Quarriers pay dispute reflects savage reality for voluntary sector in Scotland

Voluntary sector care providers in Scotland are under increasing pressure to manage the impact of reduced public sector support, with consequences for care provision in adult and children’s services, as well as job losses and pay cuts for frontline staff.

Social care charity Quarriers is among those affected, prompting headlines in early July about £7,000 pay cuts for staff on £26,000, threats of industrial action and question marks about its ability to maintain services for vulnerable people. The charity is far from alone in Scotland in facing severe pressure as an implication of the UK government’s decision to pass on £3.3bn in cuts over the next three years – around 10% of current spending – to the Scottish government.

Helen Hunter, a BASW member and director at Quarriers, rejects some of the more extreme depictions of the charity’s restructuring but accepts that the organisation is facing a difficult period and one indicative of a wider trend across the sector. She describes the need to impose pay cuts on some of its lowest paid workers as “not fair” but part of “the reality” of the current economic climate and the value placed on many frontline caring posts.

Ms Hunter was responding to widespread criticism of proposed reforms that would see its 2,000 staff face pay cuts of between 3% and 23% as the charity looks to cope with the fall-out from reduced public spending. Quarriers 100-plus social workers look set to face the lowest pay reductions, just 3%, but Ms Hunter conceded that less qualified workers would be hit hard.

“People providing personal care are more likely to be on an SVQ scale, meaning they are less qualified than, for instance, social workers. Whether legitimate or not there is sometimes less value placed on those workers. It is a travesty society is valuing these staff in this way, as that is not ‘the Quarriers Way’, but we are having to reflect this at least economically to survive.”

The plan is being fiercely opposed by the trade union Unison, ahead of a final 10 August consultation deadline. Quarriers branch
 secretary Stephen Brown said: “Treating staff in this way is absolutely appalling and staff have been 
left feeling angry and demoralised.

“They have already voted massively in favour of industrial action in a
 consultative ballot and I am confident they will do so again in a formal 
industrial action ballot.”

Ms Hunter said the decision to reduce pay rates for all staff, including the chief executive, reflected significant cuts in local authority spending and offered the only chance of safeguarding posts. “Local authority commissioners have made their position clear – that they are having to reduce their spending. That’s not unique to one authority, it’s across the board. It’s the same south of the border too where we also provide services.

“As an organisation we had to think about how we managed the funding reductions, and we felt the best option was to retain our staff. But because we’ve chosen that option it means potentially reducing pay.”

Quarriers is not unique among third sector care providers in the current climate but according to Hunter it is coming in for more criticism than others. “This is something most voluntary sector organisations are experiencing but because we are unionised and particularly Scottish in our focus we have appeared in the press more often than a lot of other organisations that have done similar things.”

The latest findings from the Coalition of Care and Support Providers (CCPS) suggests the situation at Quarriers is now endemic among caring charities. The ironically titled CCPS Provider Optimism Survey showed that in the three months to May 2011, 44% of providers reported a downturn in business/turnover and 58% reported reductions in staff numbers. A vast 93% of respondents said they had been notified of budget cuts to services in at least one Scottish local authority area for 2011/12, while 78% of respondents have experienced cuts in multiple areas.

It is a picture recognised at another charity with a strong Scottish focus, Aberlour, which is also struggling with the impact the so-called Age of Austerity. A spokesperson for the charity described “service reductions and closures” and an unavoidable impact on jobs. “While we have tried to redeploy employees wherever possible, we have had to reduce the number of people that we employ, both in our services and in support functions,” the spokesperson added.

Job losses are only part of the story, with staff this year, and last year, having to forgo a cost of living increase – “in common with most organisations in the social care sector”. More ominously Aberlour is currently reviewing its workforce’s terms and conditions as it strives to “balance our desire to attract and retain the best people with a need to remain competitive”.

Service provision is inevitably under pressure too, including provision for families with disabled children. The charity has launched a further review into “broadening the range of options available” including the notion of replacing some offsite respite provision with respite at home.

Aberlour is firmly aware of the potential implications, however, of cuts to respite services, which the charity suggests could prove a false economy if more families suffer breakdowns as a result of the stress involved in caring for disabled relatives. “It can be money well spent if it prevents family breakdown and the resultant implications, including additional pressure on the public purse, particularly in terms of long term residential care, which may arise from this.”

Concern is also evident about the role of personalisation and self-directed budgets in squeezing the voluntary sector’s capacity to support vulnerable people. Quarrier’s Helen Hunter says personalisation offers the chance for charities such as hers to “be creative” in how they work with the public sector and look to support people in their communities but is worried about shifting towards this model during the current climate.

“I think personalisation offers opportunities for people – the principles are sound and we would want people to be much more in control of their lives, but the reality in Scotland at the moment is it comes at a time where we are having to make severe reductions in our public sector services, so in some situations it has been a mechanism for cuts for local authorities rather than an opportunity to change lives for the better.”

The voluntary sector is a prominent participant in the newly formed Scottish Children’s Services Coalition, which is pressing MSPs and the Scottish government not to slash funding for voluntary and independent service providers on the misguided assumption that local authorities are cheaper than outsourced provision.

The Coalition issued a briefing to MSPs, councils and Scottish government officials earlier this month urging policymakers to consider how to develop better services for children in care despite public spending cutbacks. The briefing warns: ‘The clear danger is that children could be missing out on the care best suited to their needs, which independent and third-sector providers consistently deliver, because of misconceptions about the costs associated with using certain types of service providers.’

The Scottish Association of Social Work (SASW – part of BASW) has endorsed the Coalition’s call for a more sophisticated approach to spending scarce resources on care services. SASW manager Ruth Stark commented: “The important task we face in commissioning services is in deciding whether a particular service meets the needs of the service user. This may mean that we have to find creative solutions in times of financial restraint, although we should never make the decision based just on fact that it is the cheapest option.”

With evidence mounting of pay cuts, job losses, slashed public sector grants and reduced service provision, however, the task for the voluntary sector of resisting “the cheapest option” will become ever more challenging.