- Conference
- 2008 Local Government Service Group Conference
- Date
- 22 February 2008
- Decision
- Carried
Conference supports the innovatory work that the community and voluntary sector (CVS) has traditionally carried out, campaigning on behalf of vulnerable members of society, identifying gaps in public sector provision of services, and working alongside the government to develop solutions to those gaps.
Many UNISON members have been involved in such work, in organisations providing services like care in hospices, and services for refugees and migrant workers.
UNISON is concerned that funding arrangements for the sector are preventing organisations from investing in innovation. Recent research by Osborne, Chew and McLaughlin found that innovation by the sector has fallen, that this is a direct result of the move to contract competition, and that local authority commissioners have little interest in innovation.
In response to contracting out to the sector, many members’ employers are withdrawing from specialist provision and campaigning, making campaigning and research staff redundant, and re-focusing on winning contracts. The result is a service that looks very much like a public sector service, but with staff on inferior pay and conditions, and an organisation incapable of doing the good things it has traditionally done. Members in smaller organisations, which are unable to win contracts, are seeing their employers struggle to survive at all.
Conference calls on the Service Group Executive:
1)To lobby the Cabinet Office, government spending departments, and devolved governments, for appropriate use of the sector, to safeguard its strengths as the sector that can campaign on behalf of vulnerable people, identify gaps in public services, and help develop solutions to those gaps – but not replace the public sector as the provider of those solutions;
2)To campaign alongside CVS organisations that share these concerns, when appropriate;
3)To promote the strong link between the pay and conditions of workers in the community and voluntary sector and the quality of public services, making it clear that the system of contracting out is damaging the workers, the services, and community and voluntary sector organisations themselves.