By John Sullivan,
I bring to those interested in the retention of high quality
disability support services for seriously disabled and impaired people in
Barnet , provided by the what has now been found to be the bogus provider
"Your Choice Barnet "my latest update. YCB a company formed to be little more than a front
for the activities of the elected councillors of London Borough of Barnet in
the form of a Teckal company that councillors actually control and call all the shots for. Just to remind you, local councillors make all
of the major decisions regarding the policies and direction of travel of YCB
the majority of which are currently controversial, that might be described as
the bullets, and the so called directors of YCB who are little more than council employees are
there purely to fire them., As previously stated , in my opinion to hide from the electorate the underhand and
odious decisions the councillors are making from their electorate. Because even
in this day and age where the branding of these groups as scrounging skiving
layabouts by central government is acceptable to some, it is not the accepted
perception of the majority, and
destroying the quality of life of the most vulnerable people within our
community is not seen as an acceptable activity or a vote winner.
Juts to make the point our local councillors brag about not
raising council taxes which in reality is putting off the inevitable in the
name of politics that will come back to haunt us in the near future , se e Mr
Reasonable http://reasonablenewbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/barnets-council-tax-freeze-short-term.html
What they fail to do is explain the reality of their
political games and the impact freezing council tax may have on the most
vulnerable in our community amongst others .Take for example the latest
decisions to just slice one million pounds from the budget to provide for the service users of
YCB , no debates no discussions no consideration of the damage it might do to
their quality of life, and most definitely no attempt to consult with them ,
their parents or their family carers on the possible impacts of this massive
unqualified and unjustified cut in
funding. They claim to have consulted with staff, however any cursory visit to
the reality and the terms of those so called consultations would seriously
question the Oxford Concise definition of the word consultation, which to the
uninitiated is the bogus( this is what we are doing whether you like it or not
) LBB form of consultation. The most sickening thing is that
council taxes at some stage will have to rise, to suggest otherwise is an
irresponsible political game . To avoid
the current proposed destruction of quality of support services for these
groups , the making of redundancy the best option to valuable staff, the huge
cuts to staff wages , the deskilling of staff, the replacement of skilled staff
with unskilled staff , the reduction in staff numbers, the freezing of staff
training budgets, all of which could have a profound and damaging impact on their
quality of life would cost you the
Barnet tax payer just ( 20)PENCE per week, not £20 or £200 or £20,000 but
TWENTY PENCE PER WEEK. Once these invaluable staff are gone they are gone
forever.
It is a strange thing
to note that when we talk about public services so many people have had
their minds trained by Conservative central office and the media to see an ugly
monster in the shape of a trade unionist, or pubic services as second rate that
will always be provided to a higher standard by the private sector. However the
reality is for many of these like minded people, when age or illness or
infirmity strikes them or their loved
ones down, they suddenly realise the value of public services and public
servants, they suddenly realise these folk are not ugly monsters but real
people, caring people special people that should be valued, people with a
vocation and a special characteristic the ability to care for the most
vulnerable , they suddenly realise to late that they have been misled.
High quality competent care support workers do not grow on
trees and cannot be replaced by any Tom Dick or Harriett, as central government
and our local conservative councillors would have you believe . In many ways
they are irreplaceable, and having been
witness to the coming and going of many skilled care support workers over more
than 45 years, like many parents and
family carers with a family member with
a serious disability, we know the value of our support staff in Barnet and we
truly value them, unlike the YCB board of directors and our local councillors.
I think we parents and family carers can speak with the voice of a little bit
of experience. In fact my wife and myself alone collectively have nearly one hundred
years experience at the coal face of dealing with a child, teenager and now a grown woman of nearly fifty years of
age with a learning difficulty. Do you know that collectively among us parents
and family carers and the mentally able service users of YCB, we have hundreds
of years of coal face 24/7 experience of dealing with all aspects of disability
catered for by YCB. Yet we were not invited to the table to consult on the
proposed changes to service provision for our loved ones our family members or
ourselves, because cutting the bills , destroying service quality and blind
austerity come first second and last. Had we family carers and service users been
invited to the consultation table we would never have sanctioned the
unjustified and unprecedented attack
from all angles on the frontline staff that we rely upon, that care for
our family members and loved ones that we value so highly and are in no way valued by YCB/LBB.
As many of you know
we took our concerns to a YCB board meeting
with a prepared statement to read to the board after we had wrongly assumed we would have the opportunity to ask some pointed questions
on the content of the document being discussed at that meeting, or at the very
least be able to take up less than five minutes reading our prepared statement.
Again as you know we were not heard,in fact the board of directors including
the supposed carers and service users board representative , walked out on us
and ushered in were burly security
guards to evict us from the premises. It would appear that the CEO of YCB
Tracey Lees has had time to reflect upon that walk out and decided to send a
letter to staff members the day after the board meeting, followed up by a letter
to my wife and I and I presume all
family carers and service users that arrived on Tuesday 4th June. Letters that are typical of LBB/YCB in the
attempts at the use of smoke and mirrors, to attempt to put a gloss on the
realities' . I would like to challenge the
content of these what I feel are highly dubious letters, in a reasonable
manner and include both factual
realities that are so conveniently omitted that I hasten to add is standard
practise for LBB/YCB. That attempt to imply
that the opinions of staff , parents, carers and service users are valued and
their views are respected, and that staff are valued. Furthermore the letter I
just received from Tracey Lees inviting
us to a meeting that basically says .
" We invite you to a meeting at the
most inconvenient time of the day possible, and by the way your attending will
make absolutely no difference to our decision, because we are still refusing to
consult with family carers parents and service users and sticking to our guns
regarding our bogus consultations with staff . And also by the way although we
are giving out the impression we value your opinions in an attempt to cover up
out contempt for your opinions ". What actually beggars belief is the
timing of the meeting, I mean what planet is T Lees on , is she not aware many service users are either at centres between 3
& 5pm or on route home. Or being cynical is she well aware of this fact and
ensuring that by her timing , practically nobody will be able to turn up. To be
honest I would not bother anyway, they have made up their minds and it would
simply be another talking shop another farcical meeting claiming meaningful
consultation.
Tell you what, don't take my word for it just read the
letters yourself.
I will add the draft of a proposed letter to CQC as Tracey Lees makes
an issue of the CQC report
I think this is a balanced and
reasonable response to the CQC issue raised by T Lees?.
We have all heard the
expression, " You don't value what you have until its gone ", well in
this instance the family carers service users and parents do value what we have
and that is why some of us are fighting to retain valuable staff that are
leaving in droves . The author of the March 1st proposals resigned, ,more than
twenty skilled staff have accepted voluntary redundancy because they do not
support the claim the changes will have no impact on service users, r their
ability to do their job safely and competently, many other valuable staff are
demoralized and considering leaving and
they cannot all be wrong. It makes a nonsense of the implied cooperative and
compatible consultation with staff claimed by T Lees, when so many staff have
left and so many more are considering leaving. Even in their own Your Choice Barnet Operational Plan presented
to the board last week they make it clear at page 62 1.2 regarding Implementing the new staff
structure " "There will be a lot of vacancies within our services
during this period which will need to be filled with "temporary staff
" whilst recruitment is taking place.
They are losing valuable experienced and
skilled staff because they do not accept the changes and the cuts in wages, yet expect to replace them with staff of
equal quality, it just makes no sense.
If the current skilled staff are unhappy why would new people be
encouraged to join a company that in no way values the skills of its staff,
leaving us with what they call temporary staff the any Tom , Dick or Harriet I
referred to earlier. These proposals are a gamble with the lives and physical
and mental well being of every YCB service user, it is yet another fingers
crossed approach by LBB who want nothing other than to wash their hands of the
problem. This is a car crash waiting to happen and before all these valuable staff are all lost forever in the name of blind
austerity coupled with blind short sighted ideological stupidity, and contempt
for the quality of life of YCB service users, an example of blind austerity gone mad, we must challenge the
proposals before it is to late.
The question is what if they
have got the recruitment gamble wrong, how long will we be left with temporary
unskilled staff looking after our
children and our family members, how long will we have to take a risk with Tom,
Dick and Harriet, and more importantly why should we agree to putting our loved
ones at potential risk with temporary Tom, Dick and Harriet, in this fingers
crossed gamble that they have refused to consult us service users family carers
and parents about. More importantly how can they possibly with any substance or
rationale, claim that there will be no impact on service users
,furthermore how can they possibly
provide a bona fide Equalities Impact Assessment based on what is nothing more than a fingers
crossed shot in the dark gamble with the lives of vulnerable people plain and simple.
I am aware I have gotten carried
away at stages but that's just me, but I
have attempted to stick with the truth and I hope you will agree that the CADDSS
letter to CQC challenges the presentation of T Lees in a constructive and reasonable
manner, I think you will agree that the challenge against the claim of valuing
staff is a reasonable one, I think you will find the determination of YCB not
to consult with parents family carers and services users has been confirmed in
a reasonable manner, and challenging the timings of the meetings could not be
more reasonable considering the times chosen could not possibly be more
unreasonable.
Talking of reasonable and
reasonableness and reason , let me take our back to local blogger Mr Reasonable
who has exposed the failings of LBB councillors time and time again and got it
right, and as is standard practise for LBB councillors they always ignore the views
and opinions of Barnet residents . Incidentally Mr Reasonable is the man that
christened the One Barnet Programme
" The One Billion Pound Gamble " that the failed Your Choice Barnet
car crash is a part of . Mr Reasonable ( John ) specialises in the field of
outsourcing public services, that is what he does for a living day in and day
out, which implies he knows a lot more about outsourcing than your bog standard LBB councillor.
It also implies he knows more
than most that might bother to read this blog, and as he is a Barnet resident,
this is where he lives , this is where his children are growing up, he
naturally has a very personal and vested
interest in the long term well being of all Barnet residents. He cannot be
accused of opposing the outsourcing of
public services which is the mantra of
local conservative councillors against any opposition to outsourcing, because
as stated that is what he does for a living. So I thought I would end this blog
which is just for the record, with the reasonable ,impartial and educated
opinions of Mr Reasonable on YCB to afford you
some food for thought.
Like Mr Reasonable and all at CADDSS ( Campaign Against
Destruction of Disability Support Services )
Cads for short, with the support of many YCB parents carers and services
users and our friends at Baps ( Barnet Alliance for Public Service ) we are
seeking to have YCB services brought back in-house to protect the vulnerable
from the avarice and greed of the market place. We might be fighting to protect
you or one of your love ones you never know, because none of us know what
awaits us in life, our lives can change at a stroke, and if it suggests to you
that not only are the current people in need of YCB services worth 20p per week
, but so are you are your loved ones,
then I have made my point.
That is why I am asking you to support our campaign to bring YCB services
back in-house.
Finally as you are aware a small group of parents family
cares including myself have sought legal advice on this matter and await
advice, but it would appear we might
have right on our side so keep watching !.
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