Month: October 2011

The attack on child benefits is important because it breached the state’s commitment to universal benefits. Osborne then went on to announce a £7 billion cut in welfare – on top of the £11bn announced in June and £6bn in May – £24bn taken from the poorest and most vulnerable people in society.
 
The government are slashing a third of council spending by 2015. That means a third of council jobs to go, a third of crucial services axed. It will mean social work and social care services reduced and outsourced. It will mean a poorer service for users, worse pay and working conditions for the remaining workers and a less safe service.
 
The increase in the state pension age has been rushed forward four years to 2018 for men and 2020 for women. The government want £1.8bn savings a year from public sector pensions. That will mean an average increase in contributions of £450 extra per year, on top of a freeze on pension rates for up to three years.

Money for social housing projects is being slashed by 60 percent. New council tenants will be forced to pay ‘market rents’ and will not have secure tenancies on their home. The University teaching budget has been cut by 40 percent from £7.1bn to £4.2bn. Student fees will rise to almost £7,000 per year. Students will be saddled with huge debts on graduation. Osborne claimed that the NHS and education had been ‘saved’ from the cuts. But this is a myth. NHS spending has been cut by over £20bn.
 
These draconian cuts are not about addressing the deficit. The crisis is being used as a cover for the wholesale privatisation of welfare services by a government committed to a ‘small state’. This is an ideologically driven agenda that will leave the poor poorer, that will create unemployment, that will abolish vital services and leave working people – those in work and those who are unemployed; those who use services and those who work in service provision – facing a much bleaker future.
 
The present crisis was caused by the failure of the banking system and by the madness of market driven forms of delivery – yet there is nothing in the ‘Osborne axe’ to tax the banks and their billionaire bosses.
 
But there is an alternative. In France, in Greece and across the globe there are growing movements against austerity. In Britain we are starting to see the beginnings of such a movement. On 3rd October SWAN was proud to be a sponsor of the Right To Work demonstration in Birmingham where we marched alongside 7,000 others to protest at the Tory conference. In the days, weeks and months ahead there will be more protests – at local, regional and national level.
 
SWAN is urging all its supporters to throw themselves into anti-cuts protests and movements. As workers, service users and carers we need to stand together: to strike, protest, march and campaign against the cuts and their effects, to stand together and shout that ‘there is an alternative’ – to the brutality of these cuts and to the madness of the market.

The people who will be most hit by massive cuts are those with least money and resources, least advantage and least power – poor parents, older people, women workers, disabled people, mental health service users, carers, poor people on benefits, black and minority ethnic communities, social housing tenants and those studying. The people and institutions most to blame for the financial mess we are in; banks, private sector and business leaders are largely left untouched. Instead they are likely to benefit ultimately from the regressive financial redistribution resulting from public service cuts.

It’s all a stark reminder of the failure of the Blair and Brown governments. They left us this inheritance by perpetuating new right economic policies and freeing the market. With a landslide election victory in 1997, Blair did nothing to challenge the powers that be. Meanwhile the Tories now with no political mandate and no majority of any kind, are forcing through the most radical reactionary political agenda for almost a century, foisting on the rest of us the most destructive and anti-social policies in living memory.

But faced with a reform programme that makes Margaret Thatcher’s policies seem tame, we will do well to take some deep breaths and not panic. These cuts and the policies they presage may truly contain the seeds of their own destruction. Admittedly we have a weak and complaisant media. Undoubtedly democratic safeguards have been weakened. Admittedly much has happened to de-politicise and disempower people. Divisions will be encouraged and increased. We are already seeing it happen.

There is no question that the lives of many service users will be made more difficult and miserable. Some will undoubtedly have their lives cut short or die because of the loss of essential support. Social workers and other public service workers can look forward to even more insecurity, loss of jobs and greater difficulty doing their jobs well. Supporting people to deal with the benefits system, for example, can only be expected to be a bigger nightmare than it now is. All can expect greater hardship, difficulties and uncertainty.

But the divisions between and narrow self-interest of the ruling politicians and policymakers also make them weak and vulnerable. Their ideologically driven, poorly thought through policies will be costly, create all kinds of unintended consequences and won’t work. They will generate their own opposition. None of us should act or think as though we believe they have the five years in power that they repeatedly tell us we should judge them by. They talk ‘big society’ and corrupt the meaning of ‘self-help’ and ‘mutuality’. Instead we, through rebuilding community and grassroots action, local campaigns, new alliances, inclusive and original forms of campaigning, will not only develop resistance, but also demonstrate that there truly are alternatives to the bureaucratized consumerist models of state and private sector which recent governments have sought to impose on us.

Each supportive social work relationship with a service user is a demonstration of the enduring value and power of this democratizing, equality based impulse. Each will have a value, influence and power way beyond those directly, personally involved. Couple this with collective action and alliances between our organisations, interest and identity groups and we have the chance to build a new reality, a different politics that will fill the vacuum left by the arid years of bureaucratizing managerialism of the new political right, New Labour and now Coalition politics. This isn’t just a fight back. It is a fight for!

Back in March 2009 we launched with some anxiety a campaign to oppose the transformation of youth work into little more than an agency of behavioural modification. In fact our desire to resist the increasing imposition of prescribed and predictable outcomes upon our practice struck a chord. So much so that on February 11 our first national conference held in Manchester brought together almost 150 students, workers, academics and supporters to explore such issues as the drive towards Integrated Youth Support Services; our increasing incorporation into surveillance and policing; and the insidious undermining of our allegiance to a voluntary relationship with young people. Of course, given the diverse character of Youth Work, we did not always see eye to eye. Nevertheless we did engender a collective and creative commitment to youth work as ‘an association and critical conversation without guarantees’.

Over the next six months we will be focusing on a pre-election strategy of challenging parliamentary candidates to explain how they see young people and youth work; on the reclaiming of National Youth Work Week as a vehicle for a young person-centred practice; and on the necessity of telling our own contradictory tales of our encounters with young people as a qualitative rejoinder to the State’s quantitative obsessions. During this period we also hope to deepen our relationship with the Social Work Action Network at local, regional and national levels.

For more information, see our website here.

In response, Glasgow City Unison branch has launched the Defend Glasgow’s Services Campaign.  The initial public meeting on 23rd January saw over 100 trade unionists and community campaigners come together to kick start the campaign.  Out of this meeting, a steering group was set up with Unison members, other trade unionists and community activists to develop the campaign’s work.  The local SWAN network is formally represented on the steering group and to tie in with the campaign recently held a successful open meeting under the title ‘Changing lives or rationing services? Cuts, personalisation and social work’.  

The campaign to Defend Glasgow’s Services is growing, with a petition and publicity produced, further public meetings being called and a rally in Glasgow on Saturday 10th April 2010. SWAN members need to be involved in this and similar campaigns across the country to defend public services and use our networks to help build the resistance to the cuts.

SWAN considers the eviction to be racially motivated. We are concerned that this reflects a wider pattern of increasing racism and discrimination against Traveller and Roma communities in the UK and across Europe. Such actions are encouraging a wider atmosphere of scapegoating and racism against these communities.

Travellers have lived on the Dale Farm site since the 1970s and, though the land has achieved Greenbelt status – a key argument the council is using to evict the site – it was formerly a scrap yard. Changes in the law have resulted in the systematic persecution of the Travelling community, particularly those wanting to settle on sites such as Dale Farm.

SWAN believes Basildon Council, in pursuing this eviction, is showing a disregard for the traditions and culture of the Traveller community and is failing in their duties to provide suitable accommodation to the residents of Dale Farm. SWAN urges Basildon City Council to respect the human rights of Dale Farm residents.

The proposed eviction will cost an estimated £18 million in a context of deep and unfair cuts to local services and will result only in increased homelessness and the persecution of the Traveller community.

SWAN stands in solidarity with those at Dale Farm, extends our support to the residents there, and condemns the actions of Basildon Council and the excessive force used by the police.

SWAN steering committee, 19/10/11

(adapted from statement by Kate Grant/Bristol SWAN)

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