UNISON Community SGE says goodbye to first Chair

This picture is from the UNISON Community Service Group Executive meeting earlier this month at the UNISON Centre. In the middle is  Stephen Brown, who was our first ever Chair of what is now  the 3rd biggest Service Group in UNISON. Stephen was our senior lay activist who did more than anyone to bring about our own sector specific internal organisation.

Stephen was a thoughtful and considerate Chair who always sought to bring about consensus and agreement whenever possible. However, as branch secretary of Quarriers UNISON branch he helped organised and fight his employer over proposed massive pay cuts which resulted in strike action.

Stephen was recently made redundant but was successful in an interview with UNISON and will start his new job soon. A result for the union I think.

Left to right in photo is our new National officer, Simon Watson (who took over from Mike Short); Kevin Jackson from Eastern region, who has taken over as Chair; Head of Community, Dave Johnson and finally but not least our top assistant national officer for Community, Jane Ellis. Who is also we understand planning to leave for a new job in Eastern Europe.

UNISON Community Seminar 2012

Picture of Karen Jennings, Assistant General Secretary opening the 2012 UNISON Community (and Voluntary sector) Seminar at the Brighton Centre. Today is our Service Group seminar and tomorrow is our biannual Conference.

The Chair of Community Stephen Brown (middle) gave a vote of thanks to our former national officer Mike Short (left) who has been promoted within UNISON.

This weekend will be dominated by the impact of the cuts on our sector. Many "care and support" workers have already suffered massive pay cuts (30%) and the slashing of other terms and conditions. While the government is directly responsible for this, there are rogue employers who are leading a race to the gutter and undercutting responsible employers. How to combat this effectively will be a key theme.  Pointless and divisive sloganising will of course achieve nothing. But members are suffering and we need to defend them.

I am here as a Community NEC member. I'll try to post and tweet as we go on.

“Public Service delivery by the sector, cuts, and the government’s “big society”.

This morning of the 2nd day of the UNISON Community seminar began with speeches by Stuart Etherington, CEO of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, Phil Jarrold, Wales Council for Voluntary Action and Mike Short from UNISON.  Some of the things I found interesting. 

Stuart described the years before recession 1994 to 2008 as a “Golden Age” for the sector. The sector doubled in size and scale. Worth £40 billion. Employed nearly 600,000 workers. The “cuts” he estimated are around £3 billion but are being felt more since easier to reduce spending on the voluntary sector. He described “Big Society” as an attempt by Cameron to distant himself from large scale public spending and a different narrative about society from that of Thatcher. She famously said that there is no thing as society only families and individuals. Cameron says there is such a thing as society but it is not the same as the big state. Interestingly there are no fringes at all in next month’s Conservative Party conference that mention “Big Society”. Problem for Voluntary sector is that they do not have scale or access to capital and are having to sub-contract to “for profit” companies who do. Evidence of predatory pricing by private sector to win contracts.

Phil spoke about a clear divergence policy in Wales. Now the Coalition in Westminster are the opposition in Wales. Labour made it clear that the private sector will not be the main provider of services especially to vulnerable people. “Big Society” is rejected and seen as “toxic”. The Voluntary sector is in the middle between Westminster and Cardiff.

Cuts in Wales are more moderate and measured. Welsh government budget reducing 2.5% in 3 years. Cuts in real terms but nothing compared to England. Lack of inflation uplift means things are beginning to bite. Don't just look at money saved but the value lost if you reduce services. He wants parity of esteem for 3rd sector workforce.

Mike reminded us that if there has been £3 billion of cuts the so-called Government "transition fund" to migrate these cuts is only worth £110 million. 73% of our organisations have lost funding, lost staff and had demand for services increased. The “cuts” are ideological driven. Evidence is that the number of volunteers is falling. If our sector competes with private sector it will be on cost not quality.

Union supports genuine co-operatives that develop organically. Not those that take profits out of services. Health provider “Circle Partnership” may be 49% employee owned but the other 51% is owned by investment bankers.

There has indeed been a Tesco-isation of public services but this has been our members leaving to work for Tesco’s since they pay more stacking shelves than you now get caring for the vulnerable.

I asked Stuart about how Housing Association’s have fared and he said they lost out badly in the last spending review. There was a choice between spending on housing or a new aircraft carrier. Housing lost out. They face significant issues about funding.

...the end of the NHS as we know it...

This evening there was a candle vigil outside the House of Commons to draw attention to the potential
destruction of the NHS by this Tory led government. In particular the removal of the private patient cap and the threat of privatisation.

The Health and Social Care Bill was given its 3rd reading and will now go on to the House of Lords. UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis had warned Lib Dem MP's that by voting for this bill they will find their party out of power for a
generation.

"Our candlelight vigil marks the end of the NHS as we know it.

“Despite the denials, this government is throwing the door wide open to private companies, who will cherry pick profitable parts of our NHS, and make a fortune. We know that talks have already taken place with a German firm company about running 10-20 NHS hospitals".

I missed the vigil since by coincidence, I was chairing a meeting of my Branch Labour Link members at the Commons with shadow Labour Housing Minister, Alison Seabeck MP and UNISON National Officer Mike Short (I will post on this meeting later).  She had to dash out of the meeting for 10 minutes in order to go and vote against the Bill.  Afterwards, on the way out at the foot of the stairs from the committee rooms, we passed the statue head of the NHS founder, Aneurin Bevan.   I was reminded once again of his argument that "The NHS will last as long as there are folk with the faith to fight for it".

UNISON Housing Association Annual Report: Labour Link Officer

"Even though the Conservatives were deprived of an overall majority and we did very well in the London Council elections the General Election result was a crushing defeat for Labour Party and its affiliated supporters. Many thanks to all those Housing Association branch UNISON activists who worked so hard for Labour. The Party is now undergoing a necessary 2 year review of policies to make it electable again which UNISON Labour Link will play a full part. Housing must become a key policy issue.

We have got to win the “battle of ideas” in housing policy.

UNISON Labour link is sponsoring the launch of a London Branch of the Labour Housing Group which will contribute towards campaigning and developing policy particularly for London. In March there was a well attended meeting of our branch Labour Link members at the House of Commons. The keynote Speaker was the then Housing minister John Healey MP (see main photo). Clive Efford MP, National Officer Mike Short and our own regional officer Colin Inniss also spoke. Striking members from Notting Hill Housing Association also met and lobbied John. During the industrial action Labour Link was able to arrange access for striking members to lobby local Labour MPs Karen Buck, Glenda Jackson and Sadiq Khan.

Last year all UNISON Labour link member’s received a ballot paper to vote for the New leader of the Labour Party and in London who should be the Labour candidate for Mayor. UNISON nationally and regionally voted overwhelmingly to nominate Ed Miliband MP to be the Party leader. During the election itself UNISON members’ votes helped make the vital difference to ensure that he was selected. In London we nominated Ken Livingstone to be the candidate and he also won the candidacy. The next elections in London will be the GLA elections in 2012.

I am planning another Branch Labour Link meeting later this year and I will invite members of the Labour Party shadow Housing team as speakers. In the meanwhile if any branch members are individual members of the Labour Party, local Councillors, resident reps or sit in whatever capacity on Housing Association Boards then please let me know.

If anyone is interesting in finding out more about joining the fight back against the Coalition and Boris and how to join the Labour Party, the LHG or becoming a UNISON delegate to your local Party then also please contact me".

(above is my contribution as UNISON HAB Labour Link officer to our branch annual report -  see my Secretary report here)

UNISON “Labour Link” meeting: Housing minister John Healey MP

On Tuesday evening I Chaired (for the 2nd consecutive day) a special meeting of UNISON members at the House of Commons! This time on behalf of my branch UNISON Housing Association “Labour Link” (APF) members. Our guest speaker was, John Healey MP, the Minister of State for Housing and Planning.

John started off by thanking UNISON members for the work they do providing essential housing services in often difficult and demanding circumstances. He then gave a very powerful and convincing presentation on the many good things that Labour had done for public housing while also accepting that more needed to be done. He is obviously very proud to have helped enable Councils to start building homes again. He does not think that there should not be any fundamental conflicts between Councils and housing associations over this since there is such a huge task to undertake that there is plenty of opportunity for both Councils and other public landlords.

John praised UNISON literature which points out to tenants that the Tories are openly planning to get rid of security of tenure and increase rents for Council and Housing association tenants to “market rates”. John has written to David Cameron the Conservative leader a number of times to ask him to refute that they have such plans but with no response.

At the meeting we also had Notting Hill Housing Trust staff who are due out on strike action this Monday 15th March to speak to the minister about the dispute and how they are being personally affected.  Why such traditionally moderate staff feel so angry that their CEO is proposing to get rid of family friendly policies and attack their basic terms and conditions. Notting Hill is refusing to even try and conciliate via ACAS and are refusing to allow UNISON to even speak to its Board members or Chair. We believe that there are also possible regulatory issues at stake. John was very concerned about the whole matter and there was a supportive and wide ranging discussion. He undertook to look into the TSA issues we had brought up. In the Q&A we discussed other topics as well such as executive pay levels, governance of boards, supporting people funding and training for young people.

My contribution with regard to Notting Hill was my usual one. Housing organisations that treat their staff as rubbish will also treat their residents in a similar fashion.

UNISON national officer Mike Short also gave a comprehensive report on the current (difficult) national housing issues. But I enjoyed most his recounting of Tony Benn’s simply definition of socialism. “If we have unemployed building workers and homeless people why don’t we get the unemployed to build homes for the homeless”.

Clive Efford MP also addressed the meeting and had some interesting (and unrepeatable) comments about “Tories” and top hats.  While our branch regional organiser Colin Inniss also spoke and brought up a number of topical branch local issues. Afterwards we retired to nearby Whitehall licensed premises for some light refreshments and carry on the debate.

All in all it went really well. I think that I had the most positive feedback about any Labour Link meeting I have ever been involved in.

Supporting People Funding: UNISON gives evidence to Select Committee

Yesterday evening I met up with two of my Group UNISON housing association stewards, Linda and Kay outside the Houses of Parliament. They are both residential Scheme Managers (wardens) of sheltered housing blocks. We were going to the Communities Local Government (CLG) select committee on Supporting People (SP) funding.

UNISON national officers Mike Short and Pete Challis were giving evidence to the select committee based on their report and responding to any questions. I was part of the working group that helped produce the original UNISON report.

The committee of MPs did seem to take their role very seriously and listened carefully to speakers and readily challenged them about their evidence.

Key issues that were brought up included the Personalisation of services in 2011 which should mean that elderly residents of sheltered blocks will be able to purchase “services” themselves directly rather than from the housing provider. So in theory each of the 68 residents of the blocks that Linda and Kay each manage will be able to “purchase” care services independently rather than communally. This could obviously mean the end of local communal wardens.

Also other vital issues were discussed such as competitive tendering on price rather than quality; residential versus floating support; the removal of ring fencing from the Supporting People budgets; the "evil" of 2 tier workforces and the inadequate size of the SP budget given what everyone wants it to do.

Linda and Kay were really impressed with the meeting. They were referred to as “concerned practitioners” by the UNISON presenting officers to the select committee and I am certain that the MP’s clocked that we were ordinary workers (and of course potential voters to them) who were disturbed about this issue.

The meeting finished about 5.45 and all the Labour MP’s went off to the meeting of the PLP to decide upon Gordon’s fate. The select committee are expected to issue their report soon and there will be a government green paper on SP funding in the near future as well.