I have spoken this evening to a desparate man from London, whose life is being blighted by CRB disclosures revealing false allegations made against him.

My (seemingly) one man campaign to alert people to this injustice has so far alerted a number of people harmed by it, but nobody willing to change anything! Maybe this will change that, as his story shows how the current law just can’t be right.

This man (from London) suffered a bitter break-up with a partner, who then reported him to the police with serious allegations. These, he maintains, were false, and although the police investigated them there was no conviction. He has no criminal record and has never been in trouble with the law.

And yet, due to the CRB system permitting the police to reveal allegations even if they were never proven, each time he applies for a job his CRB disclosure reveals them. Suspicion is cast on him again, and the embarrassment and shame of being a suspect in a serious crime returns. Remember, there was no conviction. He has no criminal record. And yet he is effectively treated as a criminal.

He was asked to leave two separate universities because of these allegations. And he has now been told by his employer that he is no longer required after his CRB was returned with these allegations on it.

How can this situation be permitted to exist? How can it be right, in a country governed by the rule of law, for the innocent to be criminalised? How can the allegations of an angry and aggrieved partner (or neighbour, or anyone who doesn’t like you) make their way onto official documents used to verify the character of someone else? How can unproven accusations be used to incriminate those against whom they’re made?

CRB checks are vital. They are a hugely important tool in tackling abuse and in protecting the vulnerable. But they must be used wisely because, quite rightly, they are powerful documents. We need to protect people. But we need to protect ALL people, including the innocent people against whom allegations are made and who are made to suffer because they’re repeated on CRB disclosures.

I can’t help but think that there is a big injustice going on here. It cannot be right for allegations made, denied and absolutely not proved true, to be used against people in this way.

Rick

I have written on here a few times now about the Tory Executive which runs Bury Council getting a bit carried away with their power, and severely limiting the legitimate rights of the public and the Council to question them. Whilst I accept happily that they run the Council, their activities since taking control have done them little credit, nor have they helped the institution of the Council.

First the Tories restricted the rights of the public to ask questions at Council meetings. Where before there was a requirement of a couple of days advanced notice, and supplementary questions were permitted, now there is a very long advance notice requirement, and no supplementaries are allowed. Then the Tories restricted Councillors’ rights to ask questions at Full Council. The advance notice requirement was extended, and a short time limit was imposed, denying those whose questions aren’t reached in time the opportunity of a supplementary. And then, the Tories restricted the rights of Councillors to ask questions at Executive meetings. Now, only those directly to do with their own ward are allowed.

I don’t know why the Tories have done this. It looks to me like they’re reluctant to face up to their own actions or be questioned on them. It’s not democratic, and it’s not right.

Last night’s Executive meeting was, by all accounts, a new low. The Conservatives were presented with a report from a Scrutiny panel recommending caution and a halt in proceedings related to elderly persons’ homes. The report was missing a number of important points which needed clarifying. The recommendation from Scrutiny was made by members from all parties (Tories included), and the Scrutiny Commission itself was chaired by a Tory. Despite this, the Executive rejected the proposal to delay, and opted to proceed with a report devoid of all the facts.

This is not just another shocking example of the Conservative Council Executive putting its own power before reason, but it’s a massive kick in the teeth for the scrutiny process. In a democracy, all elected members should have the chance to scrutinise those in charge. By ignoring a simple, reasonable request for a delay so that facts can be considered in the round, the Executive have made a decision which severely affects the Council’s ability to properly scrutinise them. It’s a huge blow to the ideals of democracy at the Council, and may severely impair the ability of democratically elected Councillors to hold the Executive to account.

We weren’t asking for policy to be changed, we were just asking for the Executive to hold fire for a while until the issue could be properly considered. They said no and carried on regardless, and that was a sad decision for Bury.

Rick

The Council has never quite got to grips with snappily-titled meetings. Tonight was the latest gathering of perhaps the worst offender - the (deep breath) Alternative Service Delivery Working Group Sub-Group of the Resource and Performance Overview and Scrutiny Commission.

Not only does the title have more words in it than a haiku, it is now also inaccurate, since the agenda has moved on from when the group was new. It’s less to do with potential alternative ways of delivering services (for instance, using the private sector), and more to do with improving the way that services are delivered.

Semantics though are pretty much my only gripe with this group, as it’s probably my favourite Council meeting of the lot. It’s an all-party affair with officers in support, and it’s focused, friendly and, I hope, effective. Last year we gave what I think and hope was a valuable response to proposals for exploring partnership working, and this meeting was the first of the new year. On the agenda was a review of property services, which proposes some quite radical things which I think could be very good for the effective running of the Council if implemented correctly. There was also an update on a review of procurement, which has the potential to be good news for the Council and Council Tax payers too. Both of these things are in their early stges, but I look forward to the next meeting of the group, which I hope will allow us to work as well as we’ve been doing so far.

Rick

The people of Prestwich have to put up with the worst air quality in the North West. Or so we’ve always been told. I actually queried this fact the other day when the Council’s Environmental Health Officer in charge of air quality came to the Prestwich Developing Communities Working Group, which I chair. The Group is charged with realising the “Prestwich Plan,” the local plan for the area which has 60-odd targets on it, one of which is to do something about the air which, as I said, we’re told is the worst in the region.

It’s no surprise that the air quality is pretty bad round here. If towns were built after motorways, and not the other way round, nobody would have stuck Prestwich at the junction of three motorways. But we trade off convenience for the ability to breath clean air, and whilst we might be able to get on the M60 from our front door in three minutes, we’ll probably all die five years earlier.

The measurements of air quality aren’t entirely reliable though. The meeting threw up a couple of interesting facts. Firstly, the “worst in the North West” statistic, whilst technically true, is based on readings from the one monitoring device in the area, which is positioned on the embankment of the motorway! Probably not the most sensible place for an average reading! Rather like putting a smoke alarm in the oven. But at least it shows up that the air around the M60 is pretty bad, and I know there are people in the ward who live very close to it indeed. 

Hawk-eyed residents wil also have noticed the device at the bottom of Butterstile Lane, and I wondered why that wasn’t used for a more accurate reading. It was installed in 2000 but, I was told, has been almost perpetually broken ever since. Not particularly useful, but apparently there are efforts now underway to fix it.

Hopefully this will give some more reliable data which, when combined with car use reduction measures and traffic flow improvements already planned by the Council, will lead to improvements in air quality. In the meantime, I have written to the Highways Agency asking them what they intend to do about the motorway. The traffic flow is pretty terrible through Prestwich, and there are a number of options available to help with the air quality problems this can lead to, including particle-reducing paint, and hard-shoulder usage. My letter asks what they’re looking at, and when I get a reply I’ll let you know.

Rick

Bury’s Conservative-run Council has published its first set of suggested proposals for the 2009-10 Bury MBC budget. Sadly, it’s another round of cuts that are being proposed to key services.
The proposed cuts include:

- reduction in the Libary Book funding
- reduction in Swimming Pool Opening Times
- reduction in street highway repair ‘gangs’
- reduced Educational Welfare Service
- reduce PE advice to schools

There is also a proposal to most save £300,000 from the Youth Service, through “externalising” it. I don’t quite know how this would work, or what the full details of the proposals are, but I am scheduled to meet with the Council’s Finance chiefs in the near future to find out more, and to think about any alternatives that the Lib Dems in Bury might provide.

This list of savings is depressing enough, especially since it will probably mean hefty a Council Tax rise as well, but even this list falls over £1.3 million short of the “targets” that departments have been set, so look out for another list of “savings” and cuts to follow.

You can paste this link into your browser and go and see the list of proposals in full:

http://www.bury.gov.uk/CouncilGovernmentAndDemocracy/Councils/CouncilTaxAndFinance/BudgetConsultation.htm

Rick

Tonight is Holocaust Memorial Day, which takes place on January 27th each year, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in 1945.

Bury marks the day with its own annual Holocaust Memorial service. This year’s takes place at the Elizabethan Suite at the Town Hall. This is always an important event of course, but perhaps even more poignant this year given the ongoing problems in the Middle East. I will be there together with lots of Council colleagues and others. It is always nice to see the involvement of lots of Bury’s young people in the commemoration, and I’m sure that they will once again do the Borough proud tonight.

It’s a ticket-only event, but there are numerous smaller events going on around the place today, and of course time for personal reflections on the Holocaust and the need to do everything that we can to make sure that genocide and ethnic cleansing stop happening and never happen in the world again.

Rick

This week is a fairly constant stream of activity, which will keep me out of the house and thus be either a disappointment or a huge joy for those I live with.

Tonight I will be meeting the supporters and activist in Bury North to talk about our campaigns up there for both the general and local elections. Tomorrow is Holocaust Memorial Day, and in the evening I will be attending the service at Bury Town Hall to remember the victims of the Holocaust. On Wednesday I am taking some time out to go and watch Manchester City draw feebly yet predictably against Newcastle. And then on Thursday it’s the Council’s Alternative Service Delivery Working Group, of which I am a member and at which we consider new ways of delivering services more efficiently.

Those are just the evenings of course. The days are spent at work, which is where I am now. Hence the brevity of this post!

Rick

Last night was spent at a meeting of the Bury Lib Dem Council group, which was a good way to catch up on the news and developments of the last couple of weeks. It’s a busy time coming up in the near future, with Prestwich regeneration, the Council’s budget and the forthcoming full Council meeting all on the horizon.

Tonight there’s another meeting keeping me from rest… This time it’s the Developing Communities Working Group, which is one of the two sub-groups of the Local Area Partnership. It’s the one primarily concerned with the Community Plan, trying to make sure it’s achieved, and identifying areas which are struggling. It’s at 5pm tonight at the Methodist Church, should anyone want to pop along.

Good to see today that the roadworks on Butterstile Lane have finished ahead of schedule. Compliments to the workforce who have managed it despite the bad weather.

They say that no news is good news. So rejoice, because I have no more.

Rick

Who says President Obama can’t make a difference straight away? No sooner has he taken the oath of office than the Council’s Environmental Services team ring me with confirmation of extra street cleaning on weekends for the Longfield Centre. That’s great news for the Village centre, and a slap in the face for the so-called “experts” who told me that the President was more likely to focus on Guantanamo Bay this week than the build up of takeaway wrappers outside Costa Coffee in Prestwich.

Lots of people coming into the town centre on weekend evenings are getting into the spirit of London 2012 and indulging in a spot of world championship litter tossing, with most of it ending up on the floor of the Longfield Centre. It’s not really very pleasant on weekend mornings, so now we have ensured that the street cleaning service will be on hand between 08.00 and 10.00 each Saturday and Sunday.

I wish we didn’t need this service, but a combination of some unfathomable bin removals, the refusal of the Council to put any more in place, and crucially the willingness of some thoughtless local people to spew rubbish from every limb, means that we do. And now we’ve got it. So hopefully visitors to and residents of the town centre will see less litter on the weekends from now on.

Less litter hopefully means more pride in the area, which in turn will hopefully lead to even less litter, and more pride, and less litter and more pride and less litter and more pride until eventually the streets are so clean you can see your face in them, and we’re all so proud of Prestwich that the residents of everywhere else want to punch us in the head.

My thanks to the Council’s Environmental Services staff for sorting this new service out for us.

Rick

Fair play to Cllr Peter Redstone, the Conservative Executive Member for Resources, who responded to me about the Council Tax letter bungle within a couple of hours. It is very refreshing to receive such a full and frank response from the Executive so quickly. His Leader could learn a lot from him in this regard. I thank him for getting back to me so quickly.

Cllr Redstone and I are of one mind that Abbey should be blamed for cocking up the direct debits. They cancelled them in error, and frankly deserve a kicking because it’s cost the Council lots and inconvenienced hundreds.

However, we disagree on the role the Council has played in this, and the responsibility Cllr Redstone himself should take. I maintain that the procedures for issuing reminder letters to non-payers are fundamentally flawed if hundreds of letters (threatening court action) can be wrongly sent out before anyone notices. The Council’s staff did a grand job in discovering that they’d made an error, but the fact is that no error like this should be made.

Surely it isn’t beyond human endeavour to come up with a way to notice if hundreds of late payments are made across a small geographical area before letters are sent out. It is Cllr Redstone’s job as the leader of his department to make sure that lessons are learned from this and that it doesn’t happen again.

This is especially the case in the current climate, when it seems like there’s a problem with a mass mail out every other week.

Cllr Redstone cannot dispute that he is responsible for this department, nor that the department have frightened lots of people here with these automated letters, no matter how honest their intent. Staff trying to do a difficult job should not be hampered by processes which create unhappiness down the line. They should be comended for trying to maximise Council income and act quickly. The processes they work to should be changed to avoid this happening again, to ensure Executive oversight and to minimise the risk of mistakes. This hasn’t happened and so the chances of a repeat performance remain. Cllr Redstone and the Executive are responsible for that.

Rick

Local people may have noticed that Butterstile Lane is closed at the junction with Hilton lane. I certainly did when I tried to turn into it yesterday. So I asked the Council what was going on.

Apparently, a company called Enterprise, working on behalf of BT, have asked for a closure to enable them to lay a BT duct across the junction with Hilton Lane. United Utilities will also take advantage of the closure to undertake a series of chamber surveys.

Consequently, a temporary closure order has been processed which came into operation on Monday 19th January 2009. Although the duration of the order is for one month, the works are only expected to last for one week i.e.until Monday 26th January 2009.

So there we have it.

Rick

Bury Liberal Democrats are helping small businesses get through the credit crunch, according to the Civil Engineering Contractors Association. The Association told Lib Dem MP for Hazel grove, Andrew Stunnell, that Bury Council are leading the way in providing help to small businesses by paying invoices from local firms within 10 days. This measure, introduced by the Council in late 2008, was part of a policy motion put forward by the Liberal Democrat opposition.

The motion also called on the Council to produce a guide for local people and businesses explaining where they could get help in troubled times. It also called on the Council to investigate using vacant council properties to house the Citizens Advice Bureau in the town centre.

The Lib Dem motion was adopted by the Council and these policies are making a difference to local businesses in Bury.

Rick

There’s a scene in “The Godfather III” where mafia kingpin Michael Corleone, desperate to escape a life of crime and become a legitimate businessman to protect his family, is forced back into the criminal world to sort out a dispute amongst his colleagues. Michael cries “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in,” before suffering a diabetic stroke and collapsing into a coma.

I feel much like Michael Corleone today, and have the hospitals on stand by just in case. Although I don’t run a gigantic criminal empire or live in a sprawling estate on Lake Tahoe like he did, I do consort with people who wield quite a bit of power, namely the Executive of Bury Council. And, like Michael, just as I thought I’d escaped the problems they cause, they haul me back in. Because today, almost unbelievably, I have discovered yet another mass mail-out calamity presided over by the laughable Tory shower masquerading as the Council’s leaders. This is the fifth (FIFTH!!) one in the last twelve months, and the second one already in 2009.

This time they have sent out 800 letters to customers of Abbey in Whitefield, threatening them with legal action for non-payment of Council Tax.

Abbey have made an error, cancelling the direct debits for Council Tax that should have been paid earlier this month. This is Abbey’s mistake, and they should be made to put it right swiftly. I don’t mind at all that the Council is working very hard to make sure this happens. Hopefully there’ll be some strong words sent in Abbey’s direction for keeping back thousands of pounds of money from the Council’s coffers.

Unfortunately though, Abbey’s innocent customers have been on the receiving end of the standard letter the Council sends to all non-payers. It’s got all the usual nuance of a Council communique, i.e. it’s about as subtle as a breezeblock to the skull. The letter threatens them with court action in 14 days unless they pay up. So the innocent people (all 800 of them) caught up in this mess through no fault of their own got the same letter as the person defrauding the Council and living the life of Riley in a solid gold yacht. There was no distinction drawn.

The letters are sent out automatically, and so even when massive anomalies in the amount sent out come about, like here, there’s no procedure in place to stop them. 800 people living in the same area all deciding simultaneously to stop paying their Council tax should have set alarm bells ringing. Instead, all it did was set printers printing.

What should have happened is that the Council should have remembered its public service ethos and sent out letters explaining the situation and offering help and solutions. Instead, it relied on inadequate modes of communication and yet again alarmed and worried hundreds of people for no reason.

The Council have been quick to notice the error, I’ll grant them. There’s a recorded message on the helpline, and they spotted the problem before Abbey did.

But just because Abbey are culpable doesn’t mean that Bury Council should get off the hook. They realised their error, sure, but the fact remains that they still sent out the letters, once again getting the tone and content of them completely wrong.

I have tried to contact the Conservative Executive Member for Resources, Cllr Peter Redstone, to get his explanation. I am told that he is in London. He should get back to Bury and start doing the job we pay him for, which is to run the Council’s finance department properly. In his absence I spoke to the top Council finance officer on this, and he told me that the process for letters is automated. This is efficient for regular non-payers, but as has been shown here is completely inappropriate for when unexpected problems emerge. There needs to be a system in place where patterns can be detected and spotted before threatening letters are sent out. That there isn’t is the fault of the Executive member, who has let this happen on his watch.

Once again I find myself saying that lessons need to be learned from yet another mass mail-out debacle. Once again I find myself apologising on behalf of the Council for offence and worry caused for no good reason. And once again the blame lies fairly and squarely at the feet of the Conservative Executive, and specifically Cllr Redstone. He presided over the scandal last year when hundreds of single people received inappropriate letters questioning their right to a discount, and he has presided over this, another example of the Council scaring hundreds of innocent people for no good reason. Eight hundred more residents thinking that the Council don’t care and are more interested in money than people.

This Tory Executive has presided over problems with Job Evaluation, where letters were sent out and then recalled over questions of legality, and over graffiti and gardens, both of which were exacerbated by letters making our citizens feel like criminals.

On September 10th last year Cllr Redstone told Council publicly that “any future letters dealing with sensitive or contentious matters would be raised at the appropriate level to include where necessary the Executive member.” He has clearly broken this promise here, and his Executive have broken the promise on three other occasions. How much longer will the people of Bury have to put up with these mistakes? Cllr Redstone should consider his position, since he is clearly incapable of running the Department we have entrusted him to run.

Rick

The weekend has vanished into the distance like an idiot driving a Nova with a body kit down the high street at 55mph.

Several hours of it was spent leafleting in Prestwich and Whitefield, interspersed with trips to see Manchester City and to fritter away money on things in IKEA which at the time I falsely believed would cure the vacant emptiness gnawing away at my soul.

Apparently today is “Blue Monday.” This is a term coined by scientists to describe the most depressing day of the year, when post-Christmas mundanity, pre-pay day skintness, and the howling wetness of the British weather conspire to make us all wish we’d never been born.

My own internal bleakness was only exacerbated by the “Blue Monday” story, when I discovered it was nothing to do with either the New Order song of the same name, or anything that I would traditionally describe as “blue,” like a Russell Brand DVD. Either of those two things would have made today more bearable, but sadly it was to do with science which, like women and the appeal of Midsomer Murders, I have never been able to fathom.

I must say though that the thought of making my usual automaton journey into the office this morning was an even less appealing prospect than normal today. Maybe it’s a twenty-first century phenomenon, only afflicting people born into a world of text messages and Playstation 3’s, but I find myself constantly depressed by the bewildering array of life-choices flashing before me like great neon invitations to fulfilment and excitement that I am forced repeatedly to decline. They are all so head-spinningly overwhelming and joyously fabulous that the fact that I can only make one of them at a time makes me want to curl into a ball and make miaowing noises quietly until I’m taken away somewhere warm and soft.

People had it easy hundreds of years ago. Fair enough there was slavery and typhoid and press-ganging. But you worked on the farm and then you died, and everything in between was taken care of. There wasn’t temptation around every corner and you didn’t feel terrible not going to the Whitsunday Islands because you’d rather save up a deposit for the conservatory instead. The peasants of yore didn’t have the Guardian culture section or the programme for the Royal Exchange burned onto their retinas as a permanent reminder that no matter how many films, plays and books they devour, there are still twenty thousand more not seen. And, on Blue Monday, there’s something to be said for that.

So this morning I find myself back at my desk and contemplating the many roads not taken, and trying not to think about the road actually taken which has led me to stare at a computer screen and tap things into it for a living, rather than working outside or in Botswana or inventing something so spectacular and innovative that I need never work anywhere ever again.

It’s not all bad though. There’s a meeting of the Bury Liberal Democrat Council group on Wednesday, where the group gets together and talks about the issues affecting the community in preparation for the rounds of meetings ahead. Also this week, I have to start giving serious thought to writing the new St Mary’s Focus, which will be thumping down onto doormats across the ward by the end of the month.

And hopefully at some point I will snap out of my pointless ponderings and start counting my blessings. It would distract me from thinking about the dull stuff, if nothing else. And even if that doesn’t work, by the time I figure it out it’ll be Thursday and there’ll be a whole new weekend to think about again.

Rick

Local people may have read this week of the latest Tory errorin administering the Job Evaluation process. I’ve certainly written about it on here, and now there are calls for the Leader of the Council to step down as staff morale plummets to new lows. Apart from the heartache being felt by staff, and the embarrassment felt by anyone outside of the Conservatives involved in Bury politics, this fiasco has marked the latest in a long line of problems involving letters sent out and then swiftly recalled or dropped.

I wrote about this earlier in the week, noting how the Job Evaluation letter back-track followed hot on the heels of similar errors reagrding letters to many people at once about Council Tax, then graffiti, and then garden tenancies. Each time the Council has proceeded in haste and repented at leisure as it has to withdraw threats, change its mind publicly and deal with the anger it’s caused. And each of these failures has been presided over by the same Tory Executive.

Local Lib Dems have long recognised the incompetence at the heart of this administration. On September 10th 2008, at the meeting of full Council, my Lib Dem colleague from Sedgley ward Cllr Steve Wright asked a formal question about these mass-mailouts to the Leader of the Council. It asked whether “any measures have been put in place to check in advance letters sent in volume to members of the public and employees of Bury MBC.” The response from the Leader of the Council said as follows: “I have asked that for any future letters dealing with sensitive or contentious matters they be raised at the appropriate level… to include where necessary the Executive Member.”

It couldn’t be much clearer than that. So one of three things has happened. Either this letter to 4,000 of our staff telling them they’d been dismissed was judged not sensitive or contentious, and was sent out with no Executive authority. Or it was judged sensitive and contentious yet wasn’t raised to the Executive Member, specifically breaching the public guarantee given in September. Or it was judged sensitive and contentious, and the Executive Member saw it and approved it.

Whichever of these three things happened, there has been a grave error somewhere along the line, which makes the Council look inept and casts serious doubt on the ability of the Executive to control the output of their Departments. A letter of this importance should be seen by the Executive member, who must make sure it is absolutely watertight, and then approve it to be sent out. And where there are failings in this process, the Executive must take the blame.

We have entrusted the Conservative Executive to run our town. They are failing, and it is out job in opposition to hold them to account. The Liberal Democrats have been plugging away at this process since the start because it has been disgracefully handled. This latest casual letter-writing mistake is a symptom of the malaise at the heart of the Tories. They aren’t taking their responsibilities seriously enough, they are making too many mistakes, and they have now broken a public guarantee about mass mailouts.

If we as members have had our faith in them shaken, and if the staff of the Council have been reduced to such low morale, things have reached a very low point. If even public promises on the truthfulness of the letters we receive from the Council are now being so readily broken, we have gone even lower. The Executive need to buck up, and it will be very interesting to see if the Leader of the Council hears the growing calls for him to consider his position.

Rick

I have been contacted by a man who has missed out on a job after his CRB clearance arrived back with uncorroborated and false allegations of misconduct. I won’t go into the circumstances, to protect his identity, but the facts speak for themselves regardless.

He applied for a job working in proximity to young people, but certainly not in a position of authority, and certainly not alone with them. He had to undergo a CRB check, and although I am not convinced of the merits of this safeguard in the first place, what happened next is a shocking indictment of the process itself.

Despite never having a criminal record, his CRB check made reference to complaints made against him, to the police, by a neighbour with whom he’d been involved in a dispute. These claims were entirely unsubstantiated, uncorroborated, and untrue. But they were made and recorded, and despite them never going anywhere near a court of law, were disclosed to the CRB when a check was made. They were reported to the man and his prospective employer when the disclosure was returned, and he wasn’t given the job.

It happened to a man I don’t know. But it could have happened to me or to you, and we should all be worried about that.

That this is allowed to happen in a country supposedly governed by fair laws is a disgrace. That a person can be labelled a criminal despite never having been convicted of a crime, and on the unsubstantiated claims of one other person alone, is a disgrace. That an official government agency that is used to verify the character of millions of people applying for millions of jobs can make reference to unreliable information is a disgrace when that information can stop people from living their lives, and for no good reason.

I have seen some of the correspondence between this man, the police, his MP and the CRB. He has now received assurances that the allegations have been investigated, found to be false, and will be removed from the CRB disclosure. But the fact that he had to undertake such efforts to clear his name cannot be right. That the CRB process allows for unproven allegations, hearsay and rumour to be reported if the police have it on file and consider it relevant is just plain wrong. How can we have faith in a system that allows for this type of evidence to make its way into a CRB disclosure if it never goes near a courtroom or a jury?

And it doesn’t end there. Although only the enhanced CRB disclosures can contain this “relevant and proportionate information held by the local police forces,” this hearsay which is probably the worst type of evidence to find its way into disclosures, even the basic disclosures can include police cautions, reprimands and warnings. None of these three punishments are meted out outside of a police station, and as anyone with any connection to the criminal justice system will admit, the recipients often don’t fully know what they’re agreeing to when they agree to be cautioned or reprimanded or  warned. The harsh reality is that they’re agreeing to have that caution or reprimand or warning reported on a CRB form even years later. I don’t think that’s necessarily fair.

I appreciate the need to safeguard vulnerable people. It is vital that children, vulnerable adults and the elderly are protected from people who might do them harm. But the system needs improving when it starts affecting people who have never done anything wrong in their lives, when their reputations are sullied by unproven allegations. The CRB process is inherently flawed, and will remain so as long as the disclosure continues to allow for this type of information to be revealed. It is extremely hard to challenge, impossible to remove without substantial efforts on behalf of the accused, and does only damage to a system in which we need to have the highest amount of faith.

Rick 

In the whirlwind of last night’s Council Executive meeting, one item really did stand out (although not enough to keep the Conservatives in the room longer than 16 minutes…). There was a report from AGMA (The Association of Greater Manchester Authorities) which revealed that over £18m of public money had been spent on the failed bid to impose congestion charging in Manchester.

Divided equally between the ten districts, this is £1.8m for Bury, which is more or less equal to the entire amount due to be invested in priority services next year. And every penny of it was wasted developing plans which were always unpopular and rightly rejected. It’s a disgrace.

Government continue to refuse to prioritise public transport funding, and are content to see millions of pounds wasted “bidding” for money that should already be our’s. That £18m could have been spent so much more wisely, on better local services or lower local taxes. Or both. Fair enough, some of the work done might be useful in planning for future transport improvements, but a substantial proportion of the money was wasted exploring a scheme which was fundamentally flawed.

The Liberal Democrats in Bury recognised the massive problems with an unfair scheme like this from the start. £18m later and the government still didn’t see the problems until a massive majority of people in every single district in Greater Manchester voted against the proposals. We should demand our money back from government, as well as repeating our calls for the public transport investment the area needs.

Rick

Last night was one of the regular meetings of the Council’s Executive Committee, where Council policy is formerly adopted by the calamitous Conservatives who are running Bury Council. Labour and the Liberal Democrats have been given one representative each on the committee, in an observing capacity and with no voting rights.

This is probably the most important gathering of all the many Council meetings that take place. We debate things at full Council, ideas are scrutinised by Overview and Scrutiny Commissions, but it’s not until the Executive that decisions are made.

And yet these meetings have a nasty habit of being over and done with before you’ve had the chance to ponder what cock-ups the Executive have presided over this week. On the night of the Champions League final, the meeting was finished in half an hour. I thought at the time that this was because the Executive thought that watching the football was more important than running the Council. I may have even hinted as much on here. I apologise for that now, because last night that theory was blown out of the water when the meeting of the Executive finished in just SIXTEEN minutes, and the only game on the box was a cup replay at Southend.

The Executive thought it appropriate to rattle though 12-item agenda at a pace of 75 seconds per item. And this was despite the Lib Dem group leader asking a question on most of the items. The agenda included the Council’s three year financial plan (which involves nearly half a billion pounds of public expenditure), changes to planning guidance for new homes, and grants to voluntary organisations. So, if you volunteer, or want to buy a house, or pay Council Tax in Bury, there was something on that agenda to retain your interest. Sadly, the people charged with running the Council had better things to do than publicly debate the issues, because they ran through them all in a quarter of an hour.

I appreciate conciseness as much as the next person. And I’ve spent many evenings in long meetings that should be shorter. But I don’t think it’s right that the Executive is as brief as it is. Such brevity shows that decisions are made in advance, that the opinions of the observer members are not being fully taken into account, and that the supposedly open and democratic process of decision making is being subverted by behind-closed-doors shenanigans.

The Executive is a public meeting, and the public should have the opportunity to hear more from the Executive about some of the decisions they’re taking. There should be proper discussion, real debate and a full consideration of alternative views, and this should take place in public. At the moment, deciding our future in fifteen minutes just isn’t right.

Rick

Last night was the first Prestwich Local Area Partnership (LAP) meeting of 2009. I normally give the meetings a plug on here before they happen, so apologies if you were waiting for that. You’ve now missed the meeting… Still, lots of people managed to find their way there despite my tardiness in publicising it, which is a testament to the British public’s undentable spirit. And possibly the fact that nobody reads this blog normally.

In the past the LAP meetings have had an unfortunate tendency to come towards the bottom of the excitement scale, somewhere between watching a stranger lying in a coma and staring for hours at a featureless wall. They’re useful, but the useful stuff is often buried in a typhoon of other stuff.

Last night’s was a bit different though, as we finally cracked down on people using their ten minute allocated presentation time to deliver a forty-five minute oration on a subject only slightly less tedious than counting grains of salt in an egg-timer. So last night we got all of the important information with none of the unnecessary boredom, which was great. And, since it took place in a primary school hall and we were all seated on tiny chairs designed for four year olds, our precariousness in regard to falling off them in front of everyone kept the adrenaline flowing anyway.

We heard from the Children’s Centre managers telling the crowd (of which there were many – it was great to see several dozen member of the public there) about the enhanced services on offer in Prestwich now. There are two Children’s Centres now, including one in the ward at Butterstile School, which was the venue for the meeting last night. Before it began I took a tour of the new facilities with my colleague Cllr Donal O’Hanlon, and I have to say that it looks magnificent. Play space, training rooms, therapeutic facilities and social space for youngsters and their families, and a great addition to the ward.

We also heard some disappointing news about the Prestwich regeneration plans. Whilst response to the consultation was significant (over 450 responses) and positive (over 70% in favour generally), there will be a delay of a couple of months now before the strategy can be formally adopted. This is because Tesco have raised some formal objections and, whilst we’re confident that we will be able to proceed, we need to make absolutely sure that everything is watertight. The strategy doesn’t give Tesco what they want, which is a mammoth store fronting onto the main road. We like Tesco in Prestwich, but the general view is that it’s quite big enough, and anything bigger might impact on the town centre. Tesco disagree, so we need to find a way out of this and proceed as soon as possible turning Prestwich back into what it needs to be – a thriving urban village making the most of all its strengths. Hopefully it won’t take long.

Also last night there was an update on work on the St Mary’s conservation area, which is roughly the everything between Church Lane and Butterstile Lane, and down from Bury New Road towards Lowther Road. It’s a beautiful bit of town with some fine old buildings and lots of greenery, and the Council is working with the Heritage Society, local people and us to make it easier to protect.

There was also a report from the Police, and the public forum with a range of questions from the floor to all of us. All in all, a fine meeting I thought, and a good display of what Prestwich LAPs should be all about – a good discussion with local people on a range of topics.

I’m just sorry I didn’t tell anyone about it in advance!

Rick

I have some more information regarding the Equal Pay / Job Evaluation dismissal letters which were sent out and then withdrawn. The facts on this issue have always been a bit murky and complicated, and they get no clearer as time goes on.

Apparently the Council were informed by solicitors acting for Unison, on Christmas Eve, that there hadn’t been the required consultation on the dismissal element of the JE process. Bury Council then responded (also on Christmas Eve) to the solicitors that there had been lots of consultation on JE. They were met with a response saying that the solicitors’ offices had closed for Christmas and wouldn’t re-open until 5th January.

Letters of dismissal were sent out on 3rd January to 4000 staff. This was to ensure that the statutory 12 weeks notice period would be met, giving staff the necessary time to be dismissed and then re-hired on new terms by 31st March.

Unfortunately, when Unison’s solicitors re-opened on the 5th January and responded to Bury MBC’s communication of December 24th, it became clear that Bury MBC were wrong to think that the consultation they had undertaken was adequate. It wasn’t. Apparently all consultation prior to the Executive’s decision on 3rd December couldn’t be counted, and new consultation should’ve taken place on the dismissal element of the process.

Since this consultation hadn’t taken place, the dismissal letters that had been sent out were withdrawn. It was discovered that this needed to happen on Tuesday 6th, and the letters of withdrawal were sent out to arrive over the weekend. Staff should’ve got them by now, and this has been backed-up by a new Team Talk newsletter.

The Council and the Unions are meeting today and during the coming week to try to get a solution to this.

But it begs a couple of new questions, as well as not answering some of the old ones.

I am still not sure how an organisation as large and important as Bury MBC managed to get itself into a situation where it sent out letters to 4,000 people without making ABSOLUTELY sure that it was within its rights to do so. The Council is led by an Executive of Conservative Councillors, one member of which is responsible for HR and is backed up by a team of HR professionals and lawyers. Why did the Executive Member act the way he did when this was clearly wrong? If Unison’s solicitors picked up the flaw in consultation, why did the Council miss it?

I’ll admit that they weren’t helped by the Unions in this regard, Why did the solicitor’s used by Unison write to the Council about something this important on Christmas Eve, and then close for a week and a half? It wasn’t helpful to the process and gave nobody at the Council the chance to check the legalities before proceeding to meet a deadline both sides were aware of.

There is also some doubt in my mind over the delay in rescinding the letters, and the manner in which this information was communicated. It became clear on 6th January that the letters were wrong. Why did it take four of five more days to get rescinding letters out? It takes a day to write a letter and get it checked, and another day to post it out first class. What was the reason for a delay of double this length of time? What was the Executive Member doing that was more important than letting his staff know about their futures?

What are we going to do about the staff who, in the time between receiving the letters and having them withdrawn, actually formally accepted their new terms and conditions? I have no idea and I don’t know who does.

And of course, amongst all this messing about the twelve week notice period has now been missed.

Or has it?

I ask that question because, whilst it is a legal requirement that sufficient notice is given to people being dismissed, 12 weeks is the absolute maximum that needs to be given. The minimum period of notice accrues at one week per year served up to a maximum of twelve weeks. So anyone who has got 12 years or more continuous local government service gets 12 weeks notice. Someone with 6 years gets 6 weeks, etc, or the notice period in their contract. At the Resource and Performance Scrutiny Commission in December, where the Executive’s decision to proceed with the JE scheme was approved in a 5-4 split vote, one of the major factors swaying people to vote “yes” was the financial consequence of missing the 12 week deadline. It is now clear that this 12 week deadline didn’t apply to all staff, and yet this was never stated.

I don’t know how many of the 4,000 are entitled to 12 weeks, but I bet it’s not all of them. Admittedly, by the time the consultation is over there might only be 8 weeks left until 31st March, which brings more people into the frame. But Members of the Scrutiny panel should have been given a breakdown of costs relevant to time delayed for consultation, and further consideration of options which might have meant less heartache for staff might have then been considered. What will be the real financial penalties of delaying? Nobody seems to know.

The further we get into this, the more inept the Executive’s handling of it seems to become, and the more I feel that relations between the Tories and the other Councillors/staff of the Council are being further strained.

Rick

There is a cat on my road who, consistently and illegally, comes in through our cat flap, and tries to steal Mac’s food. Mac, you will recall, is the three-legged feline who runs our home.

I know of this renegade cat’s existence only because he wears a bell round his neck, and can thus be heard every time he leaps into the house. Unfortunately, he’s quicker than I am and so each time I hear his bell and race into the kitchen to try and catch him in the act, he hears me coming and bolts out the door. All I find is half-eaten food. He’s always one step ahead and I have never seen him in my life.

All of this rambling cat-story serves as a handy allegory to describe the Council’s approach to sending out mass mailings. On no fewer than four occasions in the last year, Bury Council has sent out a letter to lots of people in one go and made a right pig’s ear of it. And, like the cat with the bell, no matter how hard I try to get to the bottom of it, I just can’t. The evidence is there because I get to thear about it, but no matter how hard I look, I just can’t see how it keeps happening.

I wrote on here last week about the Job Evaluation dismissal letters. Thousands of them written and sent out, all of them recalled almost straight away when it turned out there was a flaw with them. Were they checked? Were they given the all clear? How much did it all cost? I still don’t know, and neither does anyone else, because we aren’t being told. The Tories running the Council are keeping it to themselves. If only they’d been so willing to keep the dismissal letters to themselves!

It’s never helpful to have a culture of blame in an organisation. Mistakes can happen, especially in big places like Councils. If this was the first time something like this had happened, I’d be upset, but understanding. But the fact is that it’s the fourth time. Not even the second or third, but the fourth time this year that this has happened.

Not so long ago the Council sent out dozens of letters to people in my ward regarding their gardens and the leases that they occupy them with. The letters succeeded in doing nothing but frightening a lot of people, as it turned out that they were only half right, and full of so many legal holes that I could probably have fit through one of them myself. Again, the letters were withdrawn, but after lots of time, effort and expense. How they got sent out when they were quite so wrong is a mystery.

Earlier in the year, the Council wrote to lots of people on Prestwich about graffiti. The response of a compassionate, caring Council to complaints about graffiti would be to offer support, practical advice and reassurance that everyone is working with residents and against criminals. The response of Bury Council’s Department for Clowning About Writing Ridiculous Letters was to threaten the complainants with legal action unless they themselves got rid of the graffiti. Frail pensioners aren’t expected to scrub off the illegal scribblings of young criminals in North Korea, and yet the Council were happy to let that happen in Bury. And, for a third time, the letters had to be publicly, humiliatingly, withdrawn because, frankly, they were rubbish.

And then of course there was last year, when the Council wrote out to hundreds of people regarding their Council Tax bills, suggesting to single people that Council records indicated multiple occupancy, and frightening many residents into thinking their bills were on the verge of a big increase. And, yet again, in a tracking-back of huge proportions, the letters were withdrawn and re-issued.

Once is bad enough. We are a public service and the public expect us to get things right first time. It’s my money and their’s, and it shouldn’t be wasted getting things wrong. Once is bad enough, but it’s forgivable. Twice is irritating, and I would be asking why lessons hadn’t been learned from the first time. Three times is too many times, and this fourth time is beyond a joke, especially since it affects more people than the others.

What the hell is going on?

There can be little more important than corresponding with the people we serve. It is vital that the Council gets it right. That we seemingly cannot is almost beyond belief. These are high profile, hugely important issues that we manage to screw up time and time and time again. The Tories running the Council need to get a grip. It’s not a fairground sideshow they’re running here, it’s people’s lives.

Getting these things right is simple, surely? If there’s a mail out to be done, check it! Make sure every base is covered factually, legally and morally. And make someone accountable for doing that. Officers should be accountable to the Executive via their line management structures, and the Executive should be accountable overall. If it’s a legal call, make someone from Legal Services accountable to the Executive member. If it’s factual, make it someone from the relevant department responsible to the Executive member. And if it’s a question of policy like whether we should be forcing victims to clean up their own homes after crimes, then it should be the Executive Member making the call. One way or another, it should be someone responsible.

And, unfortunate though it may be, someone has to take the blame when things go wrong. Why have lessons not been learned after the three previous mistakes? Why do we have to apologise to the people we serve yet again? Who has not done their job properly yet again, and what action will be taken to make sure this doesn’t happen a fifth time? The Executive has to carry the can for these repeated screw-ups.

Like the cat in my kitchen and the half-eaten food, it’s clear that something untoward has gone on. The cat gets away with it, but I hope I get to the bottom of what’s going on at the Town Hall so that these things don’t keep happening again. The people of Bury deserve better than the Tories making a mess of things.

Rick

Unfortunately I have no further information from the Council today over the expensive and embarrassing cock-up over dismissal letters recalled earlier this week. The Tories “running” the Council are merrily destroying staff morale, and won’t even do the decent thing and answer the simple questions I posed to them when I found out.

Off the back of the new edition of the “Team Talk” staff newsletter, I asked for clarity over the reason for the consultation, since Team Talk makes it clear that it isn’t about the pay line, points, appeals or the Executive’s decision. also asked about the dealy to the 90 day notice period that this recall will result in, and what financial penalties the Council opens itself up to, given that Scrutiny was told that the consequences of a delay would be dire.

This morning I was told that I’d receive a reply when the Director of HR returns to the office on Tuesday. Luckily I am already scheduled to be at the Town Hall on Tuesday morning when I will be demanding that explanation. But I find it completely unacceptable that my simple questions remain unanswered, and those staff who have contacted me about this are not given answers to their questions, for four more days. The Director of HR has deputies, I presume, and he certainly has a boss who is ultimately responsible for implementing the Executive’s Policy. So what is the reason for this lengthy delay? The Council seem happy for the staff to go through yet another weekend of uncertainty. There seems no urgency to respond to queries, or to make good the damage done by this farce.

If it didn’t make me doubt the capability of the Executive running the Council, I’d laugh at this continually worsening incompetence.

Rick

Amongst the catalogue of disasters presided over by the Conservative Executive struggling to guide Bury Council through its Equal Pay review, today’s news of recalled redundancy letters must rank amongst the worst.

To cut a (very) long and painful story short, the end of the Equal Pay review sees all staff made redundant and then re-hired on different contracts including their new pay. This was supposed to happen this week. Unfortunately, having sent out 4,000 redundancy notices to staff, the Council have now had to rescind and withdraw them, and have agreed to come back to the table and talk to Unions. Whilst I admire their support for the Royal Mail, the Council’s completely unnecessary use of the postal service for these letters makes us all look stupid and incompetent.

I don’t know why this has happened, but I do know that it represents yet another huge indictment of a Tory Executive clearly incapable of managing this process in a way which doesn’t simultaneously destroy staff morale and make the Council look like a laughing stock. When they come to write the book on how to implement Equal Pay like an idiot, they should ask our Council Leader Bob Bibby to write the sleeve notes.

The Council have sent out a note to staff explaining why the letters have been recalled. I don’t really understand it and I suspect that many staff won’t either. It says the delay isn’t about the pay line, the points accrued during the evaluation, appeals or personal circumstances, or the Executive’s decision to implement the scheme. What’s left then? I really don’t know. All that’s clear is that the Council’s unique way of saying “happy new year” to its staff by telling them they’re all sacked is actually even worse than that because then they turn round and say “er… not really, but you will be next week, just hang on.”

God knows how much this latest debacle has cost. In financial terms, thousands. In terms of staff morale and their faith in the process, even more. The Conservatives running the Council have known for months, months, that these letters had to go out, and yet within hours of sending them they are withdrawn after Trades Unions contacted their lawyers. This begs so many questions: Why were the letters sent out without checks to make sure they were legally sound? Why are the Council willing to enter into talks with Unions now, when they weren’t before? And perhaps most importantly, what will the impact be on the staff whose futures are once again thrown into doubt? They must think we’re all complete clowns.

The letters were the final execution of a plan put forward by the Executive to implement a pay review which has seen thousands of staff lost part of their salaries, some over 25% of their pay. Whilst the review itself was a legal requirement, its implementation has lurched from one disaster to another, and from one kick in the teeth for staff to another. The Liberal Democrats (and, to be fair, Labour) in Bury have criticised the Tories for their intransigence and callousness in the face of staff suffering for a long time. And now when it comes down to it, the Tories can’t even get redundancy letters right without having to back-track. And to make it worse, the back-tracking has been done through the media in a mess of confusion. I read about it on Ceefax, and it appeared on the news long before staff got anything official in an email from the Council. It’s disgraceful. Staff who serve our communities shouldn’t hear about the future of their jobs when they turn on Key 103.

The Council’s Resource and Performance Scrutiny commission looked at the whole process last month. It approved the Executive’s decision without comment (in a split vote 5-4 - I voted against),  but a large reason for the 5 “yes” votes was, I suspect, the dire warnings of financial penalties for the Council were redundancy notices not sent out within 90 days of March 31st. Running into the next financial year would be awful, we were told. Well, it’s less than 90 days now after the withdrawal of these letters. I have contacted the Leader of the Council, the Executive Member for HR, the Chief Executive and the Director of HR asking what the hell’s gone on here and how it affects both the financial situation and the staff. I expect to hear back from them in the morning.

At Scrutiny on Tuesday night, the Executive Member for Resources smiled and sneered as he it was drawn to his attention that increased Council performance was in a large part down to staff losing out in equal pay. This attitude is, sadly, typical of an Executive that has never understood the hardship it is placing staff in. This latest sorry mistake is yet another nail in the coffin of employee relations in Bury. The Executive should be ashamed of themselves.

Rick   

Dates have now been confirmed for the Prestwich Local Area Partnership (LAP) meetings for the rest of this municipal year. So run straight to the nearest diary and write them in in permanent marker pen immediately.

The LAP meetings are a great way to find out about what’s going on in the local area. Representatives of all the public services are there. So if you like looking at firemen or, heaven help you, local Councillors, then this is your ideal port of call. Any issues to do with local health services, schools, roads, crime or anything else to do with public services can be discussed here, and you get the chance to ask questions and hear the latest news.

Also, if your boiler’s on the blink then the meetings normally take place in warm conditions so are an ideal escape from the chill.

There are six meetings per year, with the aim of getting everyone together to improve Prestwich and get people involved in the local community. And there are two left this municipal year (the municipal year ends in May). There’s always time given over to public question time, so you can put your view across to us. Just come along and show up at the meetings, which are open to all.

If you’ve got a cracked pavement outside your house that is burning a hole of frustration deep in the core of your soul, or if the constant trials involved in driving through Prestwich Village at busy times make you come dangerously close to exiting your vehicle and strangling an innocent passer-by, don’t let the madness overwhelm you. Come to the LAP instead. We’ll always listen and try to put things right.

The meetings take place at various venues across the ward, so there’ll probably be at least one right on your doorstep before too long. Especially if you live in one of our local schools…

The next meeting is next week, January 13th, at Butterstile School. And the March meeting is on 26th March at Sedgley Park School. Come on down, it’d be great to see you there.

Rick

Last night was the first meeting of the Resource and Performance Scrutiny commission last night. It wasn’t a hugely dramatic meeting in comparison to the last one, where we discussed Equal Pay. However, the appearance of the Executive Member for Resources did rile me slightly as he once again refused to acknowledged the hard work of staff in maintaining and improving council performance.

The main agenda item was the best value review of homelessness services. The report presented a mixed picture to be honest, but there is some good work being done on prevention of homelessness. The Council is still using B&B and hostels more than we’d like to to house people struggling to get into permanent accommodation. The problems are likely to get worse in the recession, and this is a crucial area of service for the Council, which is obviously related to another pet subject of mine - the quality of Council housing. In my view it’s little use putting families into Six Town Housing flats and houses if the services they receive thereafter are as poor as they often are. 

The meeting continued with a a report on equalities and diversity, with a lot of statistics on employee numbers for reasons beyond my understanding. The Council has achieved a great deal in terms of improving its provision for staff from all parts of the community - there’s a multi-faith prayer room, for instance, and young people have benefitted from more apprenticeships whilst older people benefit from Age of Opportunities initiatives. However, the industry of producing statistics on every facet of diversity does strike me as a bit off. The public of Bury will not be rejoicing in the streets at the slight increase in gender equality ear on year whilst services continue to be cut.

Some good news towards the end of the meeting. The Council got a score of “3″ out of 4 for its Use of Resources after an inspection by the Audit Commission, which is good. This despite another challenging budget ahead. Our budget position is OK, but the major area of concern is adult services, with a £2m overspend. There is a £4m budget gap overall which will need to be plugged somehow in the new financial year. This doesn’t include the adult services £2m so the overall position could get worse. Put simply, the money the council gets in through Council Tax and government grant isn’t quite enough to pay for the services we provide, so we’ll have to either make efficiencies (i.e. cuts) or charge more in taxes and fees. The budget is being written over the next couple of months, and we’ll see how Labour’s lack of funding from government affects the Council’s budget. The Tories running the Council will have some tough cuts to make.

Rick

Rick

This morning, the temperature indicator installed on my car for no apparent reason informed me that it was six degrees below zero. This is a new record which delighted my geeky and statistics-loving brain. Unfortunately the statistic didn’t delight my frozen fingers as they tried to unlock a stuck door, or my cold hands and feet as they tried to control my Peugeot as it slithered across the frozen wasteland that my street had turned into.

However (Look out ahead!! Awful pun alert!), the weather has been much sunnier for the residents of Sunny Drive in the ward, who will be the beneficiaries of some new pavement later on in the week, when their road gets refurbished courtesy of the good people at Bury Council’s Highways Department.

The budget for road and pavement refurbishment in Prestwich is woefully tiny. Regular readers may recall my annoyance when, at the time it was set, the entire budget for roads was less than the amount needed to re-do the single worst road in town, let alone the dozen others in dire need of repair, and the many others with potholes and cracked pavings.

But we have managed to eke out a few quid from the Council here and there to fill in the most gaping holes and repair those roads most resembling the Moonscape.

One such road is Sunny Drive, the cracks in which are so deep that passers-by have reported magma seeping up through the surface. They needn’t fret further though, as the pavement is now being repaired, and the chances of falling towards the centre of the Earth will be greatly reduced.

That still leaves us to ponder what to do with the rest of the crumbling roads infrastructure in Prestwich. Anyone driving down Warwick Street would be forgiven for thinking that they were undertaking a strenuous vibration test in the place where shock absorbers go to die. And people with the misfortune to have to venture down Clifton Road to the tip experience something out of Alton Towers as their vehicles sway violently whilst dodging the craters. It’s not good enough and the Council need to prioritise Prestwich’s roads in the next budget.

Rick

Well, it seems that the exciting “black” look for the site has been about as successful as New Coke. It doesn’t work on lots of people’s machines, including mine at work, and so I will revert back to how it was before. There’s a lot to be said for tradition, after all. Like when I was younger and did funny things with my hair to impress girls, I can fiddle about with the way things look all I like, but the chances are it’ll still end up a mess.

So I am now back in work and the Council has resumed its business after the Christmas hiatus. This week there are a few meetings to draw me out of the house and away from the dozens of mince pies and boxes of Maltesers that still litter the place. Tonight I am meeting with Cllrs O’Hanlon and D’Albert to talk about ward priorities for the year. I always feel slightly inferior in their company as the only one without an apostrophe in my name, but I don’t think “chaning my name by deed pole to B’Aum” will make it onto the priorities list.

Tomorrow it’s Scrutiny too, and a welcome return to the business of making sure the Conservative Executive don’t screw things up too badly for the people of Bury. Their handling of job evaluation and Radcliffe Riverside school in 2008 means that we may have our work cut out in 2009. And of course you can find out everything that goes on at that meeting here on Wednesday.

And if that’s not reason enough to have you scuttling back here like a bloodhound running to an abattoir, I don’t know what is.

Obviously today is one of the grimmest days of the year, with many of us coming back to work after the Christmas break. I hope that you are all bearing up.

Rick

The sharp-eyed amongst you will have noticed a subtle shift in the look of the site. Gone is the overwhelming orange, and in its place is the sort of blackness which mirrors my mood so close to the end of a two week holiday.

I thought I might refresh the site for the new year, in the almost certainly mistaken belief that it might make more people read what I write. So the blog moves generally leftwards (in relation to the rest of the page, not ncessarily in terms of political comment…), whilst the contents bit moves to the right.

I have no idea how to work websites, so I have to rely on people who paid attention during the late 1990’s and learned how to do them. They have provided a few templates for me to choose from, and I have gone for this black one.

Comments welcome. I may even be bullied into changing it back!

Rick

I enjoy writing my blog, and would probably carry on writing it even if the internet broke and there was no chance that anyone could read it even if they chose to try. Tapping away and spewing forth my numerous frustrations is extremely therapeutic, and will probably delay my inevitable nervous breakdown by at least a few years. I remain supremely confident that one day I’ll be found wearing a loincloth at the top of a hill shrieking at the moon, but it’s probably going to happen later than it would if I had no outlet like this. And of course, it’s a great way to publicise some of the issues in the ward and in Bury which could benefit from a public airing.

It’s gratifying to know that there are people who actually read what I write, day after day, and that at least a few of them are members of neither the Bury Labour Party or my own immediate family. I checked the hit counter on the site this morning, to mark the passing of another year, to discover that this site was visited over 235,000 times in 2008. Nearly a quarter of a million hits, which I think puts pay to the idea that people don’t care about local issues, and is a brilliant sign that people are interested in what goes on in Bury and with the local Lib Dems.

Of course, lots of these hits are from the same people, and probably most of them are actually from me. But the good folk who host the site for me have a special tool which lets me know about unique visitors, and there are on average over 4,000 of these every month. Which, again, is absolutely brilliant. 4,000 people care enough about St Mary’s ward and the Bury Lib Dems to spend a few seconds visiting this site, which is just great.

Thanks to everyone who visited the site in 2008, especially those who left comments or sent messages. I do publish every genuine comment, regardless of whether it’s supportive or not, and I answer them where I can. So if you want to get involved in 2009 then please feel free.

Rick