News and Views from Sally and the HQ Team
Hello there,
I have been away from my desk quite a bit in recent weeks, representing the CSPA at all sorts of parliamentary and other external events, and enjoying the kind hospitality of some of our groups and branches around the UK. It has been a privilege to meet the members attending group and branch AGMs, and I have enjoyed having opportunities to tell them about our current campaigns and other work on their behalf.
I was in Belfast on the 23rd and 24th April, where I was pleased to be given a chance to meet the NIPSA union’s General Secretary, Carmel Gates, and Deputy General Secretary, Maria Morgan. CSPA Northern Ireland Branch officers, Tony McMullan and Roisin Lilley, have close links with NIPSA going back a long way, and the union has been very helpful in providing our Branch with postal and meeting room facilities, amongst other things, so it was good to have an opportunity to thank them personally for their support for CSPA over the years.
STOP PRESS:
GENERAL ELECTION CALLED FOR THE 4th JULY
We are gearing up, with our Later Life Ambitions partners, in the run up to the election. Do keep an eye on our website and your inbox to find out more about how you, as a CSPA member, can get involved by sharing our posts on social media and lobbying your local candidates on the topics of most interest to CSPA members.
CSPA AGM
We look forward to hosting CSPA’s national AGM on the 9th and 10th of October at the Chesford Grange Hotel in Kenilworth, as this will once again offer delegates a chance to make and renew friendships, hear about issues of importance to CSPA members, and to propose and debate the motions that will set our future policies and campaign agenda.
CSPA Groups and Branches are invited to submit motions on their members’ behalf, and to nominate members to elected posts on the Executive Council.
Individual CSPA members, who are not attached to active groups and branches, are also welcome both to attend the AGM and to propose motions for debate. If this is of interest, please get in touch to find out more about how to do this, as advice and support is available.
The deadline for the submission of all AGM Motions, Constitutional Amendments and Nominations is the 5th July this year, and we will be finalising AGM delegate lists in early September.
In the previous magazine, I paid tribute to former CSPA Vice Chair Don Makepeace, who sadly had to withdraw from the Executive Council earlier this year due to ill health. We have now concluded the interim election process, and we are pleased to welcome Roisin Lilley from CSPA Northern Ireland Branch as the Executive Council’s new Vice Chair.
Work on our 2023 AGM Campaigns
The Deputy General Secretary, David, and I met with Minister Simon Hoare on the 29th April to discuss CSPA members’ concerns about local government funding and resources, and this provided an opportunity to raise the need for a national strategy to reform the provision of social care as well.
Whilst the Minister agreed that a fundamental review of the funding model for local authorities is long overdue, and said we had made “genuine, valid and interesting points” and that he “shared many of our concerns”, he would only go so far as to say that whoever forms the next government, the funding issues – especially with regard to social care – would remain the same, and that he thought they could only be addressed by cross-party efforts to determine the best and most “sustainable solutions to give private providers the space to innovate”.
Care and Support Alliance (CSA)
Earlier this year, CSPA became one of more than sixty leading charities and not-for-profit organisations affiliated to the Care and Support Alliance (CSA). The CSA aims to keep social care high on the political agenda and to ensure better adult social care legislation for older people, disabled people, those with long-term health conditions and carers, with the goal being for the Government to commit to significantly increased investment in social care.
CSA member organisations will be launching the CSA’s “Show us you Care” campaign later on the 24th June and celebrating “Social Care Promise Day” on the 24th July, to mark the 5th anniversary of the day Boris Johnson promised, on the steps of Downing Street, to “fix social care for once and for all” in 2019.
“2 Million – 2 Many” Pensioner poverty: what the next government should do
I represented CSPA at an Independent Age parliamentary event on the 16th April, hosted by Wendy Chamberlain MP, Lib Dem Spokesperson for Work and Pensions, to put the spotlight on the issue of pensioner poverty.
Speakers at the event included the host, Independent Age’s Chief Executive, Joanna Elson CBE and Chair, Baroness Neuberger DBE, as well as Jo Gideon MP (Conservative) and Sir Stephen Timms MP (Labour), who is Chair of the Work and Pensions Select Committee. An Independent Age briefing document, provided to all UK parliamentarians, powerfully maps out pensioner poverty around the UK, describing a hidden reality in which two million older people live in poverty, with many more surviving with precarious finances and facing real hardship in trying to make ends meet.
Charity for Civil Servants – “Mega Miles in May” challenge
CSPA’s Head Office team joined with thousands of others from around the country – including groups of CSPA members – taking on personal challenges to stroll, walk, jog – or even run(!) – in support of colleagues and former colleagues who are in need of help. We are all still standing tall and have have clocked up over 400 miles in aid of this very worthwhile cause.
Head Office Staff Changes
Sandra Roberts, our Membership Records Administrator, retired at the end of April after over 24 years as a member of the team at CSPA Head Office. We wish Sandra everything of the best for a long and happy retirement, and want to thank her for everything that she has done for CSPA members and for her colleagues. Sandra will be greatly missed, but we look forward to seeing her again at the AGM in October, when we hope she will join us as a guest of the Executive Council.