By John Sullivan,
I am responding to a letter from Cllr Cornelius in the local
press that also carries his photograph in the letters page which makes his
letter harder to miss than yours or mine, it seems strange that CADDSS (
Campaign Against Destruction of Disability Support Services ) was conceived in
the letters to the editor column at The Press by two strangers that have since
become friends and allies, and yet still Cllr Cornelius gets the headline and
others get the bi-Line , once again the Cornelius definition of truth gets
centre stage whilst the whole truth gets the bi-line. He knows full well that his one liners cannot be
answered with a simple one liner, which undermines the ability of the
challenger to get across his or her viewpoint, thereby denying the right of the
whole truth to be heard because the journalists have to cut your letters up to
fit the page rather than send the whole message, hence the need to request a
guest blog on Barnet Eye so I can have my say within reason.
Cornelius claims
(June 13th Edition) " no relentless
drive to outsourcing " whilst going on to refer to fully retaining just one
service namely recycling which he now realises is a profit making enterprise,
and was recently rescued from its planned outsourcing, whilst knowing full well 90% of all other public services are
to be outsourced that he misleadingly refers to as " some back office
functions". He claims " no
race to the bottom at Your Choice " whilst driving out or demoting skilled
staff, cutting support staff numbers,
replacing skilled staff with unskilled staff a potential for our very own Barnet
version of Winterbourne View , making up to 30% cuts in already low paid staff
wages , and changing staff terms and conditions in many other detrimental ways
to numerous to mention, all of which will have a detrimental effect on staff
morale and therefore quality of services. So how can this be anything other
than a race to the bottom in service and staff quality, he claims he is
avoiding savage cuts to services, well how
more savage could the cuts be than this .
He implies that forming the LATC that Your Choice is a subsidiary
company of was inevitable due to the direct payments legislation which is such
a red herring, if this were completely true then why has every borough across the
country not formed an arms length LATC to comply with the legislation
He claims " your choice is designed to create a service
people can and will choose balancing quality & cost ". Designed by
whom ?, not by parents or family carers or service users who were banned from
any meaningful consultation, on the proposed changes mentioned above. The fact
a potential legal challenge is pending on this very issue, qualifies just how
deaf dumb and blind Cornelius is to the opinions of anyone other than his very
expensive consultants that Barnet tax payers have given approximately 6 million pounds to date, who have only one
vested interest and that is to line their pockets.
In this race to the bottom in services and staff quality, because
the quality of the service is only as good as the quality of the staff. Who
would choose a service full with low paid unskilled demoralised workers with no
vocation for the job simply the need of employment, or perhaps forced to take the
job or have their benefits stopped. More importantly where is the "Choice
" he speaks of where are the alternative facilities, for many service
users there is " No Choice "
never mind " Your Choice ", so where does the ability to "CHOOSE
" enter the debate.
He then chooses to attempt to publicly smear the name of
Tirza Waisel and all members of Baps & CADDSS, branding us a hard left
pressure group that should be scrutinised when nothing could be further from
the truth. This is the man that denied Barnet residents the right of scrutiny
and consultation on the Massive One Barnet Outsourcing Programme, he
misleadingly attempts to palm off as a small outsourcing programme of "
some back office services ". This is the man that has denied parents , family carers and services
users of all elements of YCB services, family members with collectively
hundreds of years of front line experience across the board, the right to scrutinise
the March 1st document that the above proposals are a part of, along with the
right to consult on their future well being or the future well being of disabled family members
, in fact they refused to provide us with a copy of the document that outlines
the race to the bottom in service and staff quality at Your Choice Barnet.
As a member of both Baps ( Barnet Alliance for Public
Services ) and CADDSS, I am sure all members of both groups would be happy to
be scrutinised as suggested by Cornelius, first and foremost unlike Cornelius
we have nothing to hide we are an open book. We have no need to tread the
slippery slope the finite line between truth and untruth that Cornelius appears
to have chosen. Scrutiny of Baps & Caddss will expose the complete untruth
of the Cornelius claim we are hard left activists, it will prove we are very
concerned parents, family carers, service users and residents of all political
persuasions and none, that are deeply concerned with the race to the bottom in
all public services in Barnet particularly in my case YCB services, demanded
by the craving to outsource at any price by Cornelius and co. Based unbelievably
on a contract that Cornelius admits he has never even read, can you believe
that statement from Cornelius, he bangs on about how wonderful everything will
be with the One Barnet programme yet he has never even read the contract, you
could not make it up.
Baps & Caddss stand for democracy, the democratic right
to scrutinise . the democratic right to be meaningfully consulted, along with
the truth , the whole truth and nothing but the truth, a
concept that is apparently alien to Councillor Cornelius. Who I repeat
continues in my opinion misleadingly to
refer to the massive One Barnet outsourcing programme of One Billion Pounds in
Barnet public services as " some back office functions ".
SO I SAY BRING ON THE
SCRUTINY.
STOP PRESS -
I have just been advised by Irwin Mitchell, the solicitors I
instructed on behalf of my daughter Susan, that the proposed changes to
services have been put on hold until they consult with, the parents, family
carers and service users they should have lawfully consulted in the first
place. But for this legal action these changes would have been forced through
as was the formation of YCB in the first place, Cornelius leads an undemocratic
council that denies scrutiny and consultation
whilst demanding others be scrutinised, a council more like a Politburo
than a democratically elected council, and he has the nerve to refer to others
as " Reds Under the Bed " or some such nonsense.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Sullivan is a parent carer and regular guest blogger at the Barnet Eye
No comments:
Post a Comment