Islington Town Hall

THE ruling Labour group is to break a manifesto pledge by privatising a council-run care service, sparking anger among trade unions and opposition councillors.

Islington supplied a private company, JC Michael Group, with a contract worth £1.7million for its “reablement” service, a care package which helps people “get back on their feet” after periods in hospital.

The move is in sharp contrast to the Labour Party’s manifesto from May which had said the administration would “continue an ‘insourcing first’ approach – delivering services in-house, rather than outsourcing”.

It comes as Islington Council staff were told that the council would now have to make cuts of up to £100million by 2030 – a quarter of its entire budget.

Andrew Berry, the Unison rep for social services who worked in the reablement service for 13 years, said the decision to privatise the service “stinks”. He told the Tribune: “We are very disappointed by this decision – we feel we’ve been sold out because we were promised by the Labour leadership that services would be brought back in house, but this has gone the other way.”

It marks the first time since Labour took the council in 2010 that an in-house service was outsourced. While no staff members have been made compulsorily redundant, Mr Berry said that many have opted for voluntary redundancy, meaning the service would now see a “whole load of new staff”.

He said he believed the decision would be a “failure” and would cost the council more money in the long-term because “privatisation will see a loss of skills and specialism”.

“I believe it is going to prove cost-ineffective, leading to more people bouncing forwards and backwards between hospital, blocking beds. And then that will end up costing the council’s social care budget, and the NHS, more,” he added.

Councillor Benali Hamdache, leader of Islington Green Party, said that this was a “very clear break” of Labour’s manifesto promise to keep public services in-house.

He said: “Suddenly, a service is run for private profit rather than public good. We know that in the privatised sector, one of the most exploited type of workers is a social care worker. This is a worrying part of a wider picture. Unions have raised concerns about savings for the library service, they’ve raised concerns about sell-off of public buildings.

“I absolutely see a world where we have more outsourced services because of the national government refusing to fund local councils properly, but it would be a serious breach to do more of this.”

Labour councillors have said they will be asking the government for better funding arrangements, but Cllr Hamdache said he would like to see them be more “outspoken” about this, adding: “I contrast my colleagues’ behaviour from when there was a Conservative government that was delivering cuts.

“And now there’s a Labour government delivering the same cuts, but their approach is really different. They are a lot less clear about whose responsibility it is.”

Mr Berry echoed this sentiment, suggesting that we were seeing “extreme austerity” continue under PM Andy Burnham’s government. He added: “We would be willing to campaign with the council to go to the government and ask them to fund local government properly. It annoys me that we are told there is no more austerity under this government. Tell that to Islington, who will lose £100million by 2030.”

The reablement service will transfer to JC Michael from February.

Councillor Ruth Hayes, health and social care chief, said: “The decision to redesign our re-enablement service was to ensure we respond effectively to changing community needs. Our manifesto set out our in-sourcing first approach to services. We are proud to have a much higher than average in-sourcing programme in Islington. None of that has changed and we are clear that manifesto commitment stands.

“We will continue to seek opportunities to insource where possible. However, there will be occasions on which changing patterns of need mean that we need to work in different ways, and this is one of those.

“All staff transferring to the new service provider are doing so on their existing contractual pay, and terms and conditions. The new contract also places a strong emphasis on workforce standards and employee wellbeing, and we believe that this service will be the best way to meet the current needs of residents.”

£100 million cuts

COUNCIL staff have been briefed that cuts of up to £100million will be made by 2030, the Tribune can reveal. The Town Hall consulted staff members and asked for ideas on “closing” a £100million budget gap through the council’s intranet service.

The consulting presentation document, seen by the Tribune, said: “By 2030, we must save nearly £100million (a quarter of our entire budget). To meet this challenge, we need to prioritise, become smaller and more agile. We will need to stop some of the things we do, and act more together rather than as individual parts.”

Unison rep for social services, Andrew Berry, said: “So at the moment, we’re looking at major cuts, particularly in the third year, which I don’t know how they’re going to do without literally devastating services.”

Council finance Chief Paul Convery said: “By 2030, we might still have to meet a budget gap of around £80million. That’s based on some quite pessimistic eventualities.

“There are many ways to close that budget gap by increased income, renegotiating funding support from government, using “fiscal devolution”, increasing overall productivity, and savings.”