A ROW has broken out over a planned pay cut for staff who provide care to adults with learning disabilities.

The dispute centres on plans by Alternative Futures Group, who se head office is based at Kings Business Park, Prescot, to cut so-called 'top-up' payments for workers on sleep-in shifts which ensure their average hourly pay reaches the national minimum wage rate, says their union, Unison.

The union claims removing the payments from support workers from January will cost some as much as £90 a week, or £4,500 a year.

AFG has more than 2,500 staff with branches across the north west including Warrington, Liverpool, Burnley and Rochdale.

Union representatives claim that around 80 workers from the St Helens area are affected by the issue.

A petition against the move has collected more than 13,000 signatures, say Unison and a protest was held outside AFG's Prescot base last week, with union members bearing placards.

Unison's north west regional organiser Tim Ellis said: “There is tremendous opposition to AFG’s plan to cut support workers’ incomes – not just from the workers affected but from the service users’ friends and families too. The public response to the petition has been phenomenal.

“AFG have not had their funding cut by council commissioners and they are no worse off than they expected to be. They are acting hastily and opportunistically in attacking support workers’ pay.

“The cuts will cause considerable hardship for support workers and some will have to consider leaving their role in care.

“AFG claim to be fully aware of the financial consequences for their staff. If they truly are, they should stop this unnecessary cut to low-paid workers’ living standards.”

Mr Ellis added that members are "determined" to take industrial action over the issue, if necessary.

A spokesperson for AFG says the charity is stuck "between a rock and a hard place" over the payments.

The care charity says local authorities "haven’t sufficiently funded AFG for sleep-ins to pay National Minimum Wage to employees" leading to AFG being in deficit for the last three years, with a total loss on paying NMW for sleep-ins standing at £8.1m.

A statement added: "Support workers are the lifeblood of AFG. We are very protective and extremely proud of our frontline support workers and the superb work they do every day to provide choice and control to people’s lives.

"AFG was one of the first organisations to introduce full NMW payment (by means of top-up payments) for sleep-ins.

AFG is a not-for-profit, highly-responsible and ethical charitable care provider and employer. We always act in the best interests of the organisation and our people (service users, families, staff, payers and partners) and we will always comply with the law and our regulator.

"We pride ourselves on being leaders of change within the third sector - not only for the quality of our care but importantly how we respect, treat, reward, develop and provide opportunities for our 2,500 staff."