Throughout the TUPE consultation process Capita have submitted two Measures letters.
The first submitted 7 January 2013 can be found here
The second submitted 25 March 2013 can be found here
The latest version of Capita’s Principles of Suitable Alternative Employment and Redeployment can be found here
Pictures of the march can be found here http://ning.it/15Hk8Hh here http://ning.it/15HkePd and here http://ning.it/15HkgGx
This campaign concerns the plight of low paid social care workers facing a massive cut to their pay and terms & conditions. The scale of the attack is unprecedented and will drive already low paid workers further into poverty.
But it is not just the attacks to staff which are our concern, it is the impact this will have on the service delivery to vulnerable adults with disabilities.
UNISON is concerned that by ‘dumbing down’ care work will impact on quality of care as we have seen in the past at the private Winterbourne hospital where profit was put before care of residents.
‘Your Choice’ care workers are carrying out critical and personal care for vulnerable service users; which makes it all the more abhorrent to hear the case for these cuts is driven by the need to make a profit.
At a meeting with staff last week, it now appears the finances are worse that we were first led to believe. Apart from the £1million loan from Barnet Homes, they now need to make another £1million from staff costs. This makes a total of £2million out of a budget of £6million.
UNISON is campaigning to bring these critical services back into the Council. The more we learn about the finances the more concerned we are. Instead of Barnet Homes spending their reserves on propping up a failed One Barnet project, they should use this money to try and prevent Barnet residents and their families from being moved out of the borough.
Last year the Council made a commitment in their own business case which said if the project failed they would bring it back in house.
Please help
1. Sign the Your Choice Care Workers Campaign petition which is on Barnet Council website
http://petitions.barnet.gov.uk/YourChoiceBack/
2. Send messages of support to Your Choice Care Workers Campaign to contactus@barnetunison.org.uk
3. Join the Your Choice Care Workers on BarnetSpring march on Saturday 23, 11am Finchley Central Tube
Links
Castlebeck care homes go into administration following abuse scandal
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21674695
Southern Cross set to shut down and stop running homes
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14102750
Lessons from the Francis Inquiry
Brief report of staff consultation meeting held at Flower Lane for Your Choice Barnet staff 13.3.13
It’s fair to say the meeting was fiery as staff expressed their anger freely.
The financial problem for Your Choice Barnet is one of cashflow as they will no longer receive the block contract but receive payments in arrears reflecting the change to one where individual services are invoiced. This cashflow problem equates to £1million.
In addition there is a deficit of £1million as LBB will pay service users only a flat rate irrespective of whether the care they need is at night or at the weekend. Also a market rate will apply. It is also the case that YCB has been providing more service to the service user than is reflected in their care plan and therefore leaving a shortfall.
An obvious question was immediately that BH knew the payment arrangements would change before going into the LATC with YCB and so why did they not immediately see the finances for YCB would be compromised?
The response was that at the point of creation of the LATC Barnet Homes did not know the volumes they were taking over.
We pointed out that the Business Case had been very confident about being able to make surpluses, knowing LBB was talking about paying market rates. What has changed?
Ans: The Business case was based on assumptions
In the Business Case of May 2011 much had been made of the freedom for the LATC to step outside SLA’s and for example purchase its own IT equipment. Yet we are now in a situation where LBB is insisting YCB stays with LBB for its IT, knowing this is going to Capita. Is this not the case of a not-for-profit organisation being used to prop up the business case for a contract to be successful with a for-profit organisation?
Ans: in a procurement exercise YCB had established they could find a cheaper IT provider. LBB stepped in to say that IT should remain as provided through the Council (Capita) and YCB need only pay the amount they had established through their procurement exercise. LBB will make up the difference.
In other words LBB is prepared to subsidise a service when it means securing a contract for Capita, but this would then seem to be at the cost of staff working for YCB!
In other parts staff criticised the move to reduce night time care on the basis that there was little need. The staff providing that service contradicted the view in the report that they are not needed as they could point to many examples where they had been needed.
More later….
To view UNISON email sent to all councillors councillors in England, Wales and Northern Ireland click here
In my role as Branch Secretary I am currently taking part in consultation over the transfer of over 550 staff from Barnet Council to Capita Group. Unfortunately, I have had extensive experience of transfers of staff out of Barnet Council, more so in the last 12 months. However, the Capita transfer is the biggest and most complex transfer I have ever been involved in.
The big difference with this transfer to Capita is that Capita have announced that the majority of the jobs will be based out of the London Borough in Barnet. The jobs are been exported to Belfast & Carlisle, Blackburn & Southampton to name but a few destinations. The impact of these proposal is that hundreds of local jobs will be lost to our local community at a time when there is need for jobs.
In the discussions with Capita we are trying to negotiate an alternative to jobs being moved out of Barnet in order to keep jobs and prevent redundancies and I have asked for support from the Council to help in this aim.
However, last week I was shocked and upset by the news that the first One Barnet Project ‘Your Choice’ was failing, so badly that it needed a £1million loan from Barnet Homes just to survive, But the loan is not enough, ‘Your Choice’ submitted a proposal which if implemented would decimate low paid care workers terms & condition.
I take no comfort from saying “we told you so!” as last year UNISON submitted several reports on the proposal to create a LATC where we said: “The options appraisals and business cases for Adult Services and the Housing Service and the business plan for the LATC have serious weaknesses and the process has been deeply flawed. They Council should not be making decisions on the future of services and public assets based on such poor information, analysis and advice.” (UNISON January 2012)
Unsurprisingly Cabinet Committee ignored our comments.
BUT now we can see our worst fears have been realised.
The problem is that instead of ‘biting the bullet’ and admitting this One Barnet Project had not worked, ‘Your Choice’ is trying desperately to hang on to a business model that simply won’t work.
Take a look at the ‘Your Choice’ consultation document (to view click here), there is no information or evidence to explain why the Councils Business Case produced in May 2011 (to view click here) could be so WRONG.
A lot has been made on the money spent on consultants and legal advisors for the One Barnet Projects. Many a time councillors defending the One Barnet Programme have responded that they have learnt lessons from previous mistakes. In which case why are the Council not publishing the ‘One Barnet Lesson Learnt reports?’
UNISON is asking the Council to honour the Councils Business Case (which stated in Business Case at paragraph 7.4 “Commercial risk ultimately remains with the Council and in the unlikely event of failure, the services will need to be brought back in-house.”)
We need to learn the lessons from Winterbourne and the Francis Inquiry.
We believe the proposals in the consultation document are de-skilling and reducing support at a time when the focus post Francis inquiry is on need for better trained and skilled staff and more supervision.
“What does this mean for the other One Barnet Projects?”
The stakes are so much harder for the Capita contract and the Development & Regulatory Services (DRS) contract (preferred bidder has not yet been announced, it could be either EC Harris or Capita).
What worries me is that if the Councils Business case could be so wrong for what was a very simple contract, what is the chance that the bigger One Barnet Projects could also go the same way?
Where has this been done before?
There are very little examples of Local Authority Trading Companies around the UK. Here are a few but because they are so new there is little to report.
1. Essex County Council’s Essex Care Ltd
2. Kensington and Chelsea London Borough’s Chelsea Cares Ltd, went into liquidation in its first year.
3. Wokingham Council’s Optalis Ltd Optalis was set up in June 2011
4. Northamptonshire County Council’s Olympus Care Services Limited, Olympus started trading in March 2012.
5. Stockport MBC created Solutions SK to provide a wide range of services. Integrated Solutions SK was established, alongside, but under the management of Solutions SK, in 2009 to provide a wide range of adult social care services. It has recently disclosed that it has not won any external contracts and is failing to deliver the services that the council pays it for. The council agreed at Meeting of Extraordinary, Adults & Communities Scrutiny Committee, Wednesday, 19th December, 2012 (Item 4.)
“That the Executive be recommended to give approval to the return to the Council of the home support elements of Individual Solutions SK as soon as is practicable having regard to any HR and legal requirements and that further consultation be undertaken with any affected staff on the proposed transfer back to the Council.”
Link here http://democracy.stockport.gov.uk/mgAi.aspx?ID=7511
To download petition please click here
UNISON received confirmation that our request for Your Choice to stop the bench marking of pay for Your Choice Care Workers has been agreed. Discussions about these proposals will be dealt with after the consultation has finished.
This is welcome news, especially on International Women’s Day as over 70% of the workforce are women furthermore it is good news for disabled workers as according to Councils own Business Case published May 2011 “the in-house services do employ 39% of Barnet disabled workers.”
