Our branch has a record of supporting and defending service users and we see this week as a natural extension of that policy. Just as service users depend on dedicated and professional staff to support them with everyday living - so we rely on them for our jobs and salaries.

There are far too many stories in the press about vulnerable adults being abused (not including those which are not reported). Abuse can take many forms - as well as the more obvious physical abuse, many older and vulnerable adults are neglected or subjected to financial abuse (often by those closest to them).

UNISON, as a trade union, is dedicated to representing the rights of our members, which include staff in day centres, home care, residential homes etc. at the front line of adult services. When one of our members witnesses something they believe to be abuse it can be very difficult to know where to turn. It may be work colleagues or the person's relatives. It may even be someone senior to the person. Any of these situations are difficult to handle and we understand that clear guidelines and support need to be in place to support any employee who wants to report an incident or 'Blow the Whistle'. 

'Whistleblowing' is protected in law and UNISON have organised a one-day training workshop for members on this issue during Safeguarding Adults Awareness Week.

Whistleblowing - Thursday 19th June 10am-4pm in Guildford.

Any member who would like to attend this training day should contact the branch office for an application form.

If you are not a member of UNISON and want to attend, use the link on our home page to download a membership application and send it to the office along with the training application.

UNISON met with Colin Rowett (Service Manager) on 26 September 2007 and Tony Draper (Surrey County Council) at Stage 1 of the Collective Disputes Procedure.

UNISON had been approached with a large number of signatures of Occupational Therapists and Occupational Therapist Assistants, to register their disapproval of the service offered from Surrey County Council's supplier NRS, with a number of problems being documented over a number of years.

This meeting proved to be very constructive as a number of measures had already been put in place to address these problems over the past month.

Communication between Surrey County Council and NRS about the measures taken to address all concerns raised, shall be made available to all staff in the form of a newsletter.  This newsletter will first be discussed with UNISON Stewards, prior to it going out.

In addition, the Managing Director of NRS will meet with UNISON Representatives in three months to discuss business delivery and the improvements that should have been made.

In six months, a review of the service will be done with Surrey County Council and UNISON.

With a satisfactory reply from Management at this meeting, the Formal Procedure for Collective Disputes were withdrawn at Stage 1.

Andy Pattinson, Service Conditions Officer

Paul Couchman (Acting Branch Secretary) and Andy Pattinson (ASW Convenor) from Surrey UNISON met with Graham Wilkin (Surrey County Council) at a meeting arranged by Ian Bass (Human Resources) on 4 October 2007.

Surrey County Council wanted the "green light" from UNISON to go ahead with plans made from the Joint Consultative Committee on 5 July 2007 regarding the implementation for the creation of the New Senior Professional Lead (SPL) positions within the Directorate.

These posts will also sit within the East and West of the County and Specialist Services.  The SPL's will be responsible for the professional supervision of the Senior ASW's and also offer Senior Social Work advice at strategic level. The number of existing Senior Social Work jobs will reduce to 5 substantive posts.

While Graham Wilkin and Ian Bass stated this was the focus of today's meeting, we did also manage to broaden the discussion to the ASW Modernisation "Models of Working" party and future strategies for implementation of the New Mental Health Act 2007.

The ASW Modernisation group have been meeting as an outcome of agreements made with Surrey County Council since the end of Industrial conflict last December.

ASW "models of working" have been discussed and meetings have been held, without any concrete decisions being made.

Graham Wilkin believes that due to the implementation of the new Mental Health Act, with the creation of the new approved Mental Health Practitioners role (AMHP's) to be in structure in October 2008, has meant that events have "shifted the goal posts" while trying to review exisiting services.

The AMHP role will include Professionals from other professions (Nurses, Psychologists, Occupational Therapists) to undertake Mental Health assessments under the Act.

Therefore Graham Wilkin is proposing that stakeholders from a variety of groups, including representatives from Health and Carers groups must be involved in a "whole systems" approach to reviewing how Surrey County Council can best deliver this service to the people of Surrey.  ASW representatives from UNISON were also to be part of this process.

Graham Wilkin was keen to stress that while the ASW Modernisation Group work should not be lost, ideas must be adapted in the light of a new AMHP role, to which he hopes Surrey will be a "Pilot" Service for the new Government proposals.

Andy Pattinson, ASW Convenor/Service Conditions Officer

The meeting will be at the Runnymede Centre and will discuss a number of issues, including recruitment and retention, career pathways and caseloads.

It is important to remember that we now have these meetings only because the ASWs were prepared to take action. The meetings are part of a package accepted by the ASWs in settlement of their recent dispute over hours.

Any major news from the meetings will be posted here.

* £1,000 goodwill payment to ALL ASWs on the rota at the time the dispute was lodged

* Overtime to be paid to all those ASWs, back-dated to Jan 1st 06 (where this has not already been taken back as TOIL)

* Overtime payments to be made available from Jan 1st 07 to all ASWs whose ASW duties take them past 5pm.

* A joint working party to be established in January (chaired initially by Dave Sargeant) to look at all aspects of the service, including modernisation, recruitment and retention.

The ASWs only acheived this by sticking together, working through UNISON, and by being prepared to take action. Other groups of workers should now look at this result and ask themselves how they can improve their own terms and conditions through UNISON membership and activity.

Congratulations to the ASWs!

It has been agreed with SCC that all UNISON ASW members can attend an emergency meeting to discuss this offer - tomorrow morning at 9.30am at the Runnymede Centre, Chertsey.

It is vital that all UNISON ASWs attend if at all possible. Only UNISON members should attend. A vote will be taken as to whether to accept this offer or to continue with the planned (and ongoing) industrial action.

Regardless of the outcome of tomorrow's meeting, it is hoped that all UNISON members will be on strike on Thursday in further pursuance of the Surrey Pay claim and that attendance at the strike rally at County Hall is solid.

The meeting was deadly serious and ASWs clearly do not want to have to strike over Christmas, but they feel so strongly over the issues involved that strike action was the only option. There was also anger over SCC's apparent lack of seriousness over this dispute. UNISON have tried very hard to get Dave Sargeant and Graham Wilkin to come to the table with a decent offer. Every date we have offered, they have been unable to make! We even received one offer to meet on the 21st December - when we will all be on strike.

ASWs will be informed of any developements as and when they arise. This web page will also be kept up to date.

Letter to SCC

The meeting is at 6pm at the Runnymede Centre, Chertsey, on Thursday 14th December.