Missing the Point

A kind reader drew my attention to the following article by Stephen Smellie which appeared in the Holyrood Magazine back in February 2013 - and is currently advertised on the Unison Scotland web site.

Having read the contents carefully more than once - I can find no mention of the biggest single issue facing trade union members in South Lanarkshire for years - which is, of course, the ongoing fight for Equal Pay.

Now there are references to the 'arts budget' in Moray Council and the importance of the constitutional debate on Scottish independence - but not a word about the fight for equal pay in South Lanarkshire which has been raging since 2005.

So, I ask in all seriousness, was this not a missed opportunity to get an important message across - to a wider audience?

If you ask me, that's why the trade unions are so badly out of touch these days - in my view  too many union leaders are focused on political issues and, often, on party politics - instead of putting the 'bread and butter' interests of their members first. 

For the people: UNISON Scotland vice-convener Stephen Smellie

Stephen Smellie on the challenges facing local government workers

By Kate Shannon

With around 1.3 million members, roughly 150,000 of those in Scotland, UNISON is Britain and Europe’s biggest public sector union. For Smellie, who is currently seconded to work for the union full time from South Lanarkshire Council, the current financial climate is causing huge concern.

He said: “It is a fact that local government is taking more of its share of the cuts compared to other parts of the public sector, for political reasons. We’ve taken more job losses proportionately than other sectors and the council tax freeze is having an effect. We are not able to make decisions locally. Councils might want to increase the council tax in order to provide particular priorities identified locally and they are not able to. Council tax might have been frozen but other charges are rising, such as the price of burying or cremating someone, the price of going into a leisure centre and many councils have had to put up the cost of their home-care services. People are still paying more.

“The Government provides central core services but we provide services which enhance people’s lives. For example, we also support people in their homes and we provide arts and culture — these are the things which lift you up from the bare minimum. Look at what’s happening with Moray cutting their arts budget, I am not sure of the details of that particular case but at one stage they’ll have had to look at making cuts somewhere and it’s come down on the side of the arts budgets. If they are cutting the arts budget this year, goodness knows which frontline services they are going to have to cut next year.”

Smellie is also branch secretary for South Lanarkshire and sees the direct effects of these cuts on members, the men and women on the ground who provide many of the services we rely on. He told Holyrood that there is a lot of worry, stress and uncertainty among council workers, who fear for their jobs in the light of budget cuts and rising demand.

He added: “The big issue for most members is the fear of losing their job. Because of the years and years of cuts, people are worried. They’ve seen the number of posts reduced. There haven’t been many compulsory redundancies in local government and haven’t been any in South Lanarkshire but that is always the fear. There is then the huge issue of workload. While the number of staff has reduced in many areas, by and large we are still being asked to do the same jobs or more. Levels of stress as a result of workload pressures have grown. We’ve also had two years of pay freezes, before that we had years of below the rate of inflation increases and this year we’ve been offered one per cent which we’re still in discussion about.

“Over the past 10 years the decline in living standards has been quite significant. Those are the biggest issues but underlying all that is the real concern that the services we’re providing, if they’re not under strain, they’re being reduced. You can keep running faster and faster to try and deliver the same services but you know you can’t maintain them. Many members get frustrated about that. For example, I was talking to one of our members who is a cleaner and she was concerned that the building she works in was not being cleaned properly any more. She goes home at night unhappy that she hasn’t been able to bring the place to the standard she would like. People have a pride in the job they do but they are losing it because they don’t feel they are able to do it the way they would like.”

The first raft of the UK Government’s welfare reforms are due to come into operation in April, with changes affecting councils directly.

Like many others, Smellie has found there is uncertainty among local government workers about what is coming. He said: “There’s a real disgust to a certain extent that we are now going to become debt collectors for people who have no control over it. A lot of my members are low paid and they themselves are losing benefits through the changes. It is one thing after another, we are paying for it but also having to respond to people in need with no real additional resources.

“There’s a big promotion to boost the numbers of foster carers in council areas. But if you are a foster carer, you might have a spare bedroom because kids come and go, and if you are on housing benefit, all of a sudden you are under occupied. Also you have informal carers, grandparents, for example, who have a spare room because their grandchildren come and stay. But under these measures, those grandparents might not be able to keep that room. There are a whole number of consequences which we’re left trying to support people through. In that example, kids might be taken into care instead of going to stay with a grandparent for a few nights. It is one of the consequences which haven’t been thought through. We’ve raised it and others in social work have raised it but there’re no answers.

“The welfare state is becoming meaner on a number of levels. Local government picks up a lot of that, we pick up through social work or housing or education. All the time this is happening, our resources and pay are being cut.”

On a wider level, Smellie said the constitutional question is very important for local government. He added: “[The debate] rages backwards and forwards but from a UNISON perspective what we are trying to say to them is they need to talk more about the kind of Scotland we want, not what the constitutional arrangements are going to be.

“How are we going to achieve a fairer, more equal society? Can you achieve that with independence, through the status quo or with more devolution? In terms of local government, it is really important that people start talking about what kind of local government we want. If you look at the range of services we are responsible for, and the engagement of people in those processes, they are people services. In Scotland there seems to be a drift towards centralising services, look at police and fire. You could end up with a local government which is much weaker. Having a central state, whether that be a devolved central state or an independent government, you would end up with a weaker local government and I think there is a fundamental issue about democracy which people aren’t talking about. If they view local government as merely an instrument for central government, you have a much weaker democratic society.

Local government can be criticised about not being as open as it should be and maybe not engaging, we have low turnouts in local elections but what are you voting for in a local election because central government has set the council tax rate and the outcomes we’ve got to provide? It’s a fundamental question that nobody seems to be addressing.”