Swan Edinburgh- Press Release 29th November 2009

29th November 2009



Pressure is mounting on City of Edinburgh Council to listen to the cities most vulnerable people, and provide a decent rate of payment to buy good quality services.

Following their defeat on the 19th November, the Councils Finance and Resources Committee will meet on the 3rd December, to look again at the proposed tender of care services in Edinburgh .

At the general council meeting service users, many of whom had attended protests in the lead up to the meeting, were assured that the freeze on Direct Payments would be lifted and claims would be processed, giving them the ability to choose who provides their service.

Highlighting the serious and growing dissatisfaction with the council’s plans, 533 people have now applied for a direct payment in order to opt out of the tendering process and continue with their current provider.

The concern for people now is that the Direct Payment will be set at the rate of the winning tender, which is too low to buy the quality services that they currently use, and will in effect force them into the care of the private companies who won the tender. This has angered service users and campaign groups, who were assured that Direct Payments would offer real choice.

A representative of Edinburgh ’s Support Workers Action Network (SWAN) pointed out that;

“Originally the council was aiming to make 10% cuts, but have cynically used the protests against the blocking of Direct Payments to make further savings of 20%”

Many of the organisations which lost out in the tender could absorb a 10% cut, but would be unable to continue under the proposed cuts, forcing their service users to choose between a handful of cheap alternatives.

A recent study of the effects of tendering Social Care services, commissioned by the Scottish Government and carried out by Strathclyde University , found that a common effect of tendering is the loss of experienced, motivated staff.

The Council repeats its assurances that continuity of care would be maintained with existing staff transferring under TUPE regulations, but for many of the cities support workers this is not an option.



A support worker from SWAN said;

“The company that stands to win the biggest contract if this tendering process is allowed to go ahead is Choices Care. They pay their staff £6.05 per hour. There is no way you can retain good, dedicated, qualified staff over a long period of time if the role of support worker is devalued to barely above minimum wage. This would be disastrous for us and the people we support”.

The Council and the voluntary sector have invested in recent years, to create a well trained and qualified social care workforce. This is at risk of being lost, as private companies move in to take on voluntary sector contracts. Edinburgh campaign group SWAN have begun a petition, calling on the Council to set Direct Payment rates at a level which can sustain reasonable pay and conditions for frontline staff who have mortgages to pay and families to support.

The petition, signed by almost 200 people, states;

"Social care support workersplay a vital role in the provision of housing support services....It is essential that they receive a reasonable, living wage that takes into account the skilled, specialist nature of their work."

Amidst all the talk of savings it is easy to forget that the Council claims its primary motivation for putting services out to tender was to improve quality, quoting 70% quality to 30% cost.

So far the Council has avoided too much focus on the quality issue, particularly after it was revealed that the report produced by the independent care standards agency the Care Commission accounted for just 4% of the quality assessment. The rest being made up of the Councils in-house assessment criteria.

A major finding of the Strathclyde research was that the public were kept in the dark about how crucial decisions were being made, a mistake Edinburgh Council is clearly repeating.

The report stated that service users and support organisations;

“request greater transparency from local authorities with regard to why tenders are won and lost, and the balance between cost and quality in the final decision.”

Thursday’s meeting offers Edinburgh Council another chance to provide decent care services for its most vulnerable people, with service users and support workers ready for a long battle if they fail to deliver on their promises.