Year: 2011

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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Yet beneath the gloss what is actually being said?

The two key headline changes being proposed are that there should be a ‘life-time cap’ of £35,000 on the contribution costs service users should be expected to make towards their care costs and that the mean-tested threshold for savings below which people become eligible for state-funded residential care should increase from £23,250 to £100,000.

These two proposals are probably why Andrew Lansley met the publication of the report with what can only be described as indifference – ‘welcoming’ the report but warning that the costs may not be able to be met –  raising questions about whether the Report will progress much further.

If further ‘evidence’ was needed here then it came on Thursday  7/7/2011 when Peter Hay from the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services claimed that cuts to adult social care are going to get even worse in 2012-13 compared to this year’s already desperate situation.

However, there are serious issues that Dilnot fails to address.

First, the Report proposals are regressive not progressive in terms of their impact on wealth redistribution – with the wealthiest 20% of society the biggest gainers. Stephen Burke, from the campaign group United For All Ages claims:
“Under the commission’s regressive proposals, the winners would be richer families whose inheritance will be relatively protected while most families will face a more confusing and potentially costly care system.”¹

For the millionaires in the ConDem Coalition cabinet a £35,000 flat rate fee for a life-time of care is a drop in the ocean. For the vast majority of us, it’s much more. On top of that the flat rate cap does not include the ‘board and lodging costs’ of residential care which can be charged to service users (which are estimated at somewhere between £7,000 and £10,000 per year). As a result, First Stop Care Advice point out that that people who are in residential care for five years would face an £85,000 bill – £35,000 for care and £10,000 a year for living costs –  which for many would involve selling their home.

Second, the proposals will not end the market in adult social care, but will mean more money will be diverted to the large ‘oligarchic’ providers of social care. Do we really want to give more to Southern Cross and their ilk? Undoubtedly there are insurance companies, banks and other financial institutions licking their lips at the prospect of creating new financial ‘products’ to insure vulnerable people against the fear of what might await them in terms of their care needs in later life. But why should these companies (whose behaviour was one of the key causes of the present economic crisis) be given yet another opportunity to make vast profits from social care services?

Finally, the Report doesn’t consider what to most of us would seem like the obvious and logical answer to how adult social care should be funded and provided i.e. free at the point of use and paid for out of general taxation. SWAN steering committee member Peter Beresford was an almost lone voice putting this case in the Community Care discussion of the Dilnot Report.²

No doubt this will be dismissed in some circles as a fantasy – especially given the ‘debt crisis’ but despite the near daily claims from politicians and media pundits that ‘there is no alternative’ to austerity and marketisation we have to emphasise that:
(a)    The debt burden as a proportion of GDP is smaller than it was at any time between 1919 and 1961 – when we built the welfare state!³
(b)    Britain is the fifth richest country in the world! We could easily pay of the debt and provide fully funded high quality adult social care by increasing top tax rates (which, for the highest earners are 10 pence in the pound less than when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister), closing tax avoidance loop-holes (the UK Treasury estimated it failed to collect £42bn in tax in 2009; the Tax Justice Network puts the estimates for that year at closer to £95bn, ending military intervention in Afghanistan, announcing that the Trident missile system won’t be replaced (the total costs of Trident renewal will amount to between £94.7bn and £104.2bn over the lifetime of the system, estimated at 30 years. This equates to £3.3bn per year, and introducing one-off levies on bank bonus payouts given the banks’ role in initiating the crisis (the bonuses for Christmas 2010 in London’s financial sector amounted to an estimated £7bn.⁴

We should not be fooled by Dilnot. His Report does not challenge the market in adult care, nor does it offer any kind of answer to the unfolding crisis facing older people who need support and care in their later years.

Notes:
1 Community Care 5/7/2011 “Dilnot reaction: the cheerleaders, the sceptics and the downright hostile” http://www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/adult-care-blog/2011/07/dilnot-reaction-the-cheerleaders-the-sceptics-and-the-downright-hostile.html

2 Community Care (5/7/2011) http://www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/social-care-the-big-picture/2011/07/question-marks-surround-dilnot-commission-proposals.html

3 PCS (2010) There is An Alternative: The case against cuts in public spending  http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/campaigns/campaign-resources/there-is-an-alternative-the-case-against-cuts-in-public-spending.cfm

4 Treanor J (2010) “Banks Agree £200bn for businesses but pay talks unresolved” The Guardian 21/12/2010 http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/dec/21/banks-agree-lend-business-pay-talks?INTCMP=SRCH