Employment conditions in the scottish social care voluntary sector : impact of public funding constraints in the context of economic recession

This report uses data to assess the impact of public funding constraints on employment conditions in the Scottish social care voluntary sector, in the context of the recent economic recessionand future public expenditure cuts

False economy? The costs of contracting and workforce insecurity in the voluntary sector

The purpose of this project has been to gain insights into the direct and indirect implications of the insecure funding regime faced by the social care sector, with a particular focus on those relating to employment and service quality. Respondents revealed an intensifying climate of competition and anxiety among workers and their representatives regarding future employment prospects. This situation was aggravated by uncertainties over Supporting People funding and the actual, and perceived potential, impact of new EU public procurement regulations

Personalisation and its implications for work and employment in the voluntary sector

This report assesses the impact of personalisation on social care, particularly focussing on implications for the workforce. Personalisation is often presented as being transformative in the manner in which it empowers both people who use services and employees. The report considers the latter aspect in particular by assessing some of the workforce implications of personalisation. It reports research drawn from policymakers and three voluntary organisations, with interviews with managers, employees and people who use services. The main findings from the research are: Policymakers were enthusiastic about the potential benefits of personalisation with regard to the opportunities for the independence of people who receive services and enhancement of workforce skills. Policymakers feared the impact of public spending cuts and recognised the cultural and operational barriers within local authorities to the implementation of personalisation. Policymakers were enthusiastic about the role of the voluntary sector and its workforce in terms of its contribution to delivering personalised services, whilst recognising concerns about skills gaps among employees and the impact of deteriorating terms and conditions of employment on worker morale. Management in the three organisations largely embraced the principles of personalisation, whilst also recognising the pressure from local authorities to use the personalisation agenda to cut costs. Employees in the main understood the principles of personalisation but revealed limited awareness of the implications for the changes in service budgets. Organisations were changing their approach to staff recruitment in order to develop a better fit between the interests of people receiving services and employees delivering them. Management anticipated significant changes to the working hours of employees providing personalised services, which was met with a degree of anxiety among some employees. Management recognised the need to address skills gaps among employees in areas such as risk enablement, decision-making and community connecting. Employees generally welcomed the potential enhancement of their skills through personalisation. Job security concerns were apparent among the majority of front-line employees as a consequence of personalisation. Organisations were balancing the move towards risk enablement and cutting costs with the need to protect service user and worker health and safety, particularly in relation to managing challenging behavior. Personalisation brings with it the potential to fragment pay and conditions away from collective terms towards linking them more closely to the value of individual service budgets. People who receive services revealed limited awareness of changes to service budgets, their choices over the service provider, choices over who provides their services and there was limited evidence of empowerment and greater choice

Non-profits and the 'hollowed out' state : the transformation of working conditions through personalising social care services during an era of austerity

This article explores the impact of state reforms to increase customer authority in social care at a time of public sector austerity in Scotland. The article focuses on the implications of these reforms for state – non-profit relations and the latter’s employment policies. The study proposes a theoretical framework to explore these themes using insights from the ‘hollowing out’ thesis (Jessop, 2002: Rhodes: 1994) and the customer orientated bureaucracy concept (Korczynski, 2002). The results show how non-profits responding to customer authority from personalisation and deep public expenditure cuts introduce a range of ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ Human Resource Management (HRM) reforms to secure employee flexibility and commitment. Workers, in turn, face multiple demands to ‘fit’ with customer needs. The combination of management rationalisation programmes and personalisation also means employees experience a degradation in employment conditions, although some increases in skills are apparent

Personalisation, austerity and the HR function in the UK voluntary sector

Using the customer orientated bureaucracy (COB) concept, this qualitative study investigates changes to the Human Resource (HR) function’s status in eight Scottish voluntary organisations delivering public services at a time of contradictory government calls for greater customer service (personalisation) and cost control (austerity). HR attempts to build and sustain social orders that encourage worker commitment to customer service, leading to business facing and ‘business partner’ strategic roles in areas of recruitment and skills. The study, however, challenges the ability of unitarist ‘business partner’ HR roles to resolve emerging organisational tensions concerning industrial relations, worker concerns over their own security, lack of opportunities to up-skill and service quality. It further questions whether the HR function can be strategic in this and other COB contexts as it can be powerless to resolve workplace tensions because its own status is undermined by budget cuts by government and it faces challenges to its expertise from internal and external actors such as consultants and customers

Versatile power supply

Tetherless is a concept for the elimination of constraints from electrical power delivery systems. Three separate solutions are presented in a progression of increasing technology. Each stage is able to address and refine more than the previous one through foreseeable technological advancements. The main objective of the concept is to provide the user with a more flexible, adaptable, and versatile interior environment. The solutions allow control by the individual, not the system, of how and where electricity is to be used. The problems and constraints of existing systems can be broken down into three categories. First is the limitation of logistics. We are bound by fixed outlets or receptacles which offer little or no adjustability to suit the needs of a variety of users and applications. Second is function. The interfaces with current equipment tend to be awkward, cumbersome and pose safety concessions. Today\u27s products also neglect to address communication as an essential component of a globally oriented society. Thirdly is the sensitivity to aesthetic detail. Present systems have been carelessly expanded with little regard to visual consequence. This has desensitized the public which accepts this clutter as necessary. Tetherless poses questions to the established systems of products and interface hardware. Solutions are proposed based on current and foreseeable technology within the existing framework of power grid generation

Stereochemical and Mechanistic Studies in a Biosynthetic Model System

Abstract Not Provided

The Enablers and Barriers to Voluntary Sector Organisations Providing Personalised Support through Delivery of Self Directed Support

This research was set up to consider issues around the implementation of Self Directed Support. It is relatively small scale, exploratory and represents a ‘snapshot’ of activity across different organisations in different geographical areas. It reveals a substantial number of issues impacting on implementation which would benefit from more sustained analysis

'How could management let this happen?' Gender, unpaid work and industrial relations in the nonprofit social services sector

This article explores recent strike action in two highly gendered nonprofit social services agencies who had long term union agreements, a history of labour peace (upwards of twenty years) and a reputation for participatory, cooperative IR cultures. Drawing on qualitative interview data collected in case studies in two liberal welfare states namely Scotland and Canada, the article investigates a management shift resulting from government funding restraints (passed on down to the line to agencies, workers and service users), as well as a concomitant shift in industrial relations culture in which management moved away from more cooperative, participatory approaches to more hostile, oppositional approaches. Drawing on the following three components - - the voices of workers in our data, mobilisation theory (Kelly 1998) and feminist political economy - - the article analyses union-management relations in under-funded, contracted-out government services in both countries studied. The objectives of the article are to explore: 1. whether conditions still exist for a progressive culture of management-union relations given widespread restructuring and what that means for this highly gendered sector; 2. moblisation theory and feminist political economy, particularly in relation to gender and the NPSS; 3.whether austerity policies such as government funding cuts are leading to a possible convergence between private and nonprofit approaches to union-management relations