The last of the residential social care that exists in the local authority are being threatened with closure – with the loss of 42 intermediate care beds.

The Sevenfields and Hazlehurst Resource Centres provide a service for patients leaving hospital but temporarily not well enough to return home. There are 170 intermediate care beds in Sheffield, the majority provided by private companies.

The Council is proposing to close the two centres and commission the 42 beds they provide from the private sector.

UNISON says the centres are the only provider of specialist beds for intermediate care which provide “wrap around” access to services such as doctors, district nurses, therapists and social workers.

The average stay at the centres is around 8 weeks, the aim being to get people back to their own homes where their health and well-being is best served.

If the private sector takes over the role, their sole motivation would be profit and there would be no incentive for them to get the service users well enough to leave.

Regional Organiser Chris Jenkinson has written to all Sheffield’s elected politicians as well as every GP and community group in the city pointing out the danger to the community of the proposed closures.

He points out that by putting all its eggs in a private sector basket, there is a risk of essential services going bust, as was the case with the Southern Cross company last year.
Chris said: “We are calling for a public debate and are currently in the process of amassing the 5,000 signature petition which we need to force this vital issue into the open.

“The plans are driven by government cuts and the Council are saying they are too expensive to run.

“Staff are not paid at the basic minimum wage and have pensions. A private employer will exploit its staff to maximise profits.

“At the same time, the people of Sheffield will be deprived of a vital service which is designed to do what government policy says it should and get people who have been in hospital safely back home as quickly as possible.”

If you can help in any way with the campaign to save the centres, please contact the Branch office on 0114 2736307

(01/02/12) Social networking sites continue to pose dangers for both school based and other Council staff.

In December 2011, the Guardian reported that two teachers resigned their posts at a primary school in Hull over remarks that they had exchanged on their Facebook sites about pupils at the school.

Last April, the Education correspondent of the same newspaper reported on a poll carried out by the head teachers Union (NAHT) which found that one in five heads had told their union that they had been hounded on social networking sites by pupils, ex-pupils and parents.

In an article in a recent issue of this newsletter we warned against linking yourself to your employer or place of employment if you are using social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter or community discussion sites like Sheffield Forum. Where our members come into contact with young people or vulnerable adults, the use of social networking sites is ill advised because students or service users can both find out about personal matters and use the site to post abusive or threatening comments. Anyone who identifies themselves as an employee of the Council, Sheffield Homes or other public or voluntary organisations are not free from risk.

With the introduction of Beacon in 2008, Facebook altered the way in which personal information was gathered by the company and opened up individuals Facebook profiles to a wider audience through internet searches on Google etc. Following concerns from users, it is now possible to limit what your “friends” can see and whether your profile can be seen in search engine listings. If you are using Facebook and haven’t set up these functions you would be well advised to do so. Facebook’s Privacy Policy is viewable on-line on www.facebook.com/about/privacy/ - and the section “Sharing and finding you on Facebook”. If you are a Facebook user – read-it! Also recommended is www.sophos.com and their Facebook Security Best Practices advice.

A survey by EurActiv.com for EU Data Protection Day revealed that 47% of HR professionals use personal data collected over the internet for the evaluation of candidates for jobs.

Following publicity about action in the Californian Courts about the way that clicking on the Facebook “Like” button reveals to friends – and the companies involved – products, services or interests that users have, we are looking at the implications of what may be regarded as “commercial endorsement” by Council employees in relation to the Code of Conduct.
The Internet is a wonderful tool for knowledge and for many aspects of life But there are downsides – e.g identity theft. Please do not assume that everything on the Internet is safe.
As a final note Facebook made profits of $714 billion in the first 9 months of 2011.

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(11/01/12) Council Officer’s today announced formally the first round of jobs cuts needed to balance the budget for 2012/13 given Tory and Lib Dem spending cuts. The proposals take out more than £15m of expenditure and will cost nearly 300 jobs. Details of all the cuts can be found in the attached spreadsheet.

• Download the spreadsheet here (Excel required) or PDF here

Today’s announcement is the first but unfortunately not the last such announcement. We anticipate further announcements over the coming weeks which could see the total job losses rise to more than 500.

“Cameron and Clegg told us that cuts in public spending would not hit front line services but as we can see from the announcement today that is simply not true” said UNISON Regional Organiser Chris Jenkinson. “Today’s cuts will hit the most vulnerable in our communities whether that be the cut to the home care budget, cuts to the budget for equipment and adaptations or the closure of intermediate care beds.”

UNISON Stewards and Branch Officials will be meeting with members in those areas affected over the coming weeks to determine the precise impact on jobs and services and how members want to respond to the proposals.

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(11/01/12) UNISON's lay representatives covering members in the LGPS met on 10th January to consider the next steps in the campaign. Each of the Service Group Executives (SGE) separately agreed a motion to proceed with detailed negotiations.

In the Local Government SGE, by far the largest in terms of the membership involved, the vote was 24 - 10 with reps from Scotland understandably abstaining as their scheme is different. The individual SGE meetings followed a joint LGPS presentation which itself followed a briefing for Regional Convenors and senior activists and staff in the morning on the latest position in the different pension schemes.
http://www.unison.org.uk/asppresspack/pressrelease_view.asp?id=2563

The vote to proceed will be a blow for those from some factions who had been calling UNISON to walk away from any negotiations - even though the staus quo has been secured and in the LGPS there is no detailed set of proposals as yet! Perhaps those officials and activists in some other unions who have openly tried to interfere with UNISON's decision making processes will now respect the democratic decision of UNISON's elected lay member bodies.

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(10/11/11) Our newsletter last week, in which we reported on the outcome of the strike ballot, as well as proposals to place at risk of redundancy 535 jobs, has sparked controversy in the Council.

Senior Managers say they are unhappy that this information was shared with union members ahead of the formal public announcement of the proposed cuts package and before they could communicate with staff.

We appreciate that this information has the potential for being sensitive but nonetheless we reserve the right, as an independent union, to share with our members the information that has been given to the union. Meaningful consultation necessitates a grown up debate inside the council and beyond, a debate where information and ideas are shared openly, and one in which trade unions can act as strong defenders of our members, their jobs and the services that we deliver.

In all of the information that we have put out we have always made clear that we do not blame or criticise the council for cuts in public spending. That responsibility rests firmly with the Government and their austerity programme. We all agree that there will be inevitable disagreements on the approach taken in response to the cuts but ultimately we appreciate the Councillors and Senior Officers are not entirely the masters of their own destiny.

It is unfortunate that at the weekly budget meeting held earlier today Council Officers felt unable to share any further information on the proposed cuts. We were told that a degree of “confidence” had been lost as result of the UNISON newsletter and this had been further emphasised as a result of press reports in today’s edition of the Sheffield Star.

The Council has criticised UNISON for allegedly “planting” the figure of 600 jobs and briefing the reporter who filed the story. We have vehemently denied the allegation. UNISON responded to a call from the reporter concerned who had already been briefed by someone from within the Council and had at his disposal all of the information necessary to understand the issues. This is a matter that we will be pursuing with the Leader of the Council and the Chief Executive.

The only information shared at today’s meeting today is that the formal notice outlining the numbers of jobs at risk next year will be dispatched in the post to UNISON tomorrow.
A further update will be posted on the web site as notification of job losses arrives.

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(4/11/11) Recently we reported on our branch web site www.sheffield-unison.org.uk that 380 jobs are at risk next year following proposed budget cuts submitted by portfolios.

At the budget consultation meeting last week we were told the number had increased to 535. The jobs at risk are presented as full time equivalent posts and given the large number of part time workers in the Council we can safely assume the actual numbers of people at risk of losing their job will be far greater. At this stage we do not know where the cuts will fall but further information on this has been promised for Thursday this week.

We have already told the Council that our members are struggling to deliver the services required of them. And, as most people who wanted to leave on voluntary terms did so this year, any cuts next year will force large scale compulsory redundancies.
Further information will be reported on our web site each week.

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New UNISON Stewards attending their basic training course this week took time out to add their voice to the campaign to protect public sector pensions. Sheffield Homes steward, Megan Wordsworth, said “We are told by the ConDem Government that the austerity cuts are necessary and that we are in it all together, but that’s not true, Camerons Government is full of millionaires, its business as usual for the bamkers, who still pocketed £7bn in bonus payments this year, while public sector workers get hit with a raid on their pensions. We are most certainly not in it all togerther – we are paying the price for a problem created by the reckless behavour of the rich bankers. I’m voting yes for action and I encourage all my fellow UNISON members to do the same.”  

UNISON is leading the campaign to protect our pensions. Find out more...