The RPSSUK does NOT condone the idea of violence towards social workers and although understandable Social Services particulary make your lives hell if you hit one of them, there are other ways than whacking a social worker although it is tempting...

Your court case is ticking away, the complaints in hand, what else can YOU do?

Plenty actually and you can hurt them in the places that councils can only be hurt and that's the wallet.

Your first port of call is to find out if you are alone or can act as a group of similar sufferer's, the more the better in my mind as a group has more voice, to do this maybe a few postcards in shop windows and a couple of classified ads in the free papers, even a small flyer in the DSS and job centres where the likelyhood of sufferers will see it. Get yourselves some mutual support and make sure that you are all aware of what you are doing.

Voting Blocks.

This is something that can work extremely well but you do need quite a few to have any impact.

This applies to MEP, MP, Councillor, you as a collective draw up your grievances against such and such social services and you use the following in your letter to the various candidate:

We, the undersigned issue warning that we as a collective group of people with legitimate reasons and evidence, call upon (insert name here) to address these grievances on our behalf, until this point is achieved we will actively vote against (insert name here) as we condemn anyone that supports (insert grievances) We also adhere to the policy of free speech guaranteed for us in government and European Human Rights Statutes and Conventions and advise against all and any form of possible or future reprisal in the receipt of this.

then undersign it all

If it's an MP you can in fact use your legal rights to ask him to challenge the House of Commons with your grievances and trust me with a looming election, your votes are very precious to them. The results won't be immediate but again in time when the MEP or MP starts berating the councillors responsible and in turn councillors start berating heads of service, it will in time cause a stink.

Action on Councils

It doesn't end there, there is more to do than the above, attack the councils in forms of percieved prestige and status and if successful they will lose some of their government allocated cash.

Star Ratings: If one or two people wrote in about their disgust of treatment with social services, they would amend the figures slightly but nothing drastic would happen except maybe a compelling reason forced them to have a look further at your offerings, if you as a collective group however, wrote a long letter each listing a grievance, the way social services have dealt with you, major compliants etc then the CSCI would have to listen, that means you could in fact get something very serious to happen to social services, they could lose a Star!

A star is not just a visual guide to how good or bad they, spending initiatives are worked out on the star ratings, 3 star ratings get better allowances of say 25% budget as opposed to 1 and no stars of 5% of budget.

Can you see what would happen if a two star got dropped to a 1 or none? They would have quite a few quid knocked off their yearly budget and sooner or later the senior executives of the council will ask why this has happened, if there were no job losses after that I would be very surprised.

Charter Marks

Does your council have a charter mark?

Well by now you will be getting the hang of things, here's another way of geting back at them.

Charter Marks are there to show the public outstanding good service or value for money, usually it will have some drivel about fairness and equality, justice for all and value for money.

A load of bunkum in my mind but to the unwary general publicman a sign that may convince him that things are great.

Most councils charter marks are for different branches, go to the cabinet office website to see if your council has one here

Now you and your collective group should again write down your grievances, translate them into how the charter mark is based e.g. Fairness and Honesty would be a good start if many of you have evidence of social services using porkies against you.

Write these down into a collective letter and send it to the cabinet office, if the council have a charter mark, demand as a group to have it withdrawn as you have evidence of the councils unworthiness of the mark, if they have not got one, tell the Cabinet Office that you would object to the council recieving one on the grounds of such and such and would like to be consulted in the future on their application.

What else?

Well, without realising it, if you have enough members you have become a "lobby" group and depending on your size could have some power to change things for the future, collectively elect a spokesperson who can be used to send and receive mail for and cause as much mayhem and grief using the system as you can, write articles for newspapers locally, poll council members on their changing of policy, become a thorn in their sides and hang on to them like grim death and you will be surprised how well your actions work but it takes time for results to show.

Don't use threats of violence or use words that could land you in court, think very carefully through each step and even approach the CAB for advice on how to word things.

Good luck and watch this space as I have more to show you all

RPSSUK