July 2011 Archives

David Cameron was livid when his then opposite number - and prime minister - Gordon Brown suggested that he had it in for Sure Start. 

The leader of the party of the family railed: "It's a disgrace that Gordon Brown has been trying to frighten people about this."

If this past year is anything to go by, Brown was 100% correct. This blog has covered some of the recent battles to save Sure Start schemes. Now the New Statesman has revealed that 27 centres have shut since May 2010, a figure much higher than most of us had assumed but closer to the one that many of us had feared.

In addition, there is a disparity in funding between the richer areas and the poorer areas. Guess which comes off worst.

Should the coalition last four more years one can only speculate how many more Sure Start centres will be axed.

The professional spends only a quarter of their working time dealing with clients. 

Which means three-quarters of the time comprises tasks that do not require engagement with clients.

A tick-box culture is all-pervading and paperwork all-consuming. 

The daily routine involves grappling with computer systems.

Frontline staff are being shed in order to cut costs.

Familiar? No, it's not social work, but the probation profession.

Let's welcome them to the club.

Picture: Rex Features

The campaign to save the Supporting People centre featured in last week's blog about homelessness has stepped up a gear with the launch of another video.

Salford Council has signalled it is to cut funding to Lancaster House, a project that helps homeless single men kick-start their lives and run by charity Positive Lifestyles.

Without the scheme, the 38 service users would find themselves without a roof over their heads and prospects for changing their lives much diminished.

The latest video on You Tube (below) is a TV news-style production featuring staff and local people who want to save Lancaster House.

The campaign is also running on Facebook and Twitter and this week a petition, which can be signed online, passed 8,000 signatures.

If this facility closes, not only will it turn on to the streets up to 38 men but it will threaten the very ethos of Supporting People.

The campaign continues ahead of the council meeting on 1 August, which is due to confirm the closure of Lancaster House.

A tweet this morning from Know Drugs read: "Many of the reactions to the death of Amy Winehouse show society has a long way to go in understanding addiction."

So it was with impeccable timing that news broke of cuts to drugs services that were having a "devastating impact" on young people with substance misuse problems.

Health groups and charities say drug education in schools, treatment for young people and even support for professionals in the sector are being scaled back. 

Addaction reports that some councils are slashing funding for support services by up to 50% and others, including the London boroughs of Merton, Newham and Hammersmith and Fulham, are closing them.

The Tories are keen to return drug and alcohol misusers to the workplace, although they seem inclined to use the blunt tool of benefits sanctions to achieve this - hence last year's consultation.

Only in April, David Cameron said: "Is it OK to leave these people on incapacity benefit, year after year, not examining their circumstances, not seeing if we can help them?"

Assuming the prime minister means it isn't OK, how can he tolerate on his watch the reduction or withdrawal of services that are key to returning "these people" to mainstream life?

Please don't hide behind "the cuts", prime minister, otherwise you may be accused of having far to go in understanding addiction.

Community Care is running a conference in London on 15 September, Whole Family Support for Drug and Alcohol Misusing Parents: working together to promote recovery and positive parenting. Among the topics covered will be effective joint-agency 

working, engaging resistant parents, working with mental health services and understanding stigma.

Picture: Rex Features; model released

It is almost a relief to take a break from the daily coverage of Posh 'n' Beks - that's Cameron and Brooks - to return to the subject of spending cuts.

As usual, it is bad news. Economist Duncan Weldon, writing on the False Economy blog, forecasts that the next financial year will be far more austere than this one.

With the UK economy continuing to underperform, rising unemployment will reduce the tax take while the welfare bill increases.

Chancellor George Osborne will be left with only two options: cut public spending again and raise tax.

So much for front-loading the cuts, I hear you say. 

Is there any way out of this?

There should be, at least partly. The Treasury has discerned a £42bn hole in the UK's accounts that Osborne ought to address. This is the so-called tax gap, the difference between how much the Treasury expects to take and how much it does take. Admittedly, the figures are for 2008-9 but there is no suggestion that the gap has narrowed by much - and may even have widened.

Tax avoidance schemes (legal) and tax evasion (illegal) can both be identified as major causes. But, if the government has the gumption to launch a far-reaching crackdown, some of that £42bn could be recouped.

You never know, it might allow a little extra to be released into social care services without upsetting the chancellor's commitment to fiscal tightening.

Okay, we can dream.

One of the most obdurate memories of the Thatcher years was the seemingly perpetual rise in homelessness, particularly among teenagers, many of whom became casualties of a ruthless change in the benefits system.

They arrived in London from other parts of the country to find the streets paved not with gold but with - literally - their fellow travellers. They remained on the streets because the hostels and refuges where they could otherwise have sheltered were either full or unsafe. 

Nearly a quarter of a century later, rough sleeping is on the increase again. The charity Broadway reports an 8% rise in the past year in the number of rough sleepers on the capital's streets, for example.

And some projects that try to reinvigorate the lives of homeless people - the voluntary groups that are David Cameron's epitome of the Big Society - are struggling.

One of these is the Salford-run Positive Lifestyles, a non-profit making charity. But its Supported Living centre for single men, Lancaster House, is under threat because of budget cuts by the Labour-run council.

Although the council insists no firm decision has been made, the charity is taking no chances and has launched a Save Lancaster House campaign on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube (below).

The message is simple: shut Lancaster House and 38 people will be homeless.

What then? Thirty-eight more cases for Salford's adults' services? Or will the 38 just drift, 1980s-style, on to the streets to embark upon a life of anonymity?

Picture: Rex Features

A glimmer of hope for those campaigning against the closure of Sure Start centres around the country: rather than face a costly full-length judicial review, Hammersmith and Fulham Council in London has bowed to parent power and restored the early years service at one of the centres under threat. 

It follows a judge's decision that a parent had a case worth answering after the council cut funding to Cathnor Park Children's Centre.

If the case had gone further, it could have proved embarrassing for the Tory-run council as its consultation process and equality impact assessment were scrutinised.

With several other centres in the borough facing budget cuts or closure, it is clear that there are many battles to be fought before the war is won.

But as one parent told the Hammersmith and Fulham Chronicle: "It's a massive result and shows what can happen when people get together to challenge local authorities."

In recent years, local authority employees have become accustomed to pay freezes and generally have accepted them, albeit reluctantly. The price some are now paying for this acquiescence is to be victims of a creeping macho style of management: take a pay cut, councils are telling them, or face the sack. 

First it was Southampton Council with its apparently non-negotiatable 5.5% pay cut, an intransigence that has resulted in a city today "buried beneath about one million bin bags".

Next week a massive wave of strikes involving 600 employees will disrupt services further.

Southampton's muscular approach to industrial relations has now been followed in the West Midlands.

Shropshire Council has threatened to sack all 6,500 employees if they do not accept a pay cut of 5.4% under new contracts.

This is a crucial moment for local authority staff. If the Shropshire workers agree to their employer's proposal, it will hand carte blanche to councils throughout the land to start driving down pay.

And remember, a pay cut will also reduce contributions to the final pension pot, a source of dispute in any case.

But I do wonder what would happen if none of the 6,500 staff in Shropshire re-applied for their jobs? Okay, this is an unlikely scenario, but it would put the employer in an impossible position to maintain services. Moreover, it would need an amazing display of unity to engineer this protest and, some would argue, a stubborn streak of foolhardiness.

But could you blame them if they all wanted out? On the other hand, it could force a climb-down.

Oh for the halcyon days of a generous pay freeze.

As a postscript, my colleague Kirsty McGregor reports that Southampton is now offering its children's social workers - but not adults' social workers - a £1,400 payment. Divide and rule? Sounds like a particularly transparent attempt.

After pop star Prince assumed "the artist formerly known as" moniker when his change of name - to wit a symbol - was rendered unpronounceable, it is tempting to apply the same ID sleight of hand to BASW. 

Let's face it, the British Association of Social Work - the College of Social Work always was a bit of a mouthful.

But tis has been partly solved since BASW's act of detente with the competing College of Social Work. 

Wisely, BASW has resisted any temptation to become the British Association of Social Work - the Organisation Formerly Known as the College of Social Work, the name on its website having been quietly changed to simply BASW.

But after so long displaying the more grandiose title, the four letters left look a little lonely.

So stand by for the organisation to become BASW - the Trade Union, in recognition of May's AGM vote in favour of the launch of a representative body just for social workers.

Of course, there is no reason why it should not adopt as its name the British Association of Social Work - the Organisation Formerly Known as the College of Social Work but Now the Trade Union for Social Workers, or BASW - TOFKATCoSWbNtTUfSW for short. Much like Prince used to do, in fact.

Just how many identities can BASW assume before the year end? More than Prince?

Picture: Rex Features