9 September - Good progress but more to do
Almost exactly 14 years ago I attended my first Council meeting and met up with
five regular attendees who did their best to keep a near criminal Bexley Council
in check. It made six of us - John Watson is inexplicably missing from this
photograph - who went on to uncover and report many of the Council’s worst excesses.
There are only three of us left now but we meet occasionally to discuss the state of the world.
Last week I picked up Elwyn (on the left in the photo) and John for a lunch
date. Both have given up driving, originally because of Khan’s ULEZ fraud
although maybe other reasons have arisen since.
They suddenly made me choke on my chips when they began to praise the Leadership
of Baroness Teresa O’Neill. Their theory was that over the past dozen years she
has gradually got rid of all the Councillors who were either there only to
supplement their pensions but contributed nothing and the businessmen who were
in it only for themselves. All but a dozen of the original 52 are gone and in most cases Good Riddance.
Teresa has also got rid of the entire senior management team who were simply
incompetent to the extent of twice effectively killing residents and in various
ways abusing their positions. Even their own internal auditor said so.
I muttered something about Peter Craske who manages to hang on but in other
respects Elwyn and John are correct. There has been a total transformation but
Teresa’s work is not yet done. Too many of the middle ranking managers are simply appalling.
There was a
whole Council meeting devoted to it last March when it was admitted that
management bullied staff and didn’t listen to their concerns. They thought they
could fix the problem by awarding Stars as if they were kids who had attended
Sunday School for three months without a break.
Pathetic and since then
Kevin Taylor has kindly confirmed just how stupid they can be.
Probably he is not the only one.
An appalling story showed up on The News Shopper’s website this morning. A
Barnehurst family complained that their Council provided house was full of mould and
their GP confirmed it was affecting their health. After initially denying there was a problem, Bexley Council offered
them new accommodation in Sittingbourne 30 miles away.
At 10:30 in the morning they told her she must accept it unseen by 12:30 the
same day and when she was unable to get to Sittingbourne within two hours was
told she had made herself deliberately homeless and would be evicted by the end of this month.
There is a bit more to it than that but that is the essence of the story. The
only thing missed by the Shopper’s reporter is the name of the Council official.
Currently Bexley Council does not have a Director of Adult Social Care but I am
not even sure if that is the responsible department. I will have to ask around.