Parish Council for Rusthall?

Has anyone any information on the meeting earlier this week called by Tunbridge Wells Borough Council to consult on a parish council for Rusthall? How many attended? Was there consensus or deep division?

Rose Gibb

This is from my blog dated 17th March. The Appeal Court's judgment comes as no surprise to me.

Rose Gibb, the former Chief Executive of the Maidstone & Tunbridge Wells NHS Hospital Trust, wanted to stay and face the flak when the report on the investigation into the many deaths at the Kent & Sussex Hospital was about to be published. For that she deserves credit.

However, the Board decided otherwise. It wanted her out and agreed a huge financial compensation package as well as negotiating a 'gagging clause' to prevent Rose Gibb defending herself. She could have refused the package.

An overpowering stench emanates from the decisions of the Board egged on by the strategic health authority. Buy her off, gag her and let her take the odium. It should have insisted she stayed. Or just sacked her without compensation. What a bunch of creeps.

Sure Start: A wrong turning.

Frank Field stated recently:

Consider Sure Start. This was one of Labour’s great initiatives, aimed at cutting into the cycle of deprivation that trapped all too many children in poverty. But the recent transformation of Sure Start into Children’s Centres signifies a major change in the programme: its focus has shifted from the poorest to all children.

If our society’s aim is to widen the life chances of poorer children, is this a sensible and defensible change?

Got it is one Frank.

A few years ago I was chair of a charity which ran a pre-school playgroup specifically for children of poor families. The charity was called Panda and received praise from OFSTED for its exemplar family liaison work. It was mentioned by the then Tunbridge Wells MP, the hard-headed businessman Archie Norman, in an House of Commons debate as an excellent example of a voluntary sector organisation targeting real need in a way the broad brush of the statutory sector failed to do.

Then it was decided to open a Sure Start close to the Panda premises and it was agreed Panda would move into the new Sure Start premises as its own premises were to be demolished. The move never happened as Kent County Council insisted on an increase in numbers and that the group be open to all children.

Now we are told that there are a number of children at the local primary school with behaviour problems? Why is this? Did they go through the Children's Centre as the Sure Starts became known as? I bet if these kids had gone through Panda the problem would have been much reduced. An unholy alliance of Kent County Council, central government, aided and abetted by a voluntary infrastructure body, destroyed a charity which was targeting successfully children from poorer families.

Frank Field is correct: the change of focus was wrong.

Yes Minister

Today's Sunday Telegraph contains a report on a memorandum circulated within the Department for Communities and Local Government. The subject matter of the memo is how civil servants should deal with their new political masters. Hilarious stuff in the Yes Minister genre. This is the link to the story.

No doubt Yorkshiremen Eric Pickles and Greg Clark will not succumb to the ploys outlined in the memo.

Personalisation & Direct Payments

The Personalisation agenda puts the individual at the centre of decision making. This is explained well in the following extract from Norfolk County Council's website.

Personalisation of social care services begins with you, as an individual user of adult social care services, identifying what you want to achieve (your outcomes). It puts you at the heart of decisions about your care and promotes your independence, choice and control about how you live.

Norfolk County Council Adult Social Care Services will then work with you and, if you wish, your family, friends, carers and others to develop a plan of how you will be supported to achieve these outcomes. We will work out whether you are eligible for any public funding to help to pay for those services. We can also put you in touch with people who can provide the right services for you. This is different from the traditional way of delivering social care services, which has focused on the needs of groups of people rather than the individual.

Allied to Direct Payments and Personal Budgets this has made a significant change to the way users of adult social care services can manage their lives. There is a huge opportunity here for the voluntary sector to provide services Direct Payments' holders can purchase, as well as supporting carers. Here is an opportunity to roll back the state and put power into the hands of individuals.

Unfortunately, but understandably, many individuals and their carers are fearful of the responsibility cast upon them and the bureaucracy involved. There is the problem also that carers can focus more on securing respite than meeting the needs of the individual cared for.

Undoubtedly there are many challenges ahead for the new(ish) regime, but already there are examples of pioneering work. Recently I came across Stepping Stones where Direct payments have been used to open a cafe run by individuals in receipt of Direct Payments. Some of these individuals have secured NVQs. Stepping Stones illustrates that individuals in receipt of Direct Payments and their carers can lead fulfilling lives so long as there is collaboration with the statutory and voluntary sectors.

Kent Police Authority

I see the same advertisement has appeared a third time in the local newspaper telling us what a wonderful person Elaine Boulton is. Elaine is a member of the Police Authority, having been selected/appointed by some arcane system. The sooner the system is changed so that the electorate can choose, rather than having individuals selected for them, the better.

Elaine receives more publicity - paid for by the taxpayer

Elaine Bolton is a member of the Kent Police Authority, having been 'selected' by some arcane process. A few weeks ago details about Elaine, including her musical interests, were spread across the pages of a local newspaper, courtesy of the taxpayer. A product no doubt of some dimwit in the PR department of the Police Authority, it told us nothing of the issues facing policing in Kent.

The latest advertisement is identical to the first one - another disgraceful waste of taxpayers' money.

Doncaster Disaster

What can one say about the shambles at Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council that is not said already in the Audit Commission report. published today?

Compulsory reading if you want to learn how party politics at local level can damage the very communities councillors are supposed to serve. The report highlights also the tensions that existed between the elected mayor, cabinet and councillors. It is highly critical of members of the scrutiny committee seeking to act as an alternative executive.

Doncaster Council has 'form'. What is surprising is that it has taken so long to put in direct control by central government.

Another Elaine

The taxpayer has paid for a half page advertisement by Kent Police Authority in today's Tunbridge Wells Courier.

The advertisement tells us all about Elaine Bolton who is a member of the Authority, except it doesn't. It misses out the fact she used to be an employee of Tunbridge Wells Borough Council and that her membership is not a result of any election, but of an arcane selection system.

It is an appalling waste of taxpayers money to buy advertising space so that we can be regaled with the information that West Side Story and Chicago are my favourites. Looks like another example of the dross produced by a statutory body's PR department.

Elaine informs us that I'm incredibly passionate about policing...'

Now that I can believe. The Oxford University Dictionary defines incredible as: that cannot be believed; surprising.

Geography and community

I live in Kent. My local authority is Kent County Council. KCC published recently a glossy magazine entitled Around Kent which in an orgy of self-congratulation and smugness tells us what wonderful things KCC is doing on behalf of Kent.

But if I reside in Rochester or Beckenham do I live in Kent? Rochester may be in the area of Medway Council but I imagine its residents consider they live in Kent. People in Beckenham may live in the local government area called the London Borough of Bromley, but many still think they are part of the county of Kent. Kent County Cricket Club still plays matches at Beckenham.

In Yorkshire, people living in Middlesbrough became part of Teesside, then Cleveland, now reside in a unitary authority, but for ceremonial purposes are part of North Yorkshire! Residents of Kingston-upon-Hull were part of Humberside County Council from 1974 to 1996.

Some historic counties have disappeared entirely as far as first tier local government organisation is concerned - Westmorland is now part of Cumbria.

Middlesex has disappeared although there is still Middlesex Cricket Club.

The 39 historic counties were ancient ancient subdivisions of England established for administration by the Normans and were in most cases based on earlier Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and shires.

Community loyalty to the historic shire boundaries runs deep. Leaders of local authorities need to be reminded, during their frequent bouts of pomposity, that when they claim to speak for an area it is only for the area within their council boundary. KCC does not speak for all of Kent: thank God some say.

Tunbridge Wells Council grants to voluntary organisations.

Tunbridge Wells Borough Council has awarded grants to the value of £390,590 to 18 local voluntary sector organisations. £199,000 went to the Citizens' Advice Bureau and £88,000 to the Trinity Theatre. Of the remaining £103,590, £58,400 was awarded to organisations of which I am or have been a trustee.

Another child dies in squalor

In Nottinghamshire an 8 year old child hangs herself accidentally. She lived in squalor and her parents have been imprisoned for neglect. The child was known to social services and there is to be another inquiry as to what went wrong.

This is the latest in a long list of desperately sad cases of children dying through the failure by statutory services to take appropriate action. I don't blame front line workers, the fault is in the system. Is there too much multi-agency working which dilutes responsibility and takes up an enormous amount of time?

I don't know what the answers are. What I do know is that all the reports from across the country in to previous failings did not prevent the death of a poor girl who had led a miserable life.

Around Kent: waste of public money

Today I received my copy of Around Kent, a glossy 24 page A4 document telling me how wonderful the county council is. All I can say is 'YUK'.

Smug and self-congratulatory it is the epitome of a statutory organisation's public relations department running riot with taxpayers money - our money. Goodness knows how much it cost to have the document delivered by the Royal mail.

A shameful, indeed disgusting, waste of money on a document which would have been approved by the Tory junta at County Hall. Still, I suppose staff threatened with redundancy had a wry smile.

Inspector slates Council on transport policy

The Inspector's report on Tunbridge Wells Borough Council's Core Strategy Development Plan has some stern words concerning the council's failure to:

• produce a 20 year strategy on transport infrastructure;
• develop policies to better co-ordinate different forms of public transport;
• procrastination on park & ride.

I have commented previously on Councillor Ransley's strange views on railway timetables. I trust he was not let near those who dreamed up the content of the Core Strategy the Inspector found unacceptable.

A Magna Carta for Localism

Just came across this very interesting document published by the Centre for Policy Studies. Well worth a read.

Mental Health Consultation in Kent: Closing date 7th May

'Live it Well' Feedback

NHS Medway want your feedback on Live It Well, the new draft mental health strategy for Kent and Medway. Live It Well has been drawn up by mental health commissioners, from the three primary care trusts and two social care directorates in Kent and Medway, along with service-users, carers, voluntary organisations and frontline professionals.

The strategy covers 2010 to 2015 and puts the focus on promoting wellbeing for everyone and ensuring the right services are there when people need them. Among other things, the strategy looks at the wellbeing of individuals and the role that public sector organisations play in promoting it, and their role as employers. It makes ten commitments including to reduce suicide, improve wellbeing for more people at higher risk, lessen stigma and ensure people can access care in a crisis.

A summary, the full draft strategy, and a questionnaire, is available on the NHS Medway website, www.medwaypct.nhs.uk/liveitwell from 2 April until 7 May.

More NHS Woe

A married woman with an eight month old son dies at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford, Kent. The coroner is scathing in her criticism of the hospital's procedures that led to the death -a death her solicitor has stated was 'entirely preventable'.

The Medway NHS Foundation Trust is required to make 'urgent improvements' by the Care Quality Commission.

It really isn't good enough.

Another blow to liberty

A few days ago I railed against the Royal College of Physicians’ breathtakingly offensive proposal that smoking should be banned in all cars, ostensibly to protect children from passive smoking. I homed in on the proposal that smoking should be banned in all cars irrespective of whether or not children are passengers. The reason for this draconian illiberal attack on our freedom is that a total ban will make enforcement easier. Not so, I argued, using as my example the ban on driving whilst using a mobile phone. This ban is ignored, often by drivers with a child in the car.

Now some bright spark has come up with a fiendish solution to the enforcement issue. A London based inventor, Alfred Benson, has developed a smoke detector linked to an external lamp which lights up (which is more than the occupants of a car will be able to do!) when smoke is detected inside a vehicle. It stays on for an hour thus enabling any passing enforcement officer to take action well after the fag has been smoked. The devilish device is tamper proof. One teething problem being worked on is how to override the device if you drive through smoke from, say, a garden fire and it lights up. I would have thought another problem is how the device will work on a convertible car, but then, who am I to criticise the health fanatics hell bent on destroying our pleasures in life?

Apparently the Department for Transport is ‘interested’ in the device but it is unlikely to become mandatory until there is an EU regulation in place.

I think the whole idea is bats.

Strategic Housing shambles in Labour Copeland

Where is Copeland I hear you ask? It is on the west coast of Cumbria and the largest town is Whitehaven. The Audit Commission's Housing Inspectorate has published its report on a Strategic Housing Re-Inspection of the Labour controlled council.

Its conclusion: we have assessed Copeland Borough Council as providing a ‘poor’, no-star service that has poor prospects for improvement.

What a shambles. Public money is paying for this. Will there be resignations by councillors and/or officers? There should be.

Spot on, May

Below is a quotation, in italics, from an article by Tory, Theresa 'Shoes' May. A very clear exposition of the need to target causes of problems rather than putting sticking plasters on the symptoms.

My complaint against Total Place is that it seeks to apply failed policies more effectively and not tackle the causes of problems.

However, whilst I agree top-down alone doesn't work, it is for government to set the legislative framework of new policies. The voluntary sector may have the answers, but legislation is required for the sector is to be given the tools to do the job.

Conservatives have long argued that a successful strategy to tackle poverty must target its causes, including poor education, family breakdown, debt and worklessness. We have set out the co-ordinated approach that we would take in government, including radical welfare reform to improve back to work support for everyone on out-of-work benefits, increasing the number of good school places and ending the couple penalty in the benefits system.

Labour's failure on child poverty has been symptomatic of their failed approach in other key areas of social policy. Rather than taking action to tackle the causes of crime, or unemployment, or inequality, and trusting the front-line professionals and voluntary organisations who have the answers to many of these problems, Labour's top-down response has failed vulnerable people.

A Conservative government will be determined to make progress on ending child poverty. It is an important and ambitious aspiration for any government – and a moral imperative as no decent society should allow children to grow up in poverty.