A little history first. In the 1990-1, we had a recession in the UK. It was pretty bad, and it was the first one to seriously affect white-collar workers and middle management rather than just the manual trades.
The John Major government, through the genius of Norman Lamont had the job of seeing us through this period, and it was from these two giants that the following phrases came:
"If it isn't hurting, it isn't working"
"Unemployment is a price worth paying" (for low inflation)
As a result of their careful stewardship, the 1990s recession took us years to recover from. You can see how compassionate they were about the effects of their policies.
So to today, and have the Conservatives changed? It appears not. While the government is taking action to reduce the threat of recession and to help those affected (rescuing banks, extending lines of credit so that they can lend, reducing VAT, increasing income tax allowances and tax credits, restricting repossessions, assisting small businesses with their tax bills, investing in public services etc etc etc...), all the Conservatives can do is to oppose.
Take our local Tory councillor-blogger Duncan Crow. He's quick to tell us that everything is the fault of Gordon Brown, but a little reticent to actually come up with any concrete proposals. It's easy to sit around pronouncing doom and gloom, and using the benefit of hindsight, but surely our 'natural rulers' have some actual ideas for how to best deal with the current economic situation.
What is it that the Tories would actually be doing now, if they were in power? Doing nothing didn't work very well last time, but I seen very little, other than to say whatever the government does is either bad or would have no effect.
For example, when the government announces a cut in VAT by 2.5%, the Tories tell us that it's insignificant. Yet when they think that VAT may have been going up by 1% it would have been a disaster. Surely it would have less of an effect, being a smaller change, but I don't suppose such logic comes into play when you are on a mission to oppose the government at all costs
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Social Services
Again, the UK seems to be falling under the spell of hysterical moral outrage. A few weeks ago it was Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand who had roused the ire of the public (not that they are in any way excused, but what on earth possessed thousands of people to add their complaints to the already lodged ones?)
Now it's Baby 'P'.
Some of my friends have joined the Facebook group " Campaign to get justice for Baby P". I'm not sure what the point of such a campaign is to be honest. The only reason we know about the case is that the mother and the two men involved have been tried in a court of law and found guilty. There are at the last rough count three enquiries into the situation, not to mention the whole media circus which has led to the calls for sackings and all-but lynching of anyone who was anywhere near the family.
There are some islands of sanity in this deluge - notably the eloquent Unity at Ministry of Truth, and Aaron at Tygerland - but I'm just glad that I'm working at home this week instead of having to put up with inane chatter about the whole thing from anyone I have to avoid shouting at.
I have never had to deal directly with Social Services myself, but I do know people who have. In one case that I know about (not in West Sussex), Social Services were overly cautious about taking a child into care. Two years after they backed the abusive parent in a custody hearing, they have removed her after incontrovertible evidence came to light. In another (also not in West Sussex), a child was taken into care and the parents spent a long hard battle to show that they were not guilty of abuse.
Social Workers are damned either way. If they are too cautious, then it only takes the odd case to make them look complacent. If they are too protective of children, then they are accused of 'stealing' kids in order to make up imaginary quotas for fostering or adoption. The main problem with their job is that it's rarely black-and-white. A child can be accident prone. A seemingly respectable parent can be a sadist behind closed doors. Children can lie, and they can also be unbelievable when telling the truth. It's all very subjective and there must be many marginal cases all of the time.
It's not a job that I could deal with, as most of my day-to-day work involved precision and clear yes/no decision-making. Even politics as a profession often comes down to a more objective view than a lot of the tough situations that Social Work involves.
What makes the job harder, of course, is that it is unpopular and difficult to recruit for. Areas with known problems have an even harder time, and those with unfilled vacancies are going to end up with backlogs and high stress. The pay is hardly fantastic, and if you make a mistake either way you could end up on the cover of half-a-dozen tabloids. Unfortunately, of course, we need social workers because there are a large number of children and vulnerable adults who are at real risk and who need some kind of intervention.
However, let's not get facts involved. Let's not try to understand how the real world works, or even consider for one moment that hindsight is a lot clearer than prediction. Let's just have a media-inspired national panic and collective howl. It'll make us feel better, even if it solves nothing (apart from declining circulation figures, of course).
Harumph!
Now it's Baby 'P'.
Some of my friends have joined the Facebook group " Campaign to get justice for Baby P". I'm not sure what the point of such a campaign is to be honest. The only reason we know about the case is that the mother and the two men involved have been tried in a court of law and found guilty. There are at the last rough count three enquiries into the situation, not to mention the whole media circus which has led to the calls for sackings and all-but lynching of anyone who was anywhere near the family.
There are some islands of sanity in this deluge - notably the eloquent Unity at Ministry of Truth, and Aaron at Tygerland - but I'm just glad that I'm working at home this week instead of having to put up with inane chatter about the whole thing from anyone I have to avoid shouting at.
I have never had to deal directly with Social Services myself, but I do know people who have. In one case that I know about (not in West Sussex), Social Services were overly cautious about taking a child into care. Two years after they backed the abusive parent in a custody hearing, they have removed her after incontrovertible evidence came to light. In another (also not in West Sussex), a child was taken into care and the parents spent a long hard battle to show that they were not guilty of abuse.
Social Workers are damned either way. If they are too cautious, then it only takes the odd case to make them look complacent. If they are too protective of children, then they are accused of 'stealing' kids in order to make up imaginary quotas for fostering or adoption. The main problem with their job is that it's rarely black-and-white. A child can be accident prone. A seemingly respectable parent can be a sadist behind closed doors. Children can lie, and they can also be unbelievable when telling the truth. It's all very subjective and there must be many marginal cases all of the time.
It's not a job that I could deal with, as most of my day-to-day work involved precision and clear yes/no decision-making. Even politics as a profession often comes down to a more objective view than a lot of the tough situations that Social Work involves.
What makes the job harder, of course, is that it is unpopular and difficult to recruit for. Areas with known problems have an even harder time, and those with unfilled vacancies are going to end up with backlogs and high stress. The pay is hardly fantastic, and if you make a mistake either way you could end up on the cover of half-a-dozen tabloids. Unfortunately, of course, we need social workers because there are a large number of children and vulnerable adults who are at real risk and who need some kind of intervention.
However, let's not get facts involved. Let's not try to understand how the real world works, or even consider for one moment that hindsight is a lot clearer than prediction. Let's just have a media-inspired national panic and collective howl. It'll make us feel better, even if it solves nothing (apart from declining circulation figures, of course).
Harumph!
Monday, November 17, 2008
It's the Economy, Stupid
Is George Osborne an idiot? Or does he just think that the voters are all fools?
Over the last few weeks, the Tories have been demanding tax cuts, saying that they are the best way to release cash into the hands of people and spur consumer spending and company investment to help take us out of recession.
Then at the weekend, Osborne was saying that we can't cut taxes because it would cause a run on the pound (which is is bit odd, because the currency rate is not directly related to the government's finances, it's to do with the value of the overall economy and predicted returns compared to other nations, and is more likely to be related to the interest rate).
It sounds to me like opposition for the sake of it. You can't credibly go around contradicting yourself in the space of a few days and expect people to think that you have a clue about how to run the economy. Of course, if your plan is to attack the government for political gain at a time of national uncertainty, it might just work - as long as people don't have those inconvenient memory things.
Over the last few weeks, the Tories have been demanding tax cuts, saying that they are the best way to release cash into the hands of people and spur consumer spending and company investment to help take us out of recession.
Then at the weekend, Osborne was saying that we can't cut taxes because it would cause a run on the pound (which is is bit odd, because the currency rate is not directly related to the government's finances, it's to do with the value of the overall economy and predicted returns compared to other nations, and is more likely to be related to the interest rate).
It sounds to me like opposition for the sake of it. You can't credibly go around contradicting yourself in the space of a few days and expect people to think that you have a clue about how to run the economy. Of course, if your plan is to attack the government for political gain at a time of national uncertainty, it might just work - as long as people don't have those inconvenient memory things.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
So, why can't we....
We are going into recession. We have banks who are reluctant to lend. We have housebuilders stopping work all over the country. We have thousands of people (25,000 in West Sussex alone) on local authority housing lists. We have houses that are falling in value but people still can't afford to buy them.
So, how about a bit of actual socialism? Or, Keynesian economics anyway...
Let's start building public housing again. Let's use public money to buy out empty houses and half-finished building sites so that they can be worked on and rented out. It creates jobs, it makes housing more affordable and it could help spur activity in the wider economy.
If we can bail out banks for half a trillion quid, and reduce interest rates by a third at a stroke, can't the government allow and push local authorities into this?
So, how about a bit of actual socialism? Or, Keynesian economics anyway...
Let's start building public housing again. Let's use public money to buy out empty houses and half-finished building sites so that they can be worked on and rented out. It creates jobs, it makes housing more affordable and it could help spur activity in the wider economy.
If we can bail out banks for half a trillion quid, and reduce interest rates by a third at a stroke, can't the government allow and push local authorities into this?
Monday, September 29, 2008
Henry Smith and the truth - not easy bedfellows?
I expect that our Henry is up in Brum this week, hoping to bask in the glory of his leader. Maybe he's still down in Sussex, but keeping a bit quiet after being caught not quite giving the correct facts again - 'Cock up' over hospital mortuary - telling people that the mortuary at Crawley Hospital was closing, when it fact it is not.
Gosh, it's not like the Tories are trying to get votes by doom-mongering or anything?
He's been caught uttering mistruths before, by the Police. He's also been noted voting a nice big backdated pay rise for himself last year, while putting our Council Tax up by over 4% again*. Oh, and the 'Campaign for Pease Pottage Hospital' is doing so well that it's had to be relaunched by the puppet press this week, despite the fact that two years ago it was supposed to be a concrete plan and was in no way opportunitistic or flimsy (the 'full outline proposals' from December 2006 are still there, with the spelling mistakes and the back-of-a-fag-packet sums)
* Actually WSCC regularly puts up Council Tax by more than CBC does (pretty much every year except for the one in four when the County Elections are about to happen...). How they are going to manage if the Tories get in with their promise to freeze Council Tax? WSCC spending went up from £1.218bn to £1.441bn in the past year, which is an increase of 18%. George Osborne wants to cap councils to only increasing spending by 2.5% a year.
Gosh, it's not like the Tories are trying to get votes by doom-mongering or anything?
He's been caught uttering mistruths before, by the Police. He's also been noted voting a nice big backdated pay rise for himself last year, while putting our Council Tax up by over 4% again*. Oh, and the 'Campaign for Pease Pottage Hospital' is doing so well that it's had to be relaunched by the puppet press this week, despite the fact that two years ago it was supposed to be a concrete plan and was in no way opportunitistic or flimsy (the 'full outline proposals' from December 2006 are still there, with the spelling mistakes and the back-of-a-fag-packet sums)
* Actually WSCC regularly puts up Council Tax by more than CBC does (pretty much every year except for the one in four when the County Elections are about to happen...). How they are going to manage if the Tories get in with their promise to freeze Council Tax? WSCC spending went up from £1.218bn to £1.441bn in the past year, which is an increase of 18%. George Osborne wants to cap councils to only increasing spending by 2.5% a year.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
And while I was near Midhurst...
In the context of Potholes, it had been said to me that Midhurst didn't have many of them - Col 'Tex' Pemberton the Highways Cabinet member until recently is from up the road in Haslemere - and I can say that the roads did seem quite a bit smother than they are around here. Not just the main roads, like the A272 or A286, but the little country lanes in between (we got a bit lost and then decided to look for the Three Moles in Selham).
Also, at West Dean we saw several police officers. Some were dedicated to helping direct traffic on and off the site, despite there being marshals who were doing the same thing. Yes, it was a busy place, but at least half a dozen coppers? I know that crime in Sussex went down recently, but I didn't think that the boys in blue had nothing better to do.
And while railing at the West Sussex establishment as we drove around the area, I realised that we were moving into the area that is known as the 'West Weald' and which was going to be in the South Downs National Park before WSCC and Chichester District started to complain at the loss of power that it would represent (they don't really want the National Park at all). It's beautiful around there in the Wealden heathland, and the Black Down dominates the area.
Why would 'conservatives' oppose a National Park, which is aimed at 'conserving' the character of an area? Well, they want to have control of planning and a NP Authority would usurp that. You see, while they would be happy to agree with conserving things from some developments, there are some very influential parties in that part of West Sussex who take an entirely different view when it means that money can be made. It is these who would lose out if a National Park restricts development, even if it is supposed to be keeping the countryside beautiful. The same people who ensure that their local roads are well kept and that the local police are there in force for rural shows even if they are missing in urban areas don't want their little paradise spoilt by not being able to control it as much as they can
Also, at West Dean we saw several police officers. Some were dedicated to helping direct traffic on and off the site, despite there being marshals who were doing the same thing. Yes, it was a busy place, but at least half a dozen coppers? I know that crime in Sussex went down recently, but I didn't think that the boys in blue had nothing better to do.
And while railing at the West Sussex establishment as we drove around the area, I realised that we were moving into the area that is known as the 'West Weald' and which was going to be in the South Downs National Park before WSCC and Chichester District started to complain at the loss of power that it would represent (they don't really want the National Park at all). It's beautiful around there in the Wealden heathland, and the Black Down dominates the area.
Why would 'conservatives' oppose a National Park, which is aimed at 'conserving' the character of an area? Well, they want to have control of planning and a NP Authority would usurp that. You see, while they would be happy to agree with conserving things from some developments, there are some very influential parties in that part of West Sussex who take an entirely different view when it means that money can be made. It is these who would lose out if a National Park restricts development, even if it is supposed to be keeping the countryside beautiful. The same people who ensure that their local roads are well kept and that the local police are there in force for rural shows even if they are missing in urban areas don't want their little paradise spoilt by not being able to control it as much as they can
Festival Week
In the past few days I've been to two different festivals, each dedicated to a single comestible.
On Wednesday I went up to Earls Court to the Great British Beer Festival, where real ale nuts from across the country gather to down halves of warm brown beer and stroke their beards. I did try to grow a beard myself, but it was still at the scraggy stage and started to go ginger, so the next day it was gone.
Still, I do love real ale, and for the past few years I've met up with old friends from university there for a catch-up and some serious drinking. The best beer I tried there was a local one - Hepworth's Prospect, an organic beer with a taste like smoke (but in a good way).
We didn't stick to British Ale, though, because we often like to end up at the 'Rest of the World' bar (or 'forrun muck' as it is sometimes known) for some Belgian beers, Czech Pilsners, German Weissbier and some American brews.
American? Yes, the Americans can definitely brew decent beer. Anything from Anchor is great (and I went around the brewery last year to see how they made it and to spend as much time as possible 'checking' the quality). One sceptic among us last year, who had unfortunately only experienced the mass-produced dross lagers that the US is known for was totally changed around by a bottle of Brooklyn Lager
Anyway, it was a great night and a shame that I had to go to work the next day.
Today, I went to the Chilli Festival at West Dean, which is a place that deals in horticulture and other traditional arts, and is set in the middle of the South Downs on the road between Midhurst and Chichester.
There was chilli infused everything - chutnies inspired by Asia, sauces from the Caribbean, smoked chilli, pickled chilli, chilli in chocolate, chilli in beer (oh, and there was plenty of beer at this festival too), chilli on sausages...
I found a really potent chipotle sauce (chipotle is smoked chilli) and some cheese with chill in it, which will both go down rather well. And a couple of plants, a nice ornamental one and one of a grade 8 'Super Chilli' variety. Oh, and the beer stall had a bottle of Hepworth's Prospect, which rounded off the week very well.
Yum
On Wednesday I went up to Earls Court to the Great British Beer Festival, where real ale nuts from across the country gather to down halves of warm brown beer and stroke their beards. I did try to grow a beard myself, but it was still at the scraggy stage and started to go ginger, so the next day it was gone.
Still, I do love real ale, and for the past few years I've met up with old friends from university there for a catch-up and some serious drinking. The best beer I tried there was a local one - Hepworth's Prospect, an organic beer with a taste like smoke (but in a good way).
We didn't stick to British Ale, though, because we often like to end up at the 'Rest of the World' bar (or 'forrun muck' as it is sometimes known) for some Belgian beers, Czech Pilsners, German Weissbier and some American brews.
American? Yes, the Americans can definitely brew decent beer. Anything from Anchor is great (and I went around the brewery last year to see how they made it and to spend as much time as possible 'checking' the quality). One sceptic among us last year, who had unfortunately only experienced the mass-produced dross lagers that the US is known for was totally changed around by a bottle of Brooklyn Lager
Anyway, it was a great night and a shame that I had to go to work the next day.
Today, I went to the Chilli Festival at West Dean, which is a place that deals in horticulture and other traditional arts, and is set in the middle of the South Downs on the road between Midhurst and Chichester.
There was chilli infused everything - chutnies inspired by Asia, sauces from the Caribbean, smoked chilli, pickled chilli, chilli in chocolate, chilli in beer (oh, and there was plenty of beer at this festival too), chilli on sausages...
I found a really potent chipotle sauce (chipotle is smoked chilli) and some cheese with chill in it, which will both go down rather well. And a couple of plants, a nice ornamental one and one of a grade 8 'Super Chilli' variety. Oh, and the beer stall had a bottle of Hepworth's Prospect, which rounded off the week very well.
Yum
Monday, August 04, 2008
It's not just roads that don't get repaired
It's paths too.
It came out today that West Sussex County Council has over £19M worth of outstanding repairs to make on pathways across the county.
Every part of the county is suffering from this, but Crawley has been left with the worst of the backlog - well over a quarter of the work (by monetary value) - £5.6M.
I suppose that rural areas have fewer paths by the side of the roads, but I'm sure that Horsham can't be too far off having the same amount as Crawley, given that the district includes the town itself as well as some large villages. Mid Sussex has a few towns (East Grinstead, Haywards Heath, Burgess Hill) and must also have a similar number of paths. Surely between the two districts there would be as much, if not work to do on paths. And yet the backlog for both combined comes to about £4.2M, still a fair amount less than Crawley.
When I was a councillor, I was always getting complaints about poor footpaths and roads. And whenever I passed them on to the County Council I would get the same reply, pretty much - that there was a programme of repairs and upgrades, but that particular road/path was not going to be dealt with soon.
Things have changed since then - WSCC has lost £6M on Fastway, has cut it's Highways budget and has grown a sizeable long term debt. Under such circumstances it's easy to see why they have got so far behind. What isn't so easy to see is why Crawley appears to have borne the brunt of postponed work.
Hat tip to the Crawley Observer
It came out today that West Sussex County Council has over £19M worth of outstanding repairs to make on pathways across the county.
Every part of the county is suffering from this, but Crawley has been left with the worst of the backlog - well over a quarter of the work (by monetary value) - £5.6M.
I suppose that rural areas have fewer paths by the side of the roads, but I'm sure that Horsham can't be too far off having the same amount as Crawley, given that the district includes the town itself as well as some large villages. Mid Sussex has a few towns (East Grinstead, Haywards Heath, Burgess Hill) and must also have a similar number of paths. Surely between the two districts there would be as much, if not work to do on paths. And yet the backlog for both combined comes to about £4.2M, still a fair amount less than Crawley.
When I was a councillor, I was always getting complaints about poor footpaths and roads. And whenever I passed them on to the County Council I would get the same reply, pretty much - that there was a programme of repairs and upgrades, but that particular road/path was not going to be dealt with soon.
Things have changed since then - WSCC has lost £6M on Fastway, has cut it's Highways budget and has grown a sizeable long term debt. Under such circumstances it's easy to see why they have got so far behind. What isn't so easy to see is why Crawley appears to have borne the brunt of postponed work.
Hat tip to the Crawley Observer
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Two kinds of hole
West Sussex have a problem with holes at the moment, it seems.
The first is the kind that any driver, cyclist or motorbike rider in Crawley can tell you about - potholes. There are more and more of these things popping up all over town, along with growing cracks, raised or sunken metalwork, uneven pavements and any other signs of poor maintenance and the use of cheap materials.
To help them to know how people feel about the state of the roads (that we pay our ever increasing Council Tax to WSCC to maintain) a new website has, as trailed, been set up.
If you have tales of potholes that are not being fixed after having been reported, or were the repair is inadequate, pop along and either leave a comment or use the email address: Join the Crawley Potholes Club
One possible reason that WSCC could have for it's failure to keep our roads up to standard could be that they are rubbish at handling money.
Firstly, they managed to overspend on Fastway by £6 millions and not notice until right at the end of the project. Cause - piss poor project management, and who led the project? West Sussex.
Secondly, when Henry Smith became leader of WSCC it had pretty much no debt. Now, even though they have been flogging off playing fields and old-people's care homes* they have managed to accrue about £300 millions in long-term debt. Much of this in Government-enabled credit, where WSCC were lent money so that they could build all the new schools and things that Henry would like to take all the credit for. The Government arranged to pay the interest for the first few years, and WSCC should have been working out a way to minimise the balance before that interest holiday ended.
The holiday is over, and instead of reducing their debts, the Tories at County Hall are racking them up further, and the interest is being piled on top.
In contrast, the Tories at Crawley have inherited a well managed pot of money - £100 million. How long before they widdle that lot up the wall as they close down services?
And potholes? Well, I have been looking at the West Sussex council website, and in particular at the amount that they spend on roads. In 2005/6, the amount gross revenue amount spent on Highways and Transport was £63M. In 2006/7, it had fallen by over £5M to £58M. In the same period, they increased Council Tax by over 4%.
What's more amazing is that in the budget for that year, the Tories has promised to increase spending by several million quid. So are they so inept that they can't stick to a budget, or were they avoiding spending money on Highways & Transport so that they could pay for the Fastway SNAFU?
Who knows? All I know is that some Tory councillors are more concerned with arguing over who goes to meetings or not, rather than how the authority that they sit on and help run is seemingly unable to handle money. I thought that the Tories were supposed to be savvy with cash...
* I was going to put a note in here about the débacle following the sell-off and contracting out of care services for the elderly, but it deserves a post of its own
The first is the kind that any driver, cyclist or motorbike rider in Crawley can tell you about - potholes. There are more and more of these things popping up all over town, along with growing cracks, raised or sunken metalwork, uneven pavements and any other signs of poor maintenance and the use of cheap materials.
To help them to know how people feel about the state of the roads (that we pay our ever increasing Council Tax to WSCC to maintain) a new website has, as trailed, been set up.
If you have tales of potholes that are not being fixed after having been reported, or were the repair is inadequate, pop along and either leave a comment or use the email address: Join the Crawley Potholes Club
One possible reason that WSCC could have for it's failure to keep our roads up to standard could be that they are rubbish at handling money.
Firstly, they managed to overspend on Fastway by £6 millions and not notice until right at the end of the project. Cause - piss poor project management, and who led the project? West Sussex.
Secondly, when Henry Smith became leader of WSCC it had pretty much no debt. Now, even though they have been flogging off playing fields and old-people's care homes* they have managed to accrue about £300 millions in long-term debt. Much of this in Government-enabled credit, where WSCC were lent money so that they could build all the new schools and things that Henry would like to take all the credit for. The Government arranged to pay the interest for the first few years, and WSCC should have been working out a way to minimise the balance before that interest holiday ended.
The holiday is over, and instead of reducing their debts, the Tories at County Hall are racking them up further, and the interest is being piled on top.
In contrast, the Tories at Crawley have inherited a well managed pot of money - £100 million. How long before they widdle that lot up the wall as they close down services?
And potholes? Well, I have been looking at the West Sussex council website, and in particular at the amount that they spend on roads. In 2005/6, the amount gross revenue amount spent on Highways and Transport was £63M. In 2006/7, it had fallen by over £5M to £58M. In the same period, they increased Council Tax by over 4%.
What's more amazing is that in the budget for that year, the Tories has promised to increase spending by several million quid. So are they so inept that they can't stick to a budget, or were they avoiding spending money on Highways & Transport so that they could pay for the Fastway SNAFU?
Who knows? All I know is that some Tory councillors are more concerned with arguing over who goes to meetings or not, rather than how the authority that they sit on and help run is seemingly unable to handle money. I thought that the Tories were supposed to be savvy with cash...
* I was going to put a note in here about the débacle following the sell-off and contracting out of care services for the elderly, but it deserves a post of its own
Closing down fun
In case anyone is not fully aware, the Tories at Crawley Borough Council have recently announced the following Play Centres are or will be closed down:
Ifield
Pound Hill
Northgate
Southgate
The first two are already closed. The second two will be open for the Summer Holidays and then close in September.
This comes after CBC has been given money by the National Lottery to improve access to services. What did they spend the money on? Partly to pay for a bus so that kids in Ifield and Pound Hill can get to the places that haven't closed. Seems to me like they used the money to help mitigate the removal of services.
There is talk of a school-based replacement service, but as WSCC would have to be involved, and the schools themselves, I think it has been incredibly premature of Crawley to cut services before the fall back is in place. After all, WSCC are a year behind their programme to restore hot school dinners, and I know of at least one school (Southgate Primary) that is apparently refusing to join in.
How long will the children of Ifield, Pound Hill, Northgate and Southgate have to wait if the same people are supposed to be providing after-school activities?
Ifield
Pound Hill
Northgate
Southgate
The first two are already closed. The second two will be open for the Summer Holidays and then close in September.
This comes after CBC has been given money by the National Lottery to improve access to services. What did they spend the money on? Partly to pay for a bus so that kids in Ifield and Pound Hill can get to the places that haven't closed. Seems to me like they used the money to help mitigate the removal of services.
There is talk of a school-based replacement service, but as WSCC would have to be involved, and the schools themselves, I think it has been incredibly premature of Crawley to cut services before the fall back is in place. After all, WSCC are a year behind their programme to restore hot school dinners, and I know of at least one school (Southgate Primary) that is apparently refusing to join in.
How long will the children of Ifield, Pound Hill, Northgate and Southgate have to wait if the same people are supposed to be providing after-school activities?
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