Surrey County UNISON branch

The current new timetabling for the library service is a shambles, it is causing us extreme upset over our jobs. We are all basically being made to re-apply for our jobs, other people within the service are applying for our positions as well, which may cause us to be sent to other branches we do not wish to work at. As a single parent on a very limited income, I may then be forced to incur travel costs through no fault of my own. No-One seems to listen to us, S.C.C. are treating as disgracefully, if anyone asked me what they are like to work for I would put people off. If I was not a single parent I would leave my job but of course that is what S.C.C. want and I wont at present give them the satisfaction, I am going to stand up and fight, but expect that I will lose in the end. People need to know what is happening within the library service.

BDR cost me my job- through absolutely no fault of my own. My head of service was willing to toady to the top table by cutting many frontline staff,like myself- whilst ensuring layers of management were saved and then installed to insulate the likes of himself, the Executive, and the Members from their crass financial mismanagement and incompetence.Now SCC is in a total mess, service and morale levels have crashed, good teams have been destroyed and many good staff discarded. To keep parroting that SCC is now 'better' beggars belief- if they were to come down from their ivory towers and join the real world, maybe, just maybe, it would dawn on them what a shambles they have created- SCC is now a joke; a glorified call centre, where problems are pushed from manager to manager without a single solution coming from these overpaid, self-interested timeservers who have forgotten they are public servants. How Mr Shaw and co can look in the mirror each day beats me.

BDR impact on Mental Health has been very severe. The claim that there was "No job cuts"is simply not true!
Why are there so many empty social services posts throughout Surrey?
CSW/STR, SW's and ASW vacancies in all CMHT's , Outreach and Home treatment teams....not to mention DAT teams!
Funny how recruitment continues to be a problem isn't it? 2% pay offers and lack of career progression may just put them off even if surrey do ever choose to advertise. Who ran off with the training budget for all the STR's in Surrey? Who deleted all the career progression posts? please let me know......

Some aspects of BDR and the new ways of working are clearly disastrous and are making SCC an organisation no longer fit for the purpose. It appears the County is led by people with no communication or people management skills. The new ways of working are plainly not working and changes must be made. Many of my colleagues are extremely stressed out trying to maintain services against seemly impossible odds. The internal failures must become public knowledge and those responsible held accountable.

BDR has been and is ridiculous. Decisions made without actually asking any of the staff's view on where cuts could reasonably be made. AO's moved out of offices into a building where the chairs alone cost over £500 quid each, to save money?!, wasting peoples brain cells, and losing valuable staff because they can't take being made to feel like a conveyor belt. CSW's expected to undertake their own caseloads - so long as they aren't 'complex' could have been a great idea, with support and training, and yes financial incentive, instead, any hope of keeping good staff is out of the window because as a CSW myself - i can and will go to Hounslow to earn 7 grand a year more than I do here for the same work

In my experience of BDR manager's have been holding their cards very close to their chests. No-one was forthcoming about what jobs were on the line. We still don't know if BDR is finished or is there more to come? Myself and colleagues have felt imense pressure as workloads are increasing and yet no staff can be hired as a result of BDR - staff are getting stressed out due to high workloads - SCC need to sort this mess out.

BDR has been a joke from start to finish. It appears that most of the really good staff members we had got fed up waiting to see if they were keeping their jobs that they've now left. And as for the Central Admin Review - well just how long do we have to wait to find out what that is all about? Are our jobs safe? They've got a funny way of showing us if they are!