People Before Profit Cllr Shaun Harkin,
“Our advice workers should be commended for the assistance they have given people over the last year. It’s unacceptable for the DfC or the Council to impose further cuts on this vital service.
The Council Health and Community Committee supported our proposal for the Council not to pass on any cuts to local advice providers. This is an important step in sending a message to our advice services and workers that their efforts are fully appreciated. The Council shouldn’t emulate Boris Johnson and the Tories who moved quickly from claps for health workers to slaps in the form of insulting pay offers and cuts. Cutting funding for advice services is an attack on the vulnerable and those most in need in our communities.
We want to make sure people who need help have access to it. We, and many others, have been very concerned at how funding for covid support and advice providers has been politicised in a way that damages people’s access to help. The Council itself has to challenge this kind of political corruption.
Advice providers are dealing with the combined pressures of the impact of Tory welfare reforms and the economic fall-out of the pandemic. Many more people have been forced into dependence on food banks and are seeking access to benefits.
In this context, it’s shameful that the Department for Communities proposed in its draft budget to slash funding for advice workers.
The Derry and Strabane District has very high levels of deprivation and social inequality. Despite this the DfC doesn’t properly fund advice providers. The Council makes up the funding gap but the reality is that advice providers have faced continued funding reductions since 2015. These combined pressures have left advice workers exhausted, overworked and feeling completely undervalued.
The pandemic has made it clear why we need a new economic model that prioritises increasing workers pay, reducing inequality and social deprivation. To do that we need to completely upend the priorities the Stormont Executive has pursued for the last two decades. There is no way this will happen without a people power movement demanding it.”
PBP Cllr Shaun Harkin’s motion passed by the DCSDC Health and Community Committee on Thursday March 11:
Council acknowledges there has been a significant cut to the funding of existing advice providers in both real and inflationary terms since 2015. Therefore,Council agrees it will not pass on any further cuts to our advice providers.
Council will explore further funding for existing providers in the DCSDC area and make contact with other government departments, including the Department of Health, towards that goal.
Council should seek sustainability for and avoid unnecessarily promoting unhealthy competition for an ever decreasing funding pot for current advice providers.
Council will arrange individual meetings with the Advice Panel for each of our current advice providers to discuss their concerns.
