Further cuts to local services not sustainable, says UNISON Scotland

Date: Tuesday 2 February 2016

UNISON Scotland is calling for the Scottish Parliament to use its powers to put more money into local services. By 2020 expenditure on public services will be 12.5% lower in real terms. That is on top of the £2.5bn cuts since 2010.

This next round of cuts will mean at least another 15,000 job cuts for local councils. Of the 50,000 jobs that have been lost in devolved public services, 40,000 have been in councils. 

The need for council services has not disappeared, remaining staff have to take on extra work, and do the best they can to deliver what they can. UNISON has the evidence to show our local services are in crisis and further cuts are simply not sustainable.

Mark Ferguson, chair of the UNISON  local government committee said, "Local government services are vital. They deliver health, education, clean and safe streets, child protection and much more. 

"In short they create a good society and the Scottish government should use every power they have to mitigate the worst effects of UK government austerity. 

"The Scottish Parliament has tax raising powers - they can end the council tax freeze, they can work with councils to refinance PFI schemes or invest pension funds in public works, or do more to follow the recommendations of the Christie Commission and invest in preventative spending as a way of making sustainable savings. 

"The bottom line is they have the powers to protect Scots from the worst of austerity. The need for local services has not gone away, so why should our local services?"

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UNISON Contacts 
Dave Watson 07958 122 409
Danny Phillips 07944 664 110

Workers must be central in public service reform, not treated as puppets or pawns

27 March 2013

UNISON will today (Wed) tell a committee of MSPs that redesigns of public services must not treat workers as pawns to be moved around recklessly, ignoring best practice lessons.

The public service union has warned the Scottish Parliament’s Local Government and Regeneration Committee that new ways of delivering services must operate from a proper framework to deal consistently with staffing issues.

Dave Watson, UNISON Scotland’s Head of Bargaining and Campaigns, will tell members that workforce issues are too often neglected when planning reforms such as integrating adult health and social care.

He said in advance of giving oral evidence: "Consultation papers and legislation frequently give the impression the workforce is an afterthought. So we get last minute scrambled together agreements on important issues around staff transfer, pensions, secondment and so on, with no consistency or learning from best practice.

"It is just wrong to treat staff in this way, like puppets or pawns who can be moved around with no rules for how their rights and conditions are transferred and protected.

"Given that most public services rely on people, not machines, this is an extraordinary omission."

He urged the Committee to recommend that the Scottish Government sets in place a broad staffing framework based on best practice.

This would cover a range of key issues including: staff transfer, pensions, secondment, training and development, equality duties, governance and procurement - covering the protections that should prevent setting up a two tier workforce when services are contracted out.

Dave added: "We also want the Scottish Government to take on board one of the key recommendations from the Christie Commission.

"Redesigns of services must be based on genuine engagement with staff and users from the bottom up. It should not be about expensive management consultants imposing solutions from the top down."

ENDS

　

Notes to editors:

UNISON is Scotland’s largest trade union representing 160,000 members working in the public sector in Scotland.

Our evidence to the Local Government and Regeneration Committee is online at

http://www.unison-scotland.org.uk/response/PublicSectorReform_NewWaysofDeliveringServices_ResponsetoSPLocalGovtCttee_Jan2013.pdf

　

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‘People, not processes, will deliver real change’: UNISON response to Christie

Wed 29 June 2011

‘It’s people, not processes, that will deliver real change’ – says UNISON in welcoming the bottom-up approach to public service reform outlined in a report today by the Christie Commission.

The commission’s report on the future delivery of Scotland’s public services, chaired by Campbell Christie, emphasises the importance of workforce development and enabling staff to work with users to develop solutions to better service delivery.

UNISON, Scotland’s largest public service union, representing 165,000 members, also welcomed the report’s recommendations to retain Scotland’s partnership approach to public services, in contrast to the marketisation of services in England.

One of the biggest ideas to come out of the report is service integration – an approach which mirrors the views of UNISON – with recognition that this should be developed around democratically elected councils and community engagement.

Mike Kirby, UNISON’s Scottish Secretary, said: “Staff are key to public service reform and their contribution must be central in the proposed transformation of service delivery. After all, it is people, not processes, that will deliver real change.

“While the report recognises the importance of a committed workforce, it is vital that staff are empowered to make changes to services and that their experience is valued and respected. This must go hand-in-hand with support from management and a clear understanding of shared outcomes.

“Our approach has always been to put the service user at the heart of delivery and this report echoes these views. However, while engagement with people and communities is important, there are limitations of this approach to certain services and it must not be seen as a replacement for mainstream services. We also need to avoid undue fragmentation of service delivery that will weaken service integration.

“We particularly welcome the report’s emphasis on tackling inequality, not just because of cost, but because more equal societies do better on all counts. However, if change is to be achieved, then staff must be given freedom to design the service they deliver and the Government must be willing to invest the time, effort and resources to allow meaningful engagement with staff and users to take place.”

ENDS

Notes to editors

1. The report by the Commission on the Future Delivery of Public Services, chaired by Campbell Christie, former General Secretary of the STUC, can be viewed at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/About/publicservicescommission/

2. For a more detailed UNISON view of the report, see our briefing on the Christie Commission report (pdf) at our briefings page www.unison-scotland.org.uk/briefings/

3. For UNISON’s view of public service reform, see our Public Service Reform briefing from January 2011 (pdf)

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CBI ‘living in a Thatcherite wonderland’ – UNISON response to CBI submission

Mon 21 February 2011

UNISON, Scotland’s largest union in public services, has criticised a submission by the CBI on the future delivery of public services claiming it is living in a Thatcherite wonderland.

The union says the CBI’s call for private companies to have a ‘right to bid’ to deliver public services would lead to a complex chain of contractual relationships with huge cost implications. It would also require an army of people to manage it, taking staffing resources away from where they are needed most – delivering frontline services.

In its submission to the Christie Commission – a group established by the Scottish Government to look at the long term pattern of public service delivery in Scotland – the CBI also talks of privatising Scottish Water, a move which would cost the taxpayer far more than keeping it in public hands.

Mike Kirby, UNISON’s Scottish Secretary, said: “Public money is for delivering public services, not lining shareholders’ pockets, and the CBI’s talk of a ‘right to bid’ for public services quite clearly shows they are living in a Thatcherite wonderland.

“The evidence on privatisation, outsourcing and shared services is not that they are cheaper and better run – quite the opposite. We have seen time and time again the huge failures of privatisation; a perfect example is the outsourcing of hospital cleaning which resulted in the number of cleaners being cut in half and hospital infections rising as a result.

“The CBI is merely bowing to the myth that privatisation will deliver savings and improvements while experience shows it breaks up integrated provision, lowers standards and costs the public twice as much.”

ends

Notes to editors:
Other examples of the massive failures of privatisation are: 

1.     In November last year, a leaked report revealed that British Telecom was overcharging Liverpool City Council by £10 million a year for outsourced services. The controversial report, conducted by the council itself, criticised what has been regarded as one of the UK’s flagship outsourcing projects. It highlighted that the council could save £23 million a year by cancelling the contract for IT services and a call-centre operation, and taking the work in-house.

2.     Last week, it was revealed that two Scottish police forces are considering privatising cells in a bid to save money. Press reports revealed the two forces were in discussions with private security firm G4 Security to provide prison cells. UNISON condemned the plans as “crazy” and claimed it would result in another costly PFI scheme which would be bad value for money for the taxpayer. One of the police forces in England that tried this is Staffordshire. As a result of a freedom of information request from the UNISON police branch, we now know that the service costs three times more than the original cost of the in-house provision.


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UNISON urges Christie Commission to put users at the heart of public services

UNISON, Scotland’s largest trade union in public services, has called for a ‘bottom-up’ approach in the future delivery of public services.

In a hard-hitting submission to the Commission on the Future Delivery of Public Services, the union criticised ‘top-down’ solutions and said staff and service users must be at the heart of public service delivery – not just through consultation but by working together in genuine partnership.

The commission, chaired by the former General Secretary of the STUC Campbell Christie, was established by the Scottish Government to look at the long term pattern of public service delivery in Scotland and will report on its findings in June 2011.

UNISON has called for the commission to focus on the design and delivery of services, not just structures, and said the basis for public sector delivery should hinge on five key public service principles: democracy, investment, fairness, excellence and partnership.

The union’s submission challenges the assumptions around the drive for ever bigger and more remote service delivery and structures. It argues that refocusing delivery on the needs of service users locally is more efficient and effective than splitting services into artificial front office/back office functions.

The submission evidences this new approach with many case studies across the UK and internationally.

Mike Kirby, UNISON’s Scottish Secretary, said: “The defining difference between public and private services is democracy and it is democratic structures that will make public services responsive to the needs of those who use and pay for them.

“It’s vital that the public are able to participate in the decision making processes about the areas in which they live, and staff in the services they deliver. “High quality public services benefit us all and public bodies should have a statutory duty to work with service users as partners, not as customers, in the decision making process.”

Please find UNISON Scotland’s submission to the Christie Commission at http://www.unison-scotland.org.uk/response/UNISONChristieFeb11.pdf