Care workers are set to take strike action next week over an ongoing pay dispute.

Unison members working for Your Choice Barnet, which provides social care in the borough, will go on strike next Tuesday and Wednesday.

Picket lines will be set up at Flower Lane Day Centre, in Flower Lane, Mill Hill, and Rosa Morrison Day Centre in Gloucester Road, New Barnet.

The dispute is about a 9.5 per cent pay cut which came into force last April.

Care workers also went on strike last month, and next week’s action will bring the number of days of industrial action to eight since the dispute began last year.

An Early Day Motion has been lodged in the House of Commons about the dispute.

It calls on Barnet Borough Council to “enter into serious negotiations with YCB, Barnet Unison and the local trade union, to resolve this dispute constructively and allow YCB to focus once again on its provision of high-quality services for adults with disabilities".

A total of nine MPs have added their support to the motion so far.

Barnet Unison general secretary John Burgess said: “The driving motivation for our members in this dispute is their fears about what is happening to the quality of services.

“Low pay in the care sector does not deliver high quality services. It does not appear to work for Capita, we are at a loss as to understand why this would work for care workers in YCB.”

Julie Riley, director of care and support at Your Choice Barnet, said: “We are extremely disappointed with YCB Unison members’ decision to strike again next Tuesday 24 and Wednesday 25 February. Every day of industrial action causes further financial losses to Your Choice.

"We negotiated exhaustively with Unison last year, involving ACAS, and the final improved offer made in October 2014 of a reduction in the pay cut to 7.9 per cent was in response to Unison requesting we find a cut below 8 per cent. This offer, backdated to April 2014, was made alongside a letter of assurance requested by Unison in order to resolve the dispute.

“We stated at the time it was the best offer we could make, and our last and final offer. The consequences of further strike action on staff members, our customers and their families are not good. We should be focusing all our energies on continuing to provide high-quality services to the people we support.

"It is also worth reiterating that even after the original pay cut of 9.5 per cent YCB’s pay and terms and conditions are still above the median for similar organisations as evidenced in two independent benchmarking exercises carried out before implementation of the cut.”