Category: UNISON Campaign

£20.5 million lost to frontline services and jobs!

Earlier this week I sat in on the General Functions Committee and heard in a response to a residents question that the Council had deliberately made a decision not to collect £20.5 million (source here question 12). Instead the Council have been making political decisions to freeze council tax and this week announced a 1% cut in Council Tax.

But what does a 1% cut in Council Tax mean for Barnet residents

A resident paying the highest rate council tax will see their bill reduced by £32 a year, or 61 pence a week,

A resident paying the lowest rate council tax will see their bill reduced by £9.44 a year or 18 pence a week.

Delivering a 1% cut in Council Tax means cuts to services; the biggest saving is the loss of 350 local jobs in the Capita contract. Think of all the services and jobs that have been lost over the past four years.

 

Are targets getting you down?

Earlier this week UNISON called for a “full and thorough investigation” into claims of “harassment and bullying” at Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust.

“Our members took a brave step by reporting to the CQC that they were being bullied and harassed by senior managers to falsify records relating to cancer patients. They raised their concerns repeatedly and in emails to senior managers, right up to the chief executive, but they were ignored.” Christina McAnea Head of Health UNISON”

Barnet UNISON learnt this week that social workers working in Learning Disabilities were set a number of targets one of which included each social worker having to make a £42,000 saving on service user care packages they assess this year.

UNISON has escalated its request for a meeting (next week) to discuss these arbitrary targets which have been unilaterally imposed without any discussions with staff or trade unions.

If you are feeling under pressure to meet targets or you have concerns about implications of these targets on service users and their families please contact the UNISON office.

Above is a Bar Graph which shows the Council is shrinking due to the outsourcing.

In September this year the Council produced performance statistics here; on page 9 there is a staffing breakdown by service area. Members know our branch has been persistently asking the Council to produce accurate information about job vacancies. In our view it is critically important that all staff facing redundancy are provided with opportunities to secure another job within the Council and avoid being made redundant.  According to the figures provided by the Council there were 726.71 vacancies across the Council.

Next week the Budget report going to Cabinet Committee so, now we know the Council workforce has reduced to 2,200. What is shocking is that according to figures produced at Remuneration Committee last month almost a half of the Council workforce earns less that the London Living Wage (approx £8.80 and hour). In the Budget report it identifies 34 posts at risk of redundancy; however the bigger number of staff at risk of redundancy are former Council staff who transferred to Capita. UNISON is pleased to note that Capita & Council are putting in place a process for these staff to be able to apply for any vacant posts within the Council.

X files comes to Barnet via Capita Plc – View Flyer here

Information: Our branch is currently in consultation with Capita Plc over their proposals to restructure and relocate the former Barnet Council back office services. This is a controversial and complex consultation as the proposal looks to export jobs out of our community.

Our branch has three key aims:

1. To convince Capita to keep jobs in Barnet

2. To convince Capita to develop an alternative service delivery model

3. To reduce the number of job losses from our community.

In order to be able to have meaningful consultation it is important we have accurate information which includes a financial breakdown of savings for each of the services being delivered by Capita Plc.

Staffing.

UNISON has for the last nine months seeking to establish the total staffing establishment (occupied and vacant) for each of services in order to be able to achieve our aims.

Therein lies the problem. Trying to get an accurate picture of the staffing establishment has become a significant challenge and as such has become known in our branch as the “search for the truth” and like X Files Agent Mulder we believe the truth is out there……..its just a question of time……….!

Our Council now refers to itself as the “Commissioning Council”, others are calling it the “Disappearing Council” and others the “Hollowed Out Council”

All services both internal or contractors are referred to as Service Delivery Units. In order to explain our quest for the “truth” in relation to staffing establishment (which includes all posts occupied & vacant) we have produced a number of “service delivery vans”

You can sign a 38 degrees petition to “Keep jobs in Barnet” here

All Councils will be privatised by 2022

“More Austerity, Austerity Lite, more cuts, more outsourcing.”

If this is what the May 2014 local elections in London and the 2015 General Election will be fought on then it will mean deeper cuts for local councils.

In which case you don’t have to read Nostradamus to predict the ‘end of days’ for all Councils and you don’t have to look far to see who some might view as the ‘Four Horseman’ of the apocalypse , SERCO, G4S, CAPITA, BT

In Barnet our own Council, are pioneering the Commissioning Council also known as the ‘Disappearing Council’, this model moves away from delivering services and hands service delivery to the private sector.

There are some who will argue that the commissioning model does not mean privatisation adding there are a number of creative innovative ways to deliver services.

What they always fail to acknowledge is the sustainability of these alternatives. It is matter of record that Mutual’s, Cooperatives are simply not able to sustain the cuts to funding from Councils. We are already witnessing the third sector (often pedalled as the ‘soft alternative’ to outright privatisation) struggling to deliver services as the funding streams are cut.

In Barnet the real big contracts have been out tender and all four SERCO, G4S, CAPITA, BT expressed an interest in running our Council.

Capita eventually went on to win both big contracts.

So, back to the prediction whereby all Councils will be privatised by 2022.

 

If you believe all the rhetoric about the savings privatisation guarantee to deliver then it is hard to see how any council will be able to resist the pressure of handing over services to the private sector.

To view flyer click here

Please note community petition addressed to Capita Plc Chief Executive Paul Pindar.

To view and sign the petition click this link http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/capita-keep-our-jobs-in-barnet

Below are the details of the petition

“Dear Mr Pindar

As Chief Executive, you will be aware of the Capita Plc consultation with former Barnet Council staff starting on Monday 7 October 2013. You will know the Capita Plc proposal means hundreds of jobs are to be lost to Barnet, with no certainty that these will be recreated elsewhere in that community, resulting in a loss of local knowledge and another severe blow to the local economy that will have a negative impact on any remaining Council staff, residents and local traders. In the current economic climate this is unacceptable. I would ask that you directly intervene and provide a commitment that a new service solution is found that both protects and creates jobs in the community they serve.”

Why is this important?

In August 2013, Barnet Council signed a ten year £320 million contract with Capita Plc to take over the provision of the following services take over the running of the council’s back office services which includes customer services, human resources, finance and payroll, IT, revenues and benefits, estates, corporate procurement and commercial services.

Capita Plc proposed solution is to provide these services in Capita Call centres elsewhere in the UK which will ultimately lead to approximately 350 jobs losses to our community and upwards of 150 redundancies in Barnet.

We are passionate about local public services and believe people providing them have local knowledge and are accountable to the residents of Barnet. Not only that but local job losses will have a negative impact on our local economy as working people become jobless with a reduced income to spend in the local economy.

Information links

1. UNISON call on Capita to reverse mass redundancies in Barnet.  http://www.barnetunison.me.uk/?q=node/1273

2. Barnet UNISON Press Release: “From hard working families to ‘scroungers’ – Capita redundancies.  http://www.barnetunison.me.uk/?q=node/1272

3. Barnet Council publish Capita contract. http://www.barnetunison.me.uk/?q=node/1268

4. Barnet and Capita – some unusual contractual conditions?

http://spendmatters.co.uk/barnet-and-capita-some-unusual-contractual-conditions/

 

5. Union slams lack of transparency as Capita prepares to move 150 jobs out of Barnet http://ning.it/1fmk9tc

To view proposal click here