| |
‘Foot soldiers’ who care
• THE residents of Camden have been informed that the Liberal Democrat and Conservative coalition is considering keeping its good caretakers, presumably the ones that have have survived the stress and anxiety (and perhaps the possibility of even losing their homes) during the forthcoming reorganisation.
As with many of our caretaker colleagues, both residential and non-resident we are concerned about the definition of a “good caretaker”. In the majority of cases most residents would agree that their caretaker does a good and essential job and is a valuable part of their community. But sadly this opinion may differ for those who don’t fully understand the many facets of our job. From social carer to cleaner we are the proverbial “foot soldiers” and the majority of residents rely on the comprehensive service that we are able to offer.
When we are not cleaning and maintaining our estates we spend our time liaising with community workers and contractors, including the local police or perhaps social workers, providing valuable information for our managers in order to try to improve the conditions for residents.
We are bemused as to how the council can save money by engaging a commercial cleaning company to “help” its caretakers and we don’t understand how this could improve the service.
Some of our residents do have issues about the service that they receive. Often these concerns are beyond the remit of the caretaker. If so then they will speak to their line manager to try to get the matter resolved. But surely if there are problems, including staff performance issues, these could be dealt with much more efficiently if the whole service remains “in-house”.
Past experience with other now contracted-out services has proven this to be the case.
We do understand about the financial difficulties but isn’t our valuable caretaking service financed directly by our residents? Perhaps If Councillor James King (Lib Dem) were to compare the leaseholder service charge with the commercial market he would be surprised?
It is also unfair to make the assertion that the annual leaseholder service charge only finances the caretaking service.
There is a simple way of improving the caretaking of our estates. If all of our residents were to respect their environment dispose of their unwanted furniture responsibly, didn’t overfill already full bins (when there is a empty one next to it) picked up their litter and dog mess, this would free up time for the caretaker to be able to carry out other jobs improving the estate.
We do care, and “if it ain’t broke…”
Dave Gingold
Caretaking Unison Representative Kentish Town
Stuart Doran
Caretaking Unison Representative Camden Town
Camden Unison, NW1
We pay
• WHY does Councillor James King (Right to look at caretaking service, January 31) go on about only leaseholders forking out?
What about we council tenants. We have to pay for caretaking, maintenance of gardens (if we are lucky enough to have them) also for lighting in communal hallways. All these used to be included in how rents were drawn up but nice Camden, to get more money out of us, devised this new method. No one needs to think that council tenants get away without paying. There’s a big increase in rents due any time now and we do not get good service.
Bill Ayres
Belsize Avenue, NW3
|
 |
|
| |
