Mar 012012
 

Aberdeen Against Austerity informs Voice of its intention to take to the city’s streets this Saturday (3rd March).

This action is part of a national day of protest against the UK Government’s Workfare Scheme under which multi-national companies, whose profits run into billions of pounds, receive countless hours of free man/womanpower courtesy of taxpayers.

At least thirty other cities around the UK will host similar demonstrations.

How does the Workfare Scheme operate?

The jobseeker labours for perhaps eight hours daily, receives no wages from the company, creates wealth for the bosses and shareholders and in return receives only his/her Job Seeker’s Allowance (JSA). As a result, participants in the programme receive well below £2 per hour for time they have been forced to give to multi-billionaire companies.

Many fear that these phenomenally low wages are being used by bosses to drive down existing staff wages under threat of replacement by Workfare participants. Commentators have used the term ‘slave labour’ to describe this Tory policy, with some even challenging the legality of the Scheme under Human Rights Law.

Not looking hard enough for work

Conservative ministers and right-wing journalists have tried to justify the Scheme in recent weeks using the same tired old argument that JSA claimants are responsible for their own misery because they are ‘workshy’, ‘lazy’ and ‘lacking in drive’.

“These ‘lazy’ individuals just aren’t looking hard enough for work,” cries the right.

Figures show these ludicrous opinions to be baseless whilst revealing the underlying structural problems of our economic system. We have 2.67m unemployed, although the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has reported that the true figure might be 6.3m, and only 476,000 job vacancies. That means 5.6 people are applying for every job, or 13.2 people if the TUC figures are used.

Joblessness is a very real and serious issue woven into the fabric of our economy and it cannot simply be blamed on the ‘feckless unemployed’.

The proponents of Workfare claim that the most effective way to get ‘workshy’ claimants back to work is by threat of the loss of their JSA. This is very misguided. The Government’s own review, commissioned by the Department of Work and Pensions in 2008, concluded:

 “There is little evidence that Workfare increases the likelihood of finding work. It can even reduce employment chances by limiting the time available for job search and by failing to provide the skills and experience valued by employers.”

Political and ideological

It’s clear. Workfare is a political programme, designed and carried out by a government of millionaires with a strong ideological undercurrent, through which they seek to:

  • Undermine the legal minimum wage.
  • Continue the demonisation of those out of work to justify the increasing wealth gap between the rich and poor.
  • Strengthen the very close ties between big business and government.
  • Ensure that the most vulnerable in society pay for the economic crisis rather than those who caused or played a major role in it.
  • Continue to apply downward pressure to existing workers’ pay and terms and conditions

Aberdeen Against Austerity and many other groups will be raising awareness nationwide by naming and shaming Workfare providers this Saturday (3rd March) in Aberdeen city centre. We’ll meet in the Castlegate at 12 noon.

See you on the streets.

Nov 082011
 

Issued on behalf of Nestrans by The BIG Partnership. With thanks to Dave Macdermid. 

Nestrans, the statutory regional transport partnership for the North-east of Scotland, has written to the Department of Transport (DfT) as part of the UK Government’s aviation consultation and in response to questions posed by the DfT in its scoping document looking to develop a sustainable framework for UK aviation.

Chair of Nestrans Ian Yuill believes any future air travel policy implemented by the European Union, which is currently considering changes to the landing slot rules, has the potential to make a hugely significant impact, both positive and negative.

“In what was a fairly detailed response, we have highlighted the impact aviation has on our economy and the impact of our economy in the north east on the UK economy as well as the different impacts of aviation for the peripheral regions of the UK compared to the more central areas where surface transport is a viable option.

“While we welcome the proposed introduction of High Speed Rail to central Scotland, it is not, and never will be, viable to extend it to the North east and therefore it is absolutely crucial that existing air links between ourselves and Heathrow are protected. As a region, our economy is dependent on international travel and the logical hub to achieve this is Heathrow.

“Within our submission, we have included many key statistics including the fact the percentage of Scotland’s air traffic through Aberdeen is 13.3% for a population catchment of 8.9% while the proportion of business travellers is 56% compared to 30% for Edinburgh and Glasgow.

“The link between Aberdeen Airport and Heathrow is particularly important in several ways, including access to other parts of organisations, particularly headquarters functions, for inward investors; access to markets for indigenous companies and for inward investors seeking to use a region as a base of operations within a world area; access to suppliers of goods and services from around the world and access to knowledge partners and complementary businesses.

“The recent news that BA is set to purchase BMI, and the likely resultant consolidation of services only highlights the need to be able to protect the current BA service of six rotations each weekday between Aberdeen and Heathrow and we are sincerely hoping this is given due and proper consideration by the Government as part of this consultation which will impact future air policy.”

The EU is currently considering the European regulations separately from the UK policy consultation and any UK policy developed will have to suit any amended EU rule. 

Aug 242011
 

Aberdeen Voice presents the third of a six-part tragedy by Jonathan Russell concerning the decimation of services for disabled people in Aberdeen – and asks what we can do to reverse the destruction.

A Comedy of Errors Meets MacBeth: Act I.

In last week’s article the work of the Community Placement Team was described and the challenges it faced outlined.

The Community Placement Team’s good practice had been highlighted in the Social Work Inspectorate Report as one of the few areas of good practice in Social Work Services within Aberdeen City Council.

What follows is the story of how managers, criticised in the Social Work Inspectorate Report (for amongst other things their lack of engagement with the front line) then went on to close the team down.

Two weeks after the publication of the Social Work Inspection Report the then management of Learning Disability Services informed me as Team Leader that the team was to have a budget of £200,000. Management had no idea what the actual budget allocated was: but this would have meant a halving of the team’s budget.

Staff had just received a re-grading as part of the Single Status agreement, so in terms of service delivery, the cuts were even potentially more than fifty percent.

Following the Council meeting to agree cuts to budgets, we met with the Head of Service. He informed us that a cut had been made in the Supported Employment budget, which he said included our team. I questioned whether they had actually cut the right budget, as this was not the Community Placement Team Budget. The Head of Service said he would investigate and reply to us.

As usual in such situations we received no reply. However what we ourselves discovered was they had cut (with council approval) a grant from the Department of Work and Pensions. This was not in their jurisdiction to cut, and could not possibly make any savings to the council.

The budget they cut was Workstep, which supported people with disabilities find and retain jobs in the open market. The Community Placement Team operated this service, but had no control of the budget. We had challenged management on a number of occasions that the budget received from the Department of Work and Pensions was not being fully utilized or used appropriately.  The Workstep scheme supported clients in full time work – including those employed by Glencraft, the well-known social business in the city for people with visual and other disabilities.

In reality this budget cut made no savings, and the Community Placement Team at this stage was still intact.

We did however lose two excellent staff members who left for other work due to the obvious insecurity of the situation. The Head of Service also ended the partnership we had had with Cornerstone, telling us that Cornerstone were ‘rubbish’ (at a later stage he told us that Cornerstone were ‘much better’ than us). We lost from this process another excellent team member who moved – like many other staff in the council – to Aberdeenshire Council.

On top of this there had been a whole series of meetings of top officials within the council about disability services. These meetings did not involve front-line staff.

Clients with a physical disability were particularly affected by these cuts

What happened as a result was the closure of Aye Can – a social business aimed at those with more complex needs – and as the name suggests, re-cycling. Aye Can received much of its operating costs through the landfill levy at no cost to the council, but this was not taken into account when making the cut.

Inspire – with support from the Scottish Government and Sir Ian Wood – heralded that they would take over and improve on Aye Can.

The type of clients they were looking for were the more able ones. These would often have been clients who would have been able enough to be in more inclusive work settings in the community. Of course in the end, money having been spent on new premises and it being heralded as the way forward (with clients being paid proper wages) it never re-opened, and was lost as a service. More recently Garden Crafts, a similar social business, has been closed.

The next development was the introduction of Eligibility Criteria: which was a way for the council to say no to providing services to the community, and restricting what as a council it would provide.

Management said that this would mean that we could no longer provide any of our leisure activities, as they did not fit the criteria, and all leisure groups were closed down. Clients with a physical disability were particularly affected by these cuts, but so were those with a learning disability.

Supports to many in employment ended. Of course management would later deny having cut leisure services.

  • In the coming weeks,  further articles will be published, written by the ex-Team Leader of the then Community Placement Team, documenting what happened, and making suggestions for the future of services for people with disabilities in Aberdeen City. Read the fourth part of this six part tragedy, subtitledA Comedy of Errors Meets MacBeth: Act II’ in Aberdeen Voice next week.