| UNISON City of Edinburgh Branch |
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Budget Submission 2001 |
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UNISON City of Edinburgh Branch BUDGET SUBMISSION to City of Edinburgh Council UNISON has an ongoing campaign called 'Serving Scotland's Capital', because essentially that is what our members do. The aims of that campaign include campaigning for:
Those principles will underpin UNISON's submission this morning. We appreciate the problems the administration faces in setting its budget and we recognise the problems arising from the very restrictive way in which some of the funding from the Scottish Executive has been applied. We also appreciate that it will take time to recover from the cumulative effect of cuts over many years. While we will campaign vigorously against job losses, we would want to welcome the fact that the effect on jobs in this budget is much less than the problems we have faced before. We also hope that the three year funding will bring at least some stability for services - a stability that has been badly lacking over the last 20 years. UNISON would want to make submissions on four topics this morning.
Yesterday one of the creche workers employed by Edinburgh Leisure sent us a copy of a letter from her boss saying 'find another job soon or you are redundant'. That's a casualty of the creche cuts. The other casualties are the parents who rely on the service who will now be excluded from those services. That cannot be squared with social inclusion. Neither can it be squared with open government when creche workers have been banned form circulating petitions or getting involved with service users. Clearly someone at the top is at least clever enough to realise how unpopular the plan was, but is also daft enough to think you can keep a lid on it. We were assured when the Trust was set up that it would still be a council service, services and staff would be protected. Since then the charity has imposed lower pay deals, cut conditions, side-stepped collective bargaining and tried to ignore TUPE regulations. Now it is cutting the creches. At each stage the Trust tells us Council Funding is to blame and the Council tells us the Trust makes its own decisions. If you accept nobody is to blame, then you have to accept that nobody is responsible either, which flies in the face of accountable services. But the creche users and our members facing redundancy will demand accountability and we urge you and Edinburgh Leisure to save this service and our members livelihoods. Childrens Services. UNISON wants to make it very clear that the crisis in Edinburgh's childrens services is a resource issue, not an organisational one. Higher demands are being met with reducing resources to an extent that staff on the ground cannot believe that the problem is not being addressed. The cumulative effect of years of cuts and of reorganisation means small cuts can have huge effects. The Edinburgh Inquiry's fourth recommendation - that's how high up the list it was - called for young peoples residential units to operate with vacancies. This was so there could be an active and positive choice when placing young people. Despite the Council accepting this, beds have been cut. It is the norm that there are no vacancies. It is all too frequent an event that young people at risk wait weeks for a place, sometimes even on secure orders. If they get a place it is more likely to be the first available rather than any matched option. That means inappropriate placements, upheaval for other residents and intolerable stresses on staff. Field social workers are used to working with risk and with the unpredictable. But even they now fear that with children at home, or on the run, who should be in care - there could be a tragedy waiting to happen. I know these are emotive words but it reflects the real frustration of our members. Frustration at having to deal with unacceptable risks and frustration at the delay in filling posts despite another recommendation from the Edinburgh Inquiry. I know that council leaders are aware of our concerns and UNISON did appreciate the informed and constructive hearing we were given on this issue. The Edinburgh Inquiry recommendations had at their heart the concept that the whole Council, not just the Social Work Department, had corporate responsibility for children in its care Funding must be made available to address this responsibility. Childrens Centres If the indications we have are right and no childrens centres are to close, then UNISON warmly congratulates the administration on that. UNISON believes Edinburgh should be proud of its childrens centres. The service they provide is almost unique in Scotland and is greatly appreciated by families. For social workers and health visitors, they are one of the few - if not the only preventative service for young children in need or with special needs and for their parents - they work both with children and their parents. Raised thresholds mean that almost everything else deals with what happens after something goes wrong while childrens centres can and do help avoid things going wrong in the first place. The flexibility and imagination of childrens centre staff has led to a number of new initiatives including outreach services. Even if there is no closure, parents children and staff must be spared the annual uncertainty of being a cuts option in successive budgets. They need a commitment to a long term future to change and develop to provide their service. John Stevenson |