Month: September 2011

Birmingham Council has announced plans to cut care services to save £33.2m by increasing eligibility thresholds. This will mean five thousand people in the city losing vital support. Cuts include the closure of six older people’s residential homes, increased charges for personal care, and the loss of skilled care workers as services become increasingly reliant on lower paid casual staff. A recent Panorama on the abuse of disabled residents at the Castlebeck unit showed the horrific results of providing social care on the cheap through privatised companies. Yet now the council is also proposing to privatise social work services using social enterprises. This will mean social work is turned into a business and workers forced to compete for contracts.

In addition many of those affected by cuts, disabled people and those with severe and terminal medical conditions, are also being forced to undergo‘work capability assessments’ and declared fit for work by the hated multinational Atos Origin which will profit from an outsourced £300 million government contract. This system has already led several claimants to commit suicide.

However, care service users and social and care workers are increasingly questioning why they should pay for a crisis caused not by them but by bankers. And so care staff and their unions in Birmingham are joining forces with disabled people to save our services and campaign against these discriminatory cuts.

In May a High Court judge ruled Birmingham council’s plans were unlawful under the Disability Discrimination Act and these cutback plans were put on hold. This is a fantastic victory but will only be the start of the fight back necessary. To build on this a joint campaign has been launched involving West Midlands SWAN, Disabled People Against the Cuts, Birmingham City Unison, Birmingham Against the Cuts and the Right to Work campaign.  We are planning a month of action in July against austerity measures in Birmingham to coincide with the first UK monitoring report of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Activities will include a lobby of the first full council meeting since the election at 5pm on 5th July, a public meeting on 20th July.

What you can do:

Tuesday 5th July from 5pm – LOBBY Birmingham Council – Lobby of the first full Birmingham council meeting since the election – assemble Victoria Square, Birmingham

Wednesday 20th July 630pm – 830pm – Public Meeting: Hands Off Our Care & Support Services – speakers from SWAN, Disabled People Against Cuts, Birmingham Unison, Birmingham Against the Cuts and Right to Work. Venue: Transport House – Unite (TGWU) Offices, 211 Broad Street, Birmingham B15

Pamphlet – Hands Off Our Care & Support Services campaign is producing a pamphlet about the cuts and what we can do to stop them – watch this space.

We invite you to join us in demanding better public services for service users, carers, support workers and social workers, not more cuts and marketization.

For more info email: handsoffbrumservices@gmail.com

It is against this backdrop that it has become imperative for workers, trade unionists, students, academics, service users and citizens to unite to discuss the impact of these draconian policies and to develop strategies for resistance. This meeting aims to raise awareness about these and other issues and to establish an ad hoc committee to organise and co-ordinate future activities and to represent the sub region at regional and national events.

Who are the SWAN?

SWAN is a broad based democratic social movement of people who believe in a just, equal and free society and who reject the logic that capitalism is the only basis for ensuring this. Indeed, in keeping with the values and ethos of the Radical Social Work tradition, the orientation of SWAN is towards a socialist alternative to the current rampant and inhumane capitalist order. As the SWAN manifesto states. “SWAN is a loose network of social work practitioners, academics, students and social welfare service users united in their concern that social work activity is being undermined by managerialism and marketisation, by the stigmatisation of service users and by welfare cuts and restrictions. We believe that good social work is a worthwhile activity that can help people address the problems and difficulties in their lives. Many of these difficulties are rooted in the inequalities and oppressions of the modern world and good social work necessarily involves confronting such structural and public causes of so many private ills.”

Who should attend?

Although, as noted above, historically linked to the re emerge of radical social work, SWAN is becoming a broad alliance of social workers, youth workers, community workers and other ‘human services’ workers that are concerned about the attacks on their respective professionals. So, the meeting is open to social work/youth work/community work students, trade unionists academics, practitioners and service users. ALL are welcome!

When and where is the event?

3-5 PM on 25th March 2011 , @Coventry University, Room RCG33, Richard Crossman Building, Jordan Well, Coventry CV1. Number 20 on the below location map: http://wwwm.coventry.ac.uk/university/maps/Pages/Campusmap.aspx

What

The event will be very participative so there will be ample opportunity for all to contribute. To frame the discussion, there will be two brief presentations from: Maggie Lewis, Senior Lecturer in Social Work, Coventry University and local SWAN organiser and Rich Moth, SWAN West Midlands Coordinator and member of National committee.

There is no need to book a place – just turn up! For further information email Gurnam Singh at g.singh@coventry.ac.uk or John Harris at j.harris@warwick.ac.uk