Politicians are in desperate need of rehabilitation and we must do all we can to restore our tarnished reputations so what are the LibDems and Labour doing by reneging on their election promise to build five new Care Homes in Highland? These homes are Urray House, Muir of Ord; Duthac House, Tain; Ach an Eas, Inverness; Grant House, Grantown and Invernevis House, Fort William.
I am very proud of the SNP Group on the Council who overturned the previous proposal to privatise the Care Homes and who are still fighting to have the new homes built with a final decision expected yesterday, Thursday 24th June.
I spoke at a rally of around 500 people in Fort William on Saturday, called to support the Invernevis Action Group which is fighting specifically for Invernevis House. My fellow speakers included Charles Kennedy who made a very telling point. He said that this was about politicians keeping their promises and he is absolutely right. Unfortunately, he seems to be the only LibDem left in the Highlands who upholds the old Highland Liberal Tradition and I fear that Tory ideology has gained too much of a hold on his LibDem Council colleagues who seem hell bent on breaking trust with the people of the Highlands..
I have read the business case produced by the Council and it is obvious it is written to back the case for privatisation. Now, there is nothing wrong with the private sector. A healthy social care market needs public sector competition, however, to give the Council an alternative and not leave them exposed to a monopoly private sector situation.
The advocates of privatisation argue that the business case clearly shows that the private sector is considerably cheaper on an annual cost per bed basis than the public sector but a close examination shows that it does not compare like for like. Let me just make two points about that.
Firstly, the capital cost of the new build Council Care Homes appears to be written off over just 20 years as opposed to 40 or even 60 years which is not unusual for buildings which will last that long. This has the effect of doubling, or even trebling, the annual cost of servicing the debt and pushes up the cost per bed considerably.
Secondly, the private sector has a much lower wage bill than the public sector. The business case shows this very clearly and explains that the lowest paid Council Care Home worker is on £6.92 per hour (£12,594 a year), not exactly a King's ransom but moving towards a living wage, and many are better paid than that. In the private sector Care Homes, however, the vast majority of staff are on the minimum wage of £5.80 per hour (£10,556 a year), despite carrying out an important and difficult job.
In addition to this, the private sector provides only the statutory minimum pension and sick pay provision whereas public sector Care workers have a better, although still modest, pension which they partly pay for themselves. These lower wages and conditions add up to 30% less costs to the private sector but is this really where we should be going? Cutting the wages and conditions of our lowest paid workers! Piling the burden of savings on our dedicated care home staff!
On the contrary, I believe that we should be protecting these low paid Council Care workers and trying to get those in the private sector up to the same modest levels of wages and conditions. Workers whose weekly wage is barely enough to live on and yet, who we expect to carry out one of the most important and difficult jobs in our society, caring for our elderly at the end of their lives. Surely they deserve decent wages and conditions.
The LibDems and Labour should be ashamed of themselves and, I hope, by the time you read this that they have done another U turn and reversed the Care Home privatisation plan at yesterday's Council meeting.
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