Secretaries' Report
Services
fighting for existence
The lead up to the Scottish Parliament has seen the branch
making a significant contribution to a number of consultation exercises,
not least the Commission on Local Government and the Scottish Parliament.
The implications of the Parliament and it's relationship
with local government, will have a major impact on our services and their
delivery.
Consultation is ongoing and the branch will continue to
try to ensure that we get the Parliament that our members want, one that
will work, and will ensure public services are publicly owned, democratically
run and properly resourced
The Scotland Act embraced the principles of access for
all, engaging the community, and delivering services at the level closest
to the people. What we have seen, though, as members of the various political
parties jostle for seats, is a transparent willingness to sell out public
services in favour of what can be shallow and limited national party lines.
Since the referendum, UNISON has constantly had to defend
local services. Attempts to hive off services to the private sector, create
arms length trusts, and discredit local service delivery, together with
massive budget cuts, have meant we have had to fight for our very existence.
PFI: And one of the biggest
cons is the Private Finance Initiative. The idea of new schools or hospitals
is tempting until you realise the cost is far higher than public investment,
the private companies end up owning the assets, other services are cut to
pay for the private profits and our children end up paying through the nose
for tens of years.
The branch has tried to expose the PFI illusion through
newspaper articles, talks to Labour Party branches and seminars.
Serving Scotland
UNISON has published a manifesto as part of a major campaign
to ensure that public services are high priorities for our Parliament and
this is reported in the Communications Officer’s report.
Political Funds: The campaign
is financed by the union’s General Political Fund. UNISON has two funds,
the General Political Fund (GPF) which is non party political and the Affiliated
Political Fund (APF), affiliated to Labour.
Parliament Candidates
The selection process for candidates for the Parliament
also involved the branch in nominating and supporting a number of candidates
through the APF Committee.
We would like to thank Matthew Creighton, APF Officer,
for the amount of work he put into the process. Our congratulations to those
candidates who were successful and our commiserations to those who were
unsuccessful.
Budget Cuts
The Council faced a cut of nearly £28m in the 1998/99
budget. The consequences have been reduced services and 165 job losses across
the authority, mainly met by voluntary severance.
School meals: The withdrawal
of subsidy by the Education Department for catering has meant 90 job losses
in school meals. But the school meals service was saved following a massive
campaign.
Working together with parents groups and community organisations,
proved to be a worthwhile strategy and led to a turn round by the Council
who had announced the scrapping of hot school meals.
The service has been cut to the bone, though, and members
have been asked, yet again, to voluntarily reduce their hours or be redeployed.
The Cleaning DSO is another
area where members have faced reduced hours or redeployment due to changes
to the contract specification.
The biggest impact of the reduced service has been in schools,
where members are finding it impossible to keep classrooms clean. There
is a grave danger that this will lead to schools claiming penalties against
the DSO which could result in the contract being lost.
UNISON entered into dispute with Catering and Cleaning
when it appeared members were being approached on a non-voluntary basis.
Cuts in the 1999/2000 budget are estimated at £10m
and directors have been asked to look at the impact of a 5% reduction across
the departments. The Council is portraying this as good news when compared
with recent years. Yes, it is less of a cut, but the difference is there
is nothing left to cut off services, only the services themselves.
Reviews and Mergers
Efficiency reviews from small sections to entire departments
have plagued the branch. The Council-wide review resulted in a number of
departments being merged. Property Services largely became part of City
Development, Housing Benefits are now part of the Finance Department.
Also moving to Finance, out of Corporate Services was the
IT division. Strategic Services now come under Corporate Services.
Recreation lost sports services to the new arms-length
Trust, Edinburgh Leisure. The Branch has a representative on the board,
John Wilson, who was NUPE Edinburgh No 1 Branch Secretary for many years,
and our thanks to him for taking on this important role.
Edinburgh Leisure not awarding
the pay settlement in full was fought at the negotiating table by UNISON
for eight months before the award was finally granted.
This nearly resulted in over 200 claims to industrial tribunal
and involved the support of the regional officer, Bill McAllister and the
regional legal officer, Lucy Crone.
There are likely to be problems in the future in this area
and that makes it all the more important that a strong stewards network
is established.
Best Value
The Council has taken on the Best Value Regime with open
arms and it has quickly become clear that the politician's view of Best
Value has been, on some occasions, that ‘cheapest is best'.
The branch has demanded that the Council put its cards
on the table by asking them to agree with a definition of Best Value which
we have submitted. This is a strategy that some other UNISON branches have
already considered adopting and which the trade union movement is watching
closely.
A deeply concerning move by the Council was to put some
parts of the Grounds Maintenance contract out to voluntary competitive tendering.
A move which was undertaken with little consultation with either UNISON
or service users. The branch has won agreement, however, to have an input
to the tendering process.
Branch Organisation
The branch has had to consider the way it is organised
as part of a nationwide UNISON exercise. This has been useful particularly
in light of the changes to the Council's structures that have taken place.
It has also been useful to identify areas where the branch
could make changes to the way it operates to offer a better service to members
- for example, where there are problems with distribution, workplaces without
stewards, etc.
The next phase will be to hold discussions with sub-committees
and departmental committees to see if there are ways in which we might develop
our organisation.
Inquorate meetings: The number
of inquorate meetings this year has created a number of practical difficulties
as well as undermining the democracy of the branch.
With sometimes two or three meetings in a row being inquorate,
it has meant that a mass of business has to be decided at the next quorate
meeting, with some major decisions having to be taken by a handful of senior
branch officers where items are more urgent.
Clearly, this does not achieve the participation that is
so important to UNISON organisation and stewards committees are urged to
encourage their reps to attend.
Edinburgh Inquiry
The branch was called to give evidence to the well-publicised
Edinburgh Inquiry which was held following the conviction of two men for
sexual abuse in children's homes in the late 70's and early 80's.
The branch also provided support and advice to members
who had information they wished to give to the Inquiry and to members called
to the Inquiry. The outcome of the Inquiry is awaited and branch vice-chair
John Stevenson remains the clearing house for Inquiry related issues.
National perspective
Single Status: The withdrawal
of the Scottish employers from the UK bargaining machinery came as a blow
but the branch can look forward to single status being implemented as part
of the agreement to set up negotiating structures on a Scottish basis.
Conferences: The branch contributed
to setting national and Scottish policy at conferences and through the service
group structure, and for the first time had full delegations at all of the
self organised group conferences as well as the retired members conference.
A number of topical one day conferences and seminars were
also attended.
As one of the biggest branches in the country, we rightly
play a lead role in Scottish and national affairs.
Bill Heeps has a key role on
the National Executive and Douglas Black on the Service Group.
Douglas chairs the Scottish Service Group Executive and Gail McInally
(previously Park) and Wattie Weir jointly chair the Scottish APT&C
and Manual & Craft Sector Committee.
Steve McCullough, as well as
chairing the Scottish Voluntary Sector Committee, is now Vice Chair of the
National Voluntary Sector Committee. George Lee is the Vice Chair
of the National Social Services Committee.
John Stevenson chairs the Scottish
Communications & Campaigning Committee, edits the Scottish activists'
bulletin Scotland inUNISON, and is again a delegate to the STUC. Morag
Stevenson and John Ross sit on the Scottish Committee. Morag
is also a member of the Scottish Service Group Executive and the Scottish
Communications & Campaigning Committee, and was a delegate to the Scottish
Women's STUC along with Irene Stout and Tracy Gilbert.
Linda Jackson has recently
been elected as joint chair of the Scottish Lesbian & Gay Self Organised
Group. Alex Thomson is a member of the Scottish Disabled Members
Self Organised Group.
Branch Premises
The branch was forced to move from St Giles Street to new
premises at 23 George IV Bridge in October. The move was essential due to
the lease ending and Health & Safety Act requirements.
Disabled access was the branch’s priority (St Giles
Street was on one level but had no disabled facilities) but after 18 months
wait, two suitable options falling through and a long search it became clear
that George IV Bridge was the only option available. The Branch Committee
agreed this as an interim solution.
The office does not have disabled access. It is up two
flights of stairs and there is a further internal staircase. With access
still our top priority, the search continues for other premises.
In the meantime, we are trying to reach an accommodation
with the Council to use facilities with disabled access when required.
The advantage of the new office is space, a much better
environment for staff, a meeting room and private interview facilities.
It is also convenient for public transport.
We would like to thank the staff for their perseverance
through what was a trying period, both in terms of the inadequacies of the
old office, and in settling into the new one.
The problems branch officers faced trying to deliver a
service in even worse conditions must also be recognised. We would also
like to thank all those officers and stewards who helped physically with
the move, with particular thanks to Wattie Weir, John Stevenson, George
Lee, and Dougie Linton for their efforts and their expertise.
Branch Meetings: Accommodation
in the city, in general, has been impossible due to Scottish Office moves
to accommodate the Scottish Parliament, the Council's own restructuring
exercises, civic events in the City, and various other reasons.
It has meant that we have been unable to obtain a venue
to hold a general branch meeting this year. It will only be feasible to
hold branch meetings in the coming year if bookings are made far in advance.
The drawback is that we lose the flexibility to target
specific issues as they arise.
Branch Officer Team
The workload of the branch officers has been massive this
year and that will be reflected in their individual reports. We would like
to draw attention in particular, though, to the work of the Service Conditions
Team.
There has been a concerning increase in the cases which
end up at Industrial Tribunal - regarding the Council as well as the other
smaller employers we cover - and that can only be put down to intransigence
by the employers.
Also alarming is the increase in the number of harassment
and bullying cases, and a working group has been set up to tackle this.
This increase was foreseen, however, as cuts in services bite harder and
harder and stress levels get higher and higher at all levels of the Council.
This, as well as an ever-increasing individual and group
caseload, masses of agreements to harmonise, and key input into many of
the issues raised elsewhere in this report mean that the team are under
considerable stress. We would like to thank, in particular, John Mulgrew
as Co-ordinator, together with the Conveners, John Ross, George Lee and
Wattie Weir, who have worked long days and come in many weekends, to meet
deadlines, and just get the job done.
People
The branch congratulated Gail (then, Park), Assistant Secretary
and Charlie McInally, Service Conditions Officer, who got married on 7 October.
Henry Sibbald, who was a member
of the old NUPE branch until he retired, and regularly comes into the branch
office to help out the staff with mail and circulations, celebrated his
70th birthday in October. Your help is much appreciated, Henry.
Nicky MacDougall (branch staff) and George Lee (Manual
Service Conditions Convener) are expecting a baby in February and we offer
them our best wishes
Steve Weddell, our Branch Administrator, was on sick leave
since just before the last AGM but the good news is that he returned to
work in January. We welcome Steve back. He has been sorely missed both in
terms of his contribution to the work of the branch and as a friend.
Thanks to the branch support staff, our regional officer,
Bill McAllister, and John Stevenson, as outgoing Branch Secretary, we have
managed to come through the year with only a few hiccups. Their help, guidance
and the goodwill they have shown to us has been much appreciated.
Morag Stevenson
Douglas Black
Gail McInally |
