Social worker on demo

Single Mother's Self Defence on Welfare Reform Demo

In alliance...

Those who attended on the day were united in their belief that privatisation in social care, as in other areas of the welfare state such as social security and education, is of principal benefit to large businesses who stand to profit from new markets – not those who use services. Similarly social enterprises were seen as another route to privatisation – superficially freedoms within them may seem appealing, but such organisations break-up local authority accountability for meeting social need, often undermine terms and conditions of employees and ultimately may jeopardise the existence of the services themselves. SWAN London believes we need to argue to for a high quality, comprehensive, preventative and creative social work and care within local authorities.

Privatisation and social care seminar 04/02/2012

Here is a run down of speakers and groups who were involved on the day, in order of appearance/discussion. We hope this will be a useful resource to all those opposing privatisation in social care and across the welfare state in general.

1.  Dr. Liz Davies – http://www.lizdavies.net/ – a registered social worker and academic, provided an informed and critical analysis of the privatisation of children’s services and child protection in England. The impact of the development of social enterprises, widely promoted by professional bodies and government, means children’s services are removed from democratic and accountable local authority control.  Liz stressed that arguments about over-bureaucratic systems are being hijacked to exploit children for financial gain and social enterprises and atomistic service models are ripe for takeover by large corporations. The sources of finance (Big Society Capital) for these new structures are business specialists and venture capitalists – not social workers with the interests of children and vulnerable young people at heart. Inherently business models look for opportunities to cut corners, impose agendas, deprofessionalise the service and ultimately make profits. Workers’ (or  children’s) rights are not on their agenda. The lessons of Sedgemoor – that when the company liquidated children in care were suddenly left homeless – have been quickly forgotten. Links and resources from the presentation ‘The Privatisation of Child Protection’ – Dr Liz Davies

2.  WinVisible – http://www.winvisible.org/ – an independent voice for women with disabilities. Spoke on privatisation of welfare, introduction of charging and the market to home care and outsourced OT assessments. Voiced opposition to the Dilnot proposals for social care which cements personal payment for social care with the individual.

3.  Single Mothers Self-Defence –http://www.allwomencount.net/ewc%20moms/smsdindex.htm – Self-help, information & support. For all women caring for children on their own.
Recognised the unpaid care work which women undertake and therefore the right to income support – how cuts and privatisation in welfare reform will damage single parent families through housing benefit cuts and may force mothers and children to stay in abusive relationships.

Kim Sparrow speaks - Single Mother's Self Defence

4.  Barnet Unison – Send messages of support to Barnet Adults’ Duty Social Work team who are on strike next week against the privatisation of their service and call centre on Thursday 9th February:
john.burgess@barnetunison.org.uk

5.  Boycott Workfare – http://www.boycottworkfare.org/ – Boycott Workfare is a UK-wide campaign to end forced unpaid work for benefits. Such work undermines the minimum wage – people are obliged to work so as not to have their benefits reduced or even stopped. Sanctions can be placed on people to have mandatory work placements for long periods of time. Their labour is provided at no cost to organisations such as Asda, Tesco, Matalan and Primark. Scale of programme huge – 600,000 referred to work programme. The programme replaces paid staff with work programme staff.
6.  Anti-Academies Alliance –  http://antiacademies.org.uk/ – against Academy schools that are run by a private sponsor and foster the breakup of education provided and accountable to local authorities. Gave the example of how some academies are seeking to limit access to governing bodies or centralising them to reduce democratic, local influence.

7.  Barnet Alliance for Public Service (BAPS) – http://barnetalliance.org/ – no to the commissioning or ‘easyCouncil’. A coalition of residents, campaign groups and trade unions in the London Borough of Barnet defending public services.

8.  Campaign Against the Destruction of Disabled Services (CADDS) – http://barneteye.blogspot.com/2011/11/guest-blog-by-janet-leifer-destruction.html  - Organisation of service users, carers  and social care workers campaigning to stop the destruction of disability services in Barnet. NB: this organisation are looking for volunteers in Barnet to volunteer some time for administration duties – please email CADDSS1@gmail.com if you feel you could assist.

9.  Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group – http://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.com/ – provide support to people facing interviews at the Jobcentre, but campaign on proper welfare support.

10.  Research exposing American Insurance company Unum and their involvement in the British Welfare Reform since the mid-1990’s, in addition to investigations into Atos Origin’s flawed and discriminatory work capability assessment for Employment and Support Allowance:
http://www.whywaitforever.com/dwpatos.html

11. Blue Badge holder, Haringey (advertised but not present). Responsibility for dispensing Blue Badge parking entitlement at Haringey went from Social Services to the Parking Dept, which is revenue raising (strong resonances with the issues of care charging.) Compromised test was about ability to walk a straight line. Irony was that speaker had her Blue Badge parking entitlement removed, making her more dependent on licensed mini-cabs that can be risk averse regarding serving side streets such as the one she lives on – she was grounded when she should have been speaking!

Social Work Action Network (SWAN) is a radical campaigning organisation within social work and care bringing together service users, carers, social workers, social care workers, educators and students to fight for a social care based in social justice.
* SWAN London’s next meeting is on Wednesday 15th February at London Metropolitan University’s Moorgate Campus, Room MG2-19, 84 Moorgate EC2M 6SQ. Nearest tubes are Moorgate and Bank.
* SWAN’s national conference takes place from 30-31 March 2012 at Liverpool Hope University. More information here: http://www.hope.ac.uk/swanconf2012

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Major suggestions for action points from the day:

1. Organise: Hold meetings to campaign in work places and communities to share information, organise and campaign

2. Let the stories build the big picture:  Work to make the wider political points come alive and link them to the intimate personal stories of people experiencing the effects of privatisation: public issues and private troubles.

3. Use and support existing networks: Join with local anti-cuts groups and drive up union membership in the workplace (don’t forget that industrial action can be taken over the identity of employer)

4. Boycott: Organise workers boycotts of private companies involved in social care and welfare comprimising ethics and human rights – e.g. Atos Origin

5. Just do it: be brave and stand up for ethical practice as a social care worker – if you can justify that you are acting within legislation and that you have stood up for your code of practice, what can they do to you?

“The Green Party is also very concerned about the strong role of one or two private companies in advising the government about the development of welfare to work proposals, particularly in relation to the restructuring of incapacity-related benefits,(see Jonathan Rutherford here) It seems extraordinary that so much attention has been given to the views of a company which is on record as saying that it sees the UK benefits system as one of its major markets for the future; one would expect advice to have been taken from a wider and more balanced range of sources. As Rutherford’s paper shows, the credibility of Unum — formerly Unum Provident – has been badly damaged by having been prosecuted for fraudulent business in the USA.”

Televised ads for Back-Up Plan state openly, “If you have to give up work because of an accident or injury, it’s as if the rug has been pulled out from under you….” It then goes on to promoting Income Protection Insurance, that is exactly in line with Government plans for replacing Disability Living Allowance. What is the company behind Back-Up Plan? You’ve guessed it, Unum. For further info that goes deeply into nepotistic interactions between the Department for Work & Pensions’ former Chief Medical Adviser, Unum and Atos Healthcare — as well as Unum’s attempts to censor its online critics — An overview of the business operations of Unum (previously UnumProvident) and how Unum has influenced UK Government policy to the detriment of disabled people.

As if to confirm the view that the ConDems are portraying benefit claimants as ‘useless eaters’ in the way the Nazis did, I have read today that they are now re-presenting the Welfare Reform Bill as a ‘Finance Bill’ for these ‘austerity’ times.

Mike Shaughnessy refers in a Haringey Green Party blog to the housing benefit implications of the ConDems’ welfare reform plans, and the high cost of rents in London and South-East England as a major factor in this. The Welfare Reform Bill is not alone in making the prospect of homelessness worse for the least comfortably off. The ConDems’ agenda in the Localism Bill includes restricting local councils’ housing stock. ‘Localism Bill could have unintended consequences‘.

Whether this might be a case of real ‘unintended consequences’ or a covert agenda, who might gain from this move to greater dependency on the ‘buy to rent’ market? Ironically, while asylum seeking families have been scapegoats for a clamp down on both security of tenure for social housing and local councils’ housing stock, the winners in the compendium of ConDem ‘joined up thinking’ include offshore landlords who regard the UK as part of their ‘global village’, as Mike McNabb has clearly outlined.

“In targeting a Somali family as undeserving beneficiaries of UK government funds, the Daily Mail conveniently overlooked who really gains by the hiking of rent in a Tory borough as case study material for informed policy-making. As McNabb has written:

“What we should be more concerned about – because the Mail evidently is not – is the doubling of the rent from £1,050 last year to the maximum available now under housing benefit rules.

“The landlord, a company based in the British Virgin Islands, is not named in the report. Neither is anyone questioned about the hiking of the rent, which seems to have coincided with the arrival of Abdi Nur and his family.

“So who is playing the system now?”

Written by Alan Wheatley
Green Party Trade Union Group Disability Spokesperson, 2008-2012
Co-author with Anne Gray of the Green Party’s response to Labour’s Welfare Reform Green Paper of 2008.

On Saturday 28th January in central London, a group of disabled, sick and elderly people are going to engage in a daring and disruptive act of civil disobedience, and they’ve asked for our support. Meet at 11.30am at Holborn tube station with a charged Oyster card, ready to travel to a secret location.

Britain isn’t perfect. But our welfare state offers something that everyone can be proud of. It’s a comforting thought that if tomorrow you lost your job, your home or even a limb, society would be there to help you through it.

At least until now. The government’s Welfare Reform Bill is just weeks away from becoming law and is the biggest threat the welfare state has faced in its history.

The Bill will take vital lifelines from the most vulnerable people in society. Right now, 500,000 families stand to lose their homes. Others will become imprisoned in them. Half a million will lose their disability allowance, including disabled children. People with terminal illnesses will be forced into work, and 3.2 million will be put through cruel tests that are pushing some to take their own lives. Millions of people – pensioners, low waged workers, the disabled, sick and unemployed – will fall deeper into poverty.

The government’s excuse for all this? The deficit, of course. Yet it continues to turn a blind eye to the £25 billion in tax dodged by corporations and rich individuals every year, a sum greater than the projected savings of the entire Welfare Reform Bill. Vodafone’s brand new £2bn tax dodge alone could pay for all of the cuts to Disability Living Allowance, which affects 500,000 people.

Cameron, Osborne, Clegg and Co. are choosing to inflict suffering on sick and disabled people rather than tackle rich tax dodgers, because they think the poor and vulnerable are invisible – that they won’t or can’t make a fuss – and the rest of us don’t care.

On Saturday 28th January, let’s show them that they’re wrong. A group of disabled, sick and elderly people are going to engage in a hugely daring and disruptive act of civil disobedience, and they’ve asked for our support.

Meet at 11.30am at Holborn tube station with a charged Oyster card, ready to travel to a secret location. The government are going to discover that the vulnerable can be very visible indeed, and that the rest of us do care.

The Lords have already shot down some of the government’s most damaging proposals. Our aim now is to shame the government into withdrawing the bill completely and instead create a welfare system that protects us all. Let’s make sure everyone knows that Cameron would rather make millions of sick and disabled people’s lives a misery than collect the tax from his millionaire mates.

See you at Holborn.

“Yes, disabled people will be among the hardest hit by these cuts, but they will also hit back the hardest.”

If you can’t get to London, why not link up with people that will be affected by the Bill in your community? It’s now or never to demand that the government scraps the bill and instead works for a welfare system that is fair and benefits everyone. Get in touch with ukuncut@gmail.com if you need help or advice.

Welfare Reform Bill — no going back to Dickensian days

Next Vigils & Lobbies: 1pm-3pm, MONDAY 23 JAN, WEDNESDAY 25 JAN, TUESDAY 31 JAN.

*Defend Child Benefit for all * Oppose all benefit caps and sanctions
*Cap greedy landlords, not low-income people!

called by

Single Mothers’ Self-Defence, WinVisible, Zacchaeus 2000 Trust

Meet opposite Parliament – Lords’ entrance, Old Palace Yard, Abingdon St SW1 – Westminster tube

All welcome

We have had two very successful vigils attended by over 30 people – people with disabilities, single mothers, claimants and other activists. The Royal College of Nursing joined the vigil last Tuesday. Alex Callaghan, who leads their policy work on the social determinants of health, had photos taken for Nursing Times.

·Monday 23 January, the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds plans to raise his amendment to keep Child Benefit out of the benefit cap which will be taken from the poorest families. See SMSD & Global Women’s Strike press release: http://globalwomenstrike.net/content/press-release-child-benefit-all-%E2%80%93-mothers-earn-it-children-need-it

Baroness Hollis and Lord Ramsbotham will raise amendments proposed by Zacchaeus 2000, protecting people forced to repay overpayments made in error, and consideration of claimants’ circumstances before sanctions.

·Wednesday 25 January, last day of Report stage.

·Tuesday 31st January, 3rd reading of the Bill where it will be passed or not as a whole by Lords.

Government defeats so far:

·no cut to Housing Benefit for having a spare room.
·to keep benefit entitlement for young people who are severely disabled, so they have financial independence coming into adulthood;increasing to two years the one-year time limit on National Insurance-based sickness benefit for people who are recovering;entitlement for terminally-ill people – the government wanted to force people who have longer than six months to live, to attend work-focussed interviews to get benefit.

Please join us again, and publicise it on Facebook, Twitter and email lists. If you can’t come, you can ring and write to the Lords (0207 219 3000, fax 020 7219 5979). More info and email addresses are here.

THINGS YOU CAN DO

Come and raise your concerns on the Vigils ♦ Bring placards with your organisation’s name and issues you are concerned about ♦ Lobby the Lords – support amendments to keep Child Benefit out of the benefit cap, extend concessions for women fleeing domestic violence, ensure immediate benefit payments for people coming out of prison, and Zacchaeus 2000 amendments to protect claimants from unliveable benefit repayments, sanctions and bailiffs ♦ Lobby your MP; contact them to make an appointment or write to them about your personal situation.

More info: smsd@allwomencount.net 0207 482 2496 PaulNicolson@z2k.org 07961177889 win@winvisible.org

http://wembleymatters.blogspot.com/2012/01/battle-against-academies-and-free.html

You can see more on the successful protests outside the Lords on Wednesday 11th January during the Welfare Reform Bill votes here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/video/2012/jan/11/welfare-protest-lords-video?CMP=twt_gu

Please find below details of the next demonstration on Tuesday 17th January when there is another lobby, again opposite parliament, between 1-3pm. This is the day when the abolition of low-rate Disability Living Allowance is discussed.

Details follow.

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Welfare Reform Bill — no going back to Dickensian days
Next Vigil & Lobby: 1pm-3pm, Tuesday 17 January

Defend Disability Living Allowance * Defend Child Benefit * Stop aggressive bailiffs and Jobcentre sanctions
called by Single Mothers’ Self-Defence, WinVisible, Zacchaeus 2000 Trust
Meet opposite Parliament – Lords’ entrance
Abingdon St SW1 – Westminster tube
All welcome

See links to other media (below). The government was defeated on several proposals (below). We must keep up the pressure. We’ll be there each time the Bill is debated:

® Tuesday 17 January when the abolition of low-rate Disability Living Allowance is discussed, a 20% cut which would deprive an estimated 700,000 disabled people of the money they need to live independently and go to waged work.
® Monday 23 January, when the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds plans to raise his amendment to keep Child Benefit out of the benefit cap.
® Wednesday 25 January if the debate gets extended.

Please join us again, and publicise it on Facebook, Twitter and email lists. If you can’t come, you can ring and write to the Lords (0207 219 3000, fax 020 7219 5979). More info and email addresses are here: http://globalwomenstrike.net/content/briefing-welfare-reform-bill-2011-%E2%80%93-report-stage.

Representatives of Mad Pride, Defend Welfare Network, Boycott Workfare, Winvisible, Islington Disabled People Against Cuts, Black Triangle Campaign and Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group turned out to protest against Atos’ Work Capability Assessments (WCAs) for Employment and Support Allowance. Some attendees dressed in Victorian garb to represent a comparison of the social policy which Atos are helping to manifest with that of Victorian times.

Atos is being paid £100m a year to carry out the work capability assessments (WCAs), allowing the government to phase out incapacity benefit and replace it with the employment and support allowance (ESA).

The discredited WCAs themselves, the software which ‘assists’ the assessments (which misses nuanced and fluctuating conditions) and the centres in which these assessments occur (some of which are not wheelchair accessible), demonstrate Atos’ values and the real reason why they have been awarded this lucrative government contract: to meet sharp government quotas for reducing the number of people claiming Employment and Support allowance, rather than to assess and meet need. These assessments have led to tens of thousands of sick and disabled people being forced into poverty after being stripped of essential benefits. A number of suicides have been reported in the wake of WCAs.

To add grievous insult to injury, Atos are sponsoring the Paralympic Games (!) and Atos’ form of testing is soon to be extended to disabled and sick people claiming Disability Living Allowance.

Dan spoke on behalf of SWAN London at the demonstration and said he was proud to represent social workers who are appalled by the current assessment process and oppose it.

It was a small but noisy demonstration and gave Atos the warning that we will all be back in the New Year. Pictures follow below of SWAN London members and others. Research on Atos’ Work Capability Assessments can be found here.

Real Victorian Christmas Party and Picnic at Triton Square

http://www.dpac.uk.net/2011/11/atos-%E2%80%93festive-month-of-action-december-3rd-and-december-16th-london/

Friday 16th December – 2pm Triton Square, Regent’s Place London NW1 3HG

Join us at the home of poverty pimps Atos for a Christmas Party to celebrate the continuing struggle against disability deniers Atos.  As part of the month of festive action against Atos and the benefit cuts, disabled people, benefit claimants and supporters will be visiting French IT company Atos’ gleaming corporate headquarters to celebrate the real Victorian Christmas being inflicted on hundreds of thousands of sick and disabled people this Christmas.