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.

TATA Pensions

I hear on the grapevine that TATA employees have received letters from their pension scheme saying that they are looking at the future of the scheme and it could end up the same as local authorities where they will pay more into the pension for a longer time and getting less at the end of it.

I would be interested in any comments that employees of TATA have to say on this issue

Consultation

As some people might know I’ve been badly for the last year and had to give up my cycling.

After my treatment ended at the end of last year and feeling a lot better I decided to go back into the gym and get myself ready for the spring to get back on my brand new bicycle (replacement for the one stolen)

Imagine my surprise talking to people in the new Pods about the consultation on sport, leisure and culture when they told me they had no idea what I was talking about, so I feel I need to ask people again to look out for the consultation document and fill it in. You only have a WEEK left, consultation finishes on the 25th January

Questions on Sport, Leisure & Culture Review

After getting a paper copy of the sport, leisure & culture services consultation “Your chance to have your say Sport, leisure and culture – the future”
I read the questions and saw there was nothing in the document to have the “status quo” option available.

On the back of the questionnaire where you are asked to put your name and address there is a box that is asking if you have “any further comments” If people think that we should not be selling our leisure to the private sector, I urge that they should fill this in objecting to the sell off.

The deadline for responses is the 25th January.

Unions Stance on Public Sector Pensions

Looking at the stance that has been put forward by six of the trade unions that have an interest in public sector pensions, it can be seen by the latest information gathered that four look likely to refuse acceptance of the Heads of Agreement scheme put forward by the coalition government on the 19th December 2011, Unison, it seems are making no comment about it’s meeting on the 10th January at this moment

Unison, Unite, Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) and National Union Teachers (NUT) and Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), have all published their latest information on their websites which is as follows

Unison:- The NHS Pension Scheme Heads of Agreement (HoA). will be considered by the Health Service Group Executive on 10 January 2012.

The NUT will call for further urgent discussions with Government on the future of teachers’ pensions. Before Christmas, the NUT reserved its position on the Government’s proposals. The NUT, the largest teachers’ union, has now agreed to continue to pursue further changes to those proposals.

The NUT remains concerned that proposed increases in employee contributions and pension ages at a time of real terms pay cuts, will lead many teachers to opt out from pension provision and threaten the future of the Teachers’ Pension Scheme. The NUT is also concerned that a large majority of teachers will not be able to work successfully in the classroom to age 68.

The National Executive of the NASUWT, the largest teachers’ union met on the 6th January to consider the DfE proposals for the reform of the Teachers’ Pension Scheme which were presented to teacher unions on 20 December 2011.
The National Executive endorsed unanimously the stance taken by the NASUWT negotiators not to sign up to the Government’s ‘Heads of Agreement’ and to reserve the Union’s position.

The National Executive based its decision on the fact that:

• the Heads of Agreement document is incomplete and lacks an appropriate assessment of the impact of the changes on teachers;

• the manner in which the DfE conducted the process of seeking to reach agreement has been completely unsatisfactory;

• critical issues of concern remain, including the contribution rates and the normal pension age..

PCS
The proposals will be put to the PCS National Executive when it meets on January 10, but in the present form they will not be recommended as they do not provide a basis for agreement. This same offer was unanimously rejected by the NEC on December 6, and rejected by senior reps from PCS Groups at the NCLG meeting on December 14.

UNITE
The government’s latest proposals to cut local government pensions were rejected by Unite, Britain’s biggest union, on Monday, 9 January.
The Unite local authority national industrial sector committee (LANISC), which met 9th January, rejected the ‘principles document’ as a basis for a satisfactory outcome. Last week (5 January) Unite’s health sector national industrial sector committee (HSNISC) also rejected the government’s latest proposals on the NHS pension scheme.

The only union I can find with a different stance is the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), and their comments from 6th January are as follows
Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), said: “As a democratic and member-led union we are putting the government’s offer on teachers’ pensions to our members, and this will influence the decision of our executive committee on 28 January.

“The government was quite clear that the offer it made on 19 December was a final offer, and that any further industrial action would not improve it.

“In the current economic and political climate we believe that the 19 December offer is the best deal we could get through negotiation. Further prolonged industrial action, which is the only alternative, could lead to the government imposing significantly worse terms than are currently offered.”

This is the latest information I have to hand. I will be watching with interest the outcome of the two unions, Unison and PCS, meetings today, the 10th January.

Building Schools for the Future (BSF)

These cheeky Tories on NLC, I don’t know how they have the nerve to go into print and say what they say. In today’s telegraph I see an headline about the Cabinet Member for Adults and Children Services welcoming the BSF programme by saying and I quote “Building Schools for the future provides a fantastic opportunity to bring our school buildings into the 21st century with modern, vibrant facilities to help nurture young people and encourage them to do well,”

His government tried to cancel the BSF programme nationally but Scunthorpe was so advanced that they couldn’t do it. Then he has the cheek to say at the end of the article “I am pleased that the Conservative-led Government has prioritised our area and has been able to continue with an additional £20-million investment programme set to transform secondary education in Scunthorpe.

As can be read in the article here:- http://www.thisisscunthorpe.co.uk/Progress-report-delivers-marks-pound-87m-schools/story-14334932-detail/story.html It took 18 million just to build this one school so what will we do with this gift of £20m I will wait and see.

A couple of questions I feel need to be asked.

1 If this programme had not been instigated by a Labour Government, would this government have done anything? My personal feeling is NO

2 Would these Tories want to do anything for Scunthorpe? That can only be answered after their term of office, I think and I’m sure a lot of people in Scunthorpe already know the answer to that one but we will wait and see

As a last thought I keep reading about “CONSERVATIVE MANIFESTO PROMISES” I didn’t see a manifesto put out by the Tories. I would be pleased if someone could point me in the right direction to read one.

Nominated Car Parking

I had a rye smile to myself this morning when I looked on Steve Swift’s blog and read about Leader, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Members of the council looking to getting nominated car parking spaces at the newly named Civic Centre.

It doesn’t matter what time you go to Civic Centre at the moment you struggle to get a parking space at all, so what will it be like when these councillors with their bloated egos get parking spaces for themselves. Just goes to show the sort of attitude these people have got.

You can just hear them saying ” We are important people with an important job to do and we should not be running around looking for somewhere to park and especially as we have to come from outside of Scunthorpe.”

Well I can assure you “important people” that if this does happen and I’m there with nowhere to park you will find my car there instead.