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    Outsourcing of council services

    megilleland
    By megilleland,
    Interesting article in The Guardian today confirming how bad things will get - sounds familiar in Herefordshire. The local authorities are just conduits for passing taxes, monies and grants to private companies, partnerships and unelected bodies such as The Marches Local Enterprise Partnership.

     
    The gutting of Barnet council means even births, deaths and marriages are managed elsewhere. Your town hall may be next.
     
    Ignore the economists quibbling whether public spending is returning to the era of George Orwell. If you want to see the future of your local public services, it’s already here: in the north London suburb of Barnet. I visited last week – and it’s not pretty.
     
    Not that there’s anything wrong with the area. I’ve known Barnet forever; it has provided me with countless walks, and the odd Saturday job. It remains the home of Jewish grandmothers holding forth on both Keynesianism and why you haven’t finished your supper, and second-hand record shops run by greying Don Quixotes.
     
    But what’s fast changing in Barnet is how residents access their local services – everything from parking tickets to paying council tax to how their corpses are disposed of. In the past few years, the Tory-run council has taken almost every public service it can lay its hands on – and outsourced it.
     
    Between January 2012 and October 2013, Barnet farmed out its care for people with disabilities, legal services, cemeteries and crematoriums, IT, finance, HR, planning and regeneration, trading standards and licensing, management of council housing, environmental health, procurement, parking, and the highways department.
     
    This evening, a full council meeting will vote on whether to consider cuts and “alternative delivery models†for another tranche of services, including libraries, rubbish collection, street gritters and children’s speech therapy, among others. Should they go the way of the rest and be outsourced, the local Unison branch calculates that Barnet council will shrink from having 3,200 staff in September 2012 to just 332.
     
    That is one hell of a municipal disappearing act. Residents now find it easier to list what their council doesn’t directly provide than what it does. Which means that if you want to see what the next five years of cuts hold for your local services – whether David Cameron or Ed Miliband get in will make little odds for town halls – you’d best pay close attention to what Barnet is doing.
     
    And a tour of the neighbourhood teaches you that when cuts reach a certain magnitude, it’s not just services you lose; it’s an entire democratic institution. Residents can show you lots of missing services: the borough is right now consulting on plans to squeeze the vast majority of libraries to around 540 sq ft, or the size of a Hampstead Garden Suburb living room.
     
    But the really big change is that the new-model commissioning council is no longer a local arm of government but an agglomeration of mostly privately provided services. And the two biggest contracts, worth around £500m and lasting 10 years apiece, have gone to Capita. The £7bn FTSE 100 giant now handles everything from council tax collection to new roads.
     
    For those who live and work in Barnet, their local affairs are now handled remotely by people hundreds of miles away, who know nothing about them or the area. Payroll for what remains of council staff is done in Belfast, while for schools it’s Carlisle. Pension queries go to Darlington. Benefits end up in Blackburn. Parking notices come from Croydon. Calls to the local library are first directed to Coventry. Even births, deaths and marriages are managed in Brent.
     
    Got a complaint? Then you have speak to someone you’ll never see – that is, if you can speak to them at all. Capita has admitted previously “capping†phone calls: throwing callers off the line when things get too busy. So rather than rely on their local institutions, residents increasingly depend on their councillors to intercede.
     
    A Labour councillor, Paul Edwards, has just finished a case for a woman who wanted to pay for a bench to be installed on a local hill in her parents’ name: what should have been an easy bequest ran aground on the confusion of a call centre employee who knew nothing about either the hill or how to handle such gifts. Edwards also recalls the sick woman whose council tax arrears had been overestimated by thousands – but whose outsourced case worker wasn’t interested in discussing the issue. It went to court, and the woman won, at a huge cost both to her own mental health and the council.
     
    This is what happens when you lose locally accountable public servants. It’s also the cost of losing local expertise. Take the legal department, now run out of Harrow. The result was that in early summer, Barnet councillors were given the wrong reports to vote on. The resulting mockery led to the commissioning of an independent report that stated on its first page: “There is no one who understands local government law in depth at Barnet. Barnet employs no lawyers.â€
     
    Yet, however broken their new structures, Barnet residents are stuck with them. Those two Capita deals, for instance, will carry on for at least the next decade, with many of their details shrouded in “commercial sensitivityâ€. Whoever locals vote for in the next two council elections, they will get Capita. And given that the local authority is now shedding its own staff, winding down its own IT systems and moving out of its offices, it’s hard to see how any new administration could take back control even if it wanted to.
     
    The rationale for all this outsourcing is to save money – a million pounds a month, claims council leader Richard Cornelius. He rightly points out that lots of other authorities are now following Barnet’s lead: just last month, Tory-run Northamptonshire declared it would outsource 95% of its work and go down to a skeleton staff.
     
    So, a case of cutting coats according to cloth? Two snags with that argument. First, the outsourcing proposals were first floated by local Tories even before Lehman Brothers collapsed and Britain’s crisis began. Second, these deals are always touted as saving money, and they rarely do.
     
    Dexter Whitfield, an economist, points to Sefton, in Merseyside, which launched an outsourcing deal with Capita in 2008. It was meant to deliver £70m savings and 100 new jobs. When neither unicorn materialised, the contract was transferred back to the council last year.
     
    Meanwhile, the costs of the outsourcing are already being felt by the likes of Tony and Janet Solomons. Their son, Benjy, has severe learning disabilities and can neither walk nor talk. He attends a local day centre, where he gets close personal attention from “excellent, remarkable†staff. But the service was outsourced a couple of years ago, with some fantasy business model.
     
    When it promptly collapsed, careworkers were hit with a near-10% pay cut. Employees I spoke to reported “morale on the floorâ€; one former care assistant admitted to taking on two more jobs to make up the shortfall. As the Solomons point out, such cuts in service, and employees under stress, are bound to affect Benjy’s level of care.
     
    “How will a new agency worker understand his routines, or when he wants to go to the toilet?†asks Janet. Yet Benjy can’t report back, and his parents will never know for sure what’s happened. Unknowable, unaccountable and potentially costly: a stark metaphor for Barnet’s outsourcing regime.
     
    I also read that yesterday that Scotland Yard commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe is driving an idea to reduce more than 30 forces in England and Wales, to create nine super-forces, based on the regional boundaries. I imagine these will be riot poice.
     
    The police are showing interest in those attending public meetings as here at Canterbury Christ Church University.

    Bill Norman ruined the Nativity

    bobby47
    By bobby47,

    The Christmas Nativity didn't go well down the Commercial today. Oh, it started off well enough. Me and the lads supped a dozen pints, sang a few Carols and said our Lords Prayer, but once me and the cast got into our positions for the traditional Nativity scene, it quickly descended into chaos.

    Firstly, I said to the lads, 'lads thank you for nominating me to play Jesus for the second year running. Now, before I climb up into this Manger, wrapped in these nicely bound swaddling clothes and start snuggling up to Nora who's playing me Mother Mary, I want to make it clear that I'll be damned if Nora breast feeds me again this year.' I told the lads, 'lads, I dont want to be breast fed again, Nora is eighty and she cannot possibly lactate and whilst she and I fully appreciate your artistic direction, we've both agreed not to do the breast feeding scene'.

    Course, the lads weren't happy. The Shepherds, the three bloody wise men and the Angel Gabriel were just about to kick off when all of a sudden there came a hollering and a yelling, 'I'm King Herod and Im here to kill the first born'. Course, cognisant that we didn't have a bloody Herod in the cast, I raised me fat face from beneath Nora's busums and yelled, 'who comes yelling something about killing the first born, or in this case, bloody me laid here in this Manger?'

    And who was it? Bloody Bill Norman that's who. I said, 'clear off Bill. This is the Commercial Nativity Play and nobody cast you as King rotten Herod. Be gone. Get back to Plough Lane and join your own Nativity celebrations thank you very much.'


    Emergency grants and loans to vulnerable groups

    megilleland
    By megilleland,

    Changes to the Social Fund

    As part of the Government's welfare reform, local authorities have taken over parts of the Social Fund and are now responsible for awarding emergency grants and loans to vulnerable groups. The Government has abolished the previous system of discretionary payments and replaced it with a new locally-based provision delivered by local authorities in England and devolved to the governments of Scotland and Wales.
     
    On H&W radio today Herefordshire Council exposed of having given out only 1% of the grant money (total fund £300,000) to vunerable groups, with 6 out of 7 people asking for help turned down.
     
    H&W radio are taking this up and Cllr Tony Johnson is to be interviewed this morning as to why this is, bearing in mind Newton Farm falls into one of the areas which would qualify due to poverty levels.

    The Demise Of Unions.

    bobby47
    By bobby47,

    They'll take your monthly subscriptions from your wage packet, they'll send you shiney glossy little booklets telling you that they are on your side. They'll even vow to fight your corner whenever you need help whilst your battling your employer and they've no problem in encouraging their membership to go on strike every so often because you've had no pay rise to keep up with the growing cost of living crisis that has impacted upon the working classes of our Country.

    They'll do all these things. They'll even grasp your hand, shake it firmly, smile sympathetically and say, 'we feel your pain', but, when the going gets tough and the so called tough stand up and fight their corner, do the representatives of Unison really want to stand shoulder to shoulder with someone who ain't getting treated fairly in the public service sector?

    Me? I've got serious doubts. I ain't so sure that our Trade Unions haven't gone the same way as our once great Labour Party, who, nowadays, thanks to the liar Blair, are a shadow of their former selves.

    Me? I actually believe that Unison have lost their way. Swallowed up by the madness of New Labour and becoming increasingly isolated from their membership, I believe that Unison no longer care enough about the little guy. The little guy who's perhaps getting a kicking in the workplace.

    It's easy to stand on a box and shout fiery rhetoric to the membership proclaiming, 'we'll fight your corner and we'll never forget our purpose', but are they really capable any longer of walking into a room full of 'suits' and defending one of their own and have the skills and the power of personality to trade blows with those who seek to demean, bully and undermine their staff.

    I fear Unison have had their power and purpose diluted by past political events and I no longer believe that they are deserving of our faith. In short, for whatever reason they've lost their teeth, lost their way and lost their ability to properly fight the corner for the little guy.

    As for more recent events within the public sector, namely the bullying issue that took place within Plough Lane, Id like to think that Unison fought the good fight and gave comfort to their membership, but realistically, I think they may have ducked it and left the bullied staff to fend for themselves.


    £3m of Amey disputed items unresolved

    Biomech
    By Biomech,

    With reference to this article that I know a number of you have read. 

     

    "MORE than £3m of disputed items remain to be resolved over Herefordshire Councils service provision contract with Amey which ended last month."

     

    http://www.herefordtimes.com/news/local/10711892.More_than___3m_of____disputed_items____remain_unresolved_over_council___s_contract_with_Amey/

     

    Am I to understand that Amey owes "us" £3million.... however..... they bailed the council out at a cost of 2 million previously so they will be paying back around £1million to the council? £885k + £166k

     

    ("The council currently expects some £885k of income from Amey - for which provision has been made in the previous years outturns - and additional expectation of £166k for the five months to August 31").


    Spate of Road Works in Hereford City at the moment.

    John Harrington
    By John Harrington,

    Does anyone else find it odd that so many roadworks are being carried out around the city at the moment?
    I know the Council has just been bailed out to the tune of millions by Central Government allowing resurfacing works (which perversely instead of embarrassed about the Cabinet are taking all credit for) but there seems to be literally dozens of other road works (with little indication as to what they are for). Whitecross Rd this week has been a nightmare, especially eastbound, which is unusual. I found the culprit not far from the Tesco Express/Old Buckingham Pub.Can anyone tell me why the lights are still there? The only obvious reason is a stretch of tarmac 2 foot a foot (ish), see photo. I lifted the cone, nothing dramatic lurking under it. The paint is bone dry and the tarmac is solid (and will only benefit from impaction). So what is going on. Is there an agenda to deliberately screw up traffic in Hereford further than it already was?

     

    post-109-0-79155000-1414782950.jpg post-109-0-06768300-1414782975.jpg

     

    post-109-0-16646800-1414782983.jpg


    Play Nightclub Hereford

    Colin James
    By Colin James,

    Please welcome and support 'Play Nightclub' our latest advertiser at Hereford Voice!

     

     

    Sat.jpg

     

    Sin.jpg


    More Bloody Waste From The Council.

    bobby47
    By bobby47,

    There's no bloody end to it. Who'll step forward and burst this balloon of wealth and rid me of this beast of bloody burden!

    The barstards! Utter barstards. The bloody Council! Fiscally knackered, bereft of hope and on the fast steep slope to oblivion, have kindly posted me a rotten Calendar.

    God knows how much this little slice of joy will cost us. Bloody Hell!

    The planning, the design, the bloody meetings, the printing and the distribution would most certainly have helped save a couple of front line public sector jobs that'd be of benefit to our communities and what do we all get? A bloody Calendar with the message, 'with the compliments of Herefordshire Council'.

    There is no end to it. The recession is something that happened to everyone but them. To them, it was no more than a rumour. Good Lord!

    Well they can get stuffed. I'll be damned if I even glance at it. Id sooner stab myself in the eye with a small fruit fork.

    Good grief! To think, even now, after all that's happened to our Country, our economy and us, the people who fund and fuel this madness, still they spend our money without a thought for how it'll impact upon me, my fat face and this bloody eczema.

    Bloody Hell!


    St Paul's School

    M185
    By M185,

    Good evening all. Are there any Hereford Voice members out there willing to support our Herefordshire children by voting for them in this anti- bullying song competition? It's a national competition run by Internet Matters and The Anti-Bullying Alliance. Children at St. Paul's School have written the song and they've made it through to the finals which will be judged by Sophie Ellis-Bextor amongst other people. It is  out for public voting as I write, and at the moment the children have a very,very narrow lead. 

     

    Please click on the following link and 'Like' St.Paul's School - Your votes would be very much appreciated (Don't forget to ask your friends and family to vote too)!

     

    http://www.internetmatters.org/educate/schools/antibullying-song-competition.html

     

    Many thanks and kind regards.


    Bang on Target - Shops raided AGAIN

    Biomech
    By Biomech,

    "Hereford Magistrates heard that the haul of non-duty paid, smuggled, and fake foreign labelled cigarettes seized at European Fresh Foods, Eign Gate, was worth around £13,000 at street value."

    http://www.herefordtimes.com/news/11572114.Thousands_of_illegal_cigarettes_found_secreted_in_a_Hereford_shop/

     

    And, of course, I draw your attention to these threads; Here and this one Here


    Using the forum - question about filters

    twowheelsgood
    By twowheelsgood,
    Is there any way to block topics from showing? I have a 'show new content' filter which is fine, but there a couple of topics that I have no interest in that keep showing. It would be nice (for me) just not to have to see them.

     

    Also, is there a way to 'mark all topics read'? 


    Left Bank Opens Tomorrow! I Have Invites

    Colin James
    By Colin James,

    The Left Bank officially opens this weekend and I have invites from the manager for tomorrow night. If you would like to come to this invitation only first night, please reply to this post.

     

    LeftBank.jpg


    Winter Wonderland Christmas Ball

    Colin James
    By Colin James,

    Winter Wonderland Christmas Ball


     


    Winter Wonderland.jpg



    Herefordshire Council Statement - HUFC

    Colin James
    By Colin James,

    HUFC.png

     

    26 November 2014

     

    As stated on two previous occasions (4 August and 29 October), the council’s General Overview and Scrutiny Committee will undertake a full and thorough review on the process through which Herefordshire Council and Hereford United Football Club (1939) Limited concluded the three leases and development agreement relating to the Edgar Street ground after all pending legal action against the club has been concluded.

     

    For the avoidance of doubt, Herefordshire Council neither runs nor owns Hereford United Football Club (1939) Limited.

     

    Councillor Sebastian Bowen
    Chairman of Herefordshire Council’s General Overview and Scrutiny Committee

     

    Statement Can Be Viewed HERE


    Im going to fight the Council.

    bobby47
    By bobby47,

    I am going to fight the Council. Yes I am. Bereft of hope that these huge management tiers and their vast salaries will ever be cut, I've invited Alistair Neill, Bill Norman and Geoff Hughes to fight me in a boxing ring outside Plough Lane on a date of their choosing.

    Yes, Im going to fight them and I'll fight them all at the same time or one after another. It's of concern to me. Why? Because I have no fear. I am a stranger to fear and I shall prevail. Oh they may think that they'll beat my fat face to a pulp but they're wrong. You see, when you consider, as I do, that you have a mission to represent the bewildered, the dispossessed, the possessed and the meek and the bloody mild who've no hand break to apply to restrain the mismanagement of our public funds, you become a very dangerous and highly motivated opponent.

    And that's me. Highly motivated and in fear of nothing. If they were with me now as I tap out this rubbish, Id say to them, 'have you ever in your lives encountered a complete tw.at. A headbanger who's detached from reality. Well that's me. Im your nemesis and I will box you all in the ring'.

    Course, when I announced this forthcoming bout to the lads in the Commercial, it wasn't met with the universal acclaim I expected. One of the lads whispered from the back, 'If during this fight they beat the living daylights out of you, will you try and negotiate with the 'management'.

    I said, 'I haven't heard a blind word you've said. Speak up'. Again he whispered, 'If during this fight....!

    I said, 'it's no better is it? I ask you to speak up so that the human ear, which is what I'm equipped with can understand you and you speak more softly. A strange response from a follower. A very strange response indeed'. Again he whispered, 'if during this fight.....! I said, 'yes we all got 'if during this fight.' We all got that thank you very much. What we want to know is 'if during this fight, 'what'. What during this fight. That's what we want to know. What during this fight'?

    Then, aided by one of the lads who was able to detect this inaudible whispering, I finally got the message which was, 'if during this fight Neill, Norman and Hughes kick the ever loving out of me will I try to negotiate with the management'

    I said, 'lads Im fighting the management. Not negotiating with them. If it were my intention to negotiate with the management I'd have said Im going to negotiate with the management. I've said no such thing. I am going to fight the management. Not negotiate with them'.

    Course, then it all gets out of hand doesn't it. Some of the lads start berating me, howling, 'he means to negotiate with the management. We'll be sold down the river'. 'Bloody hell', I yelled, 'I'm fighting the management. Not negotiating with them. I ain't selling you down the river lads. You'll not find me on a river, let alone selling you down it. I will never sell you down the river. If there's one thing I detest it's someone who sells the lads down the river'. And then, as the lads pull me pants down, throw me in a Morrisons trolley and wheel me away to be dunked in the Wye, the lads cry, 'Bobby come clean with us. Is there going to be a table in the ring upon which you'll be able to negotiate our rights to cover ourselves in our own excrement and gather outside Plough Lane protesting about God knows what'.

    I said, 'lads, we've been covering ourselves in human shi.te for years and I'll be damned if I ever allow myself to negotiate away this simple but highly effective democratic right. I promise you lads you'll never regret it if you allow me to pull me pants back up and finish me ale in the Commercial.

    And they did! The lads realised that I wanted to fight Neill, Norman and Hughes and not negotiate away our right to cover ourselves in sh.it and so, carrying me shoulder high, we all scrambled back inside the Ale House where I insisted we talked about women we'd like to cozy up to rather than bloody boxing the Council hierarchy.


    Seasonal street traders in Hereford

    Bilbobobby
    By Bilbobobby,

    It's that time of the year when the city is decended upon by the various seasonal street traders who take up position in the High Street (and nearby) selling 'tat' from a shopping trolley or store combi trolley.

    Do you think its right that they are allowed to do this - bearing in mind they do not pay for a street traders licence from the council, pay no buisness rates to the county and are likely taking away trade from the various shops in and near the city centre?

    I've asked the question of the council, who say that they have a pedlars licence and as long as they keep moving and don't cause an obstruction, its okay for them to trade.

    Now my understanding of a pedlers licence (certificate) is that it is issued by the police and it allows an individual to travel from town to town - door to door on foot - selling goods.  2 'traders' have taken up a position at the junction of the High Street and Widemarsh Street and guess what - they don't move until they pack up for the day.

     

    My point is unless they are paying a licence fee to the council - as the many do who run the market stalls in High Town - they should not be operating in the city taking trade away from the shops.  AND they are not allowed to trade in Gloucester, Cheltenham or Worcester and I would guess never in the Maylord Orchards or Old Livestock Market complexes.

     

    So....


    Tony Agombar. We've got your club

    ragwert
    By ragwert,

    Tommy Agombar taunts a Hereford United supporter via voicemail by saying, 'We've got your club, you've got nothing'.

    Also in the background a voice that appears to be that of Hereford United chairman Andrew Lonsdale says that they plan to build a casino on the Edgar Street ground. Here is the link to the article and the recording.

    http://saveedgarstreet.com

    https://audioboom.com/boos/2676940-we-ve-got-your-club


    No HC signature

    Denise Lloyd
    By Denise Lloyd,

    Council leaders of all parties plead for no more cuts

    Public services will suffer terribly if the chancellor insists on more savings
     Save Public Services retweeted

    Council leaders of all parties plead for no more cuts http://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2014/nov/30/letters-council-leaders-across-spectrum-plead-no-more-cuts â€¦ 40 Tory signatories listed, inc Swindon's @CllrDavidRenard

     

     

    Unless I am very much mistaken HC have not put their name to this why?

     

     


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