- Conference
- 2008 National Delegate Conference
- Date
- 25 February 2008
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
Conference notes the 2007 Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act and the subsequent statutory guidance. This institutes new systems of delivering local public services in England affecting our members in Local Government, health, education, policing, transport and other areas. It also affects all our members as local citizens.
Conference welcomes the increased co-ordination of local services, and the moves to decentralise some decision-making to a more local level. Increased powers of local authority scrutiny committees in England over a range of public services may represent an increase in democratic oversight. The ‘Duty to Involve’ local people in decision making may open up opportunities for UNISON to exert influence, as may new regulations around petitions.
However, conference believes that while we must make use of these new opportunities they do not offset the centralisation of real power in Council Leaders. Local Strategic Partnerships remain dangerously unaccountable. Additionally, the requirement for efficiency savings throughout the public sector may present councils with a choice between spending money on public services and developing meaningful public consultation.
The devolution of decision-making is often being done in a framework so that public bodies in Health, Local Government and elsewhere are expected to use a commissioning approach to providing public services. This decreases public accountability and will widen the scope for destructive market mechanisms and create more privatisation. Damning reports released in January 2008 by the National Audit Office on PFI (Making Changes in Operational PFI Projects) and the Audit Commission on Strategic Service Delivery Partnerships (For Better – For Worse) criticise the failings of the contract culture and commissioning approach to secure continuous service improvement.
Local Government in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland continues to also experience efficiency drives, re-organisation in structures, privatisation and shared services initiatives, but there are also important differences too.
In Northern Ireland the Review of Public Administration, initiated under direct rule, has been particularly hard hitting on local public services.
In Wales, the “One Wales” agenda of the Labour/Plaid Cymru coalition continues to offer more collaborative alternatives to marketisation.
In Scotland the Scottish National Party minority administration has started to implement their manifesto, though their initial reforms of PFI do not go far enough to re-establish public investment. There were already many long standing shared services initiatives across Councils and other public sector organisations.
Therefore, Conference calls upon the National Executive Council to:
1)continue to press for democratically accountable public services as part of our Make Local Services Count campaign;
2)campaign at local and national level for trade union representation on the Executive Boards of Local Strategic Partnerships, and consultation over Local Area Agreement targets in England;
3)provide guidance, training and support for UNISON branches in England to make the best use of the Overview and Scrutiny committees and the new ‘Duty to Involve’ in campaigns;
4)provide guidance and support for branches campaigning for ‘Fair Wages’ policies, including workforce and pay and conditions matters in their local Council strategies;
5)produce guidance for branches and campaign materials aimed at Councillors, MPs, MSPs, WAMs and MLAs and public sector procurement managers on the arguments and options for keeping services in-house or returning them in-house;
6)ensure that UNISON branch and regional structures reviews take full account of the likely future shape of local public services.
Further this conference believes that Branches that have been forced to adopt methods of working between different services such as health and local government have not been given the advice and services from the union that they require. This conference demands that an immediate review of these matters is carried out, by talking to the branches involved and that the recommendations of the review are implemented in every region.