Glasgow City Council intends to transfer all responsibility for the assessment of people who require home care and the organising of required services from the Social Work Department to Cordia. At present Cordia, an arm’s length external council organisation, employs most home carers in the city but the assessment of need, spending of budgets and oversight of the service is done by the council through its local social work staff. This is the first time in Glasgow under a “purchaser – provider split” that the provider will take on all responsibility for the assessment of a person’s need, the level of service provided, people’s care reviews, responding to complaints and all spending. The council have cited “budget pressures”, meaning future cuts, as a central reason for the changes. Cordia will be given the existing home care annual budget of £50 million and be expected to deliver 10% efficiencies by 2016, and further “appropriate targets” thereafter. Home care services are already being reduced through shortened visits to vulnerable older people. UNISON believes that more “efficiencies” will lead to further cuts in service for people in the city and further attacks on Cordia workers jobs, wages and conditions.
We call on Glasgow City Council to drop these changes and instead invest and protect home care services and those who provide them.
UNISON Glasgow City Branch, 84 Bell Street, Glasgow, G1 1LQ
