- Conference
- 2005 National Delegate Conference
- Date
- 28 February 2005
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
Conference notes that since 1993, when UNISON was established, the delivery of public services in the United Kingdom (UK) has been subject to widespread change and restructuring.
The impact of change has been felt union-wide but in diverse ways with some services being more closely integrated, for example further and higher education, whilst others have been subject to externalising processes such as PFI.
As the Local Government Service Group Conference noted last year in passing a resolution on the fragmentation of the local government workforce, the emergence of national public bodies, private companies, and trusts in the areas children’s services, housing, health and social care has changed the landscape of collective bargaining in the public services.
Although many branches and service groups have responded in an innovative way to these challenges by devising new organising strategies and representation arrangements, the cumulative effects of these developments are placing major strains on UNISON organisation at local level and often cut across regional and service group structures.
This process is being compounded by the move towards an enabling as opposed to a provider model of public service delivery which UNISON opposes as a lessening of democratically accountable publicly owned services. Conference believes that the impact of the so-called efficiency reviews such as Gershon and the public service reform agenda of all main political parties will lead to an intensification of this process in the next decade.
It is vital that UNISON at all levels but particularly in the workplace is effectively organised and resourced to respond to changing employer structures in the delivery of public services throughout the UK. Therefore Conference calls on the National Executive Council to undertake a review of service group structures and branch organisation, in consultation with branches, regions, service groups and self-organised groups, and young members, and report back to conference in 2007 with rule amendments if appropriate.