I LIKE THE SOUND OF THIS MAN

A maverick mayor elected after promising to slash council spending, clear the streets of yobs and ditch politically correct services is the torch-bearer for how towns should be run.
 
On his first morning as Mayor of Doncaster in South Yorkshire, Peter Davies cut his salary from £73,000 to £30,000 then closed the council’s newspaper for "peddling politics on the rates".

Now three weeks into his job, Mr Davies is pressing ahead with plans he hopes will see the number of town councillors cut from 63 to just 21, saving taxpayers £800,000.
Mr Davies said: "If 100 senators can run the United States of America, I can’t see how 63 councillors are needed to run Doncaster".
 
He has withdrawn Doncaster from the Local Government Association and the Local Government Information Unit, saving another £200,000. Mr Davies said, "They are just talking shops."

"Doncaster is in for some serious un-twinning. We are twinned with probably nine other cities around the world and they are just for people to fly off and have a binge at the council’s expense".
 
The mayor’s chauffeur-driven car has also been axed by Mr Davies and the driver given another job. Mr Davies, born and bred in Doncaster, swept to power in the May election with 24,244 votes as a candidate for the English Democrats, a party that wants tight immigration curbs, an English Parliament and a law forcing every public building to fly the flag of St. George.
 
He has promised to end council funding for Doncaster’s International Women’s Day, Black History Month and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender History Month.
He said, "Politicians have got completely out of touch with what people want".

"We need to cut costs. I want to pass on some savings I make in reduced taxes and use the rest for things we really need, like improved children’s services".

Mr Davies has received messages from well wishers across the country and abroad as news of his no-nonsense approach spreads.
 
Now it’s your chance to spread this most sensible way to run a town council.

Good Man.

Why adoption and fostering goes wrong

 “One leading adoption charity estimates that a third of adoptions break down these days”.

A child doesn't really remember a lot about crisis due to the trauma of being taken away from its birth parents but the child's sub consciousness never forgets and there is always that longing for the mother’s love that can never be satisfied by adoption or fostering. A child should be kept in the family as close to the birth parents as much as possible.

If this is not done a child subconsciously hankers for the love he/she was deprived of when it first left the womb and maybe before that. 

This subconscious yen not being fulfilled along with memories that come back as the child grows up causes frustration/ anger/ resentment and the child becomes bitter and unmanageable.

That is why kinship care should be the very first point of care when children are deprived of their parents.

The care system only caters for the physical child not the emotional or spiritual child because of social services cost policy. Cut backs now will cost the public purse a whole lot more in the future when the children that go through the care system turn out to be gang members.

There is a huge rise of gangs reported in the media lately it would be interesting too research into how many of the gang members were brought up outside their birth family.

Speaker required in Birmingham.

A speaker on the problems that grandparents have on contact with their grandchildren is required at a Pensioners meeting in Birmingham.

Can anyone oblige to cover this please?

MP aims to remove legal hurdles for ‘kinship carers’

We are getting there but need to keep up the pressure.

Staffordshire Social Services

June 26, 2011

Filed under: Secret family courts — nojusticeforparents @ 9:39 pm 

MP aims to remove legal hurdles for ‘kinship carers’ It should be easier for grandparents and siblings to take on parental responsibilities if a parent is unable to look after their child, Labour’s Kerry McCarthy has argued. Under legislation proposed by Ms McCarthy on 7 June 2011, a “kinship carer” would be able to assume responsibility for a child without a lengthy and expensive legal process if the child’s parents agree. She said up to 300,000 children in the UK were being raised by relatives or friends of a parent who could not look after their child. Introducing her Kinship Carers (Parental Responsibility Agreement) Bill she told MPs: “Often these children have experienced tragedy or trauma due to the death or imprisonment of a parent or due to a parent’s alcohol or drug misuse or mental health problems. “Sometimes their parent has simply walked out on them.” She said the carers stepped in when there was a crisis “without pausing to think about practical matters such as what the legal arrangement would be or what sort of support they might need”. The bill was given an unopposed first reading but stands little chance of becoming law without government support.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_commons/newsid_9506000/9506080.stm

MPs take evidence on Munro Review of Child Protection

http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/education-committee/news/munro-review/

29 June 2011

The Education Committee explores the recommendations of Professor Eileen Munro’s recently published review of child protection in England on Wednesday 29 June 2011.

·                                 Parliament TV: The Munro Review of Child Protection

·                                 Education Committee

Wednesday 29 June 2011, Wilson Room, Portcullis House

Witnesses

 At 9.45am

·                                 Professor Eileen Munro, Professor of Social Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science

Background

The session will explore the recommendations of Professor Munro’s recently published review of child protection in England. It will consider how the review relates to trends in previous policy and legislation and its implications in terms of early intervention and the role and status of social workers.

·                                 Munro Review of Child Protection website (external site)

I've just been given one of these phones and it is so easy to use.

Loneliness for older people is a big concern and a phone that they can use would be a terrific way for them to keep in touch. 
We would recommend this phone for older people and anyone with impaired faculties as it has big buttons and easy read screen.

Doro PhoneEasy 341 GSM Mobile Phone

Was: £79.00 Now: £69.99 inc. VAT

More info

The Doro PhoneEasy 341 gsm mobile phone makes dialling and messaging simple, with its big buttons and enlarged characters which display on a high contrast display. It also has a vibrating ringer and one-touch emergency dialling for added security.

Ministers urged to shake up care for elderly

http://www.scotsman.com/news/Ministers-urged-to-shake-up.6792877.jp

 Published Date: 29 June 2011

By Eddie Barnes

Political Editor

A MAJOR Scottish Government commissioned report will today call for the break-up of the bureaucratic empires governing health and social care, having concluded that Scotland's public services are "patchwork", "outdated" and "producer-led".

A final draft of the report by the Christie Commission on the Future Delivery of Public Services, obtained by The Scotsman, says patients and especially elderly people should no longer be shunted between hospital and councils as they seek medical and social support. 

It says "substantial savings" – which could run into hundreds of millions of pounds – can be expected if health and social care are integrated, so that patients only have one place to go to receive help.

The conclusion is one of several recommendations from the commission, led by former STUC general secretary Campbell Christie, which publishes its full findings today, following a nationwide nine-month examination of the country's public landscape.

The report is expected to play a key role in government decisions over coming weeks, as ministers prepare to handle reductions in their available budgets at the same time as multi-billion-pound increases in the costs of delivering health, social care and education.

In the 113-page report, the commission says the public sector is "in urgent need of sustained reform" to meet what it describes as an "unprecedented challenge", criticising what it describes as a "fragmented, complex and opaque" system which actively hampers the ability of public servants to work together.

In a damning assessment of the post-devolution years, it concludes that despite public spending having rocketed since the onset of devolution, politicians have "failed" to turn around deep-rooted inequalities which, it says, still scar Scotland and have got worse in many cases.

It says the main reason is because far too much money is spent on trying to alleviate social problems rather than keeping an eye on the big picture and tackling them at source – a failure which, it says, is no longer sustainable in the face of tightened budgets. "A radical change in the design and delivery of public services is necessary to tackle the deep-rooted social problems that persist in communities across the country. A cycle of deprivation and low aspiration has been allowed to persist because preventative measures have not been prioritised," the report concludes.

The commission calls for a complete culture change in the public sector to focus on prevention, and says all public bodies should focus on improving "outcomes" for patients, pupils and the public. This requires much more collaboration across different public-sector bodies which, at present, are too focused on their own work to see the bigger picture, it adds.

It concludes: "We call on the Scottish Government and local authorities together with all their partners and stake holders to initiate these reforms. The goal must be nothing less than a thorough transformation of our public services. The prize is a sustainable, person-centred system, achieving outcomes for every citizen and every community."

The report stops short from any specific recommendations on costly Scottish Government policies, saying only that contentious issues such as "free" public services should be considered "openly and transparently". Nor does it offer any recommendations on cutting the number of councils or health boards.

• Analysis: Culture of spending is now a distant memory

However, it does place doubts over key SNP plans to create a single police and fire service, saying that "a number of questions remain to be addressed" as to whether it will lead to improved outcomes for the public.

The report also acknowledges that the call for a shift to preventative spending will be "controversial" as it could lead to spending being cut on existing services, such as hospital care. 

Although the report does not offer details on what these may be, suggestions by other reformers include plans to shift cash from "demand-led services", such as A&E units, to community healthcare which may help elderly people stay out of hospital.

However, SNP ministers have pledged to maintain spending on hospital care, in the face of huge public support for the retention of local acute services.

Nonetheless, the call for more integration in health and social care is likely to be backed by ministers today, who have already said they want to see reform rolled out across Scotland. 

The move is currently being piloted in the Highlands where, for example, GPs will soon be able to prescribe home help for an elderly patient in need of support instead of sending them to accident and emergency.

However, unions are still sceptical about the measures, while local government chiefs have already mounted their full-scale opposition, claiming that reorganisation costs could amount to between £300m and £500m.

Nonetheless, other experts argue that around a half of the annual £1.5bn cost of sending elderly people to A&E could potentially be saved if there was better treatment and care for them at home.

The Christie Commission was appointed by First Minister Alex Salmond last November to see how the public sector could better improve outcomes across Scotland. It comes after another review, led by former Scottish Enterprise chief Crawford Beveridge, also called for major reforms to public policy in the face of the slowdown in public spending and rising costs.

The Christie Commission took evidence from across the public sphere in Scotland, and concluded that there are "serious shortcomings" in the way the public sector is designed. Different bodies "work routinely to different objectives" and frequently duplicate each other's work.

Government-led action "often results in top-down, producer and institution-focused approaches where the interests of organisations and professional groups come before those of the public", the report says. Instead, there needs to be more work done to involve people in the way services are run.

The system also fails to empower people to do things for themselves, which fosters a dependency culture, it says. Ministers should ensure a fundamental rethink of the way the public sector works with voluntary and private providers, it adds.

It also warns that because politicians are constantly seeking election, there is rarely a focus on long-term issues. 

To compel public bodies to work together, the commission recommends that ministers pass new legislation which forces them to concentrate on improving outcomes for people, not targets or on spending money. 

Other specific ideas include beefing up Audit Scotland to crack down on profligacy; piloting a "single public authority" which looks after everything in a given area; and having an annual report costing the long-term financial problems Scotland faces.

John Downie, of the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, said: "The focus on preventative spending is right and that is what the Scottish Government needs to focus on. Scotland has been talking about this for some time now, but we now need to do something about it."