will balance its books only if you accept a 9.5% pay cut and YCB pays nothing back on its loan to BH. However, YCB were adamant they must pay back the £1 million. YCB were unable to tell us how they would find the money to pay off £1,000,000 over the next three years.
Our fear was that YCB would have to come back to our members for more money, which is why we asked in the meeting if they could give an assurance that this would not happen. As you know YCB were unable to give such an assurance.
We are concerned that our members cannot keep on ‘bailing out’ YCB every year.
YCB makes the point about still paying the London Living Wage for the assistant support workers (£8.80 per hour) but that is for this year only. The London Living Wage rises annually at the rate of the ‘cost of living’ (unlike your wage). This will mean those at YCB on £8.80 per hour should get a pay rise of around 3% next year for YCB to stick to this commitment. However, this increase was not contained within their budget.
We note in the letter which states “It is not the Council’s intention to take the services back in-house, however if there is no other option but to step in they would be likely to find other providers”. Our reps and members have reported back that they perceive this message as a direct threat that they should ‘shut up and accept the 9.5% cut’ and be grateful that they don’t get handed over to a private company.
I would like to remind members of the following statement made at Cabinet Resources Committee 24 May 2011 “Commercial risk ultimately remains with the Council and in the unlikely event of failure, the services will need to be brought back in-house.” (p.57 of the Business Case)
We are very clear that if UNISON’s recommendations made to YCB are not accepted then the future viability of YCB is at serious risk and Barnet Council should honour their statement on 24 May 2011.
UNISON members have taken part in three ballots over the last six months and on each occasion more UNISON members have voted ‘yes’ to reject the 9.5% pay cut. On Wednesday 20 August 2014 we had a meeting with reps and members and have agreed a programme of strike action and some demonstrations, details of which will follow shortly.
Please note the first demonstration will be outside Hendon Town Hall on Monday September 1st at 6 pm.
Yours sincerely,
Helen Davies John Burgess
Branch Chair Branch Secretary