No if's, no but's, no disability cuts!

A very succesful protest was held today under the umbrella of the Defend Glasgow's Services campaign.


The protest which brought together trade unions, campaign groups, service users, families of service users and workers providing services heard a range of speeches from the broad range of people in attendance on how Glasgow city council's shameful cuts under the guise of personalisation are impacting upon service users, their families and cuts hours and wages for staff.

We hope it's the start of a unified campaign to fight these cuts, disguised as personalisation!

You can contact Defend Glasgow's Services on 0141 552 7069 or follow them on Facebook.

Scotland’s most vulnerable young people under attack as services face the axe

SCOTLAND’s most vulnerable young people are under attack by government cuts as thousands of staff in the community and voluntary sector face redundancy.


UNISON, Scotland’s largest union in the community and voluntary sector, said urgent action must be taken to halt these drastic cuts and urged the country’s politicians not to throw our young people on the scrapheap.

Councils across the country are being hit with the biggest spending cuts in living memory. No service is safe – but one of the hardest hit is services for young people.

This week alone, more than 2,000 workers from the voluntary and community sector have been threatened with redundancy, while others face attacks on their pay and conditions.

One Scottish charity, Quarriers – which was originally set up to look after orphaned and destitute children – yesterday issued 90 days’ notice to all of its 2,000 staff. The move comes as the charity announced plans to cut its staffing budget by £2.5m – almost twice as much as their own figures (£1.3m) claim are required.

Elsewhere, services to vulnerable young people are also under threat as the Cora Foundation – a voluntary organisation that runs three secure units for young people – issued letters to hundreds of workers threatening them with redundancy. This leaves staff at three of the country’s five secure units (St Phillip’s in Plains; St Mary’s Kenmure in Bishopbriggs; and the Good Shepherd in Bishopton) facing the axe. If secure units run by Cora close, then the courts will be left with no option but to send young offenders to institutions like Polmont, at a much greater cost to the taxpayer.

UNISON has also condemned moves by youth justice charity, Includem, which has refused to negotiate with the union and has instead unilaterally imposed a 9.5 per cent pay cut on its staff.

Simon Macfarlane, regional organiser with UNISON, said: “We’re calling on Scotland’s political parties to focus on the real issues in the week ahead and to prioritise putting a stop to these outrageous cuts. We also need voluntary organisations to act in a responsible manner, to engage constructively with UNISON and not to capitalise on the situation to make unwarranted attacks on low-paid workers.

“Our members work hard to provide services that make a huge difference to the lives of young people and cutting them will only store up problems for generations to come. Services for our vulnerable young people are vanishing and, once these services are destroyed, they will take a long time to recover. Surely every young person deserves a fair chance?”

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The above press release was picked up by a number of media outlets including The Herald

Cuts to social care provision should not be disguised by words such as ‘personalisation’ and ‘reform’, says UNISON.

In a speech to the Scottish Trades Union Congress in Ayr this morning, Lilian Macer, the UNISON Scottish Convenor, said that direct payments must complement a range of public services and should not be used to cover for inadequacies in public provision.

Lilian Macer told the Congress: “The ConDem Government is planning to slice into social care provision and try to cover up the wound with sticking plasters, labelled ‘personalisation’ or ‘reform’. Let’s be clear, we have nothing to fear from reform. But when the first question isn’t ‘how do we make a better service?’ but instead ‘how do we make a cheaper service?’, then it’s not about reform, it’s about attacking services.

“And it’s a low, mean, dishonest trick to try to implement cuts to the services of the most vulnerable people in our society. We believe that everyone should have as much independent, choice and control over their care as they want. But this has to be real choice, not the only option because other facilities and arrangements have been closed or made unavailable.”

In moving a motion to ensure vital services provided for older people are protected under these cuts, Lilian Macer told delegates that personalisation should be an option, but not a cheap option.

She continued: “There are those that see personalisation as a wonderful way of fabricating millions out of social care budgets. They think that by passing money to people directly - that they won’t notice it’s less than they used to rely on. Congress, we need to send a clear message to the politicians and decision makers in Holyrood and council chambers, that they need to accept responsibility for the decisions they take about peoples’ lives. And that we expect more from our parliament and councillors, than a rubber stamp on David Cameron’s cuts agenda.”

Personalisation of Care Services in Glasgow

About personalisation

Last summer Glasgow City Council started a process called ‘personalisation’ and ‘self-directed support’ across services provided by Social Work. We support the principles of personalisation, which are about providing people with more independence, control and dignity. However, this is not what is happening in Glasgow. Right from the word go, the council was explicit in its ‘working assumption’ that at least 20% savings would be made.

The process is well advanced for learning disability services, but will be rolled out in time to those with physical disability, children with disability, mental health and eventually older people. In the autumn of last year providers of services, mainly charities and private companies, were asked to fill in Self Evaluation Questionnaires (SEQ) on behalf of the people with learning disabilities they support.

Defend Glasgow Services is aware from speaking to union members involved in providing care services, that on many occasions these forms were completed without direct input from the service user (not always possible), their family or guardians or their key worker. The forms were then put through a resource allocation system, which allocates individual budgets to those who need support, resulting in some seeing a cut of almost 80%. Most providers in the city are facing overall budgets cut of 35 to 40%. Additionally, in most cases, the Individual Budget now has to cover provision for activities and services during the day as the council will no longer provide day services to most people with learning disabilities, presenting a further strain on budgets.

There is no formal appeals process to these cuts in budgets. There is an opportunity to have matters looked at again by a Risk Enablement Panel, however, there is little evidence so far that this process is substantially altering the overall picture of massive cuts.

What does this mean for individuals with learning disabilities?
Wide scale loss of sleepover provision: people with learning disabilities often need someone available at night to assist them with toileting, helping them get in and out of bed, and generally to be on hand should anything untoward occur. Having a presence at night also stops vulnerable people being a target for those who would seek to exploit them.

Massive reduction in care packages: People who previously had 24/7 care are now going to have care for only a few hours a day. There is a danger people will become isolated in their homes with no support to lead a full and active life. Beyond this the level of cuts are so severe that independent living will no longer be viable for many and people will be forced to move in with other people in order to pool support, this is completely contrary to personalisation and for many will be a regressive step.

Lost education opportunities: Many people with learning disabilities need support to attend college courses and access other training. Without the money to pay for the support needed they will not be able to go. As a UNISON member put it ‘this is an accident waiting to happen’.

What does this mean for workers?
Workers providing care and support to those with learning disabilities in Glasgow are seeing a range of attacks on their terms and conditions. This is creating widespread concern among care workers. So far we have seen:

• Redundancies;
• Cuts to sick pay schemes;
• Reduction in hours;
• Threats to hourly rate;


The wider cuts agenda
Like us all, people with learning disabilities depend on other public services (e.g. Department of Work and Pensions, Further Education)and indeed often need them more, so as well as their own services being cut they will suffer from reduced public provision. Add to this the onslaught on benefits and the welfare state and it is clear that we are not all in this together. The cuts hit the poor, vulnerable and voiceless the hardest.

What can we do?
• Lobby the Council against these cuts: on 12.30 pm Thursday 28th April 2011, Glasgow City Chambers, George Square

It’s time to unite workers, service users, their families and friends to show mass opposition to these attacks on some of the most vulnerable in our community. The council needs to halt the process, maintain funding and engage in meaningful and genuine consultation with service users.

• Raise the issue with politicians they are chasing you vote for the Scottish Parliament elections and go and see your Councillor or write to them, details available from your library of visit www.writetothem.com

• Ensure someone is sticking up for people with learning disabilities

If they can’t themselves, workers will be restricted in what they can do for clients they support, but there are groups such as Learning Disability Alliance Scotland (http://www.ldascotland.org/ 07920 141823 ) and the Coalition of Carers in Scotland (http://www.carersnet.org// 01786 825529) that can help those with learning disabilities and their families. There are also a number of advocacy organisations that can help people in these situations, more information on local groups can be found via the Scottish Independent Advocacy Alliance (http://www.siaa.org.uk// 0131 260 5380).
• Get active, get organised, get involved. Join a union and join the campaigns!

For more information log on to http://www.thereisabetterway.org/

SCOTTISH COMMUNITY CONFERENCE – SATURDAY 14TH MAY

The 2nd Scottish Community Service Group Conference will take place on:

Saturday 14th May

10.30 am

UNISON House,

14 West Campbell Street,

Glasgow

G2 6RX.

This will be an important opportunity for members from the community, voluntary and housing association sectors to come together and discuss the current challenges they face and how UNISON can best respond. These sectors are experiencing massive challenges due to issues such as funding cuts; personalisation/self-directed support; housing benefit reforms; and Protection of Vulnerable Groups. There will be an opportunity to discuss all these issues and more on the day.

There will be a range of speakers and sessions to ensure members get a chance to learn, contribute and feel empowered to help represent community members when they return to the workplace.

Given the unprecedented situation in terms of cuts we have decided to run the Conference as open as possible to encourage as broad and as large an attendance as possible. Branches are asked to appoint as many delegates as possible, there is no limit; we would though ask you to identify a lead delegate. This is so that if there is a contested election for the Committee the lead delegate will be handed a ballot paper, voting will be weighted dependent on the number of Community members in the branch rather than numbers of delegates.

Contact you branch if you wish to attend.

Meeting to discuss cuts in the voluntary sector - Wednesday 13th April

Pay freezes, pay cuts, redundancies, attacks on terms and conditions are happening all over Scotland in the voluntary sector.

One example of this is the impact of the personalisation agenda in Glasgow which has seen the Council impose massive cuts in the budgets of service users.

So far most voluntary organisations in Glasgow involved in learning disability services are responding by passing on the cuts to staff in one way or another. 

UNISON is calling a meeting to look at how we can respond to this in a more co-ordinated way and the UNISON Quarriers Branch has kindly agreed to host the meeting.

The meeting will be at 10.00am on Wednesday 13^th April at the

UNISON Office, 4^th Floor, Empire House, 131 West Nile Street, Glasgow G1 2RX.