Concern over jobs threat

Concern over jobs threat

25 January 2012 - by JOANNE FLEMING

PUBLIC sector staff in Downpatrick have called for an immediate scrapping of plans to move their jobs to Ballymena.

The Downshire Hospital-based finance staff, backed by local MLAs and councillors, business people and members of the public, told health consultants to go back to the drawing board during a heated meeting in the Saint Patrick Centre last Thursday.

The proposed move is part of a radical shake-up of administration services across Northern Ireland’s health service, which would see 30 local staff faced with a daily 110-mile round trip to Ballymena from October.

The Business Services Organisation (BSO) has drawn up the plans for a major reshuffle of a raft of services aimed at saving tens of millions of pounds over the next decade.

At Thursday’s meeting BSTP representatives Julie Thompson and Shane Devlin said moving staff from Downpatrick to Ballymena would involve the least disruption to staff as a whole in Northern Ireland.

They said any changes would be phased in and that staff would be supported with a flexible approach taken to their needs.

However, staff members were angry that out of four proposed centres of expertise for health service administration, none will be located in the South Eastern Trust.

They also complained about a lack of postcode analysis in relation to where staff lived.

“I hope the politicians here will give you a hard time,” said one man. “There is an opportunity here to bring jobs, not take them away.”

Another member of staff said their department was the best of its kind in Northern Ireland, having won an award for the quality of its service.

One woman added: “You are discriminating against part-time, female Catholic workers. You have not gone through a full impact equality assessment.

Another female member of staff urged those behind the plans to consider the impact on local families.

“If you do not have a child, you have an elderly parent,” she said.

South Down MP Margaret Ritchie lamented the fact that the Trust had initially been considering two centres of excellence, one of which was thought to have been in Downpatrick considering its track record.

As well as impacting on staff she said any exodus to Ballymena could have a damaging impact on the economy of Downpatrick.

“Our fallback position in times of recession has always been administration,” she said.

“So many people travel out of this area to Belfast to work. There does not seem to be any evidence of joined up thinking.”

Sinn Fein MLA Willie Clarke said that many of the people working in the local finance department were young mothers who would not be able to commit to such an inconvenient commute.

“It is just not feasible,” he said. “Our council has worked with the Trust to develop a centre of excellence set up at the Downshire campus.”

DUP MLA Jim Wells added that with modern IT systems there was no reason why staff doing the same job had to be in the same building.

To respond to the consultation document visit http://www.dhsspsni.gov.uk/index/consultations/current_consultations.htm, email bstp.info@beeches.hscni.net. Alternatively you can fax (028) 9049 1855, or telephone (028) 9064 4811 ext. 433.