- Conference
- 2008 Local Government Service Group Conference
- Date
- 22 February 2008
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes the continuing and increasing use of the independent, community, voluntary and private sectors to provide social care services and recognises that this threatens local government member’ jobs and terms and conditions in the following ways:
1)privatisation and externalisation of services leading to transfer of staff or redundancy;
2)competition from the independent and private sectors is used to depress terms and conditions in local government.
Conference recognises that the contracting methods used by some Councils are designed primarily to reduce costs and not to maintain or improve the quality of services. This further forces down wages and conditions in the independent and voluntary sector leading to further pressures on local government workers.
Conference welcomes the recent agreement between the Scottish Trade Union Congress (STUC), Scottish Council of Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) and Community Care Providers Scotland (CCPS) to campaign for ‘full funding’ for local authority contracts in the independent sector. If implemented this would remove the incentive for Councils to opt for the ‘cheaper’ option of out-sourcing services and mean that decisions on awarding contracts to in-house or external providers would be on the basis of quality of service.
Conference calls on the Service Group Executive to:
a)ensure that the union’s Positively Public Campaign targets Social Care services;
b)lobby the UK and Scottish Governments, Welsh and Northern Ireland Assemblies to ensure contracts in social care are funded at full cost and staff pay and conditions correspond to those of the staff directly employed by the contracting local authority;
c)develop campaigns to link members in local government, community and voluntary sector and private sector around the issues of fair pay;
d)produce further guidance and training for local government branches on how to influence authority procurement processes including advice on negotiating improvements and how to use procurement agreements to benefit members.