2 March lobby at Merton Council on social care

GMB lobby full council meeting of Merton council on 2nd March to support 2% social care increase to council tax to fund social care.

Additional funding has to be raised for the council to pay the £600+ per week that the Rowntree Trust recommends to provide a decent level of care in care homes says GMB

GMB, the union for care workers, will lobby the full meeting of Merton Council on 2nd March calling on councillors to support a 2% increase in council tax each year to 2020 to fund social care. This is after a cabinet meeting on Monday 15th Feb that decided not to recommend the 2% increase to the full council meeting on 2nd March. See notes to editors for copy of GMB press release dated 26th February 2016 showing how much each council in London can raise by 2020 if they use the full flexibility set out by the government in the autumn statement and the details of that flexibility.

Sheila Berry, GMB regional organiser, said “The Government in the Autumn Statement provided for councils to increase the council tax by 2% each year to 2020 to provide additional funding to social care sector that is facing a yawning funding gap.

GMB estimates that in Merton this could bring in over £7 million extra funding to provide support for the most vulnerable in the borough.

Reducing spending on social care has to stop and the council has to raise more funds. We cannot have a repeat of what happened last year in Merton when a contract that was originally worth £1.4 million was awarded to a bidder for less than £990,000.

To achieve the cuts all the staff had their terms and conditions changed – they lost a third of their income and as most were long term NHS staff who had TUPE’d across, they also lost future accrual to their NHS pensions. No one can afford to lose a third of their income, so a large number of them left.

The result was that the people Merton are responsible for lost well qualified long standing members of staff, and a poorer service is being delivered.

The situation in the care homes is chronic and additional funding has to be raised for the council to pay the £600+ per week that the Rowntree Trust recommends to provide a decent level of care.

The full council meeting Merton must use this opportunity to collect the extra £7 million. GMB will be lobbying the councillors to support the 2% increase. GMB cannot tolerate the council’s Nero like fiddling while the care homes burn”

Contact: Sheila Berry 07710 591388 or Gary Doolan on 07590 262504 GMB Press Office 07921 289880 or 07974 251823 or 07970 863411.