17 February (Part 1) - Blue sky thinking
My garden abuts land owned by Gallions Housing now absorbed by the Peabody
Trust. When Gallions used to look after their land properly - they haven’t for at
least the past five years - they used to inspect it daily. When I renewed my
fence one of the groundsmen got ever so slightly stroppy with me because I had
unwittingly got him into trouble.
Apparently Gallions had fixed a bar code strip on my fence which their men used
to ’swipe’ as they arrived on site and as they left. Their mobile reader would
log their arrival and departure times to (almost) prove they had done their job.
I have been informed that at least one Bexley care agency has been using a similar system
for their care workers to log in and out of clients’ homes without use of a telephone.
Maybe cabinet member Chris Taylor should think about renting such a system
instead of what he took a fancy to recently.
After Christmas I related how
a care worker did a 30 hour shift to keep the
system running over the holiday. An unconfirmed report said this was a long way
from being a record. However it would appear that Chris Taylor has found a
solution to that. He will no longer pay the care agencies double time for
Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. Yes, that should fix it.
Labour, UKIP and the BAG have all promised to improve conditions for care workers should
they be elected. The Conservatives are planning more cuts.