UNISON calls on Glasgow City Council to halt attacks on people with learning disabilities

UNISON, Scotland’s largest union in public services, has joined together with communities across Glasgow to fight against service cuts.


Trade unionists and members of the public packed out a meeting last week to share concerns over personalisation and fears that Glasgow City Council is using this process simply as a means to save money.

Glasgow City Council started its personalisation agenda last summer. While UNISON supports the principles of personalisation, which are about providing people with more independence, control and dignity, this is not what is happening in Glasgow. The council has always been explicit in its ambition to realise 20 per cent savings as a result of the process.

Mandy McDowall, regional organiser for UNISON, said: “We’re not against the concept of personalisation, but direct payments should be used to complement a range of public services and should not be used as a disguise for cutting services.

“We held this meeting to bring together those who are being directly affected by these cuts. The meeting was packed with staff, users and members of the community who all wanted to share their experiences. We heard from carers who are having their packages cut by 50 per cent; staff who are having their terms and conditions slashed and communities who are suffering facility closures.

“Each person had a different story to tell and the true human cost of each and every cut was laid bare.”

Parents, carers, service users, campaign groups, academics and disability groups were all in attendance at Thursday’s meeting. UNISON says the meeting will be the first of many and is calling on Glasgow City Council to put a halt to service cuts.

Simon Macfarlane, regional organiser for UNISON, added: “Glasgow City Council has not properly assessed the impact of these cuts and is rolling ahead with scant regard to the devastating consequences.


“We’re calling on the council to call a halt to this process and to reinstate the packages that service users had before the new personalisation agenda was agreed, until a thorough review of the process and the impact on people with learning disabilities is assessed. This assessment must involve service users, their families and front line workers and their unions.”

Meeting to discuss cuts in the voluntary sector – 13th APRIL

Pay freezes, pay cuts, redundancies, attacks on terms and conditions are happening all over Scotland in the voluntary sector. One example of this is the impact of the personalisation agenda in Glasgow which has seen the Council impose massive cuts in the budgets of service users.

So far most voluntary organisations in Glasgow involved in learning disability services are responding by passing on the cuts to staff in one way or another.

UNISON is calling a meeting to look at how we can respond to this in a more co-ordinated way and the UNISON Quarriers Branch has kindly agreed to host the meeting.

The meeting will be at 10.00am on Wednesday 13th April at the UNISON Office, 4th Floor, Empire House, 131 West Nile Street, Glasgow G1 2RX.

The 2nd Scottish Community Service Group Conference will take place on:

Saturday 14th May 

10.30 am 

 UNISON House,

14 West Campbell Street,

Glasgow

G2 6RX

This will be an important opportunity for members from the community, voluntary and housing association sectors to come together and discuss the current challenges they face and how UNISON can best respond. These sectors are experiencing massive challenges due to issues such as funding cuts; personalisation/self-directed support; housing benefit reforms; and Protection of Vulnerable Groups. There will be an opportunity to discuss all these issues and more on the day.

There will be a range of speakers and sessions to ensure members get a chance to learn, contribute and feel empowered to help represent community members when they return to the workplace.

Given the unprecedented situation in terms of cuts we have decided to run the Conference as open as possible to encourage as broad and as large an attendance as possible. Branches are asked to appoint as many delegates as possible, there is no limit; we would though ask you to identify a lead delegate. This is so that if there is a contested election for the Committee the lead delegate will be handed a ballot paper, voting will be weighted dependent on the number of Community members in the branch rather than numbers of delegates.

Contact your branch if you wish to attend.