Miliband is banging on about introducing free childcare for 3
and 4 year olds, over and above what the coalition has actually made available
which is 15 hrs a week free.
We can, allegedly, trust them to understand the problems and
the benefits that good quality childcare bring to the economy as well as to
individuals.
In Wales childcare costs are rocketing and the Welsh Labour Government
are as usual insisting they are on the case.
Their Flying Start programme which gives 12.5 hrs a week free childcare
to 2 to 3 year olds in the most deprived areas is proof that they care and are
committed to better provision they say. The fact that this provision is in no
way dependent upon whether the parents of the children are working or in training
and so no really providing a solution for working parents seems to have passed
them by.
Here in RCT of course the Council have their own solution,
no doubt designed to help them meet their manifesto commitments to ensure “the
demand for improved services is balanced with affordable Council Tax levels,” “ensure
fairness, equality in the delivery of services, promoting progress towards greater social justice and the need for
sustainable communities” and of course “focus on delivering better outcomes for
local communities and continue to ensure a cost effective operation and
delivery of Council functions and services.”
They are suggesting that childcare costs in RCT run
nurseries increase by 7.3% to more than £44 a day. Now isn’t that helpful? This
at a time when there will potentially be greater demand because of their decision
regarding the cutting of nursery education. (A decision that is of course
currently on hold pending a possible judicial review.)
It doesn’t stop there, however. RCT Officers are busy converting some of
their day Nurseries into pure Flying Start centres which will not offer general
childcare to anyone not part of that programme.
They have even been actively encouraging private Day Nurseries to go
down the same route.
It is yet more evidence of the complete lack of joined up thinking
in RCT at both Member and Officer level.
There is no innovation and absolutely no idea of what they need to do in
order to make any economic progress and move certain areas up through the
deprivation ranks.
There is no political drive or control even. Labour Members are content to simply pick up
their salaries and accept the recommendations of Officers. This was clearly
seen during the budget setting process when the information they were making
decisions on was woefully inadequate. It
is even more clearly exhibited by checking their manifesto against their
delivery.
What hope is there for the future of RCT when there is so
little in the way of leadership?
3 comments:
Officers and Councillors are there to represent the views of their constituents. In my simplistic view this means hearing them when they communicate, such as through consultation, and actively campaigning for those views, no matter what their Party may think. That's what each voter naively or not voted for.
The Officers too are Public SERVANTS, there to do the will of WE THE PEOPLE.
They have ALL chosen to forget this over time, and now appear to any regular attender of the public Council meetings about the cuts, to be being bullied by some unknown background character, into reading out their acknowledged pre -prepared scripts instead of questions and debates, and all voting as if by hypnotism. The Bully must be extremely unpleasant to have that level of control, and THIS IS NOT DEMOCRACY.
Who can instigate a process to break this unhealthy and unproductive mechanism?
From David Stoneman, a previously uninterested in local Politics disgusted private citizen of RCT
Also I will continue to take every opportunity to state what the public need to know: RCT's tiny savings target of £19.4 million is just 3.3% of their total spend of £592 million per year, so can be met by comparing manpower, suppliers and services costs and processes with other similar Local Authorities, probably in England, who are able to provide similar or better quality services in similar circumstances.
This is called BENCHMARKING, and is in common use in Public Services everywhere.
Only the above Admin and Management costs need to be cut, NOT Front Line Services.
David Stoneman
I do believe Miss Roberts you chair a community group that runs a nursery you charge £37 a day and I am led to believe that that price will increase, So from what I can see there is little difference betweeen the two and when you consider that RCT led nurseries pay their Qualified staff at least £2 per hour more it is easy to see why they charge marginaly more than you at your nursery does.
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