Community service group report to Scottish Council

Scottish Council is the UNISON body that brings together UNISON activists from all sections of the union in Scotland to discuss policy and plan for the future. At each meeting a report is circulated outlining our work in the Community service group. Below we publish the latest one.

Since the last report to Scottish Council was written the new Community Service Group had its first national conference in Telford on 2 November 2010.

The conference was very successful and Scotland played a significant role in proceedings, with among others Angela Lynes chairing as President and Stephen Brown speaking as Chair of the Community Service Group on several occasions.

Community is still in its infancy as a service group but the conference which heard from Dave Prentis gave activists a real sense of confidence that voluntary and housing sector workers and their issues are now mainstream in the union and that the apparatus is now there to make things happen. Which is just as well as overall the picture in the sector is very difficult.

Organisations involved in the provision of social care have been asked to make significant savings in this financial year by most local authorities which have led to pay freezes; cuts in terms and conditions and redundancies.

All organisations are being told that they will get less next year but the exact level of cuts will only become clear when each authority’s budget is set, so there is huge unease in the sector.

Additionally we are now seeing the squeeze being put on the much smaller number of organisations that receive their funding from the NHS. These cuts are being further compounded in many areas by the move to personalisation; the approach in Glasgow for example has been to use personalisation to cut the budget of individual services by between 20 and 30%.

Employers are responding with cuts and redundancies e.g. the Mungo Foundation is cutting the contracted hours of all staff in learning disabilities by 20% and talking of moving to much more flexible working (i.e. staff will be asked to work their contracted hours at any time in the week - a few hours here, a few hours there).

Below is a snapshot on some of the larger employers we deal with to give an indication of what is happening on the ground to terms and conditions and Pay:

Enable: pay freeze last year and removal of sick pay from first 2 days sick; no response yet to 2.5% pay claim due from 1/10/10 but not looking good;

Capability: major reduction in terms and conditions last year, increment and pay freeze last year and proposed for this year too. About to consult members on 2.5% pay claim in response;

Quarriers: pay and increment freeze last year and reductions in terms and conditions; this year settled for £150 lump sum and half an increment;

Mungo Foundation: pay freeze last year; members just voted to reject pay freeze this year so we will be looking to exert more pressure on the Board;

Erskine: 1.25% pay award for this year (partly reflects high public support for services charities);

In housing the picture whilst not yet so stark is difficult. The pension scheme which most housing associations are in is in significant deficit and is thus introducing increased contributions for staff and employers; they are also now offering Career Average schemes as opposed to final salary ones, which many employers are opting for to reduce costs.

There is also widespread concern about the impact of the forthcoming changes to housing benefit and we have been supporting the campaign run by our members in the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations for a fairer system, and would encourage Scottish Council delegates to sign the petition and find out more at: http://www.sfha.co.uk/sfha/current-campaigns/housing-benefit/menu-id-90.html.

We where involved in the STUC’s housing lobby of parliament on 10th February, which saw a rally outside the Parliament and then a lobby of MSPs from 1.00 to 2.30pm in Committee Room 1 of the Parliament.

The uncertainty is stimulating increased interest in union membership; we hope to sign a recognition deal for instance with Citizens Advice Direct and have finally managed to get a foot in the door with Includem, a provider of services to young people in crisis (on back of proposed 10% pay cut).

Another positive note is membership in Community increased by a net 167 as opposed to 144 last year which is over 2% real growth. (The figures do need some health warning: these are RMS figures not line count, there is a negative trend in recent months and there is inevitably some lag in lapse time – that said positive news!).

We are working to build voluntary sector profile in cuts campaigning and will bring out an electronic version of Voice at Work our newsletter for Community members before the 26th March demo.

Lastly can I remind delegates and branches that we run email distribution lists for voluntary sector and housing activists (both Council and social) and would ask that if you want anyone added to these please email the address below.

Simon MacFarlane
Regional Organiser
S.Macfarlane@unison.co.uk