Supporting People

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Conference
2020 Community Conference and Seminar
Date
7 November 2019
Decision
Carried as Amended

Supporting People

Conference the time has come to recognise the specialist work being carried out by UNISON frontline workers employed through the Supporting People Programme and back those UNISON members in their call for an independent review into the Supporting People Programme.

UNISON members working in Supporting People funded programmes continue to deliver vital services for vulnerable people, despite experiencing pay freezes or pay cuts, cuts in hours and an erosion of their terms and conditions of employment.

1.Staff having to take on extra duties and dealing with increasing numbers of clients with increasingly complex needs, including severe mental health issues, drug addiction, alcohol abuse, self-harm and suicide attempts;

2. Staff working weekends, holidays and unsocial hours

3. Increasing incidents of verbal/physical aggression towards staff and other service users from clients with complex needs;

4. Staff being expected to deal with complex medication for clients or provide counselling services when they are not trained or qualified to do so;

5 High rates of staff turnover and concerns at unsafe staffing levels, with poor morale, mental health concerns amongst staff and sickness absence. This in turn leads to agency staff being used, at increasing cost;

6 Concern at differences in terms and condition both within organisations and across organisations providing similar services;

7. Concerns at the inability of management to act when issues are raised with them and a lack of protected time to undertake training activities.

8. UNISON members report that morale within the sector is dwindling and that they feel undervalued. This specialist work is vital in easing the pressure on health, social services and probation services and this must be recognised through decent pay, better terms and conditions and job security.

It is clear that in the first instance, additional funding for the Supporting People Programme is required to reverse the cuts in funding that have occurred and meet rising levels of demand.

However, it is vital that the NI Housing Executive, as the commissioner of services under the Supporting People Programme, undertakes a review of how organisations currently funded by them use their funding, including pay and terms and conditions for their workers.

We believe some organisations funded through the Supporting People Programme can and should be doing more to ensure their staff have decent pay and terms and conditions of employment, particularly those employers who do not recognise UNISON for the purposes of collective bargaining. Additional funding for providers, which we believe is necessary, must be translated into better pay and terms and conditions for workers.

We therefore call upon the Community Service Group Executive to:

A) Work with UNISON�s Labour Link and other stakeholders seek engagement with the Department of Communities and NI Housing Executive in relation to the Supporting People Programme.

b. Work with UNISON�s Labour Link to campaign for and lobby the Department for Communities, the NI Housing Executive and all other Government Departments and public bodies with responsibilities in this area to:

i)Immediately reverse the cuts that have taken place.

ii)Immediately review all funding arrangements that community and voluntary sector employers have to provide services under the Programme and make sure that workers are not exploited. This should be fully transparent and must involve UNISON.

iii)Commission an independent, expert-led review into the Supporting People Programme, with full UNISON Community branch involvement and engagement, to make recommendations on the level of funding that is required to meet need and ensure our members are properly paid for the vital work that they do.