- Conference
- 2010 National Women's Conference
- Date
- 15 October 2009
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
Conference notes that the introduction of direct payments, along with pilots of Individual budgets, have the potential to increase choice and control for disabled and older women over the services they receive.
However, we are concerned that there are insufficient safeguards to protect disabled women who choose to employ their own personal assistants as well as to protect the people they employ.
Disabled women can be particularly vulnerable to physical, sexual, emotional and financial abuse by nature of their personal care needs and life experience.
However, it is understood that CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) checks will not be mandatory for personal assistants and that local authorities will not be obliged to provide or commission services which support disabled people with the process of recruiting and managing staff. However the equivalent legislation for Scotland, Protection of Vulnerable Groups makes it specifically clear that anybody providing services that direct payments are paid to cover needs to be a member of the registered workforce and therefore Disclosure checked.
Further, with women providing around 80% of the existing care workforce, there is a very real threat to the jobs and services our members provide; and potentially a loss of flexibility in the social care workforce as personal assistants’ working hours will be dictated by individual employer’s needs rather than managed as part of a team.
It is likely that few disabled people will have received training in employment practices and health and safety issues, and may, inadvertently or otherwise, exploit or put personal assistants at risk.
We welcome the proposals put forward at UNISON’s national social care seminar in November 2008 to develop national standards on terms, conditions and training for personal assistants and to recommend the setting up of an advisory body to manage these standards.
This Conference calls upon the National Women’s Committee to work with the National Disabled Members’ Committee, the NEC and the Local Government Service Group to:
1)Campaign for CRB checks to be made compulsory for personal assistants employed by people receiving direct payments or individual budgets;
2)Work towards the establishment of a central advisory body on standards for personal assistants;
3)Encourage local authorities to provide support and advice for disabled women in recruiting and managing personal assistants in a fair manner, whilst safeguarding themselves in the process;
4)Continue to campaign against cuts in local authority services.