Tag: cuts

Fighting the cuts

Edinburgh Anti-Cuts Alliance meets this morning

Protest

10am Saturday 17 January  

Augustine Church,  41 George IV Bridge

Following on from the large public meeting on 27 November this organising meeting aims to bring together activists to plan a campaign against the cuts to vital services being made by Edinburgh Council.

The Council is proposing cuts of £22m for 2015/16, as part of a three-year strategy that will inflict further cuts of £55m and £77m in the next two financial years. This will significantly damage services for those most in need and will be resisted. All welcome.

Edinburgh Anti-Cuts Alliance (EACA) seeks to bring Edinburgh’s local anti-cuts groups together with trade unions, service-users’ groups and individuals to organise on a City-wide basis against public sector cuts, privatisation and welfare reform.

We are not affiliated to any political party and our meetings are open to all.

Council makes BOLD case for ‘transformation and cost savings’

Restructure aims to deliver a ‘leaner, more agile council’

Edinburgh-001

Detailed proposals have been unveiled to make Council services more efficient and customer focused, while addressing a budget gap of £67 million over the next three years.

As one of fastest growing local authority areas in Scotland, Edinburgh is facing an ever increasing demand for Council services, while the funds available to meet this demand are set to stay the same over the next few years.

The proposals follow a blueprint for the future organisation of the Council which was agreed in December 2014, subject to consultation. This report highlighted key areas where future cost savings and service improvements could be achieved. They included: improved neighbourhood and locality working; a more efficient corporate centre; improvements to the way the Council interacts with residents (Channel Shift); working with third sector partnerships and managing Council property effectively (property rationalisation).

The Council has an agreed pledge of no compulsory redundancies and it is envisaged that some reduction in roles will be addressed through natural turnover of staff.

The Council will also look to improve its approach to how staff are redeployed across different service areas, engaging and consulting with employees and Trades Unions as appropriate during this process.

Alasdair_Rankin_11_200x200[1]Finance Convener, Councillor Alasdair Rankin (pictured above), said: “The Council needs to take significant steps to tackle the financial challenges it faces as demand for our services continues to increase. At the same time, we want to make services for residents more efficient and effective.

“We set the direction of travel last month when Council agreed proposals for a new organisational structure, enabling more effective decision making at neighbourhood level and improved partnership working with third sector organisations. We are now considering detailed proposals around this and how we plan to improve the way we interact with residents.

“We believe these priority areas for change will enable us to achieve service improvements as well as cost savings. Of course change on this scale brings challenges but we need to take decisive action now to meet our targets and create a stronger, leaner, more agile Council to better serve the people of Edinburgh.”

The latest proposals will be considered by the Finance and Resources Committee on Thursday 15 January. Further detail on proposals around Council property and workforce controls will be provided in the Spring.

CEClogo

 

Letter: bearing the burden

Dear Editor

When Chancellor Osborne made his autumn statement  I believe he did his best to confuse most people with his ‘percentages of this and percentages of that’ but he did make one thing perfectly clear: the cost of closing the deficit will continue to be passed on to the working population by cutting public services and benefits, holding down wages below inflation and telling people to work harder and longer.

THe crisis we are in was cused by financial institutions, speculators and banks worldwide, but of course the blame is put on to others: stories are being repeated over and over again to get people to accept them as truths. First the Labour government was to blame, then it was the scroungers, the work-shy, the disabled, people living longer, families having one bedroom too many – all of these stories designed to set once section of society against another, enabling crippling policies to be imposed on all whilst constantly repeating: ‘it’s the only way’, ‘it is in the national interest’ and ‘we are all in this together’.

It is the classic Tory approach of divide and rule, enabling them to impose drastic cuts on 90% of the population; I say 90% because the top wealthy 10% are not affected or bothered.

If money was borrowed creating a deficit that has to be repaid, from whom was it borrowed? At what interest rate was it borrowed? Was it at a fixed rate or was money lenders’ method used? We need to know, but whatever the answers there is no need to inflict such damage on people’s lives – with promises of more to come.

The 90% of the population didn’t create the problem but are being made to bear the burden.

A. Delahoy

Silverknowes Gardens

 

City protesters say no to sanctions

City protesters to take action against benefits cuts and austerity

Protesters opposing benefits sanctions and work-for-your-benefits schemes are set to take action in Edinburgh city centre tomorrow (Saturday 7 December). Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty (ECAP) have called people to gather at noon in Festival Square on Lothian Road to “say no to sanctions, workfare and austerity.”

The demonstration is part of the Britain-wide Boycott Workfare Week of  Action against benefits sanctions and the government’s controversial “work-for-your-benefits” schemes.

“580,000 sanctions were imposed in the 9 month period up until June 2013 – that’s over half a million people (thousands of them officially recognised as sick or disabled) denied even the pittance of benefit payment in the sixth richest country in the world,”  said Ethel MacDonald of ECAP.

“Jobcentre workers are being threatened with disciplinary action if they don’t sanction more claimants.  People are being left penniless for absolutely no good reason.   This week a man who had arrived on time for his fortnightly signing was delayed within the Jobcentre by the absence of staff – and then had his money stopped for being allegedly two minutes late!

“Another claimant had his benefits stopped because he had not written down the name of every single job seekers website he had looked at.  When he started to tell the adviser the names of the websites, she claimed that was not good enough and his money would be stopped.”

“Unemployed people are being forced to work for nothing on schemes like the Work Experience scheme, Mandatory Work Activity and the Work Programme.  Research has shown these schemes do not help people find jobs.  In fact they increase unemployment – why should employers pay people if they can get free labour?

“People are actually being told they have to stop doing voluntary work at charities, in order to work for nothing at another charity!  Even people on Employment and Support Allowance who have been found unfit for work are being forced onto the Work Programme – with their benefits stopped if they are unable to comply.  We have been supporting a claimant whose official diagnosis is “chronic intractable pain “ who was without benefits for months due to sanctions.  He was too ill to attend the Work Programme but the DWP and private workfare company Ingeus combined to leave him penniless and dependent on food banks.

“Workfare, the DWP’s sanction campaign, ATOS’s hounding of the sick and disabled, and the vile narrative of scroungers and work shy, are all part of the State’s campaign to drive down the cost of labour so companies can make more profits, ” said Ethel MacDonald of ECAP.  “We call on everyone, in or out of employment, to take a stand against policies which are robbing the poor to make the rich even richer.

“Following Britain-wide protests, many charities and companies have already pulled out of the workfare schemes, and we urge those still involved to do the right thing and stop exploiting claimants.”

Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty www.edinburghagainstpoverty.org.uk  ecap@lists.riseup.net
Boycott Workfare www.boycottworkfare.org

City campaign groups denounce ‘back door privatisation’

LOCAL CAMPAIGN GROUPS DENOUNCE “BACK DOOR PRIVATISATION” IN CLEANSING

Local anti-cuts groups have declared that Edinburgh Council are responsible for the deteriorating service in refuse collection, and the blame should be put firmly on the councillors and top management, not the binmen and other workers. The groups denounce the “back door privatisation” of Edinburgh Council services and have demanded a response from Council leader Andrew Burns.

North Edinburgh Fights Back and Greater Leith Against the Cuts condemn the large-scale use of agency staff in Street Cleansing and Refuse Collection – and claim that the new switch to fortnightly collections appears to be motivated by cost-cutting not environmental concern.

“We are in favour of reducing waste and increasing recycling but we suspect the move to fortnightly collections is not motivated by ecology but is part of the cut-backs. We are closely monitoring its impact and are consulting with local people if action needs to be taken to restore the weekly collections.”

The groups also denounce the imposition of anti social shift patterns on the workforce, arguing that the continuation of work until 10.30pm will cause disruption and nuisance to residents, particularly children, the elderly and vulnerable. “Refuse collection workers have told management the new shift patterns would not work,” say the community groups, “but as usual the CEC management aren’t listening to the people who really know the job.”

In a statement, the groups declare:  ‘We are totally opposed to the privatisation of public services and the cuts in services and worsening working conditions this invariably entails. The full Council voted against privatising these services – why are they now doing the complete opposite, and bringing in large numbers of Blue Arrow contractors to both Street
Cleansing and Refuse Collection?  New workers – who are certainly needed – should be taken on as full Council employees, wherever possible with permanent contracts.’

They add: ‘Contrary to some claims, Blue Arrow were NOT introduced to deal with the current backlog, dozens of Blue Arrow staff have been operating from the Russell Road depot in refuse collection since March, and Blue Arrow have been deployed from Cowans Close depot in street cleansing since July. What’s more, the private firm Enterprise were used in street cleansing in the spring.’

A Shop Steward from within Environmental Services said: “I have repeatedly voiced my concerns at the use of agency staff to City of Edinburgh Council Senior Management at numerous meetings since the elected members rejected Privatisation and also to various elected members all to no avail; unfortunately it appears that this new administration is
also listening to the officials who are now intent on privatising our council/public services through the back door.”

The community groups are still awaiting a response from the Council. “We have written to Councillor Burns demanding an end to this back door privatisation – he has yet to reply. However Councillor Hinds has written to say she has commissioned a report on the matter from Director of Services for Communities Mark Turley. We eagerly await this and urge its early delivery.”

North Edinburgh Fights Back <info@northedinburghfightsback.org.uk>
Greater Leith Against the Cuts <greaterleithc59@gmail.com>
Website www.edinburghagainstcuts.org.uk
 

We’re not having it! Campaign groups organise public meeting

 

North Edinburgh Fights Back and Muirhouse Womens Group are holding a public meeting in North Edinburgh Arts Centre on Wednesday (13 June) to organise a joint campaign against cuts to local services – an opportunity to ‘hear the case against poverty and join the fightback’.

Speakers confirmed include representatives from Shelter Scotland and the Poverty Alliance.

The meeting starts at 6.30pm – all welcome.

For further information visit www.northedinburghfightsback.org.uk

See poster for details:

poverty-not-having-it-2

We're not having it! Campaign groups organise public meeting

 

North Edinburgh Fights Back and Muirhouse Womens Group are holding a public meeting in North Edinburgh Arts Centre on Wednesday (13 June) to organise a joint campaign against cuts to local services – an opportunity to ‘hear the case against poverty and join the fightback’.

Speakers confirmed include representatives from Shelter Scotland and the Poverty Alliance.

The meeting starts at 6.30pm – all welcome.

For further information visit www.northedinburghfightsback.org.uk

See poster for details:

poverty-not-having-it-2