Recruiting and Organising Young Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Members

Conference recognises that young people are among those disproportionately affected by the Tory-led government’s attacks on public services – especially education – jobs, employment rights and pensions. Cuts to youth work services, Connexions, housing benefit, the Education Maintenance Allowance and the hike in tuition fees – all are examples of the government’s contempt for young […]

Increased Age Of Single Person’s Housing Allowance

This Conference believes that the current housing benefit regulations already put young people at a disadvantage. Single Housing Benefit claimants living in the rented sector who are aged under 25 are classed in secondary legislation as “young individuals” for Housing Benefit purposes. When calculating the amount of Housing Benefit payable they are restricted to the […]

Negotiating In The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Voluntary Sector

Conference celebrates the long standing and well documented history of working with, as well as accessing the services of, the voluntary sector that the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community has. Organisations such as Broken Rainbow which started in 2002 and the George House Trust which is now in its 26th year offer vital […]

The Mental Capacity Act and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People

Conference welcomes the recent Personalisation in Social Care documentation released earlier this year, which describes the personalisation of care packages for those who require them. Personalisation considers the individual and puts them at the centre of the process of making important choices about their care and how they can be effectively supported. The Social Care […]

English Defence League

Conference notes: 1.The ongoing threat from the far right and that cuts in essential public services, increasing poverty, and massive increases in unemployment, create the conditions in which the far right can increase its support. 2.The decision of National Delegate Conference 2011 that the campaign against the far right should be an integral part of […]

Building the Public’s Support For LGBT Public Services

Conference deplores the visible detrimental impact the Tory-led government’s brutal and unnecessary cuts have had on public services, including Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) services. These ideologically driven cuts to public sector funding have seen targeted services such as those delivered by HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) prevention workers, LGBT Youth Workers and Equalities Officers […]

Donating Blood and the Ban of Gay and Bisexual Men

Conference notes with disappointment the continued discrimination with regards to the donation of blood by gay and bisexual men. It notes that it was announced in early September that the blanket ban on men who had ever had sex with another man, which has been repeatedly identified as unfair and discriminatory, will be replaced in […]

Divorcing Transgender Parents and Legal Access to Children

Conference notes that it was only a few decades ago that Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual (LGB) men and women were deemed inappropriate and unfit parents. When divorcing from their opposite sex spouse, many were refused custody of their children simply because of their sexual orientation. Direct discrimination by care professionals, such as social workers and […]

Equality and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community

We have seen over the life of the current United Kingdom Government, many cynical attempts to inveigle themselves with the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Community, but from a public relations man that lacks substance but deals in dogma alone, nobody should be fooled. The reality of the situation is that many LGBT equality […]

Police Cuts Will Undermine The Fight Against Hate Crime

YouGov research has shown that one in five lesbian, gay and bisexual people have experienced a homophobic hate crime or incident in the last three years. And three in four of those didn’t report them to the police. A third of victims don’t report incidents because they don’t think the police would or could do […]

Stop the Attacks on Local Government Services

Conference notes that the ConDem government has refused to reduce the national deficit by alternative methods e.g. increasing taxation levels on multi-nationals, the implementation of the ‘Robin Hood’ tax, and forcing tax-dodging billionaires to pay their taxes in the UK. The result has been a massive attack on Local Government Staff and the services they […]

Youth Services in Crisis

Conference is deeply concerned about the disproportionate level of cuts to youth provision in the statutory and voluntary sectors. The workforce is facing major redundancies and those workers who survive the cull are facing attacks on their pay and conditions. Losing the skills and expertise of youth and community workers made redundant will have a […]

Campaigning Against College Cuts

Conference is outraged by the savage funding cuts being inflicted on Further Education and Sixth Form colleges by the Tory led Government. Cuts that will both threaten large scale job loses in colleges and lead to increasing hardship and deprivation in the communities that our colleges serve. Conference notes that many of the colleges facing […]

Black Workers and the Local Government Pension Scheme

Conference is deeply concerned that the attacks by the Coalition Government on the Local Government Pension Scheme will have a devastating effect on UNISON’s low paid and Black members. Conference notes new research by the Runnymede Trust that finds that Black people are three times as likely as white people to experience poverty in retirement. […]

The Localism Bill

The Localism Bill contains an important measure that will impact on local government and our members which is known as the Community Right to Challenge The Community Right to Challenge is presented as a measure to encourage the involvement of charities, social enterprises or employee mutuals in the delivery of local authority services. However if […]