Public Questions at Budget Meeting

21st February, we had a North Lincs Council Budget Meeting. Some members of the public wanted to ask a question of the leader of the council and they were refused permission to ask. If the Leader of the council had had the guts to accept an invitation from these people, we wouldn’t have been in the position that the council was embarrassed.

That’s the trouble with these north lincs tories, they are arrogant, if the constituents don’t reside in their wards they think, “what use are they to me as a councilor?” What they forget is that we are elected to represent everyone in north lincs never mine what political persuasion they are.

The residents were part of a delegation representing “The Friends of Ashby Pond” All they wanted was clarification of what was happening at the pond as they were promised a new pond and the old pond and land would be left farrow for a few years.

A new planning application had been put forward to re-site the pond but the old pond and surrounding land would be developed for housing straight away.

A lot of work had gone on behind the scenes getting funding together for trees and plants which were to be planted this weekend.

The leader of the council announced at the meeting that she would meet this group of people at a public meeting in the Beckwood Pub at 6pm on 2nd March. I’m glad she had a bit of humility and agreed to their request and I hope there are a lot of people at the meeting to put the point to her and her heir apparent, that when promises are made they should be delivered and not reneged on.

Homeless Centre

I see on North Lincolnshire Council site the council is informing people that they have got £780k to go towards the provision of a homeless shelter. My understanding is that the site will be on the former Scotter House.

Providing a place for homeless people to live there bring with it a few priorities that need to be met.

First one should be that there are services near so that people using this building can access them i.e. shops, transport, this doesn’t seem practical when Westcliffe precinct is due for demolition and we all know about the bus service in Scunthorpe after late afternoon, nearly non existent.

Secondly, a place away from the settled community but as stated earlier, accessible services. Its not that these people will cause problems, it’s the perception of other people, that the type of person that is residing there and the troubles that they bring.

My own opinion is that Westcliffe has enough problems of its own without adding others and Crosby shouldn’t have another homeless shelter.

A site in my view that would be adequate and ticks all the boxes is Scunthorpe’s High St East. There is a car park there that is under used and would be ideal, far enough away from the public but near enough to access shops, transport, signing on for benefits and professionals to help with their problems.

There again what would you expect from Tories, no vision at all, I’m surprised they’re even interested in homeless people, they treat them with contempt the same as they do gypsies, travellers and their families.

Budget Meeting 21st Feb 2012

Interesting budget meeting, When I looked at the papers the Tories had put out for the meeting, my first interest was where are the job losses going to come from. I found it inside and there was 660 jobs to go, that is what they said but me with my skeptical head on wasn’t happy with what I had seen.

With being around the council and seeing what is going on, I felt that if you did not see favour with these tories personally they would look to do a staffing review and get you out the back door.

One of the ways to get rid of jobs off the books is by “out-sourcing” and there is going to be plenty of that and the first one that comes to mind, is leisure services, taking into account the survey they had undertaken with residents of North Lincolnshire which had no option for the status quo I think it is a forgone conclusion that staff will be moved over to an outside company. Don’t forget that they get transferred under TUPE regulations and the day after transfer they can change terms and conditions with negotiation.

But wait these Tories have not finished yet. The people who stop with the local authority have to pay more, pay longer and get less for their pension. They also for the first time in three years get a negotiated pay rise; under the rate of inflation I might add. That’s at national level. At a local level they are taking away the increments for weekend and overtime working.

Budget Meeting 21st Feb

There is a meeting of north lincs council tonight to discuss the setting of budgets and the level of council tax for the next financial year.

It would be nice to see the council chamber full for tonights meeting as this will be the first budget that the tory run north lincs council as had to set with advice from officers instead of the fantasy budgets they have been setting for the last four years.

With the way the government is financing councils it would be of interest to our employees, as well. To see what their future employment prospects are.

If people cannot get to the meeting I understand Visitscunthorpe are doing something on line tonight starting at 17-30 and can be found at this web address http://www.visitscunthorpe.com

Cameron, Misogynist or not

Before I start todays Blog. I would just like to update readers on yesterdays. It was mentioned about and I quote “one particular Tory Messingham councillor was at the recent Brendan Cole performance – despite the fact he consistently stood up in council and said how he’d never set foot in the venue and how it was a waste of money!”

Well this councilor has been in touch with me and admitted that it was true and if he had his way the Baths Hall would be demolished, and they say they don’t read our Labour Blogs.

Now back to the question asked, Cameron misogynist or not?

Office for National Statistics (ONS) says three months to December 33,000 more women were jobless compared to 16,000 for men in the corresponding period and the total for unemployed women at December stood at 1.1 million, highest total for 23 years.

Women representing 80% of the 710,000 public sector workers, are set to lose their jobs over the next five years.

Yvette Cooper shadow Home Secretary said “As long as the Government is pushing women out of work, weakening action on the gender pay gap, reducing childcare and threatening maternity rights, they are making it harder, not easier for women to work or to get promoted throughout their lives”

A few facts and quotes given. I’m sure there are more.

I will leave it there. I’m sure people will come to their own conclusions on the question asked.

Baths Hall and the Local Economy

I heard yesterday how one businessman on Doncaster Road has had to take on more staff as a result of the knock on effects of The Baths Hall opening last November. Apparently so many people are popping in to his restaurant before and after shows at the venue that he’s had to employ more people to cater for demand. I’m delighted the Labour group’s vision for the entertainment venue has been realised and the wider knock on effects in the town centre are starting to be felt at a time when local people are feeling the pinch due to this Tory-led government’s economic policies.

It seems a long time ago now that Labour campaigned against the then Tory council’s plans to bulldoze The Baths Hall in 2006 and replace it with flats. That campaign was won and the 2007 election promise to build a new venue was realised. The Tories consistently tried to stop the plans. I was therefore very surprised to be told by a Labour councillor colleague that one particular Tory Messingham councillor was at the recent Brendan Cole performance – despite the fact he consistently stood up in council and said how he’d never set foot in the venue and how it was a waste of money! But then this Tory group has never been anything but nasty and hypocritical.

I’m yet to see a show at The Baths Hall since it opened but plenty of my Labour colleagues have. Many have been several times. I have no doubts at all the venue will continue to be successful and I have no doubts local businesses and the town itself will benefit from the thousands of extra people visiting the region.

Camerons NHS

If I was Andrew Lansley I’d be worried for my political future especially with other ministers giving him their “full backing” for his Health and Social Care Bill

Yesterday Cameron received another kick in the teeth when he received a letter from 400 professionals demanding he scrap the NHS reforms headed by Dr Kailash Chand OBE and signed by a number of health professionals from across the UK.

The letter says the changes would damage the health and wealth of the nation, with chronically ill patients denied the treatment they need, but they did say they supported the concept of clinically led commissioning. The bill will enhance competition on cost not quality.

As far as the Lib Dems are concerned Simon Hughes is the only one who’s had the guts to say that Lansley should go, even their leader Nick Clegg has thrown his weight behind Mr Lansley.

I’m hoping the Lib Dem activists at their spring conference tell Clegg where he should get off and tell their MP’s to vote against the Health and Social Care Bill.

Andrew Lansley please go and take your bill with you before you are pushed, we’ve seen in the past all this political posturing and it’s only resulted in tears.

Remember the Blair years when we saw his ministers get his backing only to end up on the scrapheap.

Welcome to the world of Cameron

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) are reporting that youngsters nowadays are ill prepared for unemployment siting that one in five young people would run out of money within a month of coming out of work and two out of five have debts of £5,000 or more. These are a “particularly vulnerable” group of people with at least 1.02 million out of work and looking the likeliest to rise.

IPPR’s chief economists says that his organisation’s poll of 1,504 16-29 year-olds had revealed a “worrying” gap between the amount young low earners believed they needed, and how far their reserves would go.

Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) said that with manufacturing stalling and service industry in decline, unemployment could reach 2.85m by the end of the year.

TUC’s General Secretary Brendan Barber said that “fears about rising unemployment and a new north-south divide are coming true”

“We were promised a private sector-led recovery but instead private sector workers are joining public servants in the dole queues. The economic climate has changed and so too should the governments approach.

The Tory led North Lincs Council sets its budget next week on the 21st Feb . It will be interesting to see by how much they are going to swell the dole queues of north lincs, and they will swell. Their political masters have set their priorities for them no matter what they tell you.

Liberal Democrates on the ropes

A poll out today for the independent shows that the Lib-Dems are in trouble, they could lose up to 40 MPs as a result of their ratings and if the boundary commission outcome is taken into account it could fall as low as 11 MPs

There is talk at their spring conference in Gateshead this year, Baroness Tonge, a Liberal Democrat peer, and Richard Grayson, the party’s former policy director will launch the “Liberal Left” sighting that the Liberal Democrates in power have slipped to the right and calling for the spending cuts to be slowed down. The new group’s founding statement says, and I quote from the Independent. “We are now part of a Government which is Eurosceptic, neo-liberal and socially conservative” It also calls for Lib Dems, Labour, Greens and others on the democratic left to have an “overt and public dialogue”

John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, who compiled the “poll of polls,” said: “The addition of the new boundaries to the party’s current poll rating creates the risk that a calamity might become a disaster.”(1)

I now see why the so called lib-dem who stood in the 2007 North Lincs election suddenly changed his politics to be a Conservative. He knew that the Lib-Dems were losing credibility not just in North Lincs but nationally as well

(1) Quote from the Independent 9th February 2012

Now they want to charge for CSA

How low can this government go, first we see them try to force through the Lords welfare reform and fail, I’m glad to say and today we find they want to charge people for using Child Support Agency (CSA) The charge will consist of an up front cost then a 10% to 12% charge, how can people on benefits pay for this. The government call on parents to work together to come to an agreement and as we all know the reason people involve the CSA is because the negotiations have broken down.

If you have children you should bring them up in a right and proper manner, there are too many people willing to walk away from a relationship nowadays instead of working to try and keep the family together. I respect those that after a relationship breakdown accept their responsibility, I deplore those that just walk out and negate any responsibility. This is a time when the government should be helping not making the innocent pay the price.