If you want to have a look at what commissioning has meant for workers you don’t have far to look. Just take a look at social care services.
Where did it all start?
The advent of the NHS & Community Care Act 1990 brought the introduction of the purchaser/provider split. In Commissioning Council speak it means commissioning (purchaser) and service deliver unit (provider). Our Council now promotes itself as a Commissioning Council and our internal structures provide an example of in house and outsourced service delivery units.
Workforce issues.
The introduction of the purchase/provider split brought the market into social services. The Trade Unions quick saw that this was an attack on the workforce and that it would lead to a race to the bottom. The union also predicted it would have an impact on service quality and how right we were. It sounds difficult to believe but there are still people (paid extraordinary amounts of public money) who still try to argue there is no link between deteriorating terms & conditions and pay and service quality.
Zero hours contract & no pension not paying for travel time.
Everyone now knows about the ‘zero hour’ exploitation of care workers. In Barnet our care workers were on permanent contracts, and were members of our pension scheme and were paid for travel time. They were outsourced and outsourced again. Their terms & conditions have been destroyed by private contractors. UNISON tried to get Barnet Council to sign up to the UNISON ethical care charter . They refused and officers convinced it was too expensive.
Thanks to commissioning, care workers are on inferior terms & conditions and will not be in our Council Pension scheme.
It not our fault, blame the commissioners.
This is what our branch has faced when presented with the implications of the two tier workforce. When we start negotiations the contractor replies by saying it is not their fault and that we should go back to the commissioners. When the unions go back to the commissioners they say they don’t get involved in internal matters of the contractor.
Commissioning is all about outsourcing.
The Council are quick to say that commissioning is not all about outsourcing. But the facts tell a different story. Over the last three years there have been 12 outsourcing project decisions and not one of them has recommended in-house services.
Outsourcing list January 2012 – June 2015
1. YCB
2. Housing options
3. NSL
4. CSG
5. Re
6. Music Trust
7. Registrars service
8. Legal services
9. Public Health
10. Mortuary
11. CCTV
12. Recycling depot (1 October 2015)
In all the above cases workers were transferred out of Barnet to a new employer.
