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	TX: 12.11.09 - Disabled employment PRESENTER: WINIFRED ROBINSON

	Downloaded from www.bbc.co.uk/radio4 THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE 麻豆约拍 CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. ROBINSON A leading employer of disabled people in Scotland is on the verge of collapse. Glencraft, which manufactures furniture in Aberdeen, is poised to call in the liquidators. If it closes 50 people will be out of work, more than 30 of them disabled. Glencraft was previously known as the Royal Aberdeen Workshop for the Blind and its history goes back 150 years. Andreal Fonse [phon.] is one of the Glencraft workers who's facing the loss of his job. He's 53 and he has a muscle wasting condition. FONSE I've worked here for 25 years now, ever since I was registered disabled. I've brought up a family, bought a house, running a mortgage and without Glencraft I would never have been working. Without this place I would - I would have been on benefits and possibly be out on the street begging but I wouldn't have had the life I've got. Independence, this is what it's given me. Without this I've nowhere to go after this. I mean all my mates all work [indistinct words] and welders, joiners, I mean they're all going through hard times as well but they are able bodied and they can put their skills elsewhere, we can't, we've nothing for that, we depend on this solely for our life. ROBINSON Andreal Fonse. Well I'm joined now by Ann Begg, who's the Labour MP for Aberdeen South and by John Stewart, who's the leader of Aberdeen City Council, who's a Liberal Democrat. Ann Begg, why is the company in such difficulties? BEGG Well over the years Glencraft has not really made a profit but in - well recent times, in the last two years, Aberdeen City Council have withdrawn - well initially they were going to withdraw all of the funding, 18 months ago, they changed their mind on that but they've gradually withdrawn their funding and support for the factory - it's always needed that. I think the disappointing thing for me is that while it has always needed subsidy and support it had a business plan in place that ultimately, in a couple of years time, it might have been able to do without that support, apart from the Work Step which this money comes from - the Department of Work and Pensions, from the Westminster government. And it would have been able to function and perhaps even start making a profit. So I think the sadness of this is at the very point where the factory was being turned around, where it was making a product that people wanted to buy when sales were going up, at that point it appears that the council has withdrawn its support. ROBINSON Counsellor John Stewart, you are cutting a subsidy that you currently make to Glencraft, I think by £200,000 a year, they're asking you to be allowed to pay no rent for a year but you feel you just can't go on with it, why? STEWART That's not entirely true. We did put a package together, worth around about £100,000, which involved the rent free period but Glencraft's board, for whatever reason, has chosen not to accept that and instead has moved to wind the company up, which is disappointing. I think to give a bit of context you have to understand the funding situation which Aberdeen City Council finds itself in. We are the lowest funded of all 32 of Scotland's local authorities and that puts a huge amount of pressure because we're still expected to provide the same range of services as every other council in Scotland. But for every £1 per person that Aberdeen gets, Glasgow, for example, gets £1.50. And that amounts to many, many millions of pounds year on year. So our budgets are very, very stretched at the moment. ROBINSON Ann Begg, if any small company has had - and I am told this is the figure - £7 million worth of public support since the year 2000 and they're still struggling to make a go of it, don't you have to accept defeat? BEGG Well no over the years Glencraft has had even more money than that, I think in its time, and remember that people who work in Glencraft don't go away if Glencraft no longer exists, they become a burden on the state in terms of the benefits that they would be able to claim. I think that the difference - that figure sounds very, very large - but included in that figure is £1.7 million where the council came into buy the lease of the land on which the factory sits and they're then renting the factory back to the company. And a lot of that money has gone on - has been used to pay off some of the historical debts that the company had. So the company it's now sitting - in fact the council has now got a very valuable piece of real estate that this will seem a lot, last summer at the very height of the economic crisis, so the valuable asset that the company had, which was its lease, which may have been worth something between £2 and 3 million they couldn't get a buyer for it at the very critical point they needed to. The council, to its credit, stepped in and said that they would buy it from them for £1.7 million. More than half of that went actually straight back to the council, in terms of paying off some of the debts and things. And the council now actually has quite a valuable piece if real estate if the factory closes. But they were looking for some time which would be rent free and they were also looking for support from the council - because actually it's a very large site and they were hoping to turn it into a kind of social enterprise park and bring other companies that work with disabled people on to the same site but that would have required extra investment as well and it was that I think when the council said no to that investment - I think that was about £180,000 they were looking for - when the council not to that that the board decided that they really couldn't go any further. Now all of that would have helped to generate extra income in the future but they're not going to be given that chance now. ROBINSON Councillor John Stewart then, shouldn't you be giving them an extra chance to continue? They claim sales are increasing and they also claim that they have improved efficiency. STEWART My understanding is from the first minister's visit to the factory earlier this week that the company's losing between £60 and 70,000 a month. That would mean that it would require a subsidy of between £700 and 850,000 a year. My social work budget at the city council is already overstretched and we're looking at trying to reign back an £8 million overspend in that budget and I do get frustrated when people ask the council for additional funding, particularly from a social work services because they never ever suggest what else should be cut in order to find that money. And we have to balance our books and I'm very, very sorry that Glencraft is in this situation but I simply cannot pluck a figure like that from mid air without impacting on other services. ROBINSON And the newspapers have reported management costs that seem to be mad in the circumstances. One management consultant allegedly paid the equivalent of £100,000 a year for a three day week. You can see why people lose patience can't you. BEGG Well I have to say it was the council that brought in that management consultant and the understanding was I think he would assess the business and if it wasn't a viable going concern then the business was closed - that was getting on for two years ago now. He assessed the business, thought it was a viable - it was a going concern and has been working to try and get it into that kind of state, so it could be handed over to our general manager. ROBINSON But are those figures accurate? BEGG I couldn't give you the exact figures because I don't know exactly - he won't come cheap, I wouldn't have thought, but I couldn't tell you exactly. ROBINSON You're suggesting that his bill is being met by the local authority? BEGG Well no it's being met by the company, that's all included in all of the prices. But it's a factory that has a multimillion pound turnover, they would need a general manager, he's actually been acting as the manager... ROBINSON But he wouldn't be paid anything like £100,000 for a three day week. BEGG No, he would be paid about half of that or slightly more. But the problem has been is because the company has been in trouble over recent years, because we've known what the situation - and John is absolutely right that Aberdeen's finances are in a dreadful state, there was a £50 million black hole in the council's finances last year which they're struggling to fill and they're not getting the help from the Scottish government that we would expect and we're quite disappointed in the response of Alex Salmond when he's been told that Aberdeen has got a real poor funding formula. So the council is right in all of that. However, they haven't been able to get a new general manager because of the insecurity of the job so they haven't been able to get someone who would run the factory much more efficiently and much more cheaply. And you can't - part of the problem has been the council oh you must cut your management costs but until there's a stable company nobody in their right mind would actually take on that job. ROBINSON And briefly if you would Ann Begg, more companies these days are said to be willing to employ people with disabilities, the council is offering Glencraft staff some help in finding new jobs, wouldn't it be better if these people found mainstream jobs? BEGG I'm the first person that thinks it would be absolutely wonderful if they could. But they have skills that - they've got skills in bed making and mattress making, they're potentially - and in there they were trying to turn themselves into a social enterprise because in there there is potentially a company that - not make a profit but would actually, like many social enterprises, wash its face. It would keep the people using the skills they have - there are skilled upholsterers, there are skilled mattress makers - part of the problem of Glencraft is that they make such good mattresses that they don't wear out, I bought my Glencraft mattress in 1983 and it's still fine. ROBINSON Ann Begg, we'll have to leave it there and Councillor John Stewart, thank you both. Back to the Transcripts homepage Back to the You and Yours homepage The 麻豆约拍 is not responsible for external websites

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