24 November - Beware of geeks bearing gifts
Bexley council has to cut spending by £10 million pounds next year in order to freeze council tax. Our neighbours in Bromley raised taxes this year and are
on course to do it again in 2014. Maybe that is the more honest course of action.
Council leader Teresa O’Neill decided against reducing the number of councillors (£300,000 a year saving) and wouldn’t give
Elwyn Bryant’s petition house room
(another £300,000) and has blown around forty million on her new headquarters when on the council’s own admission, redevelopment on the existing site was
the “highly efficient” option and around ten million pounds cheaper, but we are where we are. Now Teresa has to wield
the axe and suddenly there is the usual plethora of consultations.
This week has seen the borough plastered with posters about Care Services. There are two of them in the associated photo.
In all walks of life there is a move by service providers to make their
customers do the work. Self service tills in supermarkets, pre-payment only for
bus fares - cash not accepted - and pay by phone parking. In Newham my 93 year old aunt is dissuaded from
having visitors because parking permits are available only
on-line and that is not something she can manage any more. I have to
impersonate her, she has no other relatives so it is fortunate that I am only four miles but,
thanks to Boris and Big Tess, a 40 minutes drive away. I’m sometimes tempted to make
Newham social services pick up the bill for looking after her.
This move towards self-service can be a good thing
but it needs to be applied sensibly.
Instead of providing domiciliary care (though
agencies contracted at the
cheapest possible price) for those who need it, Bexley council is
proposing they should drop out of the service totally by just paying the
care recipients to make the arrangements themselves.
I asked someone very much involved with Bexley care services if he knew of the
proposals and discovered they weren’t as new as I thought. He had already
been subjected to a little pressure to make the change but quickly lost interest when the details became clear.
If he had expected to be given a similar hourly sum to that the care agencies have
available he would have soon been disappointed. Out of the reduced amount
he was expected to be responsible for the tax liabilities of his chosen carers
and an administration fee to whoever is supervising the carers. In the event they
couldn’t even find suitable carers.
His advice is “Be sure to read all the small print”.
Bexley council is attempting to withdraw from the service to
reduce its costs even further and logic dictates that as carers’ pay cannot go any
lower without falling foul of the minimum wage regulations, there is only one
option for funding Bexley’s cuts. The sick and disabled will have to find the money.
Another activity being
lined up for changes
is the Children’s Centre Service. Never heard of it? Neither had I, but Bexley council says it is planning changes to
ensure the centres “provide the best value for money”. It’s their favourite form
of words when about to attack residents or services.
The price of Residents’ Parking Permits was tripled because it provided “value
for money”. That phrase appears 53 times on this website against various proposals.
Using CCTV to chase motorists
is “value for money”. Will Tuckley is “good value for money”. The council’s new HQ is “good value for money”. It is
a phrase that should be regarded with the utmost suspicion. The closure of two
children’s centres (Bedonwell Road and Upton Road) and invitations to private
companies to run the others is unlikely to be for the benefit of parents. They
will be paying the price of a frozen council tax.
It
is a superficially attractive Tory goal when an election is due a month
after the council tax bill arrives but a Children’s Centre is not a
playschool. It provides practical help for disadvantaged families, for victims
of domestic violence and learning opportunities for unemployed parents. Some things
are not suited to being sold off to the highest bidder but in a month that has seen Bexley council
associate itself with a loss making private company
rather than the successful Howbury Friends, one should expect nothing less.
Isn’t Bexley council in enough trouble already with children’s services having
been condemned by OFSTED and ignored the plight of poor
Rhys Lawrie? On the other hand Chris Taylor (Adults’ Services) has
been able to state at council meetings that the poor working conditions of Bexley’s care workers are
nothing to do with him and the cabinet member for
Children’s Services may have seen the advantages.
Those who decide to ‘Have your say’ on Children’s Services may be disappointed to discover
that the whole document must be printed out, completed with
a pen and posted in to the council by 15th January 2014. It is not an on-line form. That would be far too easy.
P.S. Found
this on-line survey specifically on the Bedonwell Children’s Centre closure. Hurry, closes Friday.
Also the general children’s centre survey.