Feb 07 - GSD Says Government Needs To Wake Up And Accept The Reality Of A “Sub-Contracted Workforce”
The GSD says that the fact that Minister Costa communicates his thanks to management and staff at the Care Agency without extending his thanks to the sub-contracted workforce which makes up 45% of the service “shows he simply doesn’t want to accept the reality.”
Lawrence Llamas MP said: “I have been scrutinising Government on its unsustainable approach and policies with regards care workers ever since I became a Member of Parliament. Mr Costa hails his predecessor Ms Sacramento, as having laid strong foundations on which he will continue to build the Care Agency during her time as Social Services Minister. But facts speak for themselves, Ms Sacramento described the reason for sub-contracting workers as “workers who are subcontracted from time to time to provide temporary cover or temporary additional resources” this statement is flawed to say the least with the amount of subcontracted workers increasing from three in 2013 to, 25 in 2014, 80 in 2015 and 107 in total by June 2016. The elephant in the room has to be the surreptitious privatisation of services in Gibraltar and the effect this has on vulnerable service users as its obviously not a temporary arrangement.”
The GSD says that the issue of continuity of care has been highlighted extensively over the past months by Care Agency workers, a local pressure group where both Mr Costa and Mr Llamas attended and the subcontracted workers themselves as recently as the 16th January this year. The GSD says that if Government is in denial of this issue when raised in Parliament, it is more than justified for Mr Llamas to raise issues of public concern in a public manner.
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