"People power" yesterday forced City of Edinburgh Council to suspend its plan "to sell 777 of the city's most vulnerable residents to the lowest bidder." Hundreds packed into the City Chambers on 19 November as the Council voted to suspend till 3rd December its plan to remove Care and Support services from existing local providers.

A care worker told Indymedia "It was a great victory but now we have a busy two weeks ahead until the next decision day of 3rd December. " The Finance and Resources Committee meets at 10am that day to decide the future of hundreds of people with serious mental and physical disabilities.

Carers and service users condemned the Council's money-saving plan as a drastic attack on the quality of life for such people with learning disabilities, physical disabilities, mental health conditions and hearing impairments. Many of those directly under attack participated in the lobby wearing "I'm not for sale" T shirts.

Deputation after deputation denounced the sell-off to the full Council meeting.
"My daughter is profoundly handicapped. She can't talk or walk. She's incontinent. She's in a wheelchair, she has fits. When we take her to the Doctor she screams in pain, and we have to try and work out what's wrong, she can't tell us. She needs trained professionals to care for her. We are very pleased with the care she's getting now. You can't pull people off the streets on the minimum wage and expect them to care for people with these kinds of disabilities." said a speaker from Share Scotland

This and other contributions were met with loud applause from the packed public gallery and the equally packed overflow room, where an estimated 150- 200 people avidly followed the proceedings through loudspeakers.

"I am not for sale" : demo at Council on 11 November.

NO CHOICE NO CARE

A support worker from Edinburgh Support Workers Action Network says:
“The company that stands to win the biggest contract if this tendering process is allowed to go ahead is Choices Care. They pay their staff £6.05 per hour. There is no way you can retain good, dedicated, qualified staff over a long period of time if the role of support worker is devalued to barely above minimum wage. This would be disastrous for us and the people we support”.

Ian Hood from Learning Disability Alliance Scotland pointed out that Companies who had won the Council contracts had been rated by the Care Commission as "barely adequate" and "must improve".

A user of learning disability services stated in a letter to LibDem councillor Jim Lowrie:
“I want my staff to keep on working with me. Don’t make them go away. Leave the staff alone and let them get on with their work”.

Edinburgh Support Workers Action Network : " The Council's proposal aims to wipe out several local voluntary sector organisations that provide good quality specialised services and replace them wth 8 companies, the biggest winners being low cost, large scale private companies with questionable track records (one was the subject of a Panorama documentary entitled Britain's Homecare Scandal.)"

"What's proposed is a cut of over 30%. The contracts awarded mean a cut of 21%, then the companies concerned will take at least another 10% profits on top of that." explained the speaker from SHARE Scotland.

DIRECT PAYMENTS DENIED

People who need care have a legal right to "Direct Payments" to enable them to pay for the kind of care that they choose themselves.  But the City of Edinburgh Council have been refusing to pay out these Direct Payments, to try and force people into the arms of the profit-driven winners of the tendering process.

The outrage at this policy has now forced the Council to partially back down. The amendment passed at today's Council meeting declares that the Council will now process Direct Payments applications.

But the crucial question of the level of payments that they will pay, has still to be decided. To date the Council has only committed to pay Direct Payments at a rate in line with the "most competitive tender bids" it has received.

WHAT DOES THE COUNCIL DECISION MEAN?

Learning Disability Alliance Scotland summarised the main points of the successful amendment passed yesterday as :
* 2 weeks for another report
* Major issues on the direct payments to be addressed
* Other councillors like Lesley Hinds will be critically involved in directing officials.
* No guarantees but there will be more options.

The amendment was backed in the Council meeting by Labour, the Greens, and the Conservatives, this proving enough to outvote the ruling Liberal Democrat - SNP coalition.

CUTS BATTLE SPREADING

The struggle over Care and Support Services comes as the Council faces related battles in several areas as it bids to impose cutbacks on its workers and services.

Library workers have denounced deteriorating working conditions, while it has been reported that three secondary schools are under threat of closure. The Edinburgh Homecare Campaign are resisting the Council's drive to privatise 75% of its homecare services. This privatisation and associated cuts in care quality particularly hit vulnerable elderly people.

Council cleansing workers are working to rule and banning overtime to oppose pay cuts, and now the Council white collar workers in UNISON have similarly voted to reject the Councils pay modernisation.

The Edinburgh Muckraker, distributed at today's lobby, urged: "Workers, service users and residents need to join together to fight all the cuts in services....", pointing out that "Many are angry that cuts are coming from the living standards of ordinary people - when council bosses, politicians and wealthy bankers are retaining their fat salaries, pensions and expenses."

ACT NOW

Edinburgh Support Worker Action Network declare:
"The Council was not so worried about cutting costs when it bailed out its "arms length" property companies to the tune of £70 million.

We have to make them change their priorities.

Otherwise, in years to come, we will be watching TV documentaries, reading newspaper articles about how appalling these services have become, how they are wrecking lives, as has been the case in care of the elderly in many places.

And we will wonder how this was allowed to happen.

We must act now before it's too late."

Edinburgh Support Workers Action Network
http://www.swanedinburgh.org.uk/    swanedinburgh@yahoo.co.uk

Learning Disability Alliance Scotland http://www.ldascotland.org/

The Edinburgh Muckraker news-sheet and Council Worker Solidarity group  edinburghmuckraker@riseup.net

Edinburgh Homecare Campaign http://edinburghhomecarecampaign.wordpress.com/

Full text of the amendment agreed at the Council meeting on 19 November at http://www.ldascotland.org/

Report on earlier demonstration on 11 November