Just What Will It Take?

Moron's new scheme to fast-track 200 high-flying graduates into social work to tackle a severe shortage of social workers has been dismissed as “tinkering” by senior professionals. They say the plan which is supposed to protect vulnerable children such as Baby P is an inadequate response to the child protection crisis.

The scheme, along with a recruitment drive to lure back thousands of experienced social workers who have left the profession, will be introduced without any move to increase pay. Social workers’ salaries lag behind other professions such as nursing. Ministers also made clear there was no more money for child protection services, although £58 million was being spent on the recruitment drive.

One in seven social work posts is vacant in England, a 30 per cent rise since 2005, with local authorities saying the Baby P tragedy had made the situation even worse. The plan is part of the government’s response to Lord Laming’s report into child protection after the death of Baby P.

The 17-month-old toddler was seen on 60 separate occasions by social workers and other professionals before he died of his injuries in August 2007. His mother, her boyfriend and a lodger will be sentenced for causing or allowing his death later this month. Last week the boyfriend was convicted of raping a two-year-old girl.

Lord Laming said too many social workers were ill equipped for the challenges of frontline child protection work and those most senior and experienced are removed from the field by progression into management. Although entry-level salaries for social workers are similar to those of nurses and teachers, they have to become managers if they want to earn more than £29,000. Yet a teacher can still be in the classroom and earn as much as £55,000, while a nurse can earn up to £40,000 and still care for patients.

Ed Balls-up, the Children’s Secretary, said that he would not "meddle with social workers’ salaries". Staff have just been offered a 0.4 per cent increase for next year. Any extra money for child protection services would be a matter for the next spending round in 2011, he added. Lord Laming’s recommendation that budgets for child protection should be ring-fenced, like those for schools, has thus far been ignored.

Camila Batmanghelidjh, the founder of the children’s charity Kids Company, said that the reforms did not address the real problem, that social work was often a dangerous job and caseloads were too high. “The fact is that social workers cannot cope with the sheer workload of the children and the complex cases that are emerging. Social workers are walking into estates having to negotiate aggressive dogs, weapons and very, very difficult working circumstances,” she said. “It just feels like the Government has no understanding.” Kim Bromley-Derry, president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, said “It is disappointing that Lord Laming’s recommendation that government provides sufficient funding for child protection in frontline agencies has not resulted in an increase in the basic funding of such services.”

Frontline social workers were also disappointed that their key request that a limit be applied to the number of caseloads they should be given has been ignored. Let's not lose sight of the fact that an infant was tortured to death, and there are many more suffering. I'm afraid the government has once again engaged itself in gesture politics that lack substance, thought and vision. Nobody believes this plan will solve anything at all, I don't even think the government believe it will. They are introducing yet more targets and all agree that, too often, government targets increase red tape and divert resources from the front line. These reforms are surely back to front. How can ministers hope to entice more social workers back into the profession unless they fix the problems that originally drove them out?

Bastards ... slimy bastards all over the world!

Gordon is ...

This is not my story, in fact it is not a story, but it's and amusing item unearthed by one of my readers ... kudos Bipher!

Google recently introduced “predictive search” based upon that which most other people have previously searched. These days, when you start entering search terms in to Google, a few suggestions pop up as you type. Typing "gordon brown is a" generates the following auto-completion options ... try it for yourself. No more need be said.

Financial Prostitution

Links between the Government and the banking sector have been condemned in a new report that has uncovered the extent of the old boys network at the top of British public life.

According to the study, which identified key individuals who have moved jobs between politics, financial institutions and the bodies charged with regulating the banking industry, Britain has a greater culture of cronyism than anywhere in Europe or even the USA. The report is to be presented to the Global Forum on Public Governance in Paris this week and warns that the close relations between business and politics "lead to a conflict of interest at best and a suspension of critical faculties at worst".

The research looked at revolving door connections, where a company employs former or current politicians, civil servants or members of regulatory bodies, or where individuals move from the financial sector into politics, Government or regulatory bodies. Bastardlays was the most connected British-based company with 14 revolving door connections. Two examples from the dictator-supporting tax-dodgers are Mark Clarke and Sarah Cox. Clarke is director general of finance at the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, but worked at Barclays from 2000 to 2003. Cox was an international consultant at Barclays from 2001 to 2004 and has since joined the UK Cabinet Office.

"The Government and the political classes have very close links to the banking industry" said the report's author David Miller, a Professor of Sociology at Strathclyde University, who specialises in lobbying research. "I believe this could be one of the factors behind the disaster that has befallen the financial markets. There has not been any regulation of these connections."

The organisations with more than five revolving door connections are Royal Bank of Scotland, HBOS / Lloyds Group, Barclays, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Dexia Group, HSBC Holdings, JP Morgan Chase, Standard Chartered Bank and UBS. Of six individuals with RBS connections, one is Quentin Davies, a Labour MP and minister at the Ministry of Defence, who was an RBS adviser until 2003. Another is Sir Philip Hampton, RBS's chairman and former chief executive of the Government-owned UK Financial Investments (UKFI).

Perhaps the best known person with HBOS connections named in the report is Sir James Crosby, who was chief executive of the bank from 2001 to 2006 before leaving to become deputy chairman of the Financial Services Authority (FSA), the body supposedly regulating the financial sector.

Bastards ... slimy bastards all over the world!

Lies, Damn Lies And The Labour Party

Let's rack up just some of the lies that the Labour Party have spouted in the last couple of weeks:

Income Tax. This government made an election manifesto pledge that they would not raise income tax. Well, we know that Moron's government have broken that promise for top earners but it's less publicised that they have also raised the bottom rate of income tax.

Big Sister. Earlier this week, the home secretary Jacqui Porn Queen Smith announced that she was ditching controversial plans for a single “big brother” database to centrally store all communications data in Britain. This was a plan to monitor all internet use and telephone calls across the country but Porn Queen announced “the government recognised the privacy implications of the move [and] therefore does not propose to pursue this.” In a move designed simply to grab favourable headlines, she added that £2 billion of public money would instead be spent helping private internet and telephone companies to retain information for up to 12 months in separate databases. However, she was, of course, lying through her teeth. GCHQ is pursuing its MTI (Mastering The Internet) programme, developing classified technology to intercept and monitor all e-mails, website visits and social networking sessions in Britain. The agency will also be able to track telephone calls made over the internet, as well as all phone calls to landlines and mobiles. The snooping project will rely on thousands of 'black box' probes being covertly inserted across online infrastructure and is costing more than £1 billion.

Public accountability. As if the ignominy of be ripped off by the trough-swilling Westminster gluttons wasn't bad enough, having been promised full disclosure by Moron, we now learn that the House of Commons fees office is censoring some of the most important details of MP's expenses prior to publication this summer. Among the information being blanked out are the names of hotels on trips, the destinations of taxis, names of shops and any correspondence with parliamentary officials. The extent of the cuts has surprised some MPs who favour greater disclosure. Ben Wallace, the Conservative backbencher who was the first MP to publish full details of his claims, said: “It’s just ridiculous. They sent me details of a taxi journey I had made from Euston station to parliament and they had redacted the details of the journey. They have also removed the names of some suppliers I have bought goods from. I have written to them saying there is no reason the public cannot be given this information.” I guess we should be grateful that at least there is some integrity floating around Westminster.

MP's expenses. Where to start with this topic? How about Moron's bizarre appearance on YouTube, during which he blatantly lied through his forced, fake and spine-shuddering 'smile'. He claimed that he was introducing a plan that would reduce the total exposure to the tax-payer. However, his daily rate plan would have cost us all more than the incredulous £93 million that we forked out last year. Thankfully, his back-benchers realised that their jobs were at stake and blocked the proposal. How about Jim Devine, MP for Livingston, who has claimed £17,000 in "car and mileage" costs? It transpires that his office manager was the one driving Devine around his constituency in her own vehicle at her own expense. Presumably he re-paid the £17,000 of our money to her? No, Marion Kinley "received only £60." Then there's Labour peer Baroness Uddin who named a flat in Maidstone as her main residence and claimed around £100,000 in Parliamentary expenses for it. This is despite the flat being empty and Baroness Uddin living in Wapping, just four miles from the House of Lords. Lest we forget the Labour MP who claimed the cost of building a sauna on his second home allowance, insisting that a skin condition made it necessary for him to have regular sessions at his home. Now we learn that David Miliband is renting a private jet. Ministerial code states that scheduled flights should be used wherever possible so why does he need a private jet permanently on standby. The tender states "must provide a first class service and be able to provide an aircraft sometimes within a few hours' notice" to destination such as "Europe, Sri Lanka and the USA". I guess you can't get scheduled flights to these destinations then.

Bastards ... slimy bastards all over the world!