Jill tracked down this ariel pic of the Old Moat Garden centre . It's quite an enterprise and clearly the workers are organised around the commercial needs of this business . We think Surrey & Borders can strike a fairer balance than its doing at the moment.




Go here to learn more about how Surrey & Borders NHS Trust has been exploiting disabled people working in its garden centre by cutting their £3 a day wages to nothing.

Forget bidding for that signed 1970's Brazillian footie top on e-bay as Surrey & Borders NHS Trust have just launched a range of ' It's Good to be Mean' T shirts to let their disabled workers know exactly where they stand. These stylish t-shirts are one size fits all and the cotton is sourced from third world countries with no employment regulations.

To order your ' It's Good to Be Mean' T-shirt contact Surrey & Borders NHS Trust









For your chance to win a free Surrey & Borders NHS Trust ' It's Good to be Mean T-shirt answer the following question and post your answer in the comment sections. The winner will be notified by post . The judges decision is final.

The disabled workers at Old Moat Garden Centre receive:

• £3 a day
• 2.50 an hour
• Nothing

Jill writes

I also received this reply from the Low Pay Comission:

Dear Ms GobleThank you for your email.

The Low Pay Commission advises the Government on all aspects of the minimum wage, including recommending the rates and reviewing different elements of the policy. I am afraid I can't comment on the specific case you raise below as it is the Department of Trade and Industry that is responsible for implementing the minimum wage policy. If you have a query about whether someone should be receiving the minimum wage and a concern that they are being underpaid, there is a minimum wage helpline: tel 0845 6000 678.The Low Pay Commission has looked at the issue of therapeutic activity in its previous reports and is aware that there can be problems where people undertaking therapeutic activity are paid a small amount of money. The Department of Trade and Industry has prepared a detailed guidance note on this area entitled 'The National Minimum Wage and Therapeutic Work', which is available on its website at http://www.dti.gov.uk/employment/pay/national-minimum-wage/Further-Guidance/page21693.html

The guidance explains the intention behind the legislation, which was to protect workers by ensuring that it was not possible for certain categories of people to be paid at a rate less than the minimum wage. This does mean that it is difficult for organisations such as NHS Trusts to continue the practices they may have had prior to the minimum wage i.e. to pay a small amount of money to people undertaking therapeutic activities, as it could imply that these people are workers for minimum wage purposes, and therefore they must be paid the minimum wage. If they genuinely are workers and have a written or implied contract of employment, then they are legally entitled to receive the minimum wage.The Low Pay Commission will be undertaking a consultation exercise on the minimum wage over the summer, inviting views from individuals and organisations who are affected by it. If you would like to contribute a written response to our consultation, please let me know and I would be happy to add your details to our contact list.Thank you for your comments.Joanne WillowsI have also written back to the Minimum Pay Helpline to ask if they can provide more specific information about the garden centre case and how this matter could be taken to tribunal.

Jill G received the following response from the National Minimum Wage Team.

Dear Sir/Madam

Thank you for your e-mail requesting information regarding
the National Minimum Wage and its application to Therapeutic and Disabled
workers.The legislation states that most workers in the U.K. must be paid the
national minimum wage if they have a contract of employment. There are currently
no exemptions for workers with disabilities or special needs within this
legislation. If a contract of employment, implied or otherwise exists through
which they receive remuneration they are entitled to the national minimum wage
for the hours worked. Those who do not receive remuneration or whose
remuneration is paid directly to a hospital, institution or associations not
likely to be entitled to national minimum wage pay.An internal meeting was held
with the Dept. of Trade & Industry to specifically discuss the position of
disabled and therapeutic workers and the national minimum wage. The purpose of
the meeting was to help organisations which provide work based activities for
individuals who are not in the general labour market or who are being introduced
gradually to it, and may therefore find it hard to identify the point at which
an individual becomes a worker in the eyes of the law.The Act defines a worker
as someone working under a contract of employment (an employee) or someone
working under some other form of contract (a worker's contract) which means that
he performs work personally for someone else but is not self employed. There has
to be a legal agreement between the two parties, which involves obligations on
both sides. The contract does not need to be written; it may be an implied
contract or an oral contract.Where it is uncertain whether a 'worker's contract"
exists or not, tribunals and courts will take into account a number of factors
that will indicate whether there is a contractual relationship. These
include;that the intention of both parties is to create a relationship of
employer and worker, with the associated mutual obligations, rather than simply
to enable the individual to acquire certain skills, experience or therapy; that
the individual is rewarded (with money or benefit in kind) and the payment is a
wage related to work actually done and which the individual has a right to
receive, rather than the payment being an ex-gratia allowance.#

A tribunal will decide every case on its own merits. It is entirely in the hands of the
organisation and individuals concerned whether they create legally binding
contracts between them.Under the terms of the National Minimum Wage Act, in
cases of doubt, the assumption is that the individual is a worker and it is for the alleged employer to prove otherwise. If in doubt organisations are advised to take their own legal advice.An NMW guide on Therapeutic Work can be obtained from the DTI website on dtipubs@...

For security reasons specific personal data may have been
removed from this e-mail.

Regards,

National Minimum Wage eContact team.

National
Minimum Wage Helpline 0845 6000 678 Opening hours: 9am-5pm Monday-Friday, excluding Bank Holidays.Web Site:

I think its interesting that the Minimum Wage Unit met with the Department of Trade and Industry to discuss how the National Minimum Wage should be uniquely applied to disabled people as this strikes me as discrimination. It's encouraging to see that Tribunals and Courts will assume a contract of employment exists in cases of dispute until proved the employer proves otherwise but still see a real need for the Minimum Wage Unit and DTI to investigate how to afford disabled workers the same National Minimum Wage and rights as other individuals particularly in cases like this one where Surrey and Borders MHS Trust were clearly using disabled people to keep their commercial garden centre functioning properly rather than giving them meaningful job opportunities or training them. I really dont think that there should be this legal grey area between the Permitted Work rules and the National Minimum Wage, but there is and that is the dire situation the Surrey and Borders garden centre workers are in. It would be illegal for an employer to employ a non-disabled person in this way and it seems to me that the way to close the loophole and reduce exploitation is to ensure that trainees are paid a miniumum training allowance as well .

The ' therapeutic payments ', term used by Peter Kinsey on behalf of the Surrey and Borders NHS Trust has a specific legal meaning in an employment and training context. Let's look at how Mr Kinsey uses the term again in his e-mail to all those who criticised his Trust's decision to cut the £3 a day wages of the Old Moat garden centre staff to nothing.

"Thank you for emailing me to express your views regarding this matter. This is a local issue in eastern Surrey which we are discussing with our stake-holders. Changes to therapeutic payments are part of a larger change project which we are undertaking to modernise and improve employment services for people with mental health problems in line with recognised best practice. Those changes have been discussed extensively with our staff and people who use our services."

Peter Kinsey

Director of Operations

In fact the ' therapeutic payments or earnings ' scheme was run by the DWP and in 2002/3 updated to the new ' permitted work or earnings ' scheme which was targetted at ( but not limited to ) disabled people on benefits who would take some time or help getting into mainstream work or who werent likely to ever get into a sustainable mainstream job at all but who would benefit from activity in some work-like environment with a social theme.

For example, somewhere like S&BP's showcase Old Moat garden centre in Epson Surrey.

(Search for it on Google earth as it is now listed.)

The ' Permitted Work ' scheme is complex and not particularly well thought out however if S&BP's disabled workers were previously on 'therapeutic payments ' 'modernisation' would require them to be treated under the new 'Permitted Work' scheme rules but this has not happened as it seems S&BP or more specifically its commercial arm ' Priority Enterprises' is operating outside of the law and simply using the now legally outdated term ' therapeutic payments' as a way of sidestepping paying S&BP's disabled garden centre workers.

Priority Enterprises has to act in accordance with employment legislation but its not doing that here, Peter Kinsey has applied a self-serving and meaningless category on the garden centre workers as a means to say, " Well we used to pay our workers 'therapeutic payments' of £3 a day but now we have decided to cut these payments to nothing with the expectation that our workers, some of whom have worked for us on a near permanent basis, can now be re-categorised as trainees and we can simply go on exploiting their labour and them without any regard for Employment regulations, the Law at all or you because we are a large NHS Trust and we can get away with operating outside of the law. "

Here's the rub, if S&BP was paying its garden centre workers outside of the DWP's old ' Therapeutic Earnings ' scheme then it has always been operating outside of the law in its dealings with the garden centre workers, as part of the reason why that scheme existed was to prevent employers like S&BP abusing disabled workers on benefits in the workplace.

Fiona Edwards , the Chief Executive of the Surrey and Borders NHS Trust has refused to discuss this issue with us and as we see from Peter Kinsey's response and Priority Enterprises refusal to respond to Jill G's questions , Surrey and Borders have slipped over into anti-liability mode, they have robbed the disabled workers who service their showpiece commercial garden centre of the pittance they were paying them outside of the law but now refuse to make their actions available for public scrutiny.

We have asked the Surrey and Borders PPI to take up this issue and will also be pursuing the matter with the DWP.

Earlier in the week I wrote to the Surrey and Borders Partnership Trust's commercial and training arm ' Priority Enterprises after Jill G posted elsewhere that she had not been able to get a response from this organisation . Prioritypresents itself as operating at arms length from S&BP which it should do as it manages the disabled workers at the Trust's Old Moat garden centre in Epsom .

( anyone not up to speed with thiis here is a summary of how the garden centre workers were treated)

I e-mailed Priority's Work Services Secretary Jo O'Neill and politely asked her why Jill had not received a response. This set off a flurry of e-mails between Jo and Declan Flynn , S&BP's Acting Work Services Manager and Declan copied me in to this exchange and implied that the evasive e-mail S&BP's Operations Manager Peter Kinsey had had his PA post off to everyone who complained about the treatment of the garden centre workers was in fact Priority Enterprises response to Jill.

Jo O'Neill then sent this to Jill.

I understand .... that you did not receive Peter Kinsey's (Director of Operations, Surrey & Borders Partnership NHS Trust) email as I have highlighted and copied as follows:

Thank you for emailing me to express your views regarding this matter. This is a local issue in eastern Surrey which we are discussing with our stake-holders. Changes to therapeutic payments are part of a larger change project which we are undertaking to modernise and improve employment services for people with mental health problems in line with recognised best practice. Those changes have been discussed extensively with our staff and people who use our services.

Peter Kinsey

Regards

Jo O'Neill

Work Services Secretary

Jill asked me to post her response along with her original e-mail .

To Jo O'Neill

Priority Enterprises

June 14th 2006

Dear Jo O'Neill

Thankyou for your reply below but with respect you have not answered any of the questions I asked in my email.

I asked you how many people the £3 a day wage cut to nothing a day affects and what consultations were made before enacting such a policy? I also asked what your agency is doing to comply with minimum wage legislation?

I also asked where your accounts are published and how I can obtain a copy?

You have not answered any of these questions in your reply.

Far from seeing this as a local issue in Eastern Surrey I and others see this as an attack on the rights of disabled people everywhere and we are

campaigning for justice at : http://justice4sabtworkers.blogspot.com/

Or to put it another way how would you and Mr Peter Kinsey like disabled people to reduce your salaries to nothing? How would you like to be treated as unpaid labour? No you would not like it and you would not put up with such treatment so you should not expect disabled people to have to put up with being treated as unpaid labour by you I believe you are infringing minimum wage legislation and also the Disability Discrimination Act and we are not going to let this matter rest.

Please reply with answers to my original questions.

Yours Sincerely

Jill G

Here is Jill's orginal e-mail in which she requests specific information

Sent: 31 May 2006 15:33
To: Jo O'Neill
Priority Enterprises Administration Office:
Wingfield Resource Centre, St. Anne's Drive,
Redstone Hill, Redhill, Surrey RH1 2AA
Cc: Peter Kinsey
Subject: Wages and Accounts for Priority Enterprises

Dear Jo O'Neill

I understand from the Priority Enterprises website that you are their contact person. Could you please give me details of your policy for paying wages to those working in your projects? I understand that a payment of only £3 per week to some workers has recently been reduced to nothing.

Can you tell me how many people this affects and what consultations were made before enacting such a policy. Can you also tell me what your agency does to comply with minimum wage legislation? Can you also tell me where your accounts are published and how I can obtain a copy?

Jill G

From UKSurvivors group

Just in case you have forgotten, here is Mr Kinsey's response again. This was sent to everyone who complained about the Surrey and Borders Trust cutting the pitiful £3 a day it was paying its garden centre workers. This was not a response to Jill at all.

Thank you for emailing me to express your views regarding this matter. This is a local issue in eastern Surrey which we are discussing with our stake-holders. Changes to therapeutic payments are part of a larger change project which we are undertaking to modernise and improve employment services for people with mental health problems in line with recognised best practice. Those changes have been discussed extensively with our staff and people who use our services.

Peter Kinsey

The Surrey and Borders NHS Partnership ( S&BP) recently cut the £3 a day wages to disabled people working in its showcase Old Moat Garden Centre in Epson Surrey. S&BP, which has financial difficulties, claimed it had cut these meagre payments to ' Modernise' its services.

Read more here exploitation of disabled people in the workplace

This blog was set up so that people disgusted with S&BP's actions and concerned about getting justice for the Old Moat Garden Centre workers could co-ordinate their efforts to more effectively campaign against this shameless exploitation. From its responses to date it seems that S&BP does not believe that ordinary members of the public have a right to scrutinise its actions.

Corporate Aims

The following Policy & Aims Wheel' Capturing Hope and Building on Dreams' appeared in the December 2005 edition of the Surrey & Borders Partnership newletter ' Transitions.

Here's what S&BP had to say about its pretty picture at the time:

"Vision and Values are very important to the Trust. They will actively govern the way we work and the decisions we make in the future. Our aim is for all people to be able to use the reference statements in the outer circle to describe their experiences of the Trust."

The reality is a lot uglier though. Lets consider those reference statements in the context of S&BP's exploitation of disabled workers at the Trusts Old Moat Garden Centre.

Please help Ms edwards to do this by using the links on this blog to protest about the disgusting way the Surrey and Borders NHS Partnership Trust is currently exploiting disabled people at the Old Moat Garden Centre in Epsom

Please also feel free to add to or comment on our action list and posts.

Thanks.

Brief Action List


1. Set up action list that explains the issue, what action we are taking and what other people can do to help.

2. Contact the orginal news organisation that reported on this issue and Radio Jackie and give them a short ' Surrey & Borders Trust digs in heels over cuts to disabled garden centre workers pay ' update.

3. Use the Freedom of Information Act to request a copy of the Modernisation document from Surrey & Borders NHS Trust Pertnership to get details of how it consulted with the garden centre workers over this and to obtain other relevant information.

4. Find out more about S&BP generally.

5. Find out more about Priority Enterprises , the 'brokering ' organisation here , and if necessary write to their funders to ensure a professional response.

6. Write to the Charity Commission about Priority Enterprises refusal to respond to complaints while it manages disabled people whose workplace conditions and views are clearly being ignored. .

7. Write to DWP, Health and Safety Executive and DTI asking them to ensure ' Modernisation ' complies with their rules and regulations and the law . S&BP has used the term ' Therapeutic Earnings' , this category was officially ' Modernised ' into the ' Permitted Earnings ' scheme, only S&BP has attempted to ' Modernise' by totally cutting workers pay.

8. Raise concerns about S&bp's actions with your MP..

9. Find out more about the garden centre , local worthies on board , who its suppliers are , etc. so that pressure can be applied on the ' business ' itself and reported to the local media. S&BP should not profit from treating its disabled workers in such a mean spirited way.

10. Write to Trade Unions active within the S&BT Trust.

11. Write to LD & MH charities asking them to form an opinion on this appalling situation.