Barnet Unison mental health social workers remain in year-long dispute after talks with Barnet Council break down. 50% of permanent workforce have left since January

 

Photo: Barnet Unison

Mental health work is one of the most under-funded and under-valued part of the public sector. Here Barnet Unison explain what their year-long dispute is all about.

Barnet UNISON mental health social workers dispute with Barnet Council since 1 September 2023 has been over the failure to agree a recruitment and retention payment due to high turnover of staff across three mental health social worker teams.

On Monday 15 July 2024 UNISON wrote to Barnet Council suspending strike action and agreeing to go into talks to try and resolve the dispute.

Unfortunately talks broke down as it became clear in the meeting that Barnet Council was not prepared to reconsider their position.

The following facts provide a glimpse of the scale of the crisis facing Barnet Council.

• 50% of the permanent workforce will have left one of the three mental health social work team workforce since 1 January 2024.
• 31 mental health social workers will have left one of the three mental health social work teams in the last two years.
• 12 mental health social workers have left the mental health social work team North in the last two years.
• 19 mental health social workers have left the mental health social work team South in the last two years.
• Did you know that 40% of AMHPs have left the AMHP team in the last two months.
• 100% of AMHPs across the North and South mental health teams resigned and left the Council by the end of August 2024.
• In July 2023 Barnet Council informed UNISON that they had a budget of £266k to resolve this dispute.
• In a meeting with Acas in March 2024 with UNISON they doubled their budget to £532k.
• It would cost £150k to settle this dispute

You can read more facts about this dispute here on our website h

At our last meeting with Barnet Council our reps informed senior management that they were leaving because it had become clear that Barnet Council does not value their staff or service users. Our members strongly believe that it is not safe to practice as a mental health social worker in the three frontline mental health teams.

 John Burgess, Branch Secretary, Barnet UNISON said:

It has become apparently clear that Barnet Council has chosen confrontation rather than negotiation to resolve this high-profile dispute. It is not about the money because we know there is a pot three times bigger than what would be needed to bring this dispute to a close. The sheer scale of the numbers of social workers leaving these three teams should have set alarm bells ringing with senior management. The fact that they appear unconcerned about the risks of the chronic levels of turnover has left mental health social workers feeling deeply unsafe. We still have some members who are currently still working but feeling very scared about what could happen in terms of risks. Failure to end this dispute will leave Barnet Council exposed as an uncaring and unsafe workplace for mental health social workers.

I have recently reached out to the Chief Executive and Leader of Barnet Council to come back with a revised offer which may be able to retain some of the current staff and encourage experienced mental health social workers to come and work for Barnet.

Until there is a credible offer the Barnet UNISON mental health social worker dispute remains live and we will continue to report on the dispute. It is our duty to advocate for a safe working environment for our members and no one will silence our voice for our members.