Shared services conference

I was speaking at the Holyrood conference on shared services in Edinburgh today.

Sir John Arbuthnott gave an overview of progress in the Clyde Valley initiative. A number of sensible collaborative projects have made reasonable progress. The problem is that the big ticket item was support services, despite Sir John's advice that this should not be the focus. He rightly said that back office services are very important and there are not massive savings to be had.

The presentation from Glasgow focused on the need to take cost out of the back office to protect frontline services. It was unclear how much of this was real savings rather than simply cost displacement. Lots of impressive looking activity statistics, but how much of that is dealing with failure demand? I was less than impressed with the idea that the recipe for success was to, "stick with it through thick and thin". Sounds like let's ignore the evidence when it doesn't fit with our preconceptions.

The speaker from the English LGA demonstrated the wide range of shared working models. The claimed savings figures looked pretty unimpressive and probably pretty dodgy as well.  A later speaker highlighted the NAO report on Whitehall shared services that came in well over budget and delivered a reduced level of service.

There were some interesting case study presentations from the Scottish Government, NHS Scotland, Fire and Rescue and Stirling Council. There was some honesty about the difficulties in delivering shared working and what had actually been achieved so far. The NHS speaker emphasised that working in partnership with the trade unions was vital, arguing that they add value to the process. All speakers agreed that shared services was only one tool and not appropriate for all.

My presentation sought to turn the focus from top down solutions to a view of service delivery from the frontline perspective. While UNISON is not opposed to collaborative working, we are against large scale back office factories driven by the 'here is one I prepared earlier' consultants. International and UK evidence shows that this approach rarely delivers the promised savings or quality of service. I gave a number of examples of how claimed savings are often simply cost displacement from central services to operational departments. I backed this up with  a UNISON Scotland survey produced for the APSE 'The Front Line Starts Here' booklet. This shows how operational staff now spend hours each week undertaking administrative tasks.

Richard Kerley made similar points about what works and what doesn't, based on a wide range of studies in the UK. Like me, a qualified supporter of the system thinking approach.

In summary, one of the benefits of Scotland's collaborative public service model is that shared working should be easier to achieve. However, that is not the same as centralised shared services. We should design service delivery from the user up – not with consultants from the top down.

Mental health, presenteeism and the workplace

Mental health issues are getting a lot of attention in this morning’s media, rare for a subject that is often taboo.


Ed Miliband leads the way with a broadside at celebrities who make light of mental illness, as he unveils plans to tackle what he calls “the biggest unaddressed health challenge of our age”. He will argue that the failure to address mental health is blighting the lives of millions, adding £10 billion to annual NHS spending and costing business £26bn a year in reduced productivity, sickness absence and the cost of replacing staff who can no longer work. He says, “Politicians have been far too silent about mental health, part of a taboo running across our society, which infects both our culture and our politics.”

Dr Steve Boorman follows this up with a piece in the Scotsman on presenteeism. He argues that presenteeism costs UK companies up to £15 billion a year. Employers often forget that unwell people attending work can potentially cost the firm more money than a sick person who is absent. Drawing on his own experience at Royal Mail he concludes:

“These results were not achieved by targeting the sick, lame and wounded and forcing them to work but as a result of management practices promoting employee well-being. Employees were provided with better support and care when illness arose, alongside a policy to improve engagement, which enabled managers to control absence and hit their targets.”

This view is supported by a survey done by UNISON Scotland earlier this year. We asked members about working when ill and why they did it, then about their employers sickness absence policy and how it dealt with the biggest cause of sickness absence, stress. They said:

• Almost exactly a quarter (25%) have worked in the last month when really too ill. Around 60% worked when ill in the last year.

• More than a quarter (27%) did so because concerned that manager would take action against them. Most of the rest for the altruistic reasons such as letting colleagues or service users down.

• Nearly a half (47%) say the sickness policy at work encourages people to work when they really shouldn't. One in seven (14%) say the policy at their workplace is "unfair". A quarter (26%) say it is badly implemented by management.

• 60% say there is a stress policy in place but it is not effective - a further 28% say there is no stress policy at all.

Last Friday, at UNISON Scotland’s safety conference, we heard from the mental health charity SAMH about mental health at work. They highlighted that three in every ten employees will have a mental health problem in any year, making mental health the dominant health problem among people of working age. The business case for tackling this is overwhelming with output losses of over £2bn last year or £950 per employee.

The solutions include recognition, prevention, early identification of emerging problems, awareness training, access to professional health and effective rehabilitation.

So let’s welcome this new political focus on mental health and recognise that effective action in the workplace is long overdue.

Violent assaults on the increase

I am at Stirling University today, speaking at our annual health and safety conference. Part of health and safety at work week.

I am launching the UNISON Scotland annual survey of violent incidents reported to public service employers in Scotland. There were 34,739 staff reported incidents last year. This compares to 20,000 incidents when the first survey was undertaken in 2006.

There has been a big increase in incidents in local government by 2257 to 14274. While there has been a marked improvement in reporting that may explain some of the increase, there are also 7,000 fewer staff working for councils.

It is noticeable that the biggest increase in violent incidents is happening in those council services that are facing the brunt of spending cuts. Staff are stretched too thinly, dealing with service users facing cuts in the services they rely on. This is a toxic cocktail that is putting hard pressed workers at greater risk of violent assault.

The NHS shows a further decrease in incidents by 967 to 10,974. However, the two largest health boards (Glasgow and Lothian) were unable to produce figures this year, so these figures have to be treated with caution. While we are pleased that many employers are improving their systems, others have obviously got some way to go. If they can’t produce decent statistics they cannot be tackling the problem.

Convictions under the Emergency Workers Act have increased by 44 to 324. Due to the limited scope of the Act few violent incidents result in criminal action. Efforts to address this were blocked by the Scottish Government when they opposed Hugh Henry MSP’s, Protection of Worker’s Bill.

These figures demonstrate an appalling level of violent incidents faced by staff who are simply doing their job. Employers must redouble their efforts to protect workers and the Scottish Government must play their role by strengthening the criminal law.

Getting it together on climate change

Scotland is rightly proud of it's ground breaking climate change legislation. In 2009 the largest civil society coalition Scotland has ever seen, campaigned successfully for legally binding targets to reduce Scotland’s climate change emissions. UNISON Scotland was pleased to be part of that coalition.

However, as is often the case in politics, there is a but as this video shows. The most recent emissions data for Scotland showed that not only had the targets for emissions reductions for that year been missed, but that greenhouse gas emissions in Scotland had actually increased by 2%. This is despite the recession that would have a downward impact on the numbers, even without government action. The Scottish Government’s action plans to meet the climate change targets have fallen short and there is a real contradiction with plans to boost oil output and other spending that will increase carbon emissions. Tom Ballantine's piece in the Scotsman explains this in more detail.

We all accept that this isn't easy. UNISON focused on two areas where we warned the planned actions would not match the rhetoric. As we predicted the public duty guidance has turned out to be a toothless document, gathering dust on shelves. Heroic leadership models simply don't work. Climate change action needs to be built up from the bottom and the plans failed to recognise the key role of workers in driving effective action.

And that leads to our second point. Most emissions come from workplaces, therefore any strategy that ignores that fact is bound to fail. Green workplace initiatives have worked well when they have been run, demonstrating worker support for tacking serious action. But they have simply not been encouraged or supported at the level required.

If you cant get to today's parliamentary lobby organised by SCCS, write to your MSP, tweet or take some other action to help show that people across Scotland still care about climate change.

Police reform budget

I was in Parliament today giving evidence to the Justice Committee on the police reform budget.


My written evidence tells the sorry story of the half baked business case that wasn't even completed before Parliament passed the Police and Fire Reform Bill. Then the shambles over VAT liability, when Treasury officials had told the Government that if you organise police and fire this way, the Scottish taxpayer will pay the VAT.

This results in a major savings target that would be challenging enough. However, the Scottish Government has an arbitrary target to maintain police officer numbers at 17,234, therefore the cuts are concentrated on police staffs. Up to 3000 posts are likely to go with the gaps being filled by police officers. A recent survey indicates that up to 2000 police officers will be taken off operational duties, at least in part, to backfill the posts. So much for the promised 1000 extra police officers “on the streets”.

The latest ACPOS cuts proposals give us some indication of the numbers of posts and these are set out in some detail in my evidence.

Some of these cuts (HR, finance and corporate services) are aimed at economies of scale created by one centralised police force. However, past experience of such savings is that they are rarely achieved and certainly not without passing the workload onto operational staff.

The vast majority of these job cuts can only be achieved by substituting police officers for the roles currently undertaken by police staffs. These include custody staff, front office, traffic wardens, licensing staff, clerical support, intelligence gathering, control room and forensic staff. This is already happening with police officers being drafted in, typically at twice the salary, to undertake these duties. 

At today's evidence session there was at least a greater recognition that backfilling is wrong. Although some senior officers are still turning a blind eye to what is happening on the ground. I would challenge any politician to just walk around any police headquarters and see how many police officers are there, not on the streets. A week does not go by without a member telling us of even more officers taken off operational roles to undertake police staff jobs.

Taking trained operational police officers off the streets to perform administrative or specialist tasks – at greater cost, is economic madness. It is also contrary to the Best Value provisions in the Act. This will return the police service in Scotland to almost the 1980‟s, with inefficient and outdated police practice. The Sweeney may be back on our cinema screens, but it isn't a model for a modern police force.

The sensible way forward should be to let the Scottish Police Authority and the Chief Constable decide the correct balance of police officers and police staff using Best Value principles. They should not be subject to a political direction that effectively restricts cuts to police staffs.

Why I will be marching tomorrow

Tomorrow I’ll be joining thousands of people marching through Glasgow for the STUC demo. I am particularly pleased to be marching from George Square, the traditional point of protest in Glasgow. Credit to Glasgow councillors for recognising that George Square is the people's place, not simply to be fenced off for commercial interests.

I am not marching because I think the ConDem coalition will suddenly realise the error of their ways and reverse the austerity economics that is throttling the Scottish economy. I do  believe that a large turnout tomorrow will show the government the extent of the opposition to their plans and give hope to those who are suffering the consequences of cuts to their services and jobs.

I also believe that marching is an important act of solidarity. It brings together the many people who campaign against the cuts in their own small way, in their own communities, acting as a reminder that they are part of a much bigger movement. This march is for them.

It is only one form of protest, but I do not accept the view that it has been eclipsed by other methods. It shows the millions who can't be there that there are many others who believe that there is a better way. That there is an alternative to mass unemployment and poverty wages - particularly for another lost generation of young people.

While I will be marching in Glasgow, the primary target for our protest will be the UK government because they are the driver of austerity economics. Even if the Scottish Government has made some poor choices over local government, police staff, colleges and others, they are only juggling the consequences.

I write this in Perth at the SNP conference. Almost every speaker, in almost every speech, tells us that the solution to austerity economics is independence. A Tory free Scotland if we just shake off the shackles of the Union. Sadly, what is usually missing, is any credible explanation of how that is going to happen. They will need to do much more if they are to convince us to vote 'yes' in the referendum. They may be helped if Labour fails to develop a vision of greater devolution and social justice, independent of the equally dire Better Together campaign.

And on the issue of solidarity, I will be marching for the same reasons as comrades in Belfast and London. Poverty with a kilt on is still poverty. I am not uncritical of Ed Miliband on several issues, but he has not taken the New Labour view that an opposition leader attending demos is making a tactical error. He understands that a Labour leader also has to demonstrate solidarity.

So that’s why I will be marching tomorrow. In solidarity with others who are suffering the consequences of austerity, and those who campaign against the ConDem government. It may not change anything directly, but it’s important, if nothing else for morale. Those marching alongside me may have a different vision of the future, but most of them will certainly be better than austerity.

Local Democracy Week

This is European Local Democracy Week. Every year between 15 and 21 October, the ELDW brings together local authorities from all the 47 member states of the Council of Europe to organise public events to meet and engage with their citizens on issues of current interest. The aim is to promote and foster democratic participation at a local level.

The aims include:
- better involvement of citizens in public life and interaction with local authorities,
- testing citizens’ acquaintance with the participatory tools and their trust in local institutions,
- improving social cohesion and respect of others in the community,
- taking part in a network of European municipalities and regions keen to improve local democracy in their place and across Europe.

ELDW comes at an opportune time for Scotland as we have seen a gradual drift in services away from democratically elected councils to the centre. I set out this centralisation in more detail in a blog post last August. Police and fire reform, the Council Tax freeze, ring fencing funds, care integration and others all reflect a tendency from the Scottish Government towards centralisation.

This is not a unique process to the current administration. Ministers usually come into office believing that services are best delivered locally, but as time goes on they become ever more centralist. In part out of frustration that what they want to happen isn't happening quickly enough. We should also not underestimate the role of senior civil servants who have never quite understood the difference between local administration and local government.

Two Scottish think tanks published reports this summer on local democracy. Neither in my view quite hit the nail, although both are a useful contribution to the debate. We summarise both approaches in our 'Futures' magazine.

ELDW also emphasises the importance of elected democracy - elected representatives, democratically accountable to their community. There is of course an important role for community groups and others in an active democracy, but they are not a substitute for democratic accountability. We should therefore be careful that initiatives like the Community Empowerment and Engagement Bill does not undermine local democracy.

This year's ELDW is putting a focus on human rights in the context of austerity economics across Europe. Human rights are an integral part of local democracy. Many human rights and freedoms are implemented at local level, as is also the case with social and civil rights. These rights include protection and respect for elderly and disadvantaged people, children, minority groups as well as access to public services and freedom of assembly. Every citizen has a responsibility to protect human rights, while local authorities have a key role to play in ensuring that this concept becomes the foundation of a modern and cohesive community.

Events like ELDW give us all an opportunity to recognise the importance of the local democracy we often take for granted. We should stand up for democratic accountability before the drive to centralisation swallows it up.