- Conference
- 2020 Community Conference and Seminar
- Date
- 7 November 2019
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes that many of our community members work in social care where they provide care services to older and disabled people. This includes members employed as personal assistants (PAs) via personal payments budgets.
Additionally, some of our disabled members in Community are also recipients of social care which allows them to overcome barriers they face in accessing work. Some of these disabled members employ PAs either directly or through private agencies or third sector providers.
Conference notes that the Labour party has committed to free personal care for older people and to consider how they might roll this out to working age disabled people in the future. Labour also have a vision of a National Care Service with the public sector again playing the majority role in delivering care.
Conference believes that there can be a role for charities and not-for-profit organisations in a future model of care, so long as our members are covered by national terms and conditions and ethical commissioning standards.
Conference further believes that our members who work as PAs, often for community and not for profit organisations, should be included in agreed national terms and conditions, levelled up to local authority standards, with personal budgets calculated to require payment of fair pay and provision of national terms and conditions.
National standards should ensure that our members providing care for third sector or private employers are treated fairly and our disabled members working in the Community sector can continue to employ PAs through personal budgets, allowing these members to continue to work.
Conference therefore calls on the Service Group Executive to work with the National Disabled Members Committee and other appropriate UNISON service groups and forums to:
1)Campaign for a social care system that values social care workers and social care recipients, where there are agreed national standards on pay, terms and conditions and ethical commissioning
2)Campaign for a personal budgets system that incorporates payment of national terms and conditions for Personal Assistants
3)Work with the Labour Link to lobby the Labour Party to include working age disabled people in their vision for free personal care.