Workers could strike over 'devastating' proposals to close older people day care centres in Glasgow

Workers in Glasgow could strike over “devastating” proposals to close day care centres for older people and cut jobs in welfare rights to help save around £5m.

Health and social care chiefs in Glasgow are aiming to save £20m by April 2027 due to “increasingly challenging” funding pressures.

A first round of cuts includes slashing the number of day care centres from 10 to four and removing around 24 posts in a welfare rights service. Plans also include scrapping services for enhanced drug treatment and complex needs, replacing them with a combined offer.

Trade union Unison has warned of the impact on the “lives of ordinary working-class Glaswegians” — and a consultative ballot of its members found they are willing to take industrial action.

The union will protest alongside Unite and the GMB members on Thursday morning, ahead of a meeting of the city’s integration joint board (IJB), which is being asked to agree to the savings.

Unison balloted 120 members across welfare rights and older people’s day care and — on a 87% turnout — 99% voted for further action. It is expected to move to a formal ballot if the cuts are approved.

The IJB directs the city’s health and social care partnership (HSCP), which is carrying out a ‘service prioritisation’ scheme due to funding pressures.

Known as the ‘STEP Forward’ programme, the aim is to find £10m of savings in the current financial year and another £10m by April 1, 2027. However, a report states an “in-year shortfall… in the region of £6-7m” is currently expected and alternative budget balancing measures are being developed.

On Thursday, IJB members will consider reducing the number of older people’s day care centres, which provide social, wellbeing and carer support, from ten to four. The report states 661 people were attending centres per month in May, against a capacity of 1,500 places. It adds the preceding five-year average was 601.

Running ten centres “does not represent best value”, the report claims, adding existing users can be absorbed into four hubs. It would save £2m.

Reducing the welfare rights service would save just over £1m. The report to the IJB states the changes would target support to HSCP service users and those most vulnerable to financial hardship.

Officials say there is “overlap with wider financial inclusion services operating across Glasgow”. The plan would cease or reduce activity on pensioner poverty, training, appeals and private rented sector work.

The enhanced drug treatment service (EDTS) is a “highly specialist, supervised treatment and harm reduction response for adults with chronic opioid dependency” while the complex needs service helps people with “intersecting” issues like complex trauma, substance use and mental illness.

Reviews of both services, which, like the Thistle drug consumption room, are based at Hunter Street, have been suspended “in response to a formal grievance” from NHS staff. However, the options are being progressed for delivery over the remainder of the 2026/27 financial year.

The report states the EDTS has delivered “significant benefits for an exceptionally small cohort of people who experience multiple adversity”. It adds the funding per individual patient was “noted to be exceptionally high at circa £300K for those with an ongoing attendance over 6.5 years”.

Officials believe redesigning the two services can save around £2m and would “preserve centralised specialist support for people who experience persistent barriers to mainstream services” while reducing duplication and deploying resources more efficiently.

The trade unions are calling on the IJB’s voting members to refuse to pass the cuts. Stuart Graham, Unison social work convener, said the proposals, in the middle of a cost of living crisis, will “have a devastating impact on the lives of ordinary working-class Glaswegians, and this is only the start of the IJB’s strategic cuts programme”.

“There are other services lined up for cuts that will impact on the same service user groups with an unrealistic assumption that community, voluntary or third sector groups will pick up the slack. This approach is reckless,” he added.

“We have genuine concerns about the transparency and legitimacy of the narrative being used to justify cuts of this scale. If these services disappear, we know from experience they will be gone for good.”

Mr Graham said workers believed the most recent occupancy figures in day care centres were higher. He also said voluntary sector organisations had raised concerns over welfare rights cuts.

A spokeswoman for the HSCP, which is a partnership between the council and NHS, said: “STEP Forward is a three-year programme that will see every service under the HSCP reviewed.

“It’s based around principles of transparency and participation so that staff and other stakeholders understand the challenges facing the HSCP and are engaged in finding solutions.

“We cannot ignore the financial situation — doing nothing would be far worse.”

The IJB report warns rejection or deferral of the savings options would “increase the likelihood of further financial pressure being carried forward and reduce the time available for implementation”. No compulsory redundancies are planned.