REVEALED: £2m cuts for the city’s most vulnerable

While our idiot councillors and idiot senior council officers write out a blank cheque to an international Swiss gangster operation for something between £17m and £40m – depending on who you want to believe – to host four football matches in 2018, there’s been rather less publicity about the more prosaic matter of the huge budget deficit the council is running up in the here and now.

So how do the council intend to fix this deficit then? By hitting the old, the unwell, the disabled and the mentally ill hard of course!

A report to the Resources Scrutiny Commission on 4 December explains all:

• We are undertaking a programme of reviews of care packages for older people. A target saving of over £400k has been set for the remainder of this year.

• The temporary team established to ensure maximum take up of continuing health care funding remains in place and has been set an additional savings target of £500k for this year.

• A programme of care package reviews for people with learning difficulties and PSI is also well underway. A realistic savings target for this financial year is currently being determined.

• Reviews of mental health packages are also being implemented. A target saving for this year of £500k has been set and the team remain confident that significant savings can be made.

Charming isn’t it? Blank cheques for the wealthy accompanied a few weeks later by savage funding cuts for the voiceless and the vulnerable. The term ’scum’ doesn’t begin to do justice to the people who run this city.

From the comments …

by Steven Norman November 28, 2009 at 5:26 pm

I believe that Bristol City Council should issue court proceedings for recovery of this outstanding money. At this moment in time it is public money that has been paid to one of their buddies in the private sector to appease them – Mimosa Healthcare, whose slogan is ‘Where People Matter’.

Mimosa Healthcare, ‘Where People Matter’, had a contract to provide both my father and late mother with a high standard of care. Under the terms and conditions of this agreement they have failed to do so.

They decided – for reasons that they have never disclosed – to pack my father off to hospital in the back of an ambulance on his own at midnight in excruciating pain and scared and frightened with no family member present.

The family had no knowledge that he was even ill, yet he had been in severe pain since 7.00 pm that evening. Someone then decided it might be a good idea to inform my father’s next of kin.

But instead of ringing my sister’s landline they decided it would be better to leave a message on her mobile phone voicemail. It was only by chance that my sister heard her mobile phone beeping as she was in bed asleep.

These are the facts of how we became aware that our 84 year old father had been rushed to the BRI. We thank god that he didn’t pass away in that ambulance and that he has now made a full recovery. When we arrived at the BRI at 01.00 am we found our father in a severely distressed state and crying with pain.

First thing Monday morning I made a complaint to Social Service’s regarding the treatment my father had received from their provider with the slogan ‘Where People Matter’.

That complaint has never been addressed and neither have we been notified of the findings of any investigations. What we do know is that Bristol City Council settled all outstanding bills with their buddies – Mimosa Healthcare and let’s not forget the slogan ‘Where People Matter’ – and then ask us to pay for the privilege of the above fiasco.

Secondly, at February’s cabinet meeting, I asked written questions of the council leader regarding Mimosa Healthcare, ‘Where People Matter’.

The council leader in her written reply confirmed that Social Services had stopped placing the elderly in to another nursing home run by Mimosa Healthcare.

This was the home that the council leader, along with Councillor Knott, was photographed outside for the Evening Post while they claimed that the people inside ’seemed contented’ or words to that effect.

Mimosa Healthcare are not fit to provide nursing care in this city and maybe they should look at revising their slogan to ‘PROFIT PROFIT PROFIT BEFORE CARE’.

The plain and simple truth is that Bristol City Council embraces this provider because it has in the region of 600+ nursing beds in this city and it’s a case of the tail wagging the dog.

Thirdly, as stated, I believe it right that Bristol City Council should pursue this outstanding bill through the courts and I welcome the opportunity to defend my sister in this action as I firmly believe that there is just cause within English Law to defend such an action and I know that I have evidence to support such a defence.

So I would ask all the good citizens and council taxpayers of Bristol to email Stephen McNamara (stephen.mcnamara@bristol.gov.uk) and insist that he attempts the recovery of this public money.

I have one simple statement to Mr McNamara and Social Services:

DON’T DELAY SERVE YOUR PAPERS TODAY or kindly refrain from sending threatening and malicious letters to my family.

“They will not get a brass farthing”

The Steve Norman “come on and take me to court then” story appears in today’s Evening Cancer.

A couple of passages are worth further analysis:

Police, social services and the watchdog the Care Quality Commission (CSCI) investigated earlier this year after five former care workers at Kingsmead Lodge gave statements on practices that they claimed to have seen at the care home.

Interesting use of the past tense – “investigated’ here. Because if the police have “investigated” and the case is now closed, they haven’t informed any of the original complainants about this.

Whether this is a case of good old-fashioned police incompetence or whether the investigation is, in fact, still ongoing is something that will now be looked at.

The claims that social services have “investigated” are equally confusing. No complainants to Bristol City Council have been informed of the outcome of this “investigation” for starters.

Neither has Bristol City Council published any terms of reference for this “investigation” nor have any complainants been interviewed in the course of this “investigation” and democratic oversight of this “investigation” through either scrutiny commissions or the relevant Executive Member is nowhere to be seen.

In fact it’s hard to locate even one characteristic normally associated with an “investigation” into this affair by Bristol social services.

Then there’s the so-called CSCI “investigation”. Now, this really is bollocks. CSCI are a regulator – with a role similar to OFSTED’s in education. They set national standards and inspect care homes on the basis of those standards. They don’t carry out investigations into individual allegations of abuse in care homes. It’s not their job.

Meanwhile on the substance of Norman’s court challenge the council are simply reduced to waffle:

“Bristol, with other local authorities, follows national ‘Fairer Charging’ guidance in charging for all social services provided. Under the guidelines, all residents in care homes are required to make a financial contribution to the cost of their care, depending on their income. This is subject to a means test to determine what a person can afford to pay.”

So what? Who gives a toss what shitty rules you’re following? The question is: are you going to enforce these rules in court in order that Steve Norman can invite the complainants to give evidence and state the nature of their grievances?

It would certainly be interesting to see if the general public, having heard their complaints, will be as complacent as the authorities seem to be about them.

McNamara: “I know nothing”

I’ve come across some self-serving, backsliding, cowardly tosh from senior officers at Bristol City Council in my time but Stephen McNamara’s response to Steve Norman’s recent invitation to take him to court takes the biscuit:

“I do not know anything about this issue”? Er Hello? What’s happened to the basic senior management tasks of delegation and taking responsibility here?

Are you in control of your department Mr McNamara? Or are you just some vastly overpaid wig and photocopied signature for ornamental purposes?

If you don’t know what’s going on in your own department then you’re no fucking use. Resign now!

As a city do we really want some unaccountable upper-middle class snooty git firing out letters willy-nilly threatening court action to the city’s hard-up and vulnerable who then – when invited to get his sorry arse down to a courtroom – immediately denies all responsibility and tries to pin the blame on a “relevant officer” ie. Some mug somewhere down the line McNamara will blame to get himself off the hook.

He is the relevant officer. He signed the letter. Why’s he signing potentially life-destroying legal papers and  letters to people about things he knows nothing about?

Welcome to another Bristol City Council senior officer shambles. What’s the point in paying people a small bloody fortune to take responsibility if they won’t?

Dinosaur watch

Bristol NUJ meeting earlier this week

That wacky bunch of no-hoper Stalinists, conspiracy nuts and embittered ex-Northcliffe hacks who make up the membership of the local branch of the NUJ (National Union of Journalists) have come up with a recruitment plan.

“BRISTOL NUJ can be at the forefront of the union’s drive to recruit the thousands of creative workers in the new media industry who have so far gone unrepresented,” drivels the NUJ’s former local Northcliffe poster boy Paul Breedan.

“Those present broadly agreed that anyone producing creative content online who isn’t merely a blogger should be able to join the NUJ,” he writes on his, er … Blog!

Top plan that is Paul. Suck up to a load of people producing mindless corporate PR guff devoid of any journalistic value whatsoever while slagging off one of the few groups in this city – bloggers – who regularly produce original investigative reporting for the public and who have an increasingly large reach and influence.

It also makes you wonder what understanding of marketing and PR the Bristol NUJ and this clown Breedan have to offer any new media workers. To openly disparage an important local new media constituency to a PR savvy audience may not be the wisest recruitment move.

Always nice to know who your friends and supporters are though innit?

McNamara: “Come on if yer ‘ard enough”

It’s getting just like the old days. Who can forget that fine June of 2005 when our city’s esteemed wig-wearer -in-Chief, Stephen McNamara decided to take action after the Campaign to Save Daycare in Bristol paraded 10ft-high placards through the city naming seven council officers under the banner: “Bristol social services’ list of uncaring professionals”?

“The council will not tolerate its employees being harassed in this way,” thundered the council’s all-powerful lawyer from the pages of the Evening Cancer on June 7. “If necessary, the council will take legal action through the courts to prevent any such activity.”

Good. Came the reply from campaigner Steve Norman who immediately supplied McNamara with an address for the service of court papers and come June 11 what did we read in the Cancer?

Protesters campaigning against cuts to Bristol’s day care services defied a threat of legal action to drive round the city centre in a truck bearing placards naming seven council employees.

At which point McNamara performed a extraordinarily quiet exit with wig firmly between his lycra-clad legs – never to be heard from again – without a court action in sight.

Roll-on four years. And what do we find?

Only another exercise in futility from Mr McNamara with yet more of his grandiose legal threats aimed at Steve Norman and his family. This time around he wants them to settle their bill with the council’s controversial private nursing care provider Mimosa Healthcare who are currently mired in all kinds of scandal following abuse allegations from their own employees.

And Steve’s response received by the city council this morning?

Due to the lack of care received by my father and late mother and the subsequent revelations regarding this provider and the fact that there is currently an inquest pending in to the death and treatment of a former resident, we as a family are not prepared to condone or support the lack of care and abuse that Mimosa Healthcare provides to the elderly citizens of Bristol placed in their care.

…

Obviously you are fully aware of the signed statements I obtained from former employees at Kingsmead Lodge detailing what they had witnessed during the course of their employment with Mimosa Healthcare and I feel a public court room and a Judge would be the ideal place for a legal ruling in respect of this outstanding matter.

[We] look forward to receiving your court papers in the very near future and I look forward to defending [this] case for not paying you any fees in relation to this provider or for the safe haven placement we had to find for our parents.

What a great idea! Why hide behind all this secrecy, censorship and bureaucracy and string everything out with interminable never-ending investigations when you can just pop down a court room and get it all out in the open for the public to hear?

Hang on … Is that a lycra-clad lawyer clutching an old wig I see disappearing over the horizon?

That Steve Norman letter in full:

View this document on Scribd

McNamara’s Mimosa madness

The bewigged anti-human fool that passes for a legal expert down at the Counts Louse, Stephen McNamara, excels himself again.

Now the man that took council behaviour to a new low in 2005 when he personally patrolled the entrance to the Counts Louse to prevent learning disabled protestors from using the council’s toilet facilities when they campaigned outside over the loss of their daycare services has dreamed up a new wheeze.

Because he’s only gone and started legal proceedings against families who made allegations that their elderly relatives were being abused in Mimosa’s Kingsmead Lodge care home!

Apparently the brilliant lawyer has decided, in all his wisdom, that these relatives – who had to pull their elderly parents out of Mimosa’s ‘home of horrors’ – should pay up for the dubious ‘care’ their relatives received at the hands of the council’s controversial private elderly care providers who are still under serious investigation over their conduct.

The Blogger’s assured that McNamara will be receiving a suitably robust response to his latest idea in the next few days.

Looks like the Mimosa soap opera is back then.

World Cup: the state of our democracy watch

How cities bidding to host the 2018 World Cup have used the local democratic process:

Newcastle
Report to Cabinet on 15 July along with publication of 139-page Outline Bid SubmissionUpdate Report to Cabinet on 11 November
Final Decision to be made at Cabinet on 25 November

Sunderland
Motion at Full Council on 24 June to support England World Cup Bid and promote Sunderland as a venue.
Report to Cabinet on 4 November.

Leeds
Report to cabinet on 13 May including copy of slide from FA showing key issues for consideration.
Report to cabinet on 17 June
Report to cabinet on 22 July with links to Elland Road Masterplan for stadium area
Report to cabinet for final approval to be made on 24 November

Sheffield
Scrutiny Committee on 11 November prior to Cabinet meeting
Report to Cabinet on 11 November including locally produced impact study.

Liverpool
Report to Cabinet on 6 November including Host City Bid Summary, 42-page Applicant Host City Engagement Process, and letter regarding Government Guarantees from Department for Culture, Media & Sport

Manchester
Report to Cabinet on 10 September

Hull
Report to Cabinet on 17 November

Nottingham
Report to Cabinet on 28 July
Report to Cabinet by Rushcliffe Borough on 17 July (Nottingham is pursuing its bid in partnership with its neigbouring borough and the county council)

Derby
Report and decision to submit bid approved at Full Council on 4 November
Updated report to Full Council on 18 November

Leicester
Report to Scrutiny 24 September
Report to Cabinet 5 October
Report to Cabinet for 23 November
Report to go to Full Council on 25 November

Milton Keynes
Discussed at Full Council 9 June
Report to Cabinet 27 October

Birmingham
Brief discussion at scrutiny meetings in September and in October.

Portsmouth
Report to cabinet scheduled for 24 November
Motion to full council for 24 November accompanied by 126-page report.

Plymouth
Motion to submit World Cup Bid to be considered at Full Council on 23 November. Report published to guide decision.

and finally,

Bristol
Scrutiny on 20 November with 66-page report published on 17 November.
Cabinet Meeting on 24 November with call-in suspended.

FIFA World Cup™ balls

From the Fifa.com website earlier this week:

“Fifa President Joseph S. Blatter is using the FIFA World Cup™ qualifying matches to urge footballers around the world to show ‘More fair play, please!’ Blatter said: ‘Fair play should come before anything else … These qualifying matches must epitomise fair play. They should encapsulate the sporting, moral and ethical principles for which Fifa has always stood. And they must leave a lasting impression!”

Ho, ho, ho …

Hat tip: Said & Done, The Observer

COMING SOON: Sieg Heil! FIFA on ‘the Jewish referee problem’.

Wobblies news

Some heavyweight anti-authoritarian politics comes to Bristol and the south west as a trade union dedicated to the overthrow and destruction of the boss class opens up shop.

The Bristol and South west branch of the Wobblies – or the International Workers of the World to the uninitiated – is now up and running and looking for new recruits.

Already drawing lots of experienced unionists, militant workers, anarchos, artists, intellectuals, journos and a few people who seem to have just walked in off the street, you’re no customer in this union and won’t find marketing men selling you your brighter day along with cheap car insurance and 2-4-1 package holiday deals. You have to participate instead.

If you’re already in a mainstream union and think it’s bollocks or you’re an unaligned activist seeking like-minded people then this might be the place to start. Also if you’re in work and don’t want a mainstream union or a mainstream union don’t seem to want you then give the Wobblies a shout. The unemployed, the unwaged and the unruly are welcome too.

http://iww.org.uk/bristol