Your Choice Barnet - Driving low paid staff into poverty.

I received notice today that there has been a strike ballot by Your Choice Barnet care staff. Your Choice Barnet (YCB) is part of the Barnet Group, a 100% owned trading arm of Barnet Council. The Council decided it would be a good idea to outsource adult social care. As a result they handed responsibility for the service over to the Barnet Homes who already run the Council's social housing. We were told how the new company was going to save council tax payers a fortune by getting lots of other authorities and other social care providers. Surprise surprise it didn't happen and now YCB are in a financial mess having had to borrow £1 million to get then through the cash shortfall when the new business didn't materialise. Rather than stand back and see that this was a flawed strategy they decided to cut wages, not of the most senior staff but of the front line care staff whose numbers have already been cut. So more work and a 9.5% pay cut has led to a strike ballot. many people are anti union claiming they are unrepresentative. Well in this case the strike ballot was 100% in favour of strike action something which is exceptionally rare and which indicate the depth of feeling amongst staff.

We all know someone who is elderly; a relative, a friend, a neighbour. We expect them to receive decent care from staff who are trained and are consistent. Unsurprisingly the pay cut and more hours has led to a number of staff leaving, replaced by agency staff who may only do the job for a few weeks before they move on elsewhere. This is a desperate situation and entirely of the Council's making. Some services cannot be privatised as they are both uneconomic to a profit driven organisation and critical to the welfare of vulnerable individuals. Driving low paid staff into poverty is not the solution

Barnet Council need to do the right thing and quickly. They need to bring the service back in house and run it properly, treating staff fairly and ensuring the vulnerable get a consistently good quality service. That is the only way this situation will be resolved satisfactorily.

Barnet Group cut care staff wages and advertise for salesman job costing £120k+ per annum

Thanks to an eagle eyed resident who spotted this job ad for the Barnet Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of Barnet Council covering Your Choice Barnet (YCB)and Barnet Homes.
Common sense tells me that the best way to care for people is to employ staff who are well trained and motivated to deal directly with those who require the service. A couple of weeks ago YCB announced they were cutting care staff allowances for working nights, weekends and bank holidays. That doesn't help motivate staff or enhance staff retention and ultimately leads to worse care for recipients when there is a rapid turnover of demotivated staff.
Spending £90,000 a year plus £30,000+ on-costs on a Director to ensure "that all customers enjoy high quality care and support services" doesn't seem to be the right solution. Perhaps the giveaway is in the penultimate  paragraph where it says they are looking for someone who can generate new business -  a salesman in other words. Perhaps a title Director of Sales would be more appropriate - stuff the care follow the money.

.

Your Choice Barnet Board Meeting - Is bankrupcy Inevitable?

Last night I attended the Your Choice Barnet (YCB) Board Meeting and came away with a very real fear that this is an organisation in terminal decline.

It was a rather restrained and stage managed affair, which never really got down to the big issues which will impact the future survival of this organisation. YCB are currently proposing cuts to staffing, reduction in staffing skills and have already made massive increases to some charges to meet the financial shortfall they face this year. Barnet Council have up until now paid YCB through a block grant, guaranteeing a revenue stream to fund services. However, as from the start of this financial year in April Barnet Council have been paying on for services actually taken. Now while this may sound fair, it shifts all the risks of non attendance and providing a comprehensive and seemless service onto YCB.

Last night we saw details of which elements of the service are operating at a profit or a loss and the scale of the losses in some services are quite shocking.The biggest problem appears to be the Supported Living which made a loss of £513,042 last year. According to YCB's website supported living:

"Helps people with learning disabilities to live as independently as possible in their own home.
By offering service users support in all areas of living, we help them to enjoy life to the full, both at home and out and about. We encourage people to develop and maintain purposeful and meaningful skills.
It is important to us that people are secure and happy. That's why we ensure people live in neighbourhoods that they like and that meet their needs. We offer 24-hour support where needed."

Valley Way Respite Service also made a loss of  £195,209 and based on the discussions last night this seems to be because the facility is fully booked at weekends but under occupied during the week.

What also came out last night is that YCB are providing services which the Council are not funding. One of these included escort services on coaches, something which I would have thought was essential for the safety and well being for everyone on the coaches.


With the shift this year to payment only for services provided the situation looks incredibly difficult. In a SWOT analysis of the business going forward some of the threats include:

• More spending cuts to come in 2013/14;
• Competition in care and support market increasingly fierce - driving down prices;
• Low morale of staff following on from restructure;
• Care managers not referring people to YC services seen as too expensive and /or not offering choice; and
• Continuing local pressure for YCB to back in house and impact on staff/relatives/carers.

 The budget monitoring report has a very serious conclusion when it says:

"YCB is currently a loss making organisation and to ensure its viability in the long term it needs to embark on a cost cutting programme so as to increase financial security. The company has received a £1 million loan to ease its liquidity issues however, it is imperative that if costs are not reduced and income streams not increased, there is a risk of further liquidity crisis in the future. The main source of income for the company is from the Council and as it is now based on usage, there are income and liquidity implications if the company does not work towards increasing centres usage by clients. This risk is greater because the company's costs are largely fixed."

This should have massive alarm bells ringing at Barnet Council but I get the impression that actually they just don't care. Last night one of the board members asked if someone from Barnet Council could attend the next board meeting to give an indication of how much budget they had. I felt like shouting out "Why the hell aren't they here now", but I know the answer already. Barnet Council have very neatly shifted all responsibility for adult social care to someone else and washed their hands of the problems that will arise.

YCB see taking the service back in house as a threat - I see it as an inevitable conclusion and the sooner it happens the better. Prolonging the financial misery will inevitably impact on service users carers/relatives and the care staff all of whom will suffer from cuts in services, pay rates.

At the end of the meeting last night carers, relatives and services users wanted to express their views but the curtain came down on this tragedy and the actors flounced out. This is  a situation which needs to be addressed now, today, and unless it is the most vulnerable in our society will pay the price.

Your Choice Barnet - 66% price hike for the most vulnerable.

Your Choice Barnet was set up as a Local Authority Trading Company (LATC) to provide adult social care for some of the most vulnerable people residents in Barnet. The purpose of the "arms length" organisation is to separate out the delivery of services from the funding of services. In so doing it has very neatly allowed Barnet Council to wash its hands regarding the provision of care services and to find a very underhand way to cut social care budgets.

John Sullivan wrote on Friday that a friend of his had seen their monthly charges from Your Choice Barnet (YCB) rise from £672/month to £1,120/month since April -  a 66.6% increase. This is not because the person was having more service or because wage costs have risen 66.6% but because the business plan that was written when YCB was being suggested was fundamentally flawed. They assumed at the time that they would be generating income from lots of new customers something which anyone with an ounce of common sense would have challenged as high implausible. Indeed Barnet Unison analysed the report in detail and found serious shortcomings which undermined the credibility of the entire scheme. But as ever in Barnet, a few political dogmatists ignored the obvious and pressed ahead with YCB.

Two years on and the entire scheme is falling apart. Staff are being made redundant meaning worse care will be given to service users, and charges are rocketing. And very neatly Barnet Council are standing on the sidelines saying "Not us Guv. Take it up with YCB". Well on Wednesday evening it is every residents opportunity to show your disgust with YCB as there is a lobby organised of their quarterly board meeting.

Wednesday 29 May, Committee Room 2, 1st Floor, Barnet House. The meeting starts at 6.00pm so get there at 5.30pm to make sure you get a seat.

Important Meeting Tonight - Your Choice Barnet

Bring “Your Choice Barnet” back in-house

Thursday 11th April 2013, 7pm at the Greek Cypriot Centre, Britannia Road, N12

Barnet Council created the Local Authority Trading Company “Your Choice Barnet” to provide social care for adults with learning and physical disabilities.  After only a year the company is in trouble and planning to reduce the quality of services, and Barnet Homes is preparing to pay a £1 million bail-out.

Find out more about this scandal and why we are calling for Barnet Council to bring “Your Choice Barnet” back in-house at our public meeting.

Confirmed speakers include:

• John Sullivan, parent and carer of a service user of the Your Choice day centre;
• Roger Lewis, social worker and disabled, Disabled People Against the Cuts & Social Work Action Network;
• UNISON representative;
• Cllr Sachin Rajput, Cabinet member for Adults Social Services was invited but declined; we hope he may still change his mind and be part of the panel.

Panel to be followed by open discussion.
Come and have your say on bringing this vital service back in-house, as promised by councillors before they outsourced it.
What you can do: Forward this to your networks or print the leaflet and invite your neighbours; sign the petition and spread it among your friends and participate in the e-mail campaign.

• Download a copy of the leaflet here.
• Sign the petition here.

One Barnet Flagship Project Needs £1m Bailout

Barnet Cabinet members have repeatedly said that the outsourcing mistakes of the past will not be repeated. "We have a team of experts" they say "we are getting professional advice". Well Friday saw the public airing of a problem that has been rumbling for some time. It has become clear that Your Choice, the Local Authority Trading Company (LATC) providing Adult Social Care is in deep financial difficulties. I blogged about this back in November when board papers revealed that the forecast surplus of £263,000 for the year 2013/14 was now being forecast as a loss of £700,000.

On Friday a consultation document was issued which made it clear the financial situation is difficult.
Your Choice Barnet are currently projecting a loss for 2012-13 of approximately £60,000. This amount would have been higher but as illustrated at 3.4 below some efficiency savings have been achieved. There is also currently a query from the Council in respect of £345k that has been paid in respect of growth and the projected loss does not take account of any monies that might need to be repaid. If no changes are made with regard to efficiencies, the change from a block contract to payment-by-actual would create a gap of approximately £1m.

It goes on to says: "Barnet Homes has agreed to provide a 3 year loan to Your Choice Barnet. This loan has been agreed by the Barnet Homes Board and is subject to commercial interest rates. It will be repayable by lump sum payments at the end of each year of the term of the loan".

As a consequence of these financial difficulties Your Choice are proposing to implement a series of measure which include: 

• Review the structure which will result in 6.8 posts being deleted and the introduction of a new management structure
• Deletion of enhanced payments and introduction of a 7 day week
• Benchmarking of salaries with similar organisations and the introduction of a new salary structure in line with the findings of the benchmarking exercise

They are cutting 3 part time night staff from a residential respite care unit, they are downgrading 17 support worker staff to assistant support workers, (meaning a cut in pay) and enhancements for working nights, weekends and public holidays will be scrapped. Instead of having two staff on duty at night it will be reduced to one and as they so delicately put it:
 "For continence issues, those who require changing in the night do not require the use of hoists as they are already in bed".  
On this subject I can speak from personal experience. In the last few days before my mum died she was bed bound and had 'continence issues'. The care home had put her in nappies but she became very distressed. She had always been a most fastidious person and the thought of going in a nappy was a ghastly thought for her. She asked for a bedpan. Because we had chosen a care home where they were not under pressure to be "competitive", they did as she asked. It took two staff to help her but that simple act allowed her to settle down and helped her maintain her dignity to the end. Often organisations talk about 'business units' and 'resources' but these are people, someone's flesh and blood, someone's mother, father, brother or sister and they deserve the very best.


What these cuts means in practice is that staff who are not well paid now will be paid even less in the future so as to remain "competitive" and win new "business".  When staff are caring for the most vulnerable, personally, I do not necessarily want them to be competitive in terms of price nor do I think of caring for vulnerable people as 'business". I want them to be the best possible person for the job, because they are dealing with our nearest and dearest, our family members, our neighbours, who need the best possible attention.

Back in 2011 a business case was prepared for this One Barnet Project and was presented to the Cabinet Resources Committee - you can read the business case here. This document was prepared by the Council's One Barnet Implementation Partner (Agilisys/iMPOWER) who have so far been paid £5.8 million.

The business case was optimistic and incomplete. Unison put forward a clear and detailed critique of the business case identifying its shortcoming but, as ever, this was simply ignored. Sadly Unison were right and the business case has now been proved to be flawed. Some staff will lose their jobs, some will get even lower pay and the most vulnerable will see the quality of their care reduced. That is unacceptable.

Perhaps Richard Cornelius, Dan Thomas and the other cabinet members will now see why so many people are concerned at the validity of the entire One Barnet Outsourcing project given that the business case was prepared by exactly the same team of consultants who prepared this flawed model. But most of all think about the users who will suffer those moment of indignity and lack of care, all for the sake of competitiveness. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!