By John Wimperis, Local Democracy Reporter: The sound of social workers protesting against redundancies interrupted a council meeting in Bath which was almost suspended on Monday (March 9).
“What do we want? No job losses! Who do we tell? Council bosses!” could be heard in the council chamber more clearly than the words of the councillors on Bath and North East Somerset Council’s children, adults, health and wellbeing scrutiny committee. Councillors were discussing a major restructure to the council’s children’s social care department which social workers have warned will devastate key frontline preventative social work.
There are set to be five redundancies but many more social workers have had their roles and teams eliminated and will have to apply for new roles. Tracey Bidgood, who has worked for the council for 33 years and was told on Monday her whole team was being removed, said the news was “devastating.”
She works in the council’s Connecting Families team which works intensively with families with complex needs to offer early help and prevent them entering the social care system. She said: “I think when I speak for the whole team in saying it’s not just a job. It’s a life choice.”
Addressing the scrutiny committee as a public speaker, retired social worker Mark Baldwin, who now volunteers with the Connecting Families team, said: “I was really shocked and dismayed to discover that the service is being deleted in the wake of a national change to children’s services.
“The government policy does not require this action to be taken […] but the authority has chosen to destroy what is an award winning service which has been phenomenally successful in turning around the lives of children and families in local communities.”
The council said the government’s “families first” reforms required the council to create multi-disciplinary family help teams, so social workers from Connecting Families would now be integrated into these teams. The idea is that families then experience fewer changes in social workers.
Council cabinet member for children’s services Paul May (Publow and Whitchurch, Liberal Democrat) said he wanted to recognise the value of the Connecting Families team and that the council still wanted to use their skills. He said: “It’s not about doing away with the team. It’s about using that team in the most effective way in the future for the services that we need to be providing.”
The windows to the council chamber had to be closed part way through the meeting after social workers in trade union Unison protesting the restructure turned up at the back of the Guildhall with a megaphone.
Speaking over the noise from outside, committee member Joanna Wright (Lambridge, Green) said: “I am concerned when I hear this much noise going on around me from a group of people — who are dedicated professionals gone into a service that probably doesn’t pay them very much — that they are scared for the children they are responsible for.”
She said she had spoken to the protesting social workers outside the meeting and was disappointed in the council’s process. She called for there to be an extension.
At one point, after social worker in the Connecting Families team Marie Porter gave a speech from the public gallery and walked out, committee chair Dine Romero warned that she might have to suspend the meeting. As she spoke, she was then interrupted by the protestors outside resuming their chanting.
Ms Porter said, as she left, that the Connecting Families team was being “obliterated” and challenged the council’s claims that the work would continue in a different way. She said: “It is a sham.” Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service at the protest before the meeting, Ms Porter said: “Families always talk really positively about the team. They give fantastic feedback. They talk about how their lives have been turned around.”
The council only recently avoided a strike in its children’s social care department over a separate issue. Team managers and deputy team managers had voted to strike over changes to pay grading which saw them put on the same level as some of the staff they manage. After “positive and productive progress” the council announced on February 26 that Unison has suspended the planned strike action as a sign of good faith.
The social workers were joined at their protest by striking staff from mental health charity Second Step to show solidarity. Staff at the charity, who are also represented by Unison, are striking over fair pay.
A Bath and North East Somerset Council spokesperson said: “We are consulting on draft proposals looking at how we structure our teams to improve how we work with children and families. This is about improving services for children and young people living in our area.
“We value our staff and the important work that they do with children and families. Over the past few months colleagues have been encouraged to get involved as we developed these proposals. It’s important to stress that we are currently consulting on proposals and that no decisions have been made.
“Last week we did identify some errors in some letters that went out. These were immediately corrected, we apologised, and new letters were reissued. We want to reassure colleagues that throughout this consultation we will continue to talk and listen.”
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