Author: admin

6 March 2013

Dear Colleagues

Please find enclosed latest UNISON responses to the Your Choice in Consultation document

Email sent 6 March 2013

Hi Troy

Please find initial responses to the report presented to staff on Friday 1 March 2013. A fuller and more detailed response will be produced on receipt of information requested by UNISON. We have identified page numbers and paragraphs to aid a speedy response.

Page 4

Paragraph 2.4 “Review the structure which will result in 6.8 posts being deleted and the introduction of a new management structure.”

UNISON response: Deletion of frontline workers at a time when the Council is claiming to want to protect frontline services. Reducing staffing numbers on already stretched services will have a negative impact on staff health& wellbeing and the knock on impact will be service quality.

 “Deletion of enhanced payments and introduction of a 7 day week”

 UNISON response: This will place more pressure on low paid staff and result in experienced staff looking to leave as soon as they are able. It will lead to high turnover in staff which will have an impact on service delivery. The proposals will have a serious impact on staff morale and motivation. This is a very dangerous proposal.

 “Benchmarking of salaries with similar organisations and the introduction of a new salary structure in line with the findings of the benchmarking exercise”

 UNISON response: In the absence of any information and our insight in to the pay of the private sector this proposal means cutting low paid staff to below a living wage. This consultation report provides no information or evidence as to the reasons why the business plan agreed only a year ago was critically flawed. We are not in a position to know the scale and rationale for this attack on low paid care workers. It is our view that it is simply wrong to claim that paying poor wages does not impact on the quality of care.

 ·         3.2 The figure of £60,000 is a 300% increase on the figure provided to UNISON less than three months ago. This is more evidence that the business case was critically flawed. Please explain why the increase.

 Page 5

“The 345k owed to the Council. There is no information as whether the Council are going to insist on this repayment and if so what the consequences are for Your Choice.  

The paragraph starting “If no changes are made…”

·          Please provide a detailed breakdown of this £1million gap and a response to why this massive gap was not foreseen by the Council’s Legal Advisors and Consultants?

The paragraph starting “The move to payment in arrears….”

·          How has this happened?

·          Is this a cash flow problem or is it a profit problem or a combination of both? Is this linked to the block contract issue or a separate financial issue?

 Paragraph starting “The budget has …”

·          Please provide evidence for this financial assumption.

Page 6

3.5 What new business has been won by Your Choice?

·          What are the lower costs of your competitors?

 

Page 8

Valley Way a respite residential unit was required to provide a deputy manager, please confirm why this is no longer a statutory requirement?

Paragraph 4.3 Waking Night staff

We are concerned about the proposal to reduce waking night staff from 2 to 1 staff both for the staff and service users.

 Paragraph starting “In Supported Living …”

·          UNISON is concerned that waking staff are being removed from the Supported Living service, currently deployed in Agatha House.

Page 10

Paragraph 4.5 Supported Living Restructure

UNISON is concerned with the proposals to reduce the number of support workers from 23.2 FTE to 6 FTE. We believe this is 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.

Page 13

·          5.1 Enhanced payments

UNISON is concerned by the proposals to remove enhancements for low paid care workers. We believe this will have an impact on staff morale and motivation and will impact on the quality of new recruits to the service.

 ·         5.2 Review of salaries

Please provide the results of the initial benchmark of your competitors.

UNISON is concerned that the benchmarking will simply result in low paid workers facing a further cut to their pay resulting in a demoralised workforce. This will impact on the quality of service provision.

Best wishes

John Burgess

Branch Secretary.

Email sent 6 March 2013

Hi Troy

I am requesting that the consultation is suspended on the grounds that we can not engage win meaningful consultation before we know the outcome of your proposed benchmarking exercise. As I advised at the opening meeting, your proposals to ring fence and assimilate are meaningless if as we predict the grades are significantly reduced. It is our view that this could lead to further compulsory redundancies.

Information requests

I am chasing up the email (see below) I sent on Friday as I am concerned that we do not have enough information for the trade unions and staff to be able to have meaningful consultation.

 

1.    Please provide a breakdown of the £1 million gap identified in first 3.2 (paragraph 3) of the consultation document.

 

2.    Please provide details as to how payment in arrears has had a significant impact on cash flow

 

3.    What is the commercial rate of interest which Your Choice will pay on the loan?

 

4.    Please provide the detailed business to case to demonstrate how Your Choice is going to be able to generate enough profit to pay back a £1million loan and meet the cost of the commercial interest.

 

5.    Does this £1million loan include covering the £345k which may need to paid back to Barnet Council? If not, how do you [propose to fund this gap?

 

Your report makes a number of significant proposals which will have a detrimental impact on our member’s terms & conditions, their health & safety. Furthermore we believe that if these proposals are implemented they will have a detrimental impact on service quality.

I am asking for an undertaking as to when we will be receiving a response to our email and the promise to provide the further information promised at our meeting on 28 February 2013.

Best wishes

John Burgess

Branch Secretary.

Email sent 1 March 2013

Hi Troy

Whilst we await further details promised in our initial meeting please can you provide a response to the following questions:

1.    Please provide a breakdown of the £1 million gap identified in first 3.2 (paragraph 3) of the consultation document.

 

2.    Please provide details as to how payment in arrears has had a significant impact on cash flow

 

3.    What is the commercial rate of interest which Your Choice will pay on the loan?

 

4.    Please provide the detailed business to case to demonstrate how Your Choice is going to be able to generate enough profit to pay back a £1million loan and meet the cost of the commercial interest.

 

5.    Does this £1million loan include covering the £345k which may need to paid back to Barnet Council? If not, how do you [propose to fund this gap?

Best wishes

John Burgess

Branch Secretary

 

Feeling positive and want to share that vibe?

Donate 60 minutes of your time

Why not join us “The Gathering – Celebrate the High Street” at this event on Saturday 2 March

We are adapting the old anglo saxon tradition of ‘Wassailing’ to thank our local traders for the services they are providing to our community.

Examples of Wasssailing here http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2010/jan/21/wassailing-cider-apple-orchard

Wassailing Song here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as7N0G0f-ec

Check out details here

#BarnetSpring

Barnet UNISON Press Release: 15 February 2013 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: STOP the Privatisation of our Regulatory Services

Barnet UNISON is backing Avaaz petition which is states: 

“We are concerned that Barnet Council is about to hand over its Regulatory Services (in particular the Environmental Health and Trading Standards services) to a private company. Councils have statutory responsibilities to monitor the private sector in order to ensure the health and safety of their residents. The current high- profile national public-health scandal about processed foods emphasises that private companies do not adequately monitor their own activities, leaving the public at risk. If Barnet Council is allowed to privatise these services, it will set a dangerous precedent for other councils. We call for an immediate stop to the privatisation of council Regulatory Services throughout the country.”

http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Stop_the_privatisation_of_Regulatory_Services/?tFMrBab

John Burgess, Branch Secretary said: The recent national scandal concerning meat processing is threatening to expose a catalogue of failures by food manufacturers to monitor their own suppliers. The lack of robust regulation & monitoring of a critical service strikes a chord with our own concerns about our council’s determination via the One Barnet Programme to outsource key critical regulatory services, such as Environmental Health & Trading Standards . We are asking our members and their families, residents to sign this petition. Furthermore we asking all citizens of the UK to sign the petition in order to stop the privatisation of regulatory services now before it is too late.

***** Ends *****

Notes to Editors.

Contact details: John Burgess Barnet UNISON on 07738389569 or 0208 359 2088 or email: john.burgess@barnetunison.org.uk

Links

1. Barnet Council leader not worried by One Barnet outsourcing court case

http://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/barnet_council_leader_richard_cornelius_not_worried_about_one_barnet_judicial_review_1_1868176

2. Barnet’s ‘easyCouncil’ faces judicial review over outsourcing

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/jan/22/tory-council-challenge-high-court

3. Fear and loathing in Barnet

http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/inside-outsourcing/2013/02/fear-and-loathing-in-barnet—why-public-sector-outsourcers-their-shareholders-and-the-coalition-gov.html

4. UNISON report on Environmental Health Services Summary report ; Full survey report Statistical report

5. UNISON report on Trading Standards Summary report; Full survey report ;Statistical report

Background

Barnet Council is implementing a policy known as the One Barnet Programme, sometimes referred to as the ‘Commissioning Council’. This mass privatisation policy is designed for the Council to divest itself of responsibility to deliver services to its residents.

The first One Barnet project known as New Support Customer Services Organisation (NSCSO) will be for back office services such a Finance, Revenues & Benefits, Estates, IT, HR & Payroll etc, it is estimated to be worth up to £750 million.

It involves approximately 620 council workers. There is a high probability that the winning bidder will not deliver these services from Barnet so there is a high risk of significant redundancies at the moment of transfer.

This contract was awarded to either Capita at the Barnet Council Cabinet Resources Committee on Thursday 6 December 2012.

The second One Barnet project is known as Development & Regulatory Services (DRS) which includes the following services:

Trading Standards & Licensing, Land Charges, Planning & Development, Building Control & Structures, Environmental Health, Highways Strategy, Highways Network Management, Highways Traffic & Development, Highways Transport & Regeneration, Strategic Planning & Regeneration, Cemeteries & Crematoria.

This contract, worth up to £275 million pounds, will be awarded to Capita Symonds or EC Harris at the Barnet Council Cabinet Resources Committee on 8 January 2013.

This involves approximately 300 council workers

Both contracts are for ten years with an option to extend for a further five years.

UNISON’s position

Over the past four years UNISON has published over 40 detailed reports on the Future Shape/EasyCouncil/One Barnet mass privatisation programme.

Our message has remained clear.

 

Provide a level playing field and follow good practice and include a fully funded in house service improvement model to run alongside the procurement process.

 

Our proposal: In-house model

There are a number of examples of where Councils have followed this approach to good effect. Most recently Edinburgh City Council considered the potential for using private contractors to deliver a wide range of its services. It embarked on separate procurement processes for 3 blocks of services utilising the Competitive Dialogue process in an attempt to obtain the best offers available from the market. At the same time in-house teams were asked to work on service improvement plans or Public Sector Comparators, so that when it came to the award of contract, the Council could be sure that the services it was purchasing would genuinely optimise its use of scarce resources. In the end the Public Sector Comparators proved to be more attractive than any of the external offers and no contracts were awarded.

For a fuller explanation click here

Barnet UNISON has produced a list entitled “100 PLUS reasons why One Barnet is high risk and bad for residents and services” which you can view here

What are YOU eating????????

First it was horsemeat instead of beef, then it was pork instead of beef, then it was donkey instead of beef, then they started accusing other countries outside the UK , then they realised it could be happening inside the UK!

This story is going to grow and grow. No doubt there will be a public inquiry, MP’s will be asked to resign, and private companies will be summoned to explain themselves to a Parliamentary Select Committee.

It is blatantly obvious that there is little or no scrutiny of the meat/food processing for public consumption and the consequences of this are being played out in the national media.

After carrying out a study entitled ‘The Damage’ into the impact of the Cuts on vital council services UNISON wrote to councillors across the UK

The first two reports are available to read online below:  

1. Environmental health:

Summary report

Full survey report

Statistical report

2. Trading standards:

Summary report

Full survey report

Statistical report

Barnet ‘Commissioning/EasyCouncil’ as part of the One Barnet Programme is about to hand over its Regulatory Services, including Environmental Health & Trading Standards over to the private sector.

The above UNISON reports reinforce Barnet UNISON’s view that outsourcing of regulatory services to the private sector is simply wrong and a could have a critical impact on the health and well being of the residents of London Borough of Barnet. 

Three simple things for you to help our campaign.

1. Please sign our Avaaz Petition – Stop the privatisation of Regulatory Services

http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Stop_the_privatisation_of_Regulatory_Services/?tFMrBab

2. Please sign our London Borough of Barnet Petition – Stop the privatisation of Regulatory Services http://petitions.barnet.gov.uk/NoOutSourcingDRS/

3.  Please join the Barnet Spring March click here for details

A Polite Revolution from Oonagh Cousins on Vimeo.

Update on Failure to Agree

The big news from the proposed restructures in Children’s Services is not just the redundancies, but the downgradings with increases in responsibility and workloads! Colleagues are not happy about this. Meetings are being set up with the respective senior management groups to try to reach an agreement on a way forward.

View the responses to the proposals here

Update on Failure to Agree

The big news from the proposed restructures in Adults Services is not just the redundancies, but the downgradings with increases in responsibility and workloads! Colleagues are not happy about this. Meetings are being set up with the respective senior management groups to try to reach an agreement on a way forward. View the responses to the proposals here.

For those working in Adults Services, please attend the UNISON meeting 12.30pm Oak Room to discuss latest update and our position.

 

The Trade Union movement is facing its biggest challenge in over 30 years. The Conservative Home blog, think-tank of the Tories, is celebrating the drop in overall union   membership as one of its major achievements.

We are all organising to halt the attacks on our members’ terms and conditions, to resist mass redundancies, and last but not least to oppose the relentless privatisation of public services.

If you want to demonstrate against the Tories, then where better to do it than in Barnet on March 23rd? Barnet has a Tory Council which is using mass privatisation to make hundreds of Council workers redundant and is attacking the Council trade unions for campaigning to defend their members’ jobs. The Council is proposing to delete almost all agreed time off for trade union representatives to carry out their duties.

It is important that the trade union movement organises within its own community to support and build alliances with residents. We have seen that if residents learn about these cuts, they are prepared to act to defend them.

Barnet Trades Council is calling on all trade union branches across our borough to make a pledge to send their banners and members to the Barnet Spring march on Saturday 23 March. We are also extending our invitation to the wider trade union movement across London and  beyond. There is an alternative worth fighting for and the Trade Unions are very much part of it.

You can download flyer here