Campaign Against The Cuts - Progress

The campaign against public sector cuts is making progress. The Liberal Democrat element of the Coalition Government have wobbled over the Thatcherite plans to 'reform' (aka brutalise) the NHS and the weakness of the Tories has been exposed by their inability to force these cuts through. Andrew Lansley has called a temporary halt to the legislation for further consultation on the proposals. A fig leaf if ever there was one for an admission that right-wing Tories knew they couldn’t get their plans approved by Parliament.

We have to keep the pressure up both nationally and locally. Norfolk MPs need to hear from their voters that pursuing such cuts will lose them votes. Norwich South Liberal MP Simon Wright wobbled over whether to keep his promise on student tuition fees. It appears only when he did the maths and worked out his parliamentary majority hung on the large student vote in his constituency did he agree to his pre election promise. This was probably with Nick Clegg’s agreement as the behaviour of the Liberal Democrats MPs shows they are more interested in maintaining political power than sticking by their political principles. Their behaviour in Government does nothing to wipe away the memories of the MPs expenses scandal which cast a shadow over all three of the main political parties.

Locally we are keeping up the pressure as part of the TUC 'There is an alternative' campaign. On 2 May Bank Holiday the May Day celebration in Norwich will be relaunched. Between 12.00 and 3.00 pm there will be an event in Chapelfield Gardens, Norwich. There will be live music and speakers with the theme being the campaign against NHS 'reform'. I hope to see as many UNISON members there as possible. The NHS is built on the principles that should underpin all public services. If Andrew Lansley’s plans come to fruition it will inevitably have a considerable impact on the rest of the public sector. It will also be bad news for us as individuals who benefit from our NHS service. We need to keep up the pressure as a union and as union members.

Jonathan Dunning is the Branch Secretary of the Norfolk County Branch of UNISON.

March for the Alternative

The TUC demonstration on March 26th 2011 was a brilliant show of strength. The Norfolk County UNISON branch were well represented and all those who came on the march have good impressions to share. Media estimates grossly understated the size of the demo and also focused on completely peripheral issues. I think this shows how much the establishment fear the potential power of the trade union movement.

This society has the potential wealth to support a growing public sector. Tax evasion and avoidance cost the UK £120 billion a year. Trident would cost £1.8 billion. Government investment in a million green jobs would save on unemployment benefit and bring in extra tax revenues.

In my view the TUC should now call a 24-hour general strike to defend jobs and services. However, the leaders will not do this without pressure from below. Together with service users we need to take direct action to defend jobs and services.

- Ed Bober, Norfolk County UNISON Branch steward

March for the Alternative, March 26th 2011

The cuts being perpetrated by this government threaten millions of people with the risk of unemployment and millions more with the loss of vital services, such as schools, health care, fire brigade and libraries. Furthermore they threaten the entire country with the risk of a double dip recession which will destroy the chance of alternative employment. Bankers will take our homes away.

If the Trades Union Congress demo on March 26th has over a million people in attendance, the political climate in this country will be fundamentally changed. Those who support cuts will have far less credibility. Those who oppose them could be greatly emboldened.

If you and your colleagues participate in this huge show of strength, it will give you a sense of pride in the enormous power of the trades unions. It will change you forever. We are the only economic power significant enough to challenge the rule of the bankers. Don't let us leave a world of poverty, unemployment and pollution for our children to inherit. Be part of the fight for a civilised future.

Join the TUC demonstration. Bring your friends and family.

As far as I know places on official trade union coaches are rapidly filling up. I would still encourage you to get yourself to this event. Assemble Victoria Embankment at 11 am for the march to Hyde Park.

Vote to Make a Difference on 5th May

Political decisions can and will change our lives. We have seen our pay cut in real terms, our jobs extinguished, our pension changed with further radical changes just announced by the Government, our services reduced or externalised (TUPE).

There are approximately 21,000 local authority workers, most of whom will be eligible to vote, along with many other public service workers, e.g. Police, Fire, NHS, Teachers, BBC, Environment Agencies, Armed forces, Charity Groups etc. If we all vote this May we can and will make a difference.

Many countries still do not have political systems that even give their citizens the right to vote. While they continue to fight for this right, we should consider it our responsibility to vote.

Find out who represents you and discuss your concerns. Many of us have the chance to make a difference this May so please take this opportunity, where the right to vote is a privilege won after hundreds of years and many battles, to use your vote in May - as your choice can make a difference to the society we live in.

Broadland District Council
http://www.broadland.gov.uk/council_and_democracy/councillorslist.aspx?view=party

Breckland Council
http://democracy.breckland.gov.uk/mgMemberIndex.aspx?FN=PARTY&VW=LIST&PIC=0

Great Yarmouth Borough Council
http://www.great-yarmouth.gov.uk/council-democracy/councillors-democracy/who-are-my-councillors?s=party

King's Lynn & West Norfolk Council
http://www.west-norfolk.gov.uk/Default.aspx?page=21545

North Norfolk District & Parish Council
http://www.northnorfolk.org/council/5008.asp

Norwich City Council
http://www.norwich.gov.uk/site_files/pages/City_Council__Councillors_democracy_and_elections__Councillors.html

South Norfolk District & Parish Council
http://www.south-norfolk.gov.uk/democracy/4785.asp

Many local elections are taking place for Councillors in Norfolk on 5th May 2011: please take the opportunity to vote.

Colin MacPhail is a senior steward within the Norfolk County Branch of UNISON.

The New UN Women’s Agency

This Tuesday was International Women’s Day. Join me in calling on the Government to answer the question they failed to answer last week when they published their review of the UK’s international aid programme - how much will they commit to spending on the new UN women’s agency?

This new UN agency has the potential to make a real difference to the lives of women in both the developed and the developing world but it needs resources.

The Government say they are putting women and girls at the heart of their development work. Sign up and ask the Government to put their money where their mouth is and show the world that the UK is still a leader for women.

The Labour Government played a key role in establishing 'UN Women'. The new Government must continue that support. Empowering women is not only right in principle but essential for fighting poverty and achieving all of the Millennium Development Goals, such as reducing the number of women who die in childbirth, and increasing the number of girls who go to school.

It is women in developing countries who are best placed to fight for maternal health care, and for their daughters to go to school. UN Women must help them in that fight. Support UN Women by signing up to ask the Tory-led Government for a real commitment to back up women throughout the world

Decisions are being made on this now and women the world over need the UK to play its part. The women of the world shouldn’t have to wait any longer for this Government to make up its mind.

Best,

Adapted from an email sent to the branch on behalf of Harriet Harman,
Shadow Secretary of State for International Development.

LSE Students Occupy Buildings Against the University’s Ties To the Libyan Regime

Students at the London School of Economics have succeeded in changing policy at their educational establishment through a militant approach. Following the announcement below, they began an occupation of LSE buildings designed to force their establishment to change its position with regard to Libya.

"At 7pm on February 22nd, we began an occupation of the Senior Common Room in the Old Building (Houghton St.) against the LSE regarding their association with the Libyan regime. In light of recent events the LSE administration announced that they would no longer be accepting the money ...from the Gaddafi family. The school has already accepted £300,000 and was scheduled to receive and additional £1.2 million. We as students of the LSE are demanding:

a) A public statement by the LSE administration denouncing the recent gross violations of human rights by the Gaddafi regime and Saif Gaddafi’s violent threats against the protesters in Libya

b) A formal commitment by the LSE refraining from cooperating with the Libyan regime and any other dictatorial regimes that are known to be implicated in gross violations of human rights.

c) Rejecting the rest of the yearly installments that are being received from the £1.5 Million donation of the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation (GICDF) and work towards creating a scholarship fund for underprivileged Libyan students using the £300k that LSE has already accepted and not spent yet.

d) Revoking Saif Gaddafi's LSE alumni status, as his public statement on Sunday 20th of February and the various reports issued by International Human Rights Organisations clearly demonstrate that he is implicated in the killing of innocent civilians as well as other human rights violations. His association with the LSE community and particularly its student body is a disgrace that is not tolerated by the LSE staff, students and alumni.

e) Publicly committing that no grants from officials of such oppressive regimes will be accepted in the future by establishing a set of standards and a process of democratic decision-making with student representation that determines whether or not the School should accept money coming from controversial donors.

Failing to do these would not only betray the LSE's ethical values, it would also tarnish the School's reputation in a region whose people are currently fighting to reclaim their freedom from corrupt dictatorships--and are winning the fight so far.

Following the publication of these demands we will occupy a space on LSE campus."

Following the occupation, the LSE Director made the following update on the School's official website:

'The Director will recommend to the LSE Council on 1 March that the School set aside £300,000 – equivalent to the entire sum received from the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation - for purposes agreed with the wider School community. In particular, the School is looking into establishing a scholarship fund for Libyan students.'

UNISON Norfolk County Branch is preparing an official statement of support to the student effort which will be sent in the next few days.

SERTUC Day of Action

The South and Eastern Region Trades Union Congress Executive Committee is calling for your active support for street level action in every community on Saturday 15 January – organised by you!

The challenge is to counter the government’s lies about the economy, spending on public services, the falsehood that deep cuts to public services are essential, and that cuts are somehow fair.

Millions of media pounds and constant political repetition has given the public a diet of lies and half truths – so the Executive Committee believes we have to use our considerable human resources (our members and our commitment) to talk to our communities and win an understanding about the depth of the government’s political attack on working people.

The invitation is to all affiliates, trade union branches and trades councils is to make your voice heard locally on Saturday 15 January.

Can you organise a street meeting, workplace activity, a street stall, a demonstration, a media-worthy stunt, community leafleting, press release, street theatre – or any kind of event that will attract people to talk to you, that will attract local media coverage, and that will ensure that our neighbours understand that cuts are not the answer – and we can make a difference.

We are leafleting against the cuts at Norwich City Football Ground this Saturday, 15th January as part of the TUC day of action. Anyone wishing to help should meet outside the Riverside Leisure Centre (opposite Carrow Road football ground), Norwich at 1.45pm – leafleting supporters until 3pm.

There are other events planned in towns and villages all over the Eastern Region - see the SERTUC website for more info.

North Norfolk Against the Cuts call for Lamb to resign

'There is a small but significant change of mood. We were out leafleting in December in Cromer.

'We had a petition on our stall calling on Norman Lamb (Lib Dem MP for North Norfolk) to resign. We had a placard advertising this petition. In the first few minutes, before we had even finished setting the stall up, people were queuing up to sign. We collected 82 signatures in about 90 minutes.

'People were more argumentative than in previous weeks. They expressed support or opposition much more vociferously. I think the student protests and the police brutality of the last week have begun to polarise society. There were a lot of words about the local MP that I would not want to repeat in respectable company! There were parents extremely angry and worried that their children would never be able to go to university. There were others denouncing students for being hooligans.

'I remember this happened during the events of France '68 as well. When the movement first started many people did not have a strong opinion. But as the revolution in France began to pose more fundamental questions about how society should be run, then people both supporters and opponents started to argue. This is the way people learn. Opinions change.

'Of course in Britain right now we are still at a very early stage. The youth are on the streets but the workers, held back by the union leadership, are still watching. Many are inspired by the students. But many don’t dare step over the Rubicon into industrial action. Not yet anyway...'

- Ed Bober, UNISON and Norfolk Coalition Against the Cuts activist

The Unthank Centre

Family Support is due to lose 50% of its budget starting in April this year. This is the stream of funding which pays for the Unthank Family Centre amongst other services. The precise proposals for what is cut are not published, but I would like to share the following thoughts regarding the Unthank Family Centre as they are clearly vulnerable.

This is a frontline service in safeguarding the well-being of the most vulnerable children in Norfolk, in line with current child protection procedures and legislative responsibilities. They work with families with the most complex needs, with work commissioned from child protection conferences, the looked-after children processes or as part of court proceedings. The referral route is via frontline social workers, the Centre is central to forwarding child protection plans and informing decisions in care proceedings. It is a unique and essential service for which there is an enormous demand - the requirement for this work is unquestionable, and the current potential for it to be replicated by the voluntary or private sector is non-existent.

Children are not protected by the fact that risk has been identified and a child protection conference has been convened. Children are not protected by a meeting. Protection rests in the subsequent plan around the child, in which family support services are crucial. The absence of skilled direct work with children and their carers would have enormous implications for the potential for children to remain in or return to their families (thus increasing the legal requirement to provide accommodation, and the consequent expense.) The therapeutic intervention provided for children who have experienced unimaginable levels of abuse (sexual, emotional and physical) mitigates against future pressure on adult mental health services and the consequences of anti-social behaviour.

David White, Norfolk’s Chief Executive, recently noted "the 12% increase in the safeguarding referrals of children over the last year (more than 6,800) resulting in a staggering 60% increase - now up to 500 children and young people subject to formal child protection plans." It is hard to comprehend a suggestion to reduce family support services in the light of these statistics.

County Councillors need to be fully informed regarding the nature of the cuts they are being asked to sanction, something UNISON is not convinced is happening. A sophisticated understanding of the nature of child protection is required. Do not be misled into thinking that ‘frontline services’ are purely embodied in the investigating social workers identifying a problem.

There is a substantial risk that the vital, frontline nature of this work is misunderstood by assumptions about what family centres in general offer. They offer direct work to children who would not receive a service elsewhere, advice and support to our colleagues in frontline services, sophisticated parenting assessments to inform decision making in care proceedings and have been required to comment on expensive local authority commissioned reports in the court arena. Intervention has frequently been directed by the Judiciary, and sought by legal representation. In addition to this, the Centre has provided training and staff development, with regard to recent developments in understanding about infant mental health and the cost-saving necessity of early intervention.

The people of Norfolk have a highly skilled and committed workforce, who have evolved throughout multiple restructurings and have been informed by recent research and enquiries into child deaths. It would be irresponsible to disregard this source of expertise - valuable time and resources will inevitably be spent in trying to recoup it. This is not a random projection of future outcomes, but an informed professional certainty should current proposals to reduce family support be sanctioned. The potential future impact on looked-after children, adult mental health and prison services far outweighs any immediate short-term saving.

Michael Gove expresses a desire to "strengthen the profession so social workers are in a better position to make well-informed judgements, based on up to date evidence, in the best interests of children...I want social workers to be clear about their responsibilities and to be accountable in the way they protect children." The above responses are based on many years of experience in child protection, and upon an understanding of the most recent research including infant mental health and serious case reviews. It would be professionally irresponsible to support the removal of vital support services which are the very foundation of the child protection system.

UNISON fear the lack of debate on vital services such as this demonstrate a 'head in the sand' approach adopted by County Councillors who would prefer not to know the real implications of the decisions they are about to be asked to make.

David Lambert
Senior UNISON Steward – Children`s Services

An Open Letter

The Editor
Eastern Daily Press


Dear Editor

The article “Charities concerned at how cuts could affect the elderly” which appeared in the Eastern Daily Press on Wednesday 17 November is timely and hopefully will remind your readers of actions they can take to oppose such drastic cuts. The proposal by Norfolk County Council is billed as the “Big Conversation”, but UNISON believes the genie is out of the bottle and despite Leader of the Council Derrick Murphy’s assertion that “no one wants cuts – I don’t want cuts” in a meeting with trade unions on 8 November, it is apparent that the scale and potential impact will be much greater than in the past and for a longer period, prolonging the agony for staff who are already facing pay cuts and proposed cuts to any redundancy packages. It is almost unbelievable that senior staff, MPs and Councillors can take part in a campaign (Make it Marham, to rightfully save jobs and services at RAF Marham) against the Conservative Government cuts whilst ignoring the pleas of staff, service users and the unions of the impact the cuts will have on the people of Norfolk, both as service users and economically throughout the county.

Despite the fact that Paul Burstow, Care Services Minister, has said that Councils have no excuse to cut adult care and that £2m had been provided to maintain care services at current levels, the £2m is not ring fenced and half has been given to the NHS. There are no indications that the NHS Commissioners will be required to spend this money on preventative services or that the funding will keep up with demographic changes.

Take just one service mentioned in the report– the Sensory Support Service provides a statutory service. There are no other staff groups with the skills and experience of Sensory Support, so it is unknown who could step in to provide this service – for example, they issue BD8 Certificates for those registered blind and partially sighted. The staff are devastated that they will be unable to provide such a service that is universally thought to be useful and preventative, £1m spent here means £1.5 m saved down the line, as with most of the proposals for Adult Care.

The impact on staff should not be ignored either. UNISON have been very concerned about staff in all departments, who have already seen their pay frozen, in effect for the past 2 years, with more to come. Also the proposed changes to the Staffing Adjustment Policy where any Redundancy payments are to be reduced will affect staff and the wider economy too.

We urge everyone who feels these cuts are a step too far to respond the County Council by January 8 2011, join the trade unions and others at Chapelfield in Norwich City Centre on Saturday 4 December and fight for these services. Once gone, it will be impossible to replace them.

Yours sincerely

Alison Birmingham
UNISON Senior Steward
Adult Social Care