Composite A (covering Amended Motions 2 & 35 and Motions 33 & 38)
Public Services
“That this Congress notes that the lives of everyone in Scotland are entwined with our public services. From keeping the food we eat safe, the water we drink pure, educating and entertaining, curing and caring, supporting and saving, and much else besides.
“Congress thanks the highly skilled public sector workforce in services across Scotland and recognises that those workers have built up skills after years of on-job experience and training to deliver the quality and valued services we rely on, but notes that a skills and staffing crisis persists across Scotland’s public sector threatening service standards.
“Congress condemns the austerity policies of successive governments, which have left our public services in a parlous state. The longest NHS waiting lists since devolution, social care is in a mess and, after taking the brunt of cuts over many years, local government is in crisis.
“Colleges are struggling, police services jobs are being cut, Scottish Water is subject to back door privatisation, universities are near bankrupt and libraries and leisure facilities are closing.
“Meanwhile, a million Scots live in poverty—many of them being failed by under resourced services they should be able to rely on.
“Congress notes that the continued financial pressures being faced by councils suppresses staffing levels and pay in education; and recognises the significant impact this will have on the quality of education in Scotland’s schools, where pupils have increased needs and staff are increasingly being abused and assaulted in their workplace.
“Congress notes that in social care, the government and private sector continue to rely on underpaid staff, especially from abroad, to meet rising demand; and notes that there still is no clear sector-wide pathway for progression or professionalisation for the social care workforce, hindering personal advancement and service quality; and notes that the social care minimum wage continues to rise outwith sectoral bargaining.
“Congress recognises the NHS is stuck in a continued recruitment and retention crisis with staff being overworked and underpaid; and condemns the Scottish Government delaying the implementation of the shorter working week as previously agreed to improve retention.
“Congress believes there are significant links between health and education funding and that reduced access to medical pathways, longer waiting lists, and reductions in community healthcare have had detrimental impacts on teachers being able to maintain employment and pupils in securing the necessary medical support to succeed.
“Congress further believes that contracting out public services has resulted in a bonanza for profiteers, where up to £3billion is drained from the public purse. The outsourcing of residential services for children is especially egregious, if we are to keep ‘The Promise’ to our children.
“Outsourcing cannot achieve the aim of delivering quality services or fair work as profit seekers drive down wages and shift the cost of outsourcing onto the lowest paid, predominantly female, workers.
“Congress believes that cuts in services, along with inflated housing costs and insecure, low-paid work, has left many communities angry and disillusioned.
“The decline in services has led to the politics of scarcity, allowing far-right agitators to weaponise shortages and spread racially fuelled hatred.
“The Scottish Government’s planned response to this is a Public Services Reform Strategy based not on investment—but on reducing budgets still further, cutting staff, automating services and outsourcing jobs. Reform cannot be reliant on AI strategies that haemorrhage funding and knowledge from the public sector. Transformation can only be successful if trade unions are engaged in developing a positive vision of public services for the next generation.
“Congress calls on the General Council to lobby the Scottish Government to:
fund services properly based on the measures outlined in ‘Raising Taxes to Deliver for Scotland’;
- support the removal of opportunities for CEOs and corporations to exploit our public services for profit and to line their own pockets;
- commit to a public sector insourcing plan; audit outsourcing across the sector and bring services back under public control;
- highlight that the implementation of an insourcing plan across public services in Scotland can improve equality outcomes and deliver more effective, long term workforce planning, skills retention and career development;
- write off local government debts and ensure fair funding for local government;
- use the new Children (Care, Care Experience and Service Planning) (Scotland) Bill to end profit in children’s residential services;
- re-invest any so called efficiency savings;
- utilise procurement to support community wealth building principles to invest in communities and focus services on prevention;
- immediately engage in sectoral bargaining in social care to prioritise the negotiation of improved pay, sick pay, and a pathway of progression;
- deliver a fair funding settlement for local government to grow the frontline workforce in schools, waste, and social care;
- introduce a new framework to ensure discipline in schools and classrooms in consultation with trade unions; and
- meet trade union expectations on work-life balance in future pay talks.
“Congress further calls on the General Council to:
- support a crackdown on tax avoidance and tax evasion;
- campaign for the implementation of a progressive programme of wealth taxes;
- campaign to restore and expand welfare support for children and families in need;
- utilise narratives which highlight the interconnection between effective medical pathways, teacher health and wellbeing, pupil support and subsequent educational achievement;
- press for coherent systems approaches which support workers, parents and carers and young people alike;
- campaign for increased investment in public services on the principle of ‘preventative spend’ which recognises that funding effective public services now prevents the necessity of corrective spending on additional public services in the future;
- challenge the Scottish Government attitude that staff in services can be neatly divided into ‘front line’ and ‘the rest’, and have support staff recognised as essential enablers; and
- oppose Scottish Government plans for centralisation, outsourcing, and offshoring of services and the jobs attached to them.”
Mover: STUC General Council
Seconder: UNISON
Supporters: GMB
NASUWT
Unite
Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS)
National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT)
Aberdeen Trades Union Council
RSS