Scotland’s care shame

I don’t really know what else to describe the appearance of two unrelated, but illustrative, stories published by the BBC this week with regard to government funding/spending.

In the first, a survey has identified a £40 million funding gap in the provisions made for free personal care for the elderly, a scheme which is currently said to cost some £280 million to run each year. Audit Scotland, in a separate review, found the policy was patchy in its implementation, and suggested the shortfall was anywhere up to £63 million. These may be small amounts in terms of government finances, but as one who can express a view from personal experience, would emphasise how great the benefit can be for those who receive such care. They report gives a figure of up to £149 for possible weekly payment that may be made.

In the second, the BBC reports that councils have spent record amounts on external consultants, over 30% more than last year, totalling over £67 million. Not surprisingly, a council spokesman claimed that using consultants saved money in the long run. In the period 2007/07, Edinburgh spent £8.2 million, North Lanarkshire £7.1 million, Highland £7 million, Glasgow (surprisingly, or maybe not) £2 million. Dundee refused to provide their figure, requested under the Freedom of Information Act.

With such amounts being spent on consultants, one has to winder what those employed by the council are doing to earn their wages, especially the ‘High Rollers’.

There are plenty of good and valid reasons to bring in consultants, especially of they bring specialist knowledge in seldom used areas of operation, but the amount seems large, and could cover the cost of free personal care for the elderly, and still leave change.

In my business, I detest seeing consultants appear on the books, the reason being they are usually brought in by directors who want their pet projects ‘rubber stamped’ by an outsider to prove they are ‘good ideas’. Well, since they’re paying the consultant’s often ridiculous fees, it’s little wonder they concur. The truly aggravating aspect is that all they generally do for their money is tell us what we know already, but some directors don’t value what they hear from their peers, for free, but will support the same advice if it arrives bound in an externally generated report – with a fat fee note attached to prove its ‘value’.

I wonder if it’s the same in councils?

Exercise Joint Warrior 2008 shakes things up

We recently warned you that there would be military exercises taking place around the country, and this week the British Geological Survey (BGS) confirmed it (honest, their name really is Survey, and not Society, as the BBC have them described as I write – I use their services, they’d get rightly upset if I got their name wrong).

Obliged to class their observations as earthquakes until alternate confirmation could be made, the BGS recorded explosions in the Minch, between the mainland and the Western Isles, three times last week, at magnitudes of 1.1, 1.5 and 1.9.

The major exercise involved numerous simulated bombing runs, and is one of the few remaining where live firing of most weapons available is authorised.

In a later news item (where the Beeb got ‘Survey’ right), the Royal Navy confirmed that the explosions recorded by earthquake recording equipment were caused by military mine clearance training.

UK union to decide on Scottish spending?

The UK’s largest union has called on the Scottish Government not to award a multimillion-pound train carriage contract to a foreign manufacturer.

Unite said the Nationalist administration was “intent” on handing the £150-million deal for 120 carriages to German engineering giant Siemens. The company builds trains in the Czech Republic and fits them out in Germany, the union said.

Instead, the contract should be awarded to rival company Bombardier to safeguard jobs in England and Scotland, the union argued.

If Siemens were to win, it would be “a travesty for UK manufacturing” and lead to job losses in Britain, a spokesman said.

A Scottish government spokesman said it would be “premature” to say who might be awarded the contract while the tendering process was under way.

If the contract was to be awarded to a non-foreign manufacturer, will Unite cough up any premium to Scotland, from its reserves of members’ dues, so that the Scots are not out of pocket for taking the union’s advice?

Maybe Unite will call the rest of the UK out on strike if the Scottish Government doesn’t comply with its directive, and the contract goes to Siemens.

Possibly related posts

Just a note to keep my reader (or is that readers yet?) up to date with a little system change in the blog.

If you read an individual post, by clicking on its title, rather than just reading from the post list where the all appear together, then you’ll find a new section tacked on at the bottom: Possibly related posts

I mention this because it’s not our doing, but is added automatically, and we emphasise that because it means the content is not selected for its relevance. Believe it or not, most of the posts that appear here are, even if that relevance may only make sense to a few.

It’s only just been added and activated, and we’re not too keen on de-activating, you never know what might turn up, and nobody’s twisting anyone’s arm up their back to follow any of the links the system shows.

We just want to make it clear that the posts listed aren’t added by us, so if they’re daft, and not possibly related, well… we’re just not to blame.

Forest fire in the north

Unusually, this week’s news carried a story about a forest fire in Wester Ross, up in the north east Highlands.

While it’s usual to hear people speak of Scotland’s wet and miserable climate, especially if we’re not at the height of summer, it seem that this area has seen a long spell of dry weather, and when woodland there caught fire, the blaze spread rapidly, threatening not only to consume the wood, but also houses bordering the area.

31 firefighters from Aultbea, Gairloch, Kinlochewe, Torridon, Ullapool and Inverness were involved in tackling the blaze, and were helped in their efforts by some fortuitous rain. Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue said the alarm was raised at 13:23 and that the blaze was extinguished by 21:50, with the crews managing to prevent the fire reaching any of the nearby homes.

Loss of the whole woodland had been feared, however it seems that the actual damage, although serious, is not as extensive as it might have been. Three years ago 25% of the wood was destroyed by hurricane force winds.

Bad week for lamp posts

If you happened to be a lamp post, then this could have been a good week to keep a low profile.

First to hit the news was Inveraray, where the completion of works to renew ageing street lighting resulted in a bit of an uproar when locals discovered a shiny new lamp post had been planted in front of the war memorial. Visitors familiar with picturesque village will appreciate that this did not go down well, as it meant that pictures of the view wouldn’t be able to avoid including this piece of modern ‘sculpture’ from their snaps of the area.

Next, it was Calton Hill in Edinburgh, another favourite view for visitors, and somewhere that produces a memorable, if standard, view for the holiday album. Although the council insisted that there had been an old lamp post on the same spot, the arrival of a shiny new lamp post at the top of hill brought universal condemnation from amateur and professional photographers alike, even if the lighting might be a good idea from the point of view of safety.

We’re glad to report that neither case seems to have developed into some sort of bureaucratic nightmare, with campaigners fighting for the removal of the offending items, and council officials donning their ‘Jobsworth’ caps and insisting that the lamp posts were essential and complied with all the various regulations etc etc.

Both instances have been resolved with smiles all round, and the offending articles removal has been organised.

One law for…

After losing the first round in the courts and failing to stop the riff-raff being allowed to exercise their rights by accessing land on his 70 acre private Boquhan Estate in Stirlingshire under the terms of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, waste disposal tycoon Euan Snowie is sending signals, through his ‘people’, that the court’s decision to exclude only 13 acres is likely to be appealed.

You can’t help but feel the old cheque-book system of legal ping-pong is coming into play here, and that things that you and I could not afford to do will be done here.

The Snowies are already showing contempt for the Sheriff’s decision, carefully worded by their legal advisors no doubt, by describing the decision whereby 40 acres of land being excluded from the Act was rejected as “too much” was described in a statement from them as “puzzling“. If they lived in the real world, with real neighbours and real proximity to them, then they would possibly not find the Sheriff’s judgement quite so “puzzling“, and be more appeciative of the 13 acres they were awarded.

It’s also mildly insulting to some, I’m sure, that the pedestrian gates to the estate remain closed, barring access the popular walking spot, with a spokeswoman stating that the gates are rusted solid and that a blacksmith would be required to free them. However, if an appeal is in fact lodged, the point will be moot, as the gates can remain locked while the appeal is underway.

It’s taken a while, but with the Gloag success tucked away already, it’s not really much of a surprise, but very disappointing behaviour from our ‘betters’.

Right to roam regains momentum

Last year, it began to look as if all you needed was a big balance, and maybe the right friends, in order to make a mockery of Scotland’s recently introduced Open Access Code which, together with the 2003 Land Reform Act, gave the public the right-to-roam over what is effectively the land they live on.

Then, bus tycoon Ann Gloag won the right to restrict access to her property, Kinfauns Castle, thought to send a worrying signal that this was only the first case of its kind, and that those with sufficiently deep pockets would be able to apply to have the riff-raff excluded from their estates.

Today, we were greeted with the news that millionaire waste disposal magnate Euan  Snowie had been sent from Stirling Sheriff Court with a flea in his ear after Sheriff Cubie found that the demands made by Mr Snowie were excessive, and that only a small area of land adjacent to the his residence, Boquhan House,  would be excluded from access, an exclusion already provided by the act.

There are number of instances where gates have been locked to bar access, and signs erected to bar the public from land, and it should now be clear that local authorities will receive the backing of the courts when taking action against those seeking to flaunt the act.

It’s a shame that after all the years it has taken to get the Scottish Open Access Code and the 2003 Land Reform Act in place, that some landowners still think they are above the law, and that the riff-raff should be fenced off and kept away from them while they enjoy the land that belong to all, and is generally subsidised in some way or another by those they seek to exclude.

The matter  is far from trivial, with land owners prepared, in some cases, to use whatever means necessary to stop members of the public (I detest the term ‘ramblers’) from accessing land. Paths are dug up after being installed at other’s expense, gates and signs are installed across them, and personal intimidation is used if you happen to be there at the same time as one of these “MY LAND!!!” tyrants. I’m not a ‘rambler’, I just like to wander about off the beaten track, but have suffered abuse at the mouth of such people, who are far from pleasant, and seem to have a broken record installed somewhere that can only issue the word “GEROFFMYLAND” if you try and engage in any sort of conversation with them.

They do a sever injustice to the many friendly landowners you can come across when just out for a walk, pleased to spend a few minutes with a passerby, and perhaps pass on a few pieces of information about where you may find yourself.

If you do get confronted by one of the monied louts, I suggest you take a note of the Scottish Open Access Code web site address, and use it to pass on details of the incident, and one of their rangers may pay the offender – for that is what they are – a visit.

And please don’t forget, the code assigns responsibilities as well as rights.

Bottomless Money Pit

At £400 million plus however many more millions have never come to light, the Scottish Parliament Money Pit building in Holyrood continues to gobble up cash.

Now, as if anyone actually needs to be told what it is, it’s to gain a nice, new, shiny, giant, granite, sign proclaiming its presence to the world. Costing a mere £20,000 for its initial installation, this will continue to cost us on a daily (nightly?) basis since it is also to be illuminated, so contributing to the capital city’s carbon footprint, and light pollution footprint too.

The place might soon be hidden behind signs, as it seems there’s already been a new stainless steel notice board installed near the entrance, to keep visitors informed.

Squanderbugs

There’s little better value when you look at how they keep the insides in order either.

The fiasco of last year’s Scottish Parliament and local government election judged that the voters had been considered to be ‘afterthoughts’, with 146,000 ballot papers being rejected when the vote counting machinery failed to be able to cope. The election cost itself was almost £40 million, and the company that failed to provide adequate equipment to do the job they were paid for still walked away almost £9 million better off than when they started. They should have got 50 p for job they did.

Final flypast for the Firebirds

As noted previously, the arrival of the Eurofighter at RAF Leuchars marks changes at the base, as one chapter of its story closes, and another begins.

RAF Leuchars 56 (Reserve) Squadron first formed in 1916, and marked 90 years as a fighter squadron in 2006, meaning that it had served in both World Wars, together with the Cold War, and its more recent duties.

Nine Tornado aircraft from the squadron took part in a final flypast across Scotland, prior to its impending disbandment.

From RAF Leuchars, the aircraft flew in a diamond formation, taking in the Forth Road, and Forth Rail bridges, on to Edinburgh and past the former Royal Yacht Britannia (now berthed at Leith), onward to Perth, Dundee and Aberdeen, then over RAF Lossiemouth and and RAF Kinloss, after which the returned to their base for one last flyover.

Pictured from the past is a Tornado GR1 at Leuchars.