Matt Smith of UNISON challenges parties to revitalise public services
UNISON, the largest Scottish union, is to mount an £80,000 campaign to challenge all the political parties to deliver in the crucial area of Scotland’s public services. Recently the union, which represents 150,000 Scottish public service workers, issued its manifesto for the election. Entitled Revitalise our Public Services, it sets out a series of principles that need to be adopted, before public services can be delivered successfully. The £80,000 campaign will also involve newspaper adverts, direct mailing to Prospective Parliamentary Candidates and other organisations, and a magazine to all 150,000 UNISON members calling on them to challenge their candidates to adopt the union’s principles.
The manifesto sets out eight principles that need to be adopted to successfully revitalise our public services. It is the most comprehensive and innovative look at public service renewal Scotland has seen. It is based on a public service ethos; on the principles of selflessness, integrity, objectivity, openness, accountability, competence and equality. It also deals with specific areas of Scotland’s public services outlining the issues and the union’s solutions.
The union rejects the artificial ‘produce/consumer’ divide, argues for planned development that involves new methods of monitoring and collaboration between services. It rejects funding public services from the private sector and calls for resources to be made available to attract necessary staff and to allow broader service delivery. Particularly innovative is UNISON’s call for public service networks to pool the expertise from across Scotland without wasteful and disruptive reorganisations and restructurings. This idea has had some trial in the Health Service with clinical service networks, but the union is suggesting that it could be more widely applied in other areas of public service.
Additionally UNISON is calling for performance measurement to include measuring resources available, service delivery, the benefit of that service and the way it is delivered. This is a new concept in performance measuring, which has before always simply viewed the outputs as measurable.
The manifesto is a mixture of credit and criticism in its treatment of the Scottish Government’s track record. It welcomes the substantial additional resources now going into Scottish public services. It also welcomes the ground-breaking Staffing Protocol, addressing the two-tier workforce created by PPP schemes, whilst maintaining its opposition to PPP as an expensive, wasteful way of funding public service renewal which fragments the public service team.
Other areas of credit include the Parliament’s serious moves on equality, the establishment of free personal care to Scotland’s elderly and the recent abolition of constraints on councils’ ability to borrow. But the union is clear on what is needed in our public services. And it is an area that no party is tackling adequately. That is the area of resources or capacity. It is clear that no advance will be made in the maintenance let alone the expansion of public services unless resources are made available to tackle staff shortages increase training, and address areas of priority.
For example the current staffing crisis in Social Work, is not merely a problem of low salaries, although that is important. It is also a problem of the level of support and understanding given to people who choose the difficult job of social work. Offering ‘golden hellos’ as some local councils are doing merely shifts the problem around the country. Similarly, health care professional vacancies need a short/medium and long term strategy. Expensive ‘quick fixes’ using private agency staff cannot solve the long-term problem. We must both offer incentives, and remove barriers to attract both new and returning health care staff.
Low pay across all the public services cannot continue, and UNISON welcomes the recent deals that we have negotiated and fought for in both local government and health that bring the lowest paid above the £5 per hour figure for the first time. Now we and Scotland’s political parties need to broaden this fight to include in particular, higher and further education and our community and voluntary sector, where low pay continues to be prevalent – affecting a disproportionately high number of women. Nursery workers too are badly paid for the importance of the service they deliver. It is ironic that the people who are in the frontline at the start of the education of our future generation are not recognised for the contribution they make. It has to be changed if the welcome commitments to nursery education are to be delivered successfully.
UNISON welcomes the recognition of the community and voluntary sector as an important deliverer of public services, but failure to properly resource this sector, and indeed many organisations who fund this sector, must be tackled. We cannot successfully deliver joined up services involving different public sectors if some are being under resourced. In Water and Energy, we need in Scotland to step back from the failed ethos of competition and to develop a strategy that builds on our strengths. Co-ordination and retention of skills and expertise are more important than short-term competition and pared safety margins.
These points and many others will be being made to parties and candidates direct, and publicly through newspaper advertising and by direct mailing of UNISON’s large membership. Parties need to be aware that UNISON members have a vote and are likely to use it. They must address the concerns of those who provide and use our public services if they are to deserve those votes and, more importantly, if we are to successfully deliver revitalised public services.
Matt Smith is UNISON’s Scottish Secretary