IN October 2015, the BelfastHealth and Social Care Trustlaunched a consultation for theprovision of learning disabilityday services throughoutBelfast.

Belfast Trust Branch 730 cau-tiously welcomed the consultationon the basis it would enhance thedelivery of a cost-effective and ef-ficient service that secures jobswithin the National Health Serv-ice.

However, it became very clearvery quickly this was not going tobe the case. The consultationrepresented the economic narra-tive of the Westminster Govern-ment and Assembly Executive –that austerity must be imple-mented across all our public serv-ices.

This consultation quickly be-came an underhanded opportu-nity to savage vital publicservices and to cut the Trustbudget.

The Belfast Trust has declaredthat projected savings if the pro-posals are implemented will be aconservative estimate of£305,000 by 2017.

This massive amount of sav-ings can only be made with sav-age cuts.

Shamefully, in real terms, this

would see the closure of the threecross-community mental healthand learning disability day cen-tres in north Belfast, west Belfastand east Belfast. This will impacton more than 200 service usersand carers as well as the whole-sale transfer of services to thecommunity and voluntary sector.

By its very nature the closurewould also impact staff jobs andworkers’ terms and conditions.

There is no doubt voluntary andcommunity organisations play asupportive role to our health serv-ice. But the voluntary and com-munity sector have stated theycannot take the place of a coordi-nated health service provided bythe NHS.

Service users and carers willnot have the same service fromhighly-trained NHS staff with linksto additional NHS services. Vol-

untary organisations have pub-licly warned time and again thatthey are already overwhelmed bydemands for services due to cutsin our health service.

These closures will see veryvulnerable people – some withsevere mental health and learn-ing disabilities – left with a poorerservice or no service at all.

Continued on page 5

NIPSA NEWSThe newspaper of the leading public sector trade union Tel: 02890661831 www.nipsa.org.uk February 2016

Download your membership application here: http://www.nipsa.org.uk/About-NIPSA/Join-US/Application-Form

Outrage overpay imposition

Compounding the miseryas NI suicide toll mountsThere’s a mental health crisis in Northern Ireland but the prevailing austerity narrativemeans more cuts to much needed day services, argues Pat Lawlor of Branch 730…

See pages 2 & 3 for reports on NHS, NJC and Civil Service pay latest

NIPSA stage a protest outside Belfast City Hospital against the closure of day care services

HEALTH Minister Simon Hamilton’s an-nouncement setting out the 2015/16 payaward for Health and Social Care staff hasdrawn an angry response from tradeunions.

Unions have accused the Minister of break-ing established protocols by forging aheadwith the pay award and slammed his failure toformally respond to the Trade Union Sideclaim.

Announcing the award on January 8, theMinister claimed that despite the “extremelyconstrained financial position”, resources hadbeen found to match last year’s settlement.

He said: “Northern Ireland’s Agenda forChange staff at the top of their pay bands willreceive a 1% non consolidated payment, at anaverage of almost £300 each up to a maxi-mum of £985. Those not at the top of theirpay bands will receive an average AFC spinepoint raise of 3.7% equating to £1,588 (up to amaximum of £4,509). Salaried doctors anddentists at the top of their pay bands will alsoreceive the 1% payment. Unlike England noAgenda for Change, staff in Northern Irelandwill have to lose out on pay.”

Mr Hamilton continued: “I would have pre-ferred an agreed settlement but when I metrecently with trade union representatives they

unfortunately remained unwilling to move be-yond seeking to re-open last year’s settlementdespite it having been paid into people’s ac-counts many months ago and with their unioncolleagues across the water having movedahead and focused on 2015/16.”

The Minister said he had sought to engagewith union leaders on a 2015/16 settlementbut was “not prepared to keep our staff waitingany longer” and claimed that the unions’ de-manded would “cost close to £40m” and were“simply unaffordable in current circum-stances”.

He added: “Meeting the unions pay de-mands in full would be the equivalent of 5,800knee replacements, 5,700 hip replacements orindeed the employment of an additional 1,000nurses.”

The Minister concluded: “I have made itclear that my priority is the delivery of highquality safe and effective services for patientsand clients. I want to put the patients first.”

The Health Service trade unions reacted an-grily to the announcement being made in apress release and hit out at the failure of theMinister and his officials to formally respond tothe Trade Union Side claim. The TUS claimhad been submitted last year and had beendiscussed at a meeting before Christmas.

The unions accused the Minister of breakingall the established negotiation and consulta-tive protocols through his actions.

In response to the Minister’s press release,the unions are currently compiling a fact sheetthat will challenge some of the argumentsbeing put forward by the Department ofHealth.

Kevin McCabe, Assistant Secretary, com-mented: “It is disgraceful that he chooses totry and link a well-earned pay increase with

waiting lists and knee replacements and hipreplacements etc or that it would create an ad-ditional 1,000 nursing posts. Little mentionwas made of the 11.5% pay increase thatMLAs awarded themselves and how thatwould go towards such costs if you were mak-ing such a comparison.”

The trade unions are keen to highlight howHealth Service workers in Northern Irelandhave suffered a 15% loss in pay in real termsand are worse off than comparators in Eng-land, Scotland and Wales.

Mr McCabe added: “The statement failed todeal with the fact that the Minister yet againfailed to implement the Pay Review Body rec-ommendations and casually links his decisionto other pay developments in the Northern Ire-land public sector which is not relevant at all.

“He is wrong when he states that unlikeEngland no Agenda for Change staff in North-ern Ireland will have to lose out on pay. Thereality is that the unions have been trying toensure that pay restoration is maintained andto move away from non-consolidated bonusesis the only way that members pay can be con-solidated and maintain parity with their coun-terparts in England, Scotland and Wales.”

Trade unions have taken the unusual step offunding and preparing a fact sheet to de-bunksome of the misrepresentations being pre-sented by the Minister and his officials over2014/15 and 2015/16 HSC Pay.

The official concluded: “This imposition ofthe pay award has done nothing for industrialrelations and the trade unions are meeting ur-gently to consider what options are availableto them in light of a Minister and his officialswho have wilfully failed to negotiate and agreea resolution to the pay claims submitted forboth of these years.’

Page 2 NEWS

FIRST of all I want to acknowledge, asNIPSA’s new General Secretary, that Iam humbled and proud to have beenelected by many NIPSA members totake forward and lead this great union.

As you will recall throughout myelection campaign I committed to rep-resenting the views of all NIPSA mem-bers and that I would be a GeneralSecretary for everyone in the union. Istand by that commitment and willwork tirelessly in defence of members’terms and conditions and to protectthe public services that are underenormous attack and facing the threatof outsourcing/privatisation.

Since Christmas we have seen fur-ther attacks by local Ministers in im-posing pay on our members in theNorthern Ireland Civil Service and theHealth Service. It is unacceptable thatMinisters believe they can rideroughshod over members and thatmembers will not react.

Members are angry that yet again wehave double-speak – we have the

Prime Minister stating that Britainneeds a pay rise, then his Chancellorimposes a further four-year cap onpublic sector pay of 1%. Therefore,before negotiations even start, theywill be held against a backdrop wheremembers feel anger over being scape-goated.

On the issue of Health Service pay,because of the decisions taken by ourown Health Minister, Simon Hamilton,we now have Regional Pay by thebackdoor in the Health Service withdifferent pay rates for the same band-ing being paid in England, Scotlandand Northern Ireland.

In the forthcoming Assembly Elec-tion in May we will be ensuring ourmembers who are voters in these elec-tions will be given the tools to engagewith and challenge all politicians priorto the polls. We need to make it un-comfortable for politicians who are im-posing pay cuts and cuts to publicservices and ask them some hardquestions. If we don’t, then they will

no doubt argue they have a mandatefor making further cuts to our publicservices.

The one thing that my own electionbrought to the forefront of my mind isthat there are thousands of publicservice workers who are not yet NIPSAmembers (or members of any tradeunion). While there is no doubtNIPSA faces challenges in relation toour finances, if we recruited just atenth of public servants into NIPSA,we could deal with the cuts to our ownresources.

Therefore, now more than ever, re-cruitment and organisation needs tobe the focus of us all. If every NIPSAmember took it upon themselves to re-cruit just one person into the unionover the coming 12 months, just thinkhow much stronger we would beacross all public services. Make ityour New Year resolution to do justthat – recruit a member.

Alison Millar,General Secretary

Challenging times – but we can rise to those challenges…EDITORIAL

NIPSA NEWSNIPSA Harkin House, 54 Wellington Park,

Belfast BT9 6DP, Tel: 028 90661831 Fax 028 90665847or email: alison.millar@nipsa.org.uk Editorial contact details: Bob Milleremail: bob.miller@nipsa.org.uk

Correspondence should be sent to the above address.Unless otherwise stated, the views contained inNIPSA NEWS do not necessarily reflect the

policy of the trade union NIPSA.

Union’s fury at Minister’sNHS pay ‘imposition’

Page 3NEWS

MEMBERS in the NI Civil Service and thoseon NICS pay were recently notified of theimposition of the 2015 pay arrangementsfollowing a much-belated set of negotia-tions.

The talks on 2015 NICS pay had been con-siderably delayed during the political stale-mate which led to the so-called ‘Fresh Start’agreement.

While there remains uncertainty aroundsome of the measures contained in the deal,particularly around welfare reform, one aspectis clear – the continued application of austeritymeasures as well as the continued attack onNICS pay, jobs and pensions.

Before entering pay talks, members wereadvised of the difficulty to be faced with thebackdrop of the Treasury 1% pay remit limitand the extensive cut in Departmental budgetsleading to the Voluntary Exit Scheme (VES) -see page 5 for latest exit figures.

The negotiations were never going to beeasy with NICS management’s response tothe pay claim being fairly predictable.

According to NIPSA, it appeared the onlyreal show in town was restraint given the pub-lic expenditure landscape.

And while that land is reportedly barren,public servants and citizens will see it furtherstarved of much-needed finance when we areforced to pay back to Treasury the borrowedmoney from the Reinvestment and Reformfund that has been used to fund the publicsector Voluntary Exit Schemes, including thehefty interest rate for the privilege of doing so.

While recognising the rationale underpinningthe 2015 NICS pay claim, NICS managementclaimed it was not possible to implement asettlement on that basis as the increase to thepay bill would exceed the Treasury remit,which the NI Executive had agreed in princi-ple. They pointed out that it would also com-pletely negate the NICS pay bill reduction as aresult of the VES.

Assistant General Secretary Kieran Bannontold NIPSA News: “The management positionon pay in the negotiations failed to take ac-count of the full picture in relation to pay andfrom our members’ perspective – for example,successive annual increases to pension con-tributions, successive below-inflation rate paysettlements, the growing number of staff onpay scale maxima (currently 52% and rising)and the significant number of staff who, forsome years, have attracted only a non-consol-idated payment.”

He continued: “Although the Minister ap-peared to acknowledge the points made byNIPSA in presenting the arguments justifyingthe pay claim submitted, her indication of amodest consolidated increase did have condi-tions in terms of NICS management’s sug-gested changes to some terms andconditions.

“An indication was given by managementthat a few pay settlements previously ap-proved above the Treasury limit were linked toincreased productivity but our response wasthat members are already faced with in-creased workloads from postsvacated by those leaving serv-ice under the VES. Our com-ments were, of course, under acaveat and were without preju-dice to NIPSA’s total oppositionto the budget cuts and loss ofjobs.”

In considering the issuestabled by NICS management,This is a fight beyond pay andone for us all.the Civil ServiceGroup Executive Committeewas aware that the necessaryprotections for members couldnot be secured relating in theproposed changes to termsand conditions.

Even if this had been possi-ble, the consolidated elementwould, in any event, have beenbelow 1% compared to the2.5% contained in the NIPSApay claim submitted followingconsultation with members.For this reason NICS manage-ment was advised that Trade Union Sidewould not engage further on that basis andthat NIPSA remained committed to securingthe justifiable pay claim submitted.

The response to this was the Minister’s deci-sion to implement the 2015 pay arrangements.

The Civil Service Group Executive is partic-ularly concerned that this is the second year ina row that the NICS pay arrangements havebeen imposed. In addition, most NICS staffare now receiving only a non-consolidatedpayment, which for this year is also non-pen-sionable. This cadre of staff is growing asmore staff progress to their pay scale maxima.

Meanwhile, a number of other developmentsare about to impact on members income, in-cluding an increase in National Insurance con-

tributions (i.e. a rise in the employee contribu-tion rate of 1.4%) and the recent announce-ment of further budget cuts of between 5%and 10%.

Added to this is the pressure faced by staffremaining in the NICS caused by increasedworkloads through doing the work of thosecolleagues who have left under the VESscheme.

The Civil Service Group Executive Commit-tee believe that our response to the treatmentof members on pay cannot be considered inisolation of the broader effect of the NI Execu-

tive’s austerity measures. For that reason the Civil Serv-

ice Group Executive wish to en-gage with its members inbuilding a more comprehensivestrategy in response to the im-position of the pay arrange-ments, the pressure faced bymembers through unacceptableworkloads and the further im-pending excessive cuts to De-partmental budgets. KieranBannon said “It is important thatany decisions taken by the CivilService Group Executive are in-formed by the views of civil serv-ice members and those inrelevant NDPBs. That is whymembers should attend meet-ings to voice their concerns andensure the strategy to be devel-oped to defend members’ jobs,pay and pensions has the back-ing of members. This is a fightbeyond pay and one for us all.”

Such a response requires theactive involvement of all Civil Service Groupmembers – not just branch representatives. Aseries of membership meetings are shortly tobe arranged across Departments and relevantNon-Departmental Public Bodies, to ensurethat every member has the opportunity to in-fluence the future course of action.

Against this backdrop, we must also be con-scious of the impending local elections. Wewill be canvassed by political representativesfor our votes and it is important in building astrategy that members are equipped to chal-lenge those seeking election.

A number of these individuals will be electedto positions in which they will take decisionsaffecting your future as a public servant, as acitizen and as a recipient of public services.

ON December 9, the EmployersSide of the National Joint Coun-cil (NJC) tabled a final two-yearpay offer which for most NJCstaff would mean a 1% pay in-crease from April 2016 and a fur-ther 1% increase from April 2017.

For the lowest paid (those on

spinal column points 6-17), thiswould mean an increase of 6.6%and 1.01% in the first year and be-tween 3.4% and 1.3% in the sec-ond year.

General Secretary Alison Millartold NIPSA News: “The higher per-centage increases at the lower end

of pay scales were nothing morethan what is legally required for theemployers to meet their legal obli-gations to comply with the Chancel-lor’s National Living Wage of £7.20per hour by April 2016 and £9 perhour by the end of this Parliament.”

She pointed out that the two-year

offer of mainly 1% year on year fellshort of the Trade Union Side claimof £1 per hour for all staff.

All unions are consulting theirmembers on the offer and will meetin February to consider the out-workings of the consultations andtheir next steps.

NJC employers propose two-year pay deal

Why it’s aboutmore than pay

‘

‘

This isa fightbeyondpay andone forus all

NIPSA members voiced their opposition tothe ‘Fresh Start’ deal between the Stor-mont parties by staging lunchtime protestsin Belfast and Derry on December 17.

Dozens of protestors waving NIPSA flagsand carrying placards made their feelingsabout the budget arrangements crystal clear,claiming the deal “did nothing for our mem-bers, nothing for citizens and nothing for pub-lic services”.

The ‘Fresh Start’ deal was brokered on No-vember 17 following nearly 10 weeks of talksinvolving local elected representatives andboth the British and Irish governments.

NIPSA’s General Council met on December12 to consider the contents of the agreementand concluded that there were key elementsof the document that were not good for theunion’s members and wider society.

General Secretary (Designate) Alison Millartold NIPSA News: “One key element which re-mains within the agreement is the fact that theNI Executive remains committed to borrowing£700m from the Reinvestment and Reform Ini-tiative to sell off public sector jobs.

“We have already seen the impact this ishaving in the NICS with 3,200 jobs due to belost through the Voluntary Exit Scheme byMarch 31, 2016.”

She warned that when this is coupled withthe loss of “hundreds, if not thousands, of jobsin Housing, Voluntary & Community Sector,Health and Education” the impact on remain-ing staff would be “a major health, safety andwellbeing issue”.

Ms Millar added that the union would be is-suing guidance to staff on how best to protecttheir health, safety and welfare if asked to do

the work of those who had left the public serv-ices.

She also flagged up NIPSA’s opposition tothe reduction in Corporation Tax to 12.5%.

“This, in our view, will not create any addi-tional new jobs, and will in fact take furthermoney out of the NI Block Grant to the tune of£200m per annum.”

However, Ms Millar noted that the agree-ment held out the prospect of blocking theproposals on the basis of affordability at alater stage and vowed that NIPSA would“keep up the pressure” to ensure that thelower rate of Corporation Tax is not imple-mented in Northern Ireland in 2018.

On Welfare Reform, Ms Millar warned that‘Fresh Start’ had handed “devolved powers inthis area back to Westminster”.

“NIPSA has major concerns over this devel-

opment. The implications for the most vulner-able in our society both low paid in-work andout-of-work families will be savage cuts to theincome of many who are already struggling tomake ends meet.”

She called on NIPSA members to check thatthey were receiving all the benefits they wereentitled to and asked them to check the onlinebenefits calculator at www.nidirect.gov.uk/ben-efits-adviser.

Turning to recent press coverage detailingfurther cuts in the budgets of individual gov-ernment departments – in particular DCAL,Ms Millar cautioned: “These announcementsin the press are just the tip of the iceberg andif the NI Executive proceeds to implement cutsof this magnitude then public services, as wecurrently know them, will become a thing ofthe past.”

The sickening theory of lais-sez-faire capitalism finally diedwith the recent report from oneof the West’s leading thinktanks.

The Organisation for EconomicCo-operation and Development(OECD) has found that incomeinequality actually hampers eco-nomic growth in some of theworld’s wealthiest countries,while the redistribution of wealthvia taxes and benefits doesn't(http://www.oecd.org/economy/in-come-inequality-9789264246010-en.htm).

In a nutshell: the reality of whatcreates and reverses growth isthe exact opposite of what thecurrent right-wing, neo-liberalagenda has been espousing eversince its rise to power underThatcher and Reagan in theeighties. Perhaps worst of all, thereport showed evidence that theUK would have been 20 per centbetter off if the gap between therich and poor hadn’t widenedsince the eighties.

To those of us who have onlyjust survived the credit crunch

and recession, this evidence willbe welcome, but hardly surpris-ing. The surprising thing is how ittook this long. To extend ametaphor, why didn’t we realisethe patient had already died morethan half a decade ago?

Didn’t anyone who is sane andhave any common sense realisethis was the case after the crashin 2008? Haven’t there been hun-dreds of thousands of peopledemonstrating on the streetsabout the abuses of bankers andthe wealthiest 1 per cent?Haven’t we seen almost sevenyears of unprecedented eco-nomic woes because of this veryreason – that the current systemis bankrupt, in every sense of theword?

Why then have we spent sucha long time ignoring the obvious?The answer is of course becausethe current economic philosophybenefits the all-powerful financial

and business elite. But also, inthis country at least, becauseDavid Cameron’s Conservativeparty got into power off the backof the 2008 crisis with the clevertrick of rewriting the causes ofthat very crisis. And what did theyblame? Prepare your (now factu-ally justified) facepalm: theyblamed it on too much statespending.

Before the 2008 crash the Torystrategy to get back into powerhad been to match the then-Labour government’s statespending and perhaps even fur-ther it. However, when the crashhappened a sudden opportunitypresented itself to demonise theover-bloated public sector andblame Labour‘s public spendingfor the economic downturn. Did itmatter that evidence of the crashbeing caused by recklessly unre-stricted banking practices waswrit large over the whole world

economy? Of course not, thiswas cheap trick politics, and itworked. The Tories got into powerand we all bought into the narra-tive of austerity.

Now after five years of beingforced to tighten our belts, we arefinally waking up to what that nar-rative actually was. Thanks to theOECD report, we find that thevery thing that the sacrifices ofausterity were made to preserve– the growth of the economy – isthe very thing they are destroy-ing. Neo-liberal, laissez-faire cap-italism extends inequality, wealready knew that. But now wehave the evidence that inequalityharms, rather than encouragesgrowth.

Like a sick patient being giventhe wrong drugs, it is the verything we thought was curing usthat is actually killing us. And allthe while we are told to KeepCalm and Carry On taking ourmedicine by the government, tokeep on swallowing the same oldpropaganda.

What new narrative will theGovernment spin now?

NIPSA protestors’ thumbsdown to ‘Fresh Start’ deal

It's official — benefits and high taxes make us all richer,while inequality takes a hammer to a country's growth

One of the most destructive Torymyths has finally been debunked

Page 4 NEWS

NIPSA members and officials stage a demo outside Belfast City Hall in a publicdemonstration against the Stormont Fresh Star Agreement

Page 5NEWS

Continued from page 1This is at a time when, according

to the latest figures released by theOffice for National Statistics, therewere 303 suicides in Northern Ire-land in 2015.

The overall suicide rate acrossNorthern Ireland stands at around10 per 100,000 with the trend in-creasing among men under 35years of age.

And overwhelming evidence ex-ists that mental health-relatedhealth problems are at their highestin the deprived areas of north, westand east Belfast. The crisis inmental health services is reachingepidemic proportions. In NorthernIreland around 250,000 adults and45,000 children and young peoplehave a mental health need at anyone time – that is one in every six

people. More than 20% of young people

are suffering significant mentalhealth problems by the age of 20that impacts their daily lives. Theclosure of the day centres will onlymake this situation worse.

The Belfast Trust is actively refer-ring service users to the communityand voluntary, rather than statutoryservices. In 2014/15, the Trust re-ferred 163 people to the privatesector in comparison to the 59 re-ferrals to NHS Day Centres, eventhough the Trust has been forced toconcede that the private sectordoes not provide a better service.

NIPSA, UNISON and UNITEhave joined with service users, car-ers and staff from across all com-munities in spearheading acampaign that has halted the

Belfast Trust in its tracks. This campaign has been very

successful to date in raising public-ity around these devastating cuts.The success of the campaign hasresulted in thousands of local peo-ple signing a petition opposing theclosure of the day centres and hasgenerated around 1,200 responsesto the consultation.

This has forced the Belfast TrustExecutive to delay their decision –which was to be announced at theirBoard meeting on January 14 – tothe next meeting in March.

We also recognise the ultimateresponsibility for this decision tohalt the closure of these day cen-tres lies with the Health Ministerand Assembly Executive.

NIPSA, along with UNISON,UNITE, service users, carers and

supporters are up for the fight andwill take this issue to each of thepolitical parties in the Assembly.

Branch 730 have no doubt wecan stop this attack on the mostvulnerable in our society and de-fend our health service if we buildon what we have already achieved.

We are grateful to our GeneralSecretary Alison Millar and currentGeneral Council who have sus-tained the Branch with practical re-sources. We are reassured thatthe full weight of the union will beused to ensure we can win. TheBranch believes by working with alltrade unions and genuine groupsand supporters opposed to the cutsin all our day centres, we can builda real public opposition to cuts inour mental health and learning dis-ability services.

The number of Northern Ireland public sector em-ployees exiting voluntarily is expected to be4,467, officials said.

An extra small tranche of offers will be made nextmonth to make up for a number of people who re-jected redundancy deals earlier. it will also addresstight budgets next year, according to a progress re-port on the Fresh Start Agreement.

Redundancies are predicted to cost £184 million,but generate annual savings of approximately £160million.

The total number of Stormont departments is ex-pected to be cut and senior management structuresfor the nine new Stormont departments have beenagreed with senior staff provisionally assigned toposts.

Plans have been made to share personnel, ac-counting and IT services, an update published by theNIO said.

It said: " £200 million has been released to enable2015-16 public sector Voluntary Exit Scheme toprogress.

"Tranche 4 offers have been made and accept-ances finalised.

"A small fifth tranche of offers will issue in February

to help address rejection rates from earlier tranchesand anticipated 2016-17 budget pressures.

"In terms of the overall public sector, there weretwo tranches of funding in 2015-16.

"Overall it is forecast 4,467 employees will exit at acost of £184 million, but generating annual savings ofapproximately £160 million.

"The approach to public sector pay restraint is cur-rently under consideration."

A scheme for voluntary exit from the Northern Ire-land Civil Service, as well as a separate mechanismfor releasing members of the wider public sector, wasestablished following the 2014 Stormont House talks.

As part of the Fresh Start deal, extra money wasprovided by the British Government to combat para-military activity and help build a shared future

Money earmarked for bodies dealing with the pasthas been held until agreement is reached on dealingwith legacy issues.

The UK Government will provide an additional £25million over five years to tackle continuing paramili-tary activity.

The UK Government funding will only be releasedafter the Executive has agreed a strategy to addresscontinuing paramilitary activity.

AN ATTEMPT by the Scottishgovernment to block West-minster’s unpopular TradeUnion Bill from becominglaw in Scotland has failed.The Bill will heavily impact

on workers and their unions— limiting the right to strike,lifting the ban on the use ofagency workers duringstrikes and forcing membersto opt in, rather than out, ofa union’s political fund.

The Scottish governmentargued that the Bill, whichwill also restrict facility timeand ban check-off, would im-pact on employee relationsin its devolved agencies.However, Tricia Marwick

the Presiding Officer, equiv-alent to the Speaker in theHouse of Commons, saidlegislative consent was notrequired.First minister Nicola Stur-

geon said that it was “ab-solutely outrageous that itcan be passed in the wake ofopposition from the ScottishParliament”, and the Scot-tish government has said itwould seek other ways tooppose the legislation (seefeature pages 16-18).Last month, Sturgeon

shared a platform withLabour leader Jeremy Cor-byn at a Scottish TradesUnion Congress event inGlasgow opposing the Bill. Corbyn has given a pledge

that his party would repealthe Tories’ trade union re-forms and introduce a “posi-tive charter” for workers’rights.

Compounding the misery as suicide toll mounts

More than 4,000 inVES move

@nipsaVisit the union’s website forall the latest updates at:http://www.nipsa.org.uk

Holyrood failsto stave off TU Bill

Page 6 NEWS

THIS year will see the first majorchange to the format of the NIPSAconferences since ‘NIPSA Into theNineties’.

The two group conferences, i)Civil Service Group and ii) PublicOfficers Group, will be separated outfrom being run in conjunction with themain NIPSA conference.

For more than 25 years the twogroup conferences have immediatelypreceeded the main conference, withthem being held on the Tuesday ofconference week and main confer-ence following on the Wednesday,Thursday and Friday.

In spring of 2015, the GeneralCouncil, with the endorsement of thetwo Executive Committees, con-sulted with Branches on the proposalto shift the two group conferences tolater in the year and to run them on anon-residential basis.

This was part of the examinationby the General Council to considerNIPSA’s financial position and spend-ing profile against the backdrop ofPublic Service SeveranceSchemes/non-filling of posts, reduc-tion in income due to the link be-tween NIPSA’s contribution formulaand members’ pensions contribu-tions, impact of public sector pay re-straint on the contributions andgeneral increases in running costsfor the union.

The overwhelming response fromthose Branches that commented onthe consultation exercise was to en-dorse what were in effect amend-

ments to the two Group Constitu-tions.

The General Council then formallyapproved the amendments to the twoGroup Constitutions, in late summer.

In mid/late February, when theConference papers are issued toBranches only motions for the mainNIPSA Conference will be soughtalong with nominations for the elec-tions related to the work of the Gen-eral Council.

The main NIPSA conference will beheld on Wednesday 1st, Thursday2nd and Friday 3rd June, in the Killy-hevlin Hotel, Enniskillen.

Work is under way researching po-tential venues in the Greater Belfastarea for the two Group Conferences,which will be run on consecutivedays in early November. It is likelythat the papers for the Group Confer-ences will issue to Branches in lateAugust/early September.

TWO NIPSA members who spent morethan five years on precarious fixed termcontracts have had their employment sta-tus secured following a NIPSA-supportedEmployment Tribunal.

Sabrina and Peter Alfred, who work withinthe Department of Justice, had sought a dec-laration from the Employment Judge to the ef-fect that they were permanent civil servants.Had they been unsuccessful they would bothhave faced unemployment before Christmas.

The pair were represented at the Tribunalhearing by NIPSA’s Ryan McKinney who ex-plained the case to NIPSA News.

“The claimants had sought to have theirstatus confirmed for around a year before thecase was heard and relied upon Regulation 8of the 2002 Fixed Term Workers Regulations.

“These regulations allow for successivefixed term contracts up to a period of fouryears and therefore as both members hadreached that point they rightly asked their em-ployer to confirm that they were permanent

employees.” However, the Department of Justice sought

to rely on the objective justification defenceand cited uncertainty about the progress of theNorthern Ireland Community Safety College.

Mr McKinney said: “On the advice of NIPSAboth members lodged proceedings as we feltthat this defence was an abuse of the regula-tions and, if taken to its logical conclusion,would mean Peter and Sabrina could continueon these contracts indefinitely.”

The Tribunal subsequently sided withNIPSA’s view.

“The Panel agreed that each time the con-tracts were extended the focus of the consid-eration was not an objective consideration ofthe concrete circumstances but the need to beaware of the employment rights of Peter andSabrina.”

The Tribunal also flagged up the Depart-ment’s failure to adhere to the 21-day statu-tory limit for responding to a written request tothe effect that the employees were permanent.

Mr McKinney continued: “In fact, the Depart-ment took another 192 days to respond to theletters. The Department failed to establish astatutory defence, they did not convince theTribunal and therefore the declaration wasawarded as sought.”

Successful claimant Peter Alfred thankedNIPSA for representing the pair.

He told NIPSA News: “Sabrina and I wantedjob security and some certainty about our em-ployment. No-one wants to have to complainto a Tribunal about their employer but with thehelp of NIPSA we felt we could and shouldtake our cases.

“At least we now have the knowledge thatwe have permanent work and that is very wel-come after all these years. We are grateful toNIPSA for presenting our case to the Tribunal.’

Peter added: “It was definitely worthwhilejoining NIPSA – all civil servants should be inthe union.”

‘Thanks NIPSA’ state DoJ pairwho secure permanent status

Changes to NIPSAconference format

NIPSA conference is Enniskillen bound for 2016..hopefullythe floods will have receded and the victims compensated

Page 7NEWS

NIPSA has hit out at Education MinisterJohn O’Dowd’s “cynical” decision to abol-ish the Youth Council ¬– despite the viewsof 95% of those who took part in a consul-tation exercise that it should be retained.

The decision to axe the Council, whichcame before Christmas, follows a long consul-tation exercise that stretched over the summermonths and into the early autumn.

Assistant Secretary Paddy Mackel toldNIPSA News: “This is quite a cynical deci-sion as the Minister clearly was advised thathe needed to have legislation passed in theAssembly to rescind the powers of the YouthCouncil.

“So he has decided to transfer all their fund-ing to the Education Authority and offer volun-tary severance to all staff, with those who wishto stay being offered ‘a job’ in the EA.”

A meeting was subsequently held with the

Department, the EA and the Youth Council todiscuss the ramifications of the move.

Mr Mackel commented: “It was a difficultmeeting as it was clear from the outset thatthere was no clear rationale for the decision,no clear understanding of the protections re-quired for staff and no clear decisions onwhether any of the functions of the YouthCouncil would actually transfer with the budgetto the EA.

“NIPSA argued forcefully for a transparent

process, written assurances on protections forstaff in line with TUPE, confirmation of NIL-GOSC pensions continuing, greater clarity forstaff on what roles they may be offered in theEA and written commitments in respect of re-deployment, pay protections and locations.

“By the end of the meeting there was a reali-sation that greater transparency and claritywas required and the employers agreed tomeet again in the first week in February, hav-ing provided written assurances in advance ofthe meeting.”

Acknowledging that members remained “un-derstandably extremely anxious” about the fu-ture following the announcement, Mr Mackelvowed that the union would continue “to fightfor their rights” and “will explore every avenueopen to us to protect their interests and theyoung people they have provided a service tofor the last 25 years”.

2015 was a year of manychanges for NIPSA membersin Education.

A new Education Authority(EA) – which nobody wanted –was set up in April. The elitein the Grammar Sector hadsuccessfully won the battle tostay out of the picture, thus re-inforcing the socio-economicdivide in the community.

The EA, like other areasacross the Education Sector,

was given an insufficientbudget to deliver its servicesto children and young people.

Commenting on the pastyear, Assistant SecretaryPaddy Mackel said: “Cutsacross the Education Sectorwere inevitable given thebudget reduction and mem-bers had to cope with theprospect of increased work-loads as colleagues left on Vol-untary Exit.

‘Some services were restruc-tured around the staff whowere left behind, producing ahaphazard service in manyareas based on the number ofstaff remaining, rather than onthe needs of the children andyoung people who require theservice.”

Looking ahead to 2016, MrMackel warned: “With the re-cent announcement of a cut incash terms of £73m, we are

once again facing a difficultperiod, which will clearly resultin further cuts to services.

“Our members in the Educa-tion Authority lost 300 col-leagues last year. It is clearthat hundreds more jobs willbe under threat. There comesa time when workers eventu-ally say enough is enough.This time has arrived. A fight-back by members is now in-evitable.”

Warning of more education cuts in 2016

NIPSA hits back over decisionto axe Youth Council in NI

AS WIDELY reported two well-established organisations, NI-ACRO and the Quakers, lostthe contract to run the prisonvisitor centres at Maghaberryand Magilligan. They lost thecontract to the privately-run re-cruitment firm People Plus NI.

There was a tendering processundertaken for the running of thevisitor centres in Maghaberry andMagilligan. As far as NIPSA canascertain the outcome was an-nounced sometime on the weekbeginning November 23, 2015.

NIPSA became aware of thepotential transfer of staff underTUPE on the Thursday of thatweek and requested that consul-tation should begin as a matter ofurgency.

To that end a meeting was setup with the potential new em-ployer People Plus for December1, 2015. It was NIPSA’s clear un-derstanding that this was the firststage of the consultation process.

Tommy Brownlee, NIPSA offi-

cial for the area, told NIPSANews: “I attended the meetingwith all the staff believing that thiswas the first stage of the consul-tation process. It was with someshock and dismay that it becameapparent that the staff had alltransferred at midnight December1.”

NIPSA made representations atthe meeting describing this devel-opment as outrageous and indi-cating that the union would seekredress through the Industrial Tri-bunal.

Papers are being prepared andshould be lodged by the end ofJanuary. It is understood NIPSA

will be seeking a punitive awardof 13 weeks.

As one NIPSA member com-mented on the day: “I came tofind out about the new organisa-tion and raise question about myterms and conditions only to findout I had been transferred with noregard to my legal rights.”

Shock at staff transferfollowing loss of contract

Page 8 NEWS

SOME revelations tell us far more than immedi-ately meets the eye.

For example, when Tory minister Oliver Letwin’sracist comments in 1985 were exposed by the mediaafter a release of historic cabinet documents, we alsolearned — from the small number of documents re-leased compared with previous years — that hun-dreds more documents have been withheld byCameron’s government. And that’s almost certainlybecause they are equally or more damaging.

But the revelation also tells us more, because inthe mid 1980s Letwin, as an adviser to MargaretThatcher’s Downing Street policy unit, was one of agroup of rightwingers who drew up ambitious plansfor privatising the NHS.

The seemingly invincible Thatcher government,which had brought in savage anti-union laws; faceddown a prolonged strike by steelworkers; smashedthe miners and the print unions; privatised a series ofkey utilities, flogging them off to banks, speculatorsand individual shareholders; and forced much of theNHS to put hospital support services (cleaning, cater-ing, laundry, security, porters) out to tender, hadspawned a vicious brood of backwoods MPs, aca-demics and advisers, all committed to a free-marketneoliberal approach.

But many of their ideas were too extreme forThatcher, who sidelined them, not least in the courseof her “review” of the NHS in 1988.

She spurned a range of more extreme proposalsincluding a detailed Omega Report from the AdamSmith Institute, and pamphlets from luminaries in-cluding David Willetts, Leon Brittan and — who else— Letwin, who in 1988 put forward plans with JohnRedwood for earmarking a share of income tax as a“national health tax” and allowing companies and in-dividuals rebates if they opted to “contract out” andtake out private health insurance instead.

They argued that this could massively expand pri-vate healthcare, although they had no solutions forthe problem of at least 30 million people — the poor-est, oldest and sickest — who would remain depend-ent on what was left of the NHS.

Thatcher, recognising the political damage ofbeing seen as the government that smashed theNHS, opted instead for a halfway house of a costly“internal market” to create competition within theNHS and between NHS providers, although backthen little, if any, NHS money was spent on privatetreatment.

But times have changed. The cranky advisers of30 years ago with their unworkable plans are now incharge as right-wing ministers. David Cameron hassince 2010 gone further and faster down the line ofdismantling the NHS than Thatcher ever tried.

Letwin’s continued commitment to privatising theNHS was summed up in 2004 (when he was thenleader Michael Howard’s shadow chancellor) by hiswidely reported statement to a private meeting that

the NHS would “cease to exist” within one term of aTory government. It would be reduced to a “fundingstream handing out money” to pay for people to gowhere they want for their healthcare.

Letwin’s political zeal has spread to younger ideo-logues — the clique of privileged, elitist arrogant toffsthat Cameron has pulled together into his team. Theboorish sociopathic behaviour of the Bullingdon Club,which trashed restaurants and pubs and allegedlydesecrated cuts of pork, has now been translatedinto a brutal onslaught against public services andwelfare provision.

First Cameron’s old boss at the Conservative Re-search Department, Andrew Lansley, was put incharge of the carve-up of the NHS in the now notori-ous 2012 Health and Social Care Act. He was re-placed by Jeremy Hunt, who had gone on record in2005 endorsing proposals for the break-up of theNHS.

Lansley, now Baron Lansley, has since his dis-missal moved on seamlessly to pick up lucrative con-tracts advising the drug industry and private healthsector that had sponsored him as an MP, while thegovernment seeks to withhold publication of diariesrevealing the extent of his meetings as minister withthe private sector while developing his disastrousplans for “reform.”

Hunt has been portrayed by a sympathetic mediaas a more emollient minister, but has presided overthe mounting chaos arising from a freeze on NHSreal-terms spending since 2010.

The situation has been dominated by the fragmen-tation of the NHS arising from Lansley’s Act, coupledwith the freeze on NHS pay which has slashed thevalue of nurses’ and other professionals’ pay by up-wards of 16 per cent since 2010. The cash freeze isdriving manic and incessant efforts by desperateNHS managers to impose “efficiencies” which in-crease the workload and make nursing jobs ever lessattractive, compounding the recruitment and reten-tion crisis. The same freeze also now underlies theconfrontation with the junior doctors.

The Cameron government has quite arbitrarilycommitted to the imposition of a so-called “7/7 NHS,”forcing more elective services to be delivered late inthe evening, and at weekends — over and above the24/7 emergency services which have always been inplace. But ministers have made clear that there is noextra funding to pay for the extra staff and unsocialhours that would need to be worked at premium ratesto deliver this commitment.

Instead they intend firstly to impose a new, detri-mental contract on junior doctors to make them worklonger hours and reduce the premiums paid for work-ing additional weekends and unsocial hours. And ifthey succeed in this, the next step would be to attackthe rest of the NHS workforce, whose right to unso-cial hours payments is embodied in their hard-wonnational pay agreement.

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Let’s save from extreThe ideological zeal of 1980s ministers has been passed on to our currentcrop of Tory overlords, writes JOHN LISTER. It’s time to take back control

THE 48-hour junior doc-tors' strike due to start onTuesday, January 26 inEngland was postponedby the British Medical As-sociation.The decision came astalks continued betweenthe doctors' union and thegovernment about the dis-puted junior doctor con-tract in England.The BMA said the movedid not mean a deal hadbeen reached. A planned strike onWednesday February 10could still go ahead if thenegotiations stall. That stoppage is consid-ered to be potentially themost disruptive as it is acomplete walk-out,whereas the one plannedfor January 26 - like the24-hour strike held onTuesday, January 12 - stillsaw junior doctors provideemergency cover.Commenting on the deci-sion to suspend industrialaction, BMA junior doctorcommittee chair Dr Jo-hann Malawana said: "TheBMA's aim has alwaysbeen to deliver a safe, fairjunior doctor contractthrough negotiated agree-ment. "Following junior doctors'clear message to the gov-ernment during our previ-ous action, our focus isnow on building on earlyprogress made in the cur-rent set of talks."On this basis, the BMAhas today taken the deci-sion to suspend the indus-trial action planned for 26to 28 January, thereby giv-ing trusts as much noticeas possible so as to avoiddisruption to patients."It is important to be clear,however, that differencesstill exist between theBMA and the governmenton key areas, includingthe protection of patientsafety and doctor's work-ing lives, and the recogni-tion of unsocial hours. "Significant, concreteprogress will need to bemade if future action, cur-rently planned for Febru-ary 10, is to be averted."

Juniordoctorspostponestrike action

Page 9NEWS

ince many low-paid NHS staff depend heavily onocial hours payments to provide an adequatee to support themselves and their families, it’sr that this could not be taken from them without a with the big health unions.ence the new anti-union legislation to weakenns — aiming to scrap the check-off system for

ecting union dues through the payroll and attackity time (the paid time off for elected union reps toesent their members). o make matters worse, Chancellor George Os-ne — one of Cameron’s Bullingdon chums — hashed spending on local government services in-ing social care, much of which has been reduced

bare minimum privatised system for those with most extreme needs. More cuts are to come.Osborne has also been the main instigator of the

alled “devolution” of control over health and age of other services in Greater Manchester, and ae limited recent “devolution” of some functions todon boroughs and the mayor of London. All ofe changes aim to further fragment health and

e services, breaking up the NHS and dumping theme for crises onto dim-witted mayors and councilses eager to grasp any illusory trappings ofer.s taken longer than he hoped a decade ago, bute the 2015 election, Letwin — unrepentant, unre-

med, with all his reactionary views intact, still ne-eral in tooth and claw — now has a central role in

ry government that’s taking forward his vision for end of the NHS as a public service. etwin’s evolution and that of his party tell us thee of the threat faced by the NHS at a time whent Labour MPs seem, shamefully, more intent onermining Jeremy Corbyn and even plotting to splity from the core of Labour’s membership than on

ng on the job of fighting the Tories.hat’s why it’s more important than ever that a new

alliance is built for the NHS. Campaigners across thecountry challenging cuts, closures, chaos and privati-sation in the NHS need to link up with the healthunions to build a new, powerful and united movementto defend local services and oppose any further frag-mentation or attacks on NHS staff, pay or conditions.

Health Campaigns Together is an attempt to buildjust such an alliance, and we have managed to linkup an impressive array of local and national cam-paigns with the three big TUC health unions — Uni-son, Unite and GMB.

Each these unions will be represented by seniornational officers at the January 30 conference that isa first step to bring activists together.

We also hope in the longer term to link up with thethousands of new people who have been drawn to-wards Labour since the 2015 election and work withthem and other parties to build active campaigns inevery town and city in England to defend our NHS.

The Defending Our NHS conference will hear fromjunior doctors; GPs; campaigners fighting cuts, pri-vatisation and contracting; and Professor Allyson Pol-lock, joint author of the NHS Bill, to sweep away thecostly, bureaucratic and damaging competitive mar-ket in health that has been created by Labour andTory “reforms” and reinstate an NHS publicly owned,publicly delivered and publicly accountable.

More than half of the available tickets have alreadygone. For more details, online registration, an onlinenewspaper and details of how you and your organi-sation can join and support Health Campaigns To-gether, check out the websitehealthcampaignstogether.com

This year is certain to be challenging. Let’s make itthe year we unite in increasingly powerful local andnational action to defend the NHS and begin to turnthe tide against the Letwins and Hunts, in favour ofdoctors, nurses and patients. Let’s fight to keep ourNHS.

e our NHS emists

Striking junior doctors in Englandfighting to savethe NHS

NIPSA has set about canvassing theviews of HSCB staff following HealthMinister Simon Hamilton announcementlast November that the HSCB would bedissolved.

Subsequently, the union wrote to MrHamilton flagging up a number of concernsover the current proposal, in particular high-lighting the impact it will have on staff, thelack of consultation/engagement with theunion as well as seeking assurances thatthere would be no compulsory redundan-cies.

According to one NIPSA source: “The crit-ical message that NIPSA delivered to theMinister is that there are real concerns thatrecommendations were made before a doc-ument was prepared – with no sense ofseeing any of the evidence for the decisionmaking.

“For NIPSA the size of the Board per se isnot a factor, it has to be about the system,layers and complexity.”

The union described the Minister’s deci-sion to abolish the Board as “perplexing”calling it “light on detail” and warning thatthe move was “apparently being made with-out any proper consideration, scrutiny andaccountability and indeed governance”.

The NIPSA has also written to the Depart-ment’s Permanent Secretary seeking urgentanswers to the following questions:1. NIPSA needs the DHSSPS/HSCB to pro-vide specific detail as to where they believeduplication exists (from a HSC staff per-spective);2. Can the DHSSPS be explicit in terms ofhow it hopes to reduce bureaucracy?;3. Can the DHSSPS be specific as to howthe current proposals demonstrate more ef-ficiency?4. Can the DHSSPS be more specific as tohow the current proposals will demonstratesavings and how?5. Can the DHSSPS be specific about whatfunctions are to be transferred?6. Can the DHSSPS be specific and clarifythe number of functions remaining andwhere placed and are HSCB inter-related?7. Can the DHSSPS be specific about whatfunctions are being stood down under thecurrent proposal?8. Will all HSCB staff, NIPSA and other StaffSide organisations and their members befully involved in all decisions from the out-set?9. Can the DHSSPS confirm that a commu-nication strategy will be developed to keepstaff informed?10. Will the DHSSPS confirm that staff willbe TUPE’d across to the other organisa-tions, with locations and bandings protectedinstead of another RPA-type exercise wherestaff had to compete for posts?11. Can the DHSSPS provide NIPSA withwritten assurances that there will be nocompulsory redundancies as a result of thisdecision?12. Can the DHSSPS provide written assur-ances that wherever HSCB roles aremapped to particular functions that the post-holder goes with it and, accordingly, therewill be no competitive process for that post? 13. And finally - can the DHSSPS confirmthat pay protection should not be a factor inthis exercise due to question 12. Also canthe Department agree that they will confirmthat they will agree to an independent party(outside of DHSSPS/HSCB) to arbitrate onany disputes that may arise and whose rul-ing will be binding?

NIPSA’s keyquestions to Minister overaxing HSC Board

TORIES spent an eye-watering £1 billion onconsultants and temps last year whileslashing the permanent Civil Service work-force, an explosive new report revealed inearly January

Research by the government’s own NationalAudit Office (NAO) shows that annual spend-ing on such “staff” has risen by £400 to £600million in three years.

The Cabinet Office — the PM’s own depart-ment — spent 35 per cent of its budget onconsultants and temps, compared to an aver-age of six to eight per cent.

Forty-seven outsourced Whitehall wallieswill not even get out of bed for less than£1,000 a day — a rate that only 30 directlyemployed civil servants can command.

“Spending on consultants and temporarystaff is rising at an alarming rate and the gov-ernment has to get a grip on costs,” saidLabour deputy leader and shadow Cabinet Of-fice minister Tom Watson MP.

“Consultants can do valuable work but Cabi-net Office rules on how they should be paidare being broken, departments are failing toget the best price and the taxpayer is losingout as a result.

“The government is failing on its own terms.”Almost half of the contract work is soaked

up by six massive accounting profiteers —PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte, KPMG,Ernst & Young, PA Consulting Services andMcKinsey & Company.

Both consultants and temps are generallyrecruited with very little competition and onlynine per cent of consultancy work is won bysmall and medium-sized enterprises.

“It is no surprise to find the Civil Service stilldoes not have the use of external consultantsunder control, because departments are beingforced to make arbitrary and excessive spend-ing cuts to a political timetable,” blasted civilservants’ union PCS general secretary MarkSerwotka.

Spending on consultants initially fell sharplyafter the government announced a crackdownto save money in 2010, but auditors now saythat a sharp rise began again in 2011 “whiledepartments were reducing their permanentworkforce.”

And top civil servants are ignoring their ownmoney-saving guidance.

Cabinet Office directives require that tempsshould be paid for a fixed price — but half are

still being paid by the day.Six consultancy firms win three-quarters of

the work let through the Crown CommercialService (CCS) cross-government consultancyagreement.

Small and medium-sized enterprises winonly nine per cent of this work and five percent of all government consultancy work.

Around half of temps appointed throughCCS’s temporary staffing agreement are ap-pointed without competition.

“It is unacceptable that a lack of planningand an inability to recruit and retain perma-nent staff with the right skills at the right timemeans that departments are overly reliant onexternal staff,” said Labour MP Meg Hillier.

The NAO’s report said that consultants typi-cally cost twice as much as their in-houseequivalents. And Cabinet Office data showedan 18 per cent increase in pay for temps be-tween 2011-12 and 2014-15 — from an aver-age of £48,000 to £56,500.

Details of the report can be found here:(https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/up-loads/2016/01/Use-of-consultants-and-tempo-rary-labour.pdf).

Page 10 NEWS

£1bn cost of replacinglaid-off civil servants

THE WORLD’S 62 wealthiest people ownas much as the globe’s poorest half—around 3.6 billion people, Oxfam revealedion January.

The total riches of the group — just nineof whom are women — has increased to£1.22 trillion since 2010, yet their wealthhas not led to higher tax revenues to helpthe most needy.

In comparison, the wealth of the pooresthalf of the world fell by £694bn over thesame time, even though the number ofpeople in this group rose by a colossal400 million.

The gap between rich and poor widened“dramatically” over the past year, exacer-bated by the super-rich siphoning off£5.3trn to hidden offshore accounts.

Their aversion to paying a total of£132bn in tax each year contributes tostarving developing countries of fundsthat would pay for health, education, sani-tation and infrastructure.

Oxfam said urgent “concrete action”must be taken by world leaders, espe-cially Tory Prime Minister David Cameron,(pictured right) to honour promises tocrack down on tax-dodgers in order totackle the “inequality crisis” by 2030.

As much as 30 per cent of all African fi-nancial wealth is believed to be held off-shore, according to the An Economy forthe 1 Per Cent report published before the

annual World Economic Forum in Swissski resort Davos on January 20..

This has cost £9.7bn in lost tax revenueeach year — enough to save four millionchildren’s lives a year and to keep everyAfrican child in school.

Oxfam’s chief executive Mark Goldringsaid: “It is simply unacceptable that thepoorest half of the world population ownsno more than a small group of the globalsuper-rich — so few, you could fit them allon a single coach.

“In a world where one in nine people goto bed hungry every night we cannot af-ford to carry on giving the richest an everbigger slice of the cake.”

Tackling the “veil of secrecy” shroudingBritain’s network of tax havens would bea huge step in improving the living stan-dards of the most impoverished people,he added.

Mr Cameron vowed in Davos threeyears ago to get tough on tax avoidanceand warned corporations who get awaywith paying minuscule amounts on theirhuge profits to “wake up and smell thecoffee.”

Now he must deliver on his promise, MrGoldring said, as promises to increasetransparency in British tax havens havenot yet been implemented.

While Mr Cameron has introduced pub-lic registers of companies’ owners, only

one British overseas territory — Montser-rat — has done the same.

Systematic tax avoidance is one of the“defining issues of global injustice,” ac-cording to Nick Dearden, director of cam-paign group Global Justice Now.

He added: “The flow of aid that goes tocountries in Africa is dwarfed by financialflows that are leaked out of the continentvia offshore tax havens, exacerbating in-equality and entrenching poverty.

“Even the aid that a country like Britaindoes pay becomes controversial becauseof tabloid-fuelled accusations that ‘charitybegins at home.’

“But again it is the fact that corpora-tions and financial elites manage to payso little tax that vital public services be-come starved.”

Half the world ownedby 62 people

Page 11NEWS

ENGLAND’S chief medicalofficer highlighted the linkbetween alcohol and can-cer as she defended newdrinking guidelines.Dame Sally Davies said

there was a need to to up-date the advice based onnew scientific evidence,calling the notion that a

glass of red wine a day isgood for you an “old wivestale.”She told BBC Radio 4’s

Today programme: “Everyyear, over 20,000 people inthe UK have a diagnosis ofcancer made consequenton drinking alcohol.”

Trade Union Education and Training Programme

January ~ March 2016

Course Title Dates VenueTrade Union Reps Stage 1 NIPSA Ten Tuesdays, 19th January to 22nd March NIPSA O�ces,

Belfast

Certi�cate in Employment Law Ten Mondays, 18th January to 21st March Belfast BURC

Trade Union Reps Stage 1 Ten Tuesdays, 19th January to 22nd March Belfast BURC

Health & Safety Stage 1 Ten Wednesdays, 20th January to 23rd March Belfast BURC

Health & Safety Stage 2 Ten Mondays, 18th January to 21st March Belfast BURC

Union Learning Reps Stage 1 Five Tuesdays, 19th January to 16th February Belfast BURC

Union Learning Reps Stage 2 Five Tuesdays, 23rd February to 22nd March Belfast BURC

Dealing with Stress, Bullying and Intimidating Behaviour in the Workplace

Five Fridays, 22nd January to 29th February Belfast BURC

Social Media for Trade Union Reps

Five Thursdays, 18th February to 24th March (the course will not run on 17th March)

Belfast BURC

EVERYONE knows that edu-cation and learning is key tobecoming a skilled workplacerepresentative.

NIPSA, in partnership withICTU, is delighted to present theSpring 2016 Education andTraining Programme, which of-fers a range of courses de-signed to assist and encouragetrade union activism. It is impor-tant that Branch representativesundertake training and educa-tion, which provides vital infor-mation and guidance on not onlythe day-to-day representative’srole, but also provides the op-portunity to discuss and debatethe wider issues affecting work-ers and their families.

Many of the courses on offerhave been revised to include in-formation, resources and materi-als that will equip, motivate andencourage NIPSA representa-tives to get the best from their

union and to be actively involvedin representing members onboth an individual and collectivebasis.

Each of the courses on offer isfully accredited and NIPSA isdelighted to announce ICTU hasentered into partnership with theSouth Eastern Regional College(SERC) to deliver the Spring2016 Trade Union Educationand Training Programme.

In addition to current range ofcourses being offered, NIPSAlooks forward to a range of addi-tional courses that ICTU intendsto develop with SERC, as thepartnership continues.

We look forward to receivingapplications for these courses.Should members need furtherinformation on any aspect of thetraining programme, please donot hesitate to contact us atNIPSA Headquarters.

THERE is no doubt that the de-cline in trade union membershipis an issue for the trade unionmovement and that it can be achallenge for trade unions ac-tively trying to recruit and ac-tivise younger people in tradeunions and the movement ingeneral.

This is, of course, compoundedby the issues facing younger peo-ple when it comes to unemploy-ment, under-employment andprecarious working contracts.

Coupled with attempts from gov-ernments and many employers tominimise workers’ rights and makeit much more difficult for tradeunions to organise in workplaces,younger workers can most cer-tainly find it difficult to access andfeel the benefits that unionisedworkplaces will bring to their em-ployment and indeed their lives ingeneral.

With that in mind, NIPSA wel-comed the opportunity to be partof the Trade Union Fair that tookplace in Queen’s University Belfast(QUB) recently and joined withstudent groups, sister unions andcommunity groups to raise aware-ness among students about thebenefits of being a trade unionmember.

The Fair involved stalls set up bystudent activist groups, tradeunions and community groups,which raised awareness on partic-ular issues and events. It also in-

cluded a sign-up session whichencouraged students to sign up tothe relevant union in their chosencareer or field. A ‘Lunch andLearn’ was also part of the day’sevents and an opportunity for at-tendees to discuss the relevanceand importance of trade unions intoday’s society.

Explaining the purpose of theevent, Seán Fearon, QUB StudentCampaigns and CommunicationsOfficer, told NIPSA News: “We areaiming to develop a greater work-ing partnership between students’unions and local trade unions, andby doing so, familiarise studentswith the function, relevance andsignificance of the trade unionmovement in today’s society.”

Naomi Connor, from NIPSA’s Or-ganisation and Recruitment Unit,added: “We also seek to educatestudents on the current political cli-mate and how savage cuts to pub-lic spending will affect society andtheir university throughout their de-gree. In this regard, the TradeUnion Fair is a starting point in along-term, cooperative relationshipbetween students unions and thelocal trade union movement.”

It is envisaged that the TradeUnion Fair will be one of a numberof initiatives that trade unions andcommunity organisations will con-tinue to be involved to underlinethe importance and trade unionmembership and activism in theyounger generation.

Education is key to becoming a successful NIPSA repOrganising for the future

as NIPSA sets out its stallat Queen’s student fair…

No such thing as a safe tipple

Page 12 NEWS

WHAT IS NOISE INDUCEDHEARING LOSS?

Noise induced hearing loss isa hearing impairment causedby exposure to loud, highdecibel sound. Noise inducedhearing loss is one of the mostcommon types of hearing losstogether with age-related hear-ing loss.

Noise induced hearing losscan affect one ear or both ears.Hearing loss can be determinedby having an audiogram carriedout. This can be arrangedthrough your GP.

Often noise induced hearingloss is also associated with tinni-tus which is a “ringing” in yourears. This can be extremelyfrustrating and has varying levelsof duration, depending onwhether it has been caused by ashort-term excessive exposure tonoise, or long-term exposure tohigh levels of noise. It can bepermanent. Tinnitus is usuallyclassed by medical experts asmild, moderate or severe.

WHAT CAUSES NOISE INDUCED HEARING LOSS?Noise-induced hearing loss

may be caused by exposure to

noise over a prolonged period ora one-time exposure e.g. an ex-plosion. Depending on the typeof noise exposure, noise-inducedhearing loss can take a long timeto become noticeable. You mayexperience difficulty in conversa-tions with background noise,hearing the doorbell or you mayneed to raise the volume on yourtelevision. If you are exposed togunfire or an explosion or veryexcessive noise the hearing lossmay be immediate. Noise-in-duced hearing loss can affectpeople of all ages.

NOISE IN THE WORKPLACEIt is inevitable that there will be

some noise levels in the work-

place. Your employer has a dutynot to expose you to excessivenoise and should take all stepsnecessary to minimise noise toinclude providing hearing protec-tion, if necessary, such as eardefenders or ear inserts. Theseshould be readily available, ofgood quality and replaced regu-larly. Risk assessments shouldalso be carried out.

The Control of Noise at WorkRegulations (Northern Ireland)2006 outlines what acceptablelevels of noise are and what du-ties your employer has to try andminimise noise in the workplace.Sound is measured in decibels,sounds of less than 75 decibels,even after prolonged exposure,are unlikely to cause hearing

loss. Sounds above 85 decibelscan cause hearing loss. As ageneral rule the louder thesound, the less exposure is re-quired to cause noise-inducedhearing loss.

Some of the most common oc-cupations associated with hear-ing loss are:l Constructionl Agriculturel Manufacturingl Transportationl Military and Police

You can take a claim withinthree years of a diagnosis ofnoise-induced hearing loss ortinnitus. Therefore even if thedamage was caused a numberof years ago you may still beable to take a claim if the hearingloss has been diagnosed withinthe last three years.

If you believe you have noiseinduced hearing loss and/or tin-nitus caused by your employ-ment, then you should contactNIPSA to request a LS2 Form toallow an assessment of yourcase, which is free under theLegal Assistance Scheme forpersonal injuries. Equally thisscheme covers all types of per-sonal injury cases and is alsoopen to family members of indi-viduals with NIPSA membership.

A Northern Ireland fi-nance manager who wasmade redundant follow-ing her return to workafter maternity leave hassettled a claim allegingsex discrimination for£50,000.

Ruth Parks (picturedright) from Tandragee inCo Armagh took thecase against NoonanServices Group, with thesupport of the North’sEquality Commission.

Ms Parks becamepregnant and in prepara-tion for her maternityleave in 2013 her dutieswere reallocated. Sheclaimed she was reas-sured that she would notbe made redundant, andthat her job was safe.

When Ms Parks, whohad wide-ranging ac-counting duties in bothNorthern Ireland and the

Republic, restarted workshe alleged that she hada minimal list of duties.

She said her name hadbeen removed from thefinance organisationchart, two new account-ants had been appointedand the hours of a col-league who had takenover some of her dutieshad been increased. Shefelt she was denied ac-cess to the finance filesshe needed for her work.

Ms Parks, according tothe Equality Commis-sion, brought a griev-ance which was notupheld and her appealagainst this also was notupheld. A series of re-dundancy consultationmeetings were held andMs Parks was notifiedthat she had been se-lected for redundancy.

Her appeal against this

decision was also dis-missed. She was offeredan alternative positionwithin the organisationwhich she did not con-sider acceptable, andshe alleged that she wasnot considered for apost for which she waswell suited which cameup while she was on ma-ternity leave.

“When I went off onmaternity leave I washappy and felt reassuredthat I was a valued andrespected member ofthe team,” said MsParks.

“My family life is alsohugely important to meand I wanted to havemore children. On my re-turn to work it looked tome like I was beingpainted out of the pic-ture,” she added.

“I could not resume

my normal duties and Ifelt demeaned by thechanges that had beenmade. I was devastatedby the way I was treatedwhen I returned to work.I felt I had to take action,not just for my own situ-ation, but so that thesame thing doesn’t hap-pen to somebody else,”said Ms Parks.

Noonan ServicesGroup expressed its re-gret “if Mrs Parks suf-fered any distress and

upset by reason of thecircumstances of her se-lection for redundancy”and apologised for thatinjury to her. The com-pany, which employs14,000 people and oper-ates in Britain, Irelandand the Isle of Man, pro-vides services such ascleaning, security andbuilding maintenance.

A spokesman for Noo-nan Services Group saidit “deeply regrets” theexperience of Ms Parks.

Chancery House, 88 Victoria Street, Belfast BT1 3GNTel: 029 9032 9801 www.mtb-law.co.uk

By Tanya Waterworth

Q&A – noise induced hearing loss explained

@nipsaVisit the union’s website forall the latest updates at:http://www.nipsa.org.uk

£50,000 for manager made redundant after maternity leave

Page 13NEWS

NEW guidance to help public sector man-agers judge whether outsourcing firms areoperating in an ethical way has beenlaunched, after a series of high-profilescandals involving service providers.

The UK public sector spends an estimated£187bn a year on goods and services deliv-ered by third parties. But the government’strack record with outsourcing has been calledinto question in recent years by a number ofhigh profile problems with suppliers – includ-ing a failure by contractor G4S to provide ade-quate security for the 2012 Olympics and therevelation that G4S and Serco had for yearsovercharged the for Ministry of Justice forelectronic tagging contracts.

MPs warned last year that contractorsneeded to do more to “demonstrate the highstandards of ethics expected in the conduct ofpublic business”, and urged providers to bemore upfront about their costs and perform-ance.

New guidelines issued in early December byethics watchdog the Committee on Standardsin Public Life (CSPL) attempts to offer officialsinvolved in commissioning services a checklistto avoid the kind of ethical failures that itwarns “can be a major risk to the government”and undermine public trust in the state. Whilethe committee says commissioners often “ex-pect providers to conform to ethical stan-dards”, it says they “rarely explicitly articulateethical standards to providers”.

And it finds that there are currently “no con-sistent structures or arrangements” in thecommissioning process to promote “the rightethical culture and behaviours” amongproviders.

In lieu of such arrangements, the committeerecommends that those responsible for com-missioning services use a number of criteria tojudge the ethical commitment of outsourcingfirms, including the tone set by managementthrough their public statements and “day-to-day behaviour”.

There should also be some evidence of“board and individual responsibility for ethicalstandards”, the watchdog says, with ethics

committees properly integrated into firms’ gov-ernance arrangements and not treated as a“bolt-on” extra.

Individual, annual sign-off of compliancewith a firm's code of conduct, as well as an un-derstanding of ethical expectations among thewider workforce are also listed as signs of aresponsible organisation.

Such a code of conduct should typically takethe form of “a series of dos and don’ts” whichare publicly available, properly monitored, andlinked to performance pay wherever possible,the committee says.

And it stresses the need for adequatewhistleblowing mechanisms to allow staff toraise concerns about their company’s conduct,as well as the publication of “good quality in-formation in intelligible and adaptable formats”to help track performance in a meaningfulway.

The committee calls on firms providing pub-lic services to show evidence “of good com-plaints handling” and a willingness to keep aclose eye on subcontractors by making clear“the consequences of failing to meet the stan-dards expected” throughout supply chains

The only way is ethics?Public leaders get guidancefor dealing with outsourcers

THE Ministry of Defence has confirmed that itwill not exercise an option to extend a multi-million-pound corporate-services outsourc-ing contract with sector giant Serco.

Serco won the Defence Business Services(DBS) contract in 2012. It covers civilianhuman resources, finance, information andsecurity vetting, and was projected to beworth around £36m over its initial four year-course.

The deal, which comes to an end in April,gave the MoD an option to extend Serco’sprovision of corporate services for an addi-tional year, but the ministry said this weekthat it would instead bring the services back

in-house.The MoD’s decision was first reported by

procurement industry blog Spend Matters. Ina statement given to Civil Service World, theMoD said its decision reflected a need to re-assess its corporate services requirements inthe light of last year’s Strategic Defence andSecurity Review.

“The MoD’s contract with Serco for De-fence Business Services ends in April 2016,”the statement said. “DBS operations will behosted within MoD as we consider our futurerequirements.”

It suggested the move may be a temporarymeasure that would allow it to “fully consider

options” for the next phase of DBS “whilstensuring the needs of defence, as outlined inlast year’s Strategic Defence and SecurityReview, are met”.

The review, unveiled last November, out-lined plans for a 30% reduction in civilianstaff at the MoD by 2020, taking numbersdown to 41,000.

When Serco initially announced it had wonthe DBS contract, it said it planned to stream-line back-office services and would bring in anew executive leadership team to work withexisting staff, who would remain MoD em-ployees on the same terms and conditions.

Ministry of Defence opts not toextend huge Serco contract

Committee on Standards in Public Life aims to help commissioners spot the signsof unethical conduct

Stories source: Civil Service World

Page 14 NEWS

What big-hearte did to help refug

IT WAS a balmy summer evening and I wasamong friends celebrating a 50th weddinganniversary. I was content to drink a glass ofwine, enjoy the well cooked meal and feltblessed to have £50 in my pocket, which Icould use to spend as I wished.

Having been picked up and taken home, I wasreflecting on the fact that I had everything Ineeded and a little more too. My mind turned tothe unravelling events across Europe and be-yond, which involved misery and heartache formany innocent refugees.

It is not my intention to deliberate over the ori-gins of this crisis; I will leave that to others. Theintention of this article is to highlight the phe-nomenal response from NIPSA members ofBranch 733, the staff members throughout theSouthern Health and Social Care Trust (SHSCT)and the Armagh GAA community.

In the early hours of Sunday morning, I sent atext to a friend Loughlinn, “I plan to take a vanfull of aid, to the refugees in Calais”, the re-sponse was instant, “I am in”. The following day,Sunday, I was at an event with a friend. I am

heading to Calais next Thursday I beamed tohim.“Whatever you need, count me in” was theresponse.

He also offered me a little advice; think aboutpostponing it for a week – it might be difficult toget the logistics sorted otherwise. With thosewise words, I set off to alert others to the projectand sort the plans.

My wise friend, Patrick McCann, from SimplyFruit, offered me use of his van to carry the aid.He also offered to sort the ferry crossings thatwould take us to our final destination. What wasto follow was an evolution that none of us everanticipated nor even contemplated.

By late Sunday evening, there was a furthervolunteer in the guise of Cara, immediately fol-lowed by Gerardette, who set about making con-tact with persons to provide aid. A hurrieddiscussion saw both Ritchie and Barry on board,while Fiona though willing was unable on thisoccasion to make the journey.

Cairn threw her hat in the ring and while un-able to make the trip, worked tirelessly behindthe scenes and made significant achievements.

By Tuesday, it was obvious we were going tohave cash donations as well as aid and weneeded to have an accurate record of everythingwe received.

I made a call to Majella and after a brief con-versation; we had secured our quartermasterwho would ensure good governance over allmatters financial. The crew were in place and weset about getting the word out throughout theTrust and the GAA community across County Ar-magh.

It soon became obvious that we were going tobe overwhelmed by the response. There werepledges from a multitude of companies andsome extremely generous donations from indi-viduals and groups as well.

As the donations and aid poured in, we re-alised the van given to us by Simply Fruit, wasnot going to be enough. We had always plannedfor a support vehicle to carry the rest of the vol-unteers and additional aid, though we did notanticipate needing any other vehicles to carryaid.

While still trying to source a second vehicle,

Page 15NEWS

d Branch 733 gees in Calais…

we soon realised that a third vanwould be required as the volumeof donated aid far outweighedthe room in the vehicles. Afterfrantic attempts to secure a sec-ond and now third vehicle, wewere not very successful.

I made a call to Corrigan vehi-cle hire on a Friday afternoonand got speaking to Liam theowner. After taking a few mo-ments to describe how we hadcome to be taking this aid toCalais, I was a little taken aback,when Liam offered us both atransit van and a Ford minibusfor the support crew.

To be offered the two vehiclesessential to our journey in sucha manner, was a wonderful ges-ture and extremely generous.The following week, when wecalled to pick up the vehicles,Liam went even further and in amagnanimous gesture, hewaived all fees for the vehicles,a true gentleman.

Despite it being thousands of pounds, throughthe influence of Mr Patrick McCann of Sim-plyfruit, we travelled from Dublin to Holyhead inthe freight section of the boat. We were blessedto have the pleasure of making contact withJean from DFDS, who was amazing in gettingus booked on boats both there and back.

Having considered a few options including avery long drive from Scotland down to Dover, wewere delighted to let Jean take control. Eventu-ally she had us booked on the Dublin to Holy-head route and Dover to Calais return.

We needed to prioritise the vast amount ofgenerous donations and really needed all handson deck; again we were overwhelmed with thesupport. We had the local Girl Guide troop (St.Oliver Plunkett Guide Unit) and also a group ofwomen from the local GAA club (Wolfe Tone inDerrymacash). They all were assigned a taskand worked tirelessly in getting the job com-pleted. In less than four hours we had the vanspacked along with a new recruit Paddy Burns,who had travelled down to help I any way hecould and felt it was important to join us on thejourney.

A special mention must go to Paul Heaney agreat friend, who had offered to drive a heavygoods vehicle if this was deemed necessary. Asit was he was not needed for this, though hedrove around the country picking up various do-nations, including three runs to the regionalTesco warehouse.

A big thank you to Paul as his efforts weremagnanimous and I know his own business suf-fered as he was tied up doing things with us.

We were waved off by enthusiastic supportersfrom Newry and we set off on our epic journey.

Apart from getting a punctureon one of the vans en route fromDublin and driving through thenight to Dover, it was a fairly un-eventful journey. A special men-tion though to Gerardette, whoprovided us with walkie talkies,which proved so popular the bat-tery ran out very quickly, thoughnot before much fun was had byall

We boarded in Dover for thetwo-hour boat trip to Calais andour final destination, the hub onthe outskirts of Calais. On arrivalin France, the high fences andbarbed wire were menacinglyprevalent from the port for a fewkilometres and beyond with heav-ily armed police ever present.

Within a few minutes, we weregreeted by the French volunteersand a few others from a numberof countries. It was very reward-ing to be immediately advisedthat a range of items we hadbrought with us were urgently

needed by refugees.Several items were taken from the vans and

placed in vehicles to be transported immediatelyto the refugees. This instant gratification was avery welcome sign to the volunteers on site anda big message of thanks to all involved in theproject.

The response from both NIPSA members,staff within the Trust and Armagh GAA, madethis gift to the less fortunate possible. In difficulttimes, with pressures on families and communi-ties, it is heart-warming to know that so manywere prepared to give something to help othersin need.

The journey home was a little quieter than theoutbound trek. All home safely and vehicles re-turned, we were all left with a sense of achieve-ment and with memories that – like a tattoo – willnever fade.

We would wish to thank the following spon-sors, without whom the trip would not have been

possible: Simply Fruit, DFDS Seaways, Inter-frigo and Stena Line, Corrigans Self Drive Hire,employees and family members of the SouthernHealth and Social Services Trust, NIPSA Branch733, O'Neills –The Choice of Champions, Ar-magh GAA clubs, Coca-Cola, CFS Corbet FuelSupplies, ACDC Signs, McKeever’s Chemists,Mallon’s Hardware, Tesco, Bernie Allen ForeverAloe Products, Scully Import & Distribution, Mc-Cartan,Turkington and Breen, Johnny McMahonand friends and local primary and secondaryschools, Carrick Primary School, Burren, andSacred Heart secondary school, Newry.

We would ask that when choosing to spendyour hard earned cash, you try to support themin any way possible.

After the success of this trip, Branch 733 isplanning the next venture, a little further afield aswe plan a trip to Africa – Malawi to be precise.We are seeking to raise £20,000 to build a med-ical centre as an extension to an orphanagewhich houses 34 children and to fund other proj-ects including wells to supply fresh water, solarlamps to assist children with their homework atnight and others that we are developing knowl-edge of at present.

We are confident from the response to ourCalais trip that we will be supported by our tradeunion colleagues, family and friends. Togetherwe are certain that we can make a difference tothe lives of communities.

The orphanage we are supporting is calledTilmanu, which is situated in Section 4 of the Li-longwe region of Malawi.

We have set up a Just Giving page which is,https://crowdfunding.justgiving.com/nipsa-malawi-trip and we would ask every NIPSAmember to consider giving £1 each towards thisworthy cause. If you would like any more infor-mation please contact us at the following emailaddress, nipsa-malawitrip@outlook.com

Thank you for taking the time to read this arti-cle, we hope you enjoyed it and we look forwardto sharing other initiatives the Branch will be un-dertaking in the coming weeks and months.

A personal account by Brian Smyth

NIPSA branch 733 members with volunteers and sponsors for the Calais trip

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On arrival inFrance, the high fences and barbedwire weremenacingly prevalentfrom the portfor a few kilometresand beyond with heavily armed police ever present

AS A NIPSA member I use my Member-ship Plus card in so many ways, it paysfor my membership every month, writesJane Scott.

I shop in Asda and when I registeredthrough Membership Plus for my gift card andtopped up with them, I was able to save 4%on every £1 topped up. Therefore, when Itopped up £300 every month for my groceries,I saved £12 – my membership costs me lessthan £8.

Unfortunately Asda has now withdrawn fromthe scheme but the same offer is in place forSainsbury’s and Marks and Spencer’s. I’mgoing to have to change my shopping venuenow.

Also, I use my card in The Streat cafes for

coffee and save 10% off my coffee andscones in the morning and 20% off in the af-ternoon (after 2pm) making a further savingon my monthly expenses.

We have also enjoyed cheap weekendbreaks for two with B&B accommodation andevening meals in hotels in Letterkenny andDublin.

I also use the 10% off when booking ferriesto Scotland to visit with family and friends.This saves us up to £35 per trip. In fact, it costmey £324 as opposed to £360 without my

card to book a recent New Year deaI – a sav-ing of £36.

When my nieces visit me we go to FunkyMonkeys and get the two for one offer so Ionly pay for one of them to play and both ofthem have fun.

I also use my Membership Plus card wheneating out and the offers there are very goodtoo. I get 15% off in Barnaby’s in Ballyrobertand 20% in Frankie and Benny’s. There are somany offers on the website and the app foriPhone is so easy to use,

I find my Membership Plus card is my bestfriend when it comes to saving money on ordi-nary things. It also means I am a member ofNIPSA for free every month and on averagemake savings of around £20 a month.

WELL-BEING pro-grammes are not asubstitute for stoppingworkers becoming illand employers mustaddress issues such aslong hours, stress, un-safe conditions, and alack of respect at work,according to TUC gen-eral secretary FrancesO’Grady. New TUC guidance onwork and well-beingemphasises thathealthy work must liein prevention of in-juries and illnesses,and changing the work-place through encour-aging better workingrelationships, greaterrespect for workers,and improved involve-

ment of unions. In addition, it says thatmany of the other ini-tiatives that are seenas being part of a well-being programme —such as encouragingcycling or walking towork, supporting gymmembership or exer-cise classes and pro-moting healthy eating— are important, andunion workplace repshave a key role to playin encouraging man-agement to providethem.https://www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/work-and-well-being-2015.pdf

NEWS

How Membership Plus card worksfor me and my family budget

£1,200 raised for cancer charities

The chairperson of NIPSA Retired Members Group, Tony Cluskey,presented Brian Campfield with an original painting by Belfastartist Hugh Clawson (Belfast industrial workers scene). He thanked the outgoing General Secretary for his great support forthe group in his years as GS.Picture (l-r): Jim Lilley(Treasurer), Nixon Armstrong (Vice Chair),Brian Campfield, Tony Cluskey (Chair) and Billy McConnell (Secre-tary)

Farewell presentation for outgoing General Secretary

NIPSA HQ staff held a pre-Christ-mas charity event at HarkinHouse and raised a magnificent£1,200 for two cancer charities.

The coffee morning was a roar-ing success with gorgeous good-ies and a good laugh was had bymany who attended, thanks tothe antics of official Tony McMul-lan hilarious quips aided andabetted by staff Danielle Dawsonand Elizabeth Buchanan, who or-ganised and hosted the event.

Thanks to everyone who partic-ipated and brought bought/bakedgoodies. The leftover food wasdelivered to the Simon Commu-nity homeless shelters in Belfast.

The event was organised be-

cause NIPSA HQ staff wanted todo something for two of our col-leagues who have cancer and areoff work while receiving treat-ment.

“We wanted to let them knowthey are in our thoughts alwaysand we felt this was a good wayof doing it and the raffle wassomething fun to bring the stafftogether,” said Danielle.

So the final amount raised wasa fabulous and amazing £1,200making a donation to CancerLifeline and Macmillan Nurses of£600 each.

A huge pat on the back toeveryone!

Prevention betterthan well-being cures