20,000 Barnet residents urgently needed

I've been writing a blog for nearly four years now about the ineptitude of Barnet Council. I've even produced a film about it, with Film Director Charles Honderick. However I've got it all wrong. You see, The Sunday Times today explained how you get things done. All I need to do is find 20,000 people who think Barnet Council parking polices ARE A COMPLETE RIP OFF. I then get them to each give me a fiver. That makes £100,000. I then ring up the treasurer of the Tory party and say "I've got a hundred grand, can I see the Prime Minister". Then I take Helen Michael, the leader of the Finchley traders along, and as David Cameron seems like a reasonable bloke, the government will pass a law banning councils from business destruction policies aimed at crippling Tory voting small businessmen.

That's how it works, isn't it? Or did I misunderstand something?

Guest Blog - Barnet Council ruin Mill Hill Park Open day by Wayward Tony

By Wayward Tony,

 

Mill Hill Park has open day to celebrate new children’s play area

 

Beautiful Sunny day and event is extremely popular

 

So popular that not enough parking spaces so cars are parked on the grass in front of our houses

 

Barnet council take immediate action to assist and send a parking warden who manages to swell the Council’s coffers by £2,000 (or £4,000 if fines not paid within 14 days!) 

 

Kerrchinnngggggg  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A Tale of Two Barnets - Local screening details

Here are the screening times for the local showings of A Tale of Two Barnets

Tuesday 27th March - 7-9 pm,
St. John's Church, Somerset / Mowbray Roads,
New Barnet,
EN5 1R

Wednesday 28th March 1-2 PM
New Barnet Community Centre,
48/50 Victoria road,
New Barnet, EN4 9PF

Wednesday 28 March - 7 pm
Greek Cypriot Community Centre
2 Britannia Road, North Finchley,
London,
N12 9RU  ‎
Tuesday 3rd April - 7:30 pm
Larches House,
1 Rectory Lane,
Edgware,
Middlesex,
HA8 7LF

Wednesday 18^th April from 7pm
The Wilson Room
The House of Commons
London,
SW1A 2TT

Weds 4th April, 7pm
Cafe Buzz,
High Road,
North Finchley,

Sat 28th April 7pm
The Church of the Sacred Heart and Mary Immaculate,
Mill Hill Broadway
London
NW7

Full details on the film website

http://ataleoftwobarnets.yolasite.com/

Why every Jewish voter in Barnet must vote for Andrew Dismore

The Jewish community in Barnet is sleepwalking towards a disaster. Sadly, it seems to me that through cowardice on the left and misguided loyalty on the right, they are failing the community on a grand scale. What am I talking about? The forthcoming GLA elections. The two credible candidates are Brian Coleman for the Conservative Party and Andrew Dismore for the Labour party. Both of these politicians have a long history of excellent relations with the mainstream Jewish community. In a normal election, party preferences would mean that a Jewish voter would cast their vote purely on the party preference as they would be comfortable that both men would support the community.

This however is not a normal election. It is for the role of GLA rep for Barnet and Camden. Most Barnet voters have no clue of the role of the GLA. It was created to "oversee" the Mayor. This is where the issue becomes relevant to the Jewish community. Who is going to be the next Mayor of London? The vast majority of Jewish people in London hope that it is Boris Johnson. They do not trust Ken Livingstone and many perceive him as anti Israeli and anti semitic. I've spoken privately to many local Jewish Labour activists who are horrified at the way Ken Livingstone has seemingly gone out of his way to insult the community. Sadly, any who have spoken out have been given a ritual stoning by the wider Labour movement. In normal circumstances, this would alienate the community from the whole Labour movement (with ample justification).

The issue is that sometimes, you have to consider the wider picture. The budget has been a disaster for the Tories. George Osborne's attack on pensioners could well be the magic bullet for the Labour party that brings down Boris. The Jewish community has to face up to the very real prospect of a Ken Livingstone mayoralty. This is where the identity of the GLA rep becomes important. If Barnet swings behind Brian Coleman, it will clearly be down to the Jewish community. Coleman is highly disliked and distrusted by virtually everyone else. How will Livingstone react? Lets just be charitable and say that looking after a section of the community which hates his guts will not be top of his agenda. He cant stand Coleman, his Union backers can't stand Coleman and it will give him every reason to stick the boot in where it hurts. The more Coleman will bleat, the more Ken will enjoy it.

But what about if Andrew Dismore is the GLA rep? He will have a slender majority and Livingstone will be obliged to listen to his colleague and not antagonise his supporters. Labour want to win back the marginal seats of Hendon and Finchley. They believe that the Lib Dem vote will collapse at the general election and that they have a fantastic chance. Livingstone is a party man and he have no choice but to give Andrew Dismore every chance of helping this revival. However you look at it, with Livingstone as Mayor, there is no way at all that the Barnet Jewish community will get anything from the London authorities unless Dismore is elected. Livingstone hates free schools and academies. With Coleman as rep, these will be under massive threat. There are huge areas of policy the Mayor controls and an impotent Coleman would just look on, no doubt screaming in high pitched anger, as measure after measure is passed attacking his closest supporters.

So what, I hear you ask, would happen if Boris gets in and Dismore is elected? Well first, Boris is never going to attack the Jewish community. The Tory strategists would put the loss down to Colemans own problems caused by parking. They would say that Colemans anti motorist policies caused his downfall. They would actually take note. This would be good for all small businesses and shop owners in Barnet. Dismore has shown himself to be an effective operator for all sections of the community. Rumour has it that Boris would be none to upset to see the back of Colemans buffoonary and excess. Coleman is a ticking time bomb. A Dismore victory would diffuse it and the reasons would be clear. Boris would be viewed as blameless for Colemans downfall. If Coleman loses and Boris wins, it would clearly be attributable to the parking policies, which Boris has no truck with.

It is high time that the leaders of the community pulled their heads out of the sand. If anyone believes Ken would do anything other than punish Barnet and make Coleman look impotent, they are deluded. Even if you think Boris has it sown up, just remember that Osbornes granny tax has even been denounced by the Tory supporting Daily Mail. Whilst the Jewish community in Barnet is large, in London as a whole it isn't, which is why Ken Livingstone is quite happy to upset it. The only protection will be an Andrew Dismore victory.

If Coleman gets elected alongside Ken Livingstone as mayor, I think it's inevitable that a chill wind will blow through Barnet for the Jewish community. Being a community leader means sometimes telling people things they don't want to hear. It is time for the local community leaders in Barnet to spell out to those they lead, exactly what the likely out comes of this election will bring.

The Friday Joke - 23/3/2012 - Lazy, useless Councillor special

Do we owe these greedy parasites a living? Of course we do !

Back in 2010, the first action of the greedy Tory cabinet members in Barnet, upon getting re-elected was to award themselves a pay rise. We fought back with this campaign. Were our criticisms justified? Do they work as hard as they claimed back then. Here's the evidence

Sachin Rajput is a Conservative Councillor and and a member of the Cabinet which runs the Borough. On the 14th January I copied him into an email with the title

Urgent : Notice to halt sale of Church Farmhouse Museum and surrounding lands pending full legal review

Which I sent to the head of Barnets legal department. Why? Because councillors are meant to oversee the executive and the contents were important. As Barnet has wasted millions on senseless legal cases, I clearly thought they should at least take note of the issue.  Now you may think that a proper, decent councillor would want to know about such things.  Clearly not. Today I received a reply. If it was funny it would be a joke. Needless to say he pockets all the dosh and allowances which are associated with doing the job, even though he clearley can't be bothered to read emails marked urgent. Nice to know he gives a shit.

Your message

  To:      Lustig, Jeff
  Cc:      Rajput, Cllr Sachin Conservative;
  
Subject: Urgent : Notice to halt sale of Church Farmhouse Museum and surrounding lands pending full legal review
  
Sent:    Sat, 14 Jan 2012 09:22:22 -0000

was deleted without being read on Fri, 23 Mar 2012 23:19:44

Dangerous dogs? Nope, stupid owners

The  radio was awash with tales of dangerous dogs, following the case of a crazed pit bull which ran amok and savaged five policemen - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-17486343. The sad truth is that this incident says more about dog owners than dogs. I know a bit about dogs. They are not humans, they are animals. They operate on a simple set of rules. If you set the rules in such a way that they are dangerous, then they will be dangerous. Unless a dog is mentally ill (which can happen), generally it can be trained to behave. Sadly the type of people who own status dogs such as Pitbulls, don't set the dog rules which are compatable with living in a safe society. The answer is simple, as far as I'm concerned. To own a gun or car, you need a license to show that you are responsible. The same rules should apply to dogs. If you don't look after the dog, you lose your license, end of.

 I wouldn't mind paying a few quid a year, so that all of the idiots who don't care for the animals are regulated. I've got a dog, a boxer. She's a lovely animal. I don't want her to be brutalised by another dog, so it would please me if idiots were banned from keeping dogs.

It isn't ever the dog, it is the owner.

A Tale of Two Barnets - Don't forget to watch ITV Tonight program at 7.30pm

Just a quick reminder that footage from A Tale of Two Barnets will appear in the ITV Tonight program at 7.30pm. The title of the program is how much is your council charging you?

I see that the Leader of the Council, Richard Cornelius has told the Barnet Press that "The questions were quite general and had been taken out of context" in an article today.


http://www.edgware-today.co.uk/News.cfm?id=10613&headline=Filmmakers%20clash%20with%20council%20leader

I have discussed this accusation at length with the director of the film, Charles Honderick. Charles is quite affronted that Richard Cornelius could make such a comment, without seeing the film. Richard Cornelius was provided with the questions in advance. He had a press officer to mind him throughout the interview and Charles turned off the camera when he asked him questions which were not on the list. He was interviewed before most of the film was edited and the most interesting and relevant things he said were used. His interview lasted approx 8 minutes and about a minute of his talking was used.

The subjects Charles chose to use were as follows :-

RC talking about the statue La Deliverance at the start of the film.

RC saying Barnet is a green Borough and a pleasant place to live at the start of the film

RC saying that he hopes commuters with big fat pay checks will spend them in the local High Streets in the section on local high streets.

RC saying that the elderly are the top priority of the council in the section on the elderly

RC talking musing on what he does as leader at the end of the film, in the middle of a photo montage section

RC talking about his aspirations at the end of the film.

Of the six clips used, only two are actually interspersed with other people speaking.

Whilst I personally am completely mysified as to why Richard Cornelius is so upset, after a lengthy discussion with Charles, we decided that the only way to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to see the exact context of his statements is to post the whole, unedited interview. I'll let you draw whatever conclusions you like. I just ask one question. Do you think Councillor Cornelius should have taken up my offer to see a copy before the screening, if he was so worried? He never even responded
I like Richard Cornelius. I don't think he's covered himself in glory by trying to pretend he's been hard done by. Here is the whole interview




And here are the next forthcoming community viewings, where you can decide whether Charles edited the film unfairly (staged by Barnet Alliance for Public Services)


Tuesday 27th March - 7-9 pm,
St. John's Church, Somerset / Mowbray Roads,
New Barnet,
EN5 1R

Wednesday 28 March - 7 pm
Greek Cypriot Community Centre
2 Britannia Road, North Finchley,
London,
N12 9RU  ‎
Tuesday 3rd April - 7:30 pm
Larches House,
1 Rectory Lane,
Edgware,
Middlesex,
HA8 7LF

Wednesday 18^th April from 7pm
The Wilson Room
The House of Commons
London,
SW1A 2TT

A Tale of Two Barnets - video of discussion before the screening at premiere

Here, courtesy of the Barnet Bugle, is a video clip of some of the discussion before the screening of A Tale of Two Barnets at the Phoenix Cinema in Barnet. There is a fine example of democracy in action at the end of the clip.


Discussion before the premiere screening of the "Tale of two Barnets" from The Barnet Bugle Ltd on Vimeo.


It was a great night (Note : click on the HD symbol to lower quality if video stream "stutters")

Guest Blog - Not A Bedtime Story - by Tirza Waisel

 By Tirza Waisel,

Back in September I was put in touch with two very angry carers, who had frustrating experiences with Barnet social services, and wanted to start an action group. The person who had brought us together knew me from my activism in Barnet Alliance for Public Services, and asked me to help them set the group up. That's how I met some of Barnet's heroes, three of which have been guest bloggers here in the recent months, and the journey of CADDSS – the Campaign Against Destruction of Disabled Support Services - began. Along the way, others have joined us, some of them people with disabilities and some family carers, and this has been my biggest personal gain: I've met some truly amazing people and am privileged to work along them in CADDSS.

However, the part of collating the evidence which is the basis of the CADDSS campaign really gets me down. I stopped counting the times it had brought me to frustration, rage and tears.

Let me tell you now a bit about one aspect of our work that is keeping me awake at night, The Fairer Contribution Policy.

John [all the names were changed] is a highly skilled middle aged tradesman.  He had travelled the world and worked all over it in his trade, until an accident at work injured his back and turned him severely disabled. John was persuaded by his social worker to accept his Personal Budget, the money spent by social services on providing his personal care, in the form of Direct Payment. This means that social services are putting the money they approved for John's care costs in a designated bank account, from which he pays his care worker's salary, after paying the The Disability Syndicate the charges for managing his affairs as an employer.

When I first spoke with John he was desperate as the council simply clawed back money from his Direct Payments account as his 'contribution towards his care costs' according to the 'Fairer Contribution Policy' ('Fairer', mind! oh, how I love this “laundry of words”...). Now John could not afford to pay his care worker for the 1 hour in the morning to get out of bed, wash & dress + a bit of cleaning and cooking, and half an hour in the evening to get into bed. He now employed his care worker only for 3 hours a week.

'So, how do you you get out of bed in the days she doesn't come?', I asked John, 'I try to crawl out of bed, but in most cases I fall, then manage to get up slowly using the zimmer frame for support', was the answer.

This got me straight on the phone to Social Care Direct, explaining my concern that this seemed a severe case of being put at great risk due to care charges and the failure of the council to carry out their duty of care. I asked for John's needs to be assessed again now, with the reduced support he gets.

It turned out that John, like many other intelligent and capable people, couldn't face the Financial-assessment form and sent it back with crucial information about his outgoings which are related to his disability (what is called 'disability related expenses') missing, so the Financial Assessment department concluded he has a lot of money...

These outgoings includes paying for things most of us do for ourselves as we go along: shopping, going to the barber, laundry, etc, which John has to pay separately to different people. Being disabled means needing help and having to rely on other people; if you are living on your own with no family, you normally have to pay people to help you with these.

My phone call yielded some quick fruit and John's 'contribution' was somewhat reduced, so now he can afford to employ his care worker 1 hour in the morning every day. However, this is still short of covering all his needs. The implication of this shortfall is that he stays in bed-clothes all day, as he has no one to help him into bed at night and cannot dress/undress by himself; when he has to go out for appointments, his care worker who is also a friend of John's, comes to help him voluntarily, in her own time.

Over the next few weeks I kept chasing the matter with the Financial Assessment Team and with the duty social work team, till one Friday afternoon I got on the other end of the line a social worker who was almost crying with frustration. He explained that John is indeed on the waiting list for re-assessment, along with 69 other service users...

We are aware that the pressure on adults social workers in Barnet from their team managers, themselves under pressure from top management and the councillors in charge, to turn over cases quickly is such, that those team leaders are forced to assign to their staff unrealistic number of cases that they know will never get to be seen. The criteria for getting the desired assessment of needs is by urgency. So, for instance, a member of CADDSS who recently had a severe fall as a result of trying to do something that his care worker would normally do, and found himself in A&E, will probably get a better place in the queue for the social worker now.

And so the waiting lists are extended, and hence the new scare I heard of lately, the new risk exposed: a service user told me he was pushed to borrow money in the grey market to pay for his care costs, as his little savings which he had used to pay for his personal care dwindled. How much interest he pays? He didn't know. How long will it take him to repay it? He forgot to ask - he was just so relieved that he has some money to pay for his care for a little longer...

All these are called in the professional jargon 'safeguarding issues'. When vulnerable people are exposed to risks of physical harm, psychological stress and potential exploitation, it is the role of social services to protect them. Who will protect them when it is the policies of social services themselves that are the cause of these safeguarding concerns?!

Back to John - what can I tell you? This saga is still going on.

Promises and phone calls come and go, workers from organisations to which the services were outsourced contact John then disappear, even a real social worker left a message promising a needs assessment on John's answer-phone, then vanished without leaving a trace (before carrying the assessment, needless to say).

Once, a floating support worker from the outsourced service visited, but he wanted to hear that everything is OK and kept looking at his watch (poor guy was probably under pressure to fit an unrealistic number of home visits in a day), so John fell for him and didn't feel comfortable to bother him with everything that WASN'T ok.

These are just examples. Such stories are numerous and are just the tip of the iceberg, no doubt.

You may think these are extreme cases, and other people, like Barbara, who cannot afford any more to go out for a café from time to time or visit friends, as she cannot afford to bring a bunch of flowers and doesn't like to come empty handed, or Mary who feels depressed because she can't buy her grandchildren the small gifts she used to be able to spoil them with, are just moaning. But they both feel very frustrated with 'councillors who think I should be stuck between four walls just because I am old and disabled'. And frankly speaking  – I don't think that being able to maintain these small normal life pleasures of social and family engagements is too much to ask for.

Personal Budgets and the Direct Payments of them, are part of the Personalisation Agenda, brought in by the New Labour government. 'Personalisation means thinking about public services and social care in a different way – starting with the person and their individual circumstances rather than the service', according to a definition by the Social Care Institute for Excellence, SCIE. Sounds good, right? I was really enthusiastic about it at the time.

Well, the problem is that not long after Personalization was rolled in, it became apparent that this wonderful ethos of giving disabled people 'choice and control' over their care, over their lives, boils down to the format of funding the care. It was an easy way to transfer the responsibility for organising and providing the care services to the people who need them, so that councils can tell disabled people 'we gave you the money to care for yourself, now it is your problem how you do it', rather than retaining the responsibility to provide the care to vulnerable people, on our behalf as a society.

Now with the economic crisis and the cuts – disabled people are simply too easy a target for clawing money and councillors just couldn't resist the temptation. It seems as if the people in the top of Adults Social Services and the councillors in charge of the Fairer Contribution Policy are aware that even very capable people find the Financial Assessment forms daunting and won't fill them, or won't fill them correctly; even the advisers in some of the charities that are meant to help people fill them are not entirely clear how to do it. But instead of sending a staff member to every service user to help them fill the form with the best interests of the user in mind, they take the easy route and conclude that anyone who didn't fill the form can afford to pay for their care. Thus, the very people we entrusted with ensuring the quality of life of those of us who are disabled, are the ones bringing on despair and risk to vulnerable people's health and well-being.

One question that remains unanswered is who determines what circumstances should attract services? Who defines a person's needs?

The questions we have been asking time and again in Cabinet Resource Committee and Overview & Scrutiny meetings all went back to asking just that: how will you, the council, who holds the ultimate duty of care towards vulnerable people in the borough, decide what needs are to be funded and which needs are 'luxury'? What guarantees do we have that disabled people's quality of life will not be compromised when only their very basic needs are taken care of? The answers turned out to be empty reassurances that this would never happen.

To my horror, since I started interviewing people as part of our CADDSS work, I discover that in reality even the basic needs of disabled people in Barnet are neglected.

[To be continued]

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* Tirza Waisel is an active member of Barnet Alliance for Public Services, and a member and facilitator of the action group CADDSS, the Campaign Against Destruction of Disabled Support Services - Guest blogs are always welcome at the Barnet Eye

Guest Blog -A response to A Tale of Two Barnets - By John Sullivan

By John Sullivan,

First of all, thank you Roger & Charles, the Barnet Trades Council Barnet Alliance for Public Services and all others that made the Premier screening of A Tale of 2 Barnet's  possible last evening at the Phoenix in East Finchley. 

It was brilliant to see the theatre so packed with concerned residents of Barnet, contrary to the complacency no doubt  hoped for  and anticipated  by Barnet councillors  who all refused an invitation to attend the place was packed.

A lady sitting next to me was brought to tears at the devastation that is being inflicted upon the disabled and the elderly with a disability in Barnet, coupled with the complacency and the blindness to reality being  displayed by Cllr Cornelius & CEO Wakeley who insists that everything in the garden is rosy and appear to be completely unaware or in denial of what is happening to the disabled and the elderly with a disability in Barnet.  She asked  "how can they do this to disabled people ", I said tragically the answer is simple " they don't care ", they have only one concern and one direction in life which is profit before people a mantra driven by right wing  ideology and dogma encouraged by the spirit of Lady Porter who is still alive and well in the hearts and minds of Barnet councillors.

Apart from the deliberate anti disabled campaign being run by Barnet councillors at the altar of profit, whilst they dishonestly claim they have engaged in meaningful consultation and offered alternatives and choice, which is completely and absolutely untrue. I was surprised to realise the impact on the elderly and infirm stuck at home and unable to get out very often, the huge rises in parking fees has added to their isolation from their community their loved ones friends and family along with the closure of and struggle to survive of the shops on our high streets coupled with the complete indifference to the impact from Barnet council.

A Tale of 2 Barnet's was an eye opener and perhaps in this year of a diamond jubilee and the Olympics , where once again local and central governments will pretend to the world that all in the garden is rosy. A Tale of  2 Barnet's should be distributed more widely because it tells a story for the whole country as well, including a copy to Buck house. So that the reality of what is happening in Barnet and across the UK is not deliberately covered up to portray a false image of Great Britain,  a Britain that was great because it was once a caring society a Britain that has become in just 2 years a completely uncaring society.

The question A Tale of 2 Barnet's raised for me is, when did right become wrong and when did wrong become right, when did it become right to denigrate disabled children and adults as did Cllr Coleman at a recent transport  meeting and still be considered fit for office. When did it become right to ignore the plight of the seriously ill, the disabled and those with a disability and deny them succour, and right to devastate their lives to make a profit from their misfortune.

A Tale of 2 Barnet's  truly opens the eyes to what is really happening in Barnet, I look forward to the sequel in the hope this film will encourage Barnet councillors to represent all the people of Barnet for a change and not just those that vote for them, and cease to be driven by blind right wing ideology and dogma, but I will not hold my breath. My main problem is , how do we now differentiate between right and wrong & wrong a right.

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John Sullivan is a parent Carer in Barnet and a supporter of disabled rights. He is also a regular guest blogger at the Barnet Eye. Guest blogs are always welcome