22 October (Part 1) - An uninspiring People meeting
I didn’t think a scrutiny meeting could be much less exciting that
the one
Melvin Seymour chaired last Wednesday but I was wrong. Councillor James Hunt
chaired an even duller one yesterday evening, and don’t blame either chairman,
both do a decent enough job, it’s just that the guest speakers have little new
to report and the questions are few and usually seek nothing more than a small clarification.
Almost the most interesting thing to report is that I was the only member of the
public present and the blogger’s table was absent so I sat at a councillor’s
desk in a comfortable chair and not one of the hard plastic perspiration inducing
monstrosities that Bexley council deems acceptable for members of the public.
Usually the police commander is at the People Scrutiny meeting with some statistics to report but this time the
police were not included in the Agenda. However the Clinical Commissioning Group was.
The CCG told us that everything was going well at both Queen Mary’s Hospital and
in the Urgent Care Centre in Erith. Councillor Sharon Massey said she had heard
the same, so it must be true.
Unfortunately two GP surgeries had been found lacking when inspected. The CCG
speaker was careful not to name them but not everyone was so cautious. The
Westwood Surgery in Welling has been rated ‘Inadequate’ and the Bexley Group
Practice ‘Needs Improvement’. One of them is mine and for both the
shortcomings were administrative rather than clinical. I am not in the least bit surprised.
The meeting moved on to Children’s Services where traditionally councillor Mabel
Ogundayo (Labour, Thamesmead East) and cabinet member Philip Read lock horns.
Mabel was rightly disappointed that yet another Bexley council consultation had
fallen on largely deaf ears. 29 people had thought fit to comment on the
‘remodelling’ of Children’s Centres and she thought it was a mistake to have
held the consultation over the summer period which was perhaps not the best line of
attack as it had run from 24th August until 7th October. Not what most
people would call the height of summer.
Councillor Read said he had done his best to encourage responses but he had
concluded that the low response rate meant that “the remodelling was by and
large acceptable to the parents in the borough”. Or perhaps it is consultation fatigue.
Councillor Chris Beazley (UKIP, St. Michael’s) questioned the continued
recruitment of social workers from outside the UK, mainly Irish. Councillor Read
said recruitment difficulties had led to the extension of the net as far as
Australia. The Agenda revealed that filling Bexley with newly qualified social
workers instead of employing agency staff could save as much as £968,000 a year.
Councillor Brenda Langstead (Labour, North End) opened the questioning on
education with one about parents’ choice of placements but the answer was
“Bexley’s schools are very full”.
Councillor Alan Downing asked much
the same question as he has asked at least
twice before. He said that only one in six of those Bexley children who take the
grammar school selection test pass and that it was “a sad reflection on our primary schools”.
The answer on a previous occasion amounted to Bexley’s primary school teachers
are a bunch of lefties who don’t like grammar schools so the children are not
coached for the examination. This time the answer was that other boroughs enter
“able and bright young people for the test” and “so the competition is very
fierce”. If Bexley’s children can’t compete they must be less bright than
elsewhere but no, “because they do very very well in terms of the outcomes at
Key Stage 2”. Keep asking the question Alan, one day you will get a straight answer.
Councillor Brenda Langstead feared that the Living Wage announcement will lead
to a two tier care system where only those with substantial funds would be able
to obtain a place in a care home. It was “acknowledged that it was a challenge”
and there would be “dialogues with our providers”. The Deputy Director said the
council was compelled by law to put eligible people into care homes and the cabinet member said
she was going to see the minister about the problem next week. The days when
a
cabinet member would boast of financially screwing the care providers into the
ground would appear to have been left behind.
The subject of housing revealed that nearly 800 people are currently in temporary accommodation and just over 400 in
“nightly acquired emergency accommodation, a fair proportion out of borough”.
The figures have all approximately doubled in a year. Later in the meeting it
transpired that “a fair proportion” meant 300 and that 30 families were in Manchester. When
Homeleigh is brought into use that figure would reduce.
There was some inconclusive dithering when the debate switched to the plan for
Bexley council to duck out of monitoring CCTV. “The council is working very
closely with the borough commander” but “they are unable to monitor from the
police station”. It looks like good news for wrong-doers. On the other hand the
borough commander is on the record as saying CCTV doesn’t in practice solve many
crimes but it makes people feel safer.
By nine twenty the meeting was well into considering the budget proposals which
were the same as those I had heard discussed at
the cabinet meeting two
weeks ago and at Places Scrutiny last week and will possibly have to endure
again this evening - Resources Scrutiny - so I packed my bag and left a little
early. Six or seven minutes early if the one hour fifty seven minute webcast is
a reliable guide. I’m not sure it is, the first five minutes of the meeting appears to be missing.