Since I last wrote this blog I have had two emails from Customer Services at Suffolk Council. The first reiterated the Council's committment to engagement with the public but without any information about how this was going to be carried out as the strategy was still being drawn up. I responsed to this stressing my concern about the length of time this is taking and the necessity of doing it in a robust and transparent way prior to the meeting on December 2nd.
Today I have had a further email from Customer Services telling me that councillors and stakeholders will be recieving details of this process of public engagement today and that they will be made public tomorrow. My concern, having read this email, is that the process of engagement is being constucted as an ongoing one- rather than having been designed to ascertain whether or not there is public support for the New Strategic Direction. The Council made a committment to this at the full council meeting on September 23rd.
So, I will wait and see what information is put in the public domain tomorrow.
Tuesday, 26 October 2010
Wednesday, 20 October 2010
Freedom Of Information (Part 2)
Yesterday, after growing frustration with the lack of response I have got from my requests for information about the New Strategic Direction, I made a request to Suffolk County Council under the Freedom of Information Act. Almost immediately there was a response for me in my inbox. This confirmed that my request had been recieved and that I would get a reply to it within 20 working days. Of course it remains to be seen what information I actually get via this root. But it feels slighty more hopeful that just being ignored by all-and-sundry.
In the meantime for anybody reading this who might be interested in applying for information under the Freedom of Information Act (and it covers all public bodies not just councils) there is plenty of information about the act and how to make a request on the government's website http://www.direct.gov.uk/ . Suffolk County Council also has information on its local procedures which can be found on their website: http://www.suffolk.gov.uk/.
On a related theme, early on in my odyssey, when I didn't know who my elected County Councillor was I visited the Write To Them website (http://writetothem.com/). If you type in your address and postcode the site will tell you who all of your elected representatives are and give their contact details (from Burough Councillor to MEP). You can then contact the person directly or send an email via the Write To Them Website. I did the latter and this week recieved an emailing entitled 'Did Your County Councillor Reply To Your Letter? The site is apparently trying to collect information about the response rates of our elected represenatives to enquiries from the public.
So, that's it for now- just a case of sitting tight and waiting I guess.
In the meantime for anybody reading this who might be interested in applying for information under the Freedom of Information Act (and it covers all public bodies not just councils) there is plenty of information about the act and how to make a request on the government's website http://www.direct.gov.uk/ . Suffolk County Council also has information on its local procedures which can be found on their website: http://www.suffolk.gov.uk/.
On a related theme, early on in my odyssey, when I didn't know who my elected County Councillor was I visited the Write To Them website (http://writetothem.com/). If you type in your address and postcode the site will tell you who all of your elected representatives are and give their contact details (from Burough Councillor to MEP). You can then contact the person directly or send an email via the Write To Them Website. I did the latter and this week recieved an emailing entitled 'Did Your County Councillor Reply To Your Letter? The site is apparently trying to collect information about the response rates of our elected represenatives to enquiries from the public.
So, that's it for now- just a case of sitting tight and waiting I guess.
Tuesday, 19 October 2010
The Freedom Of Information Act
It will probably come as no surprise to anybody reading this who has more than a passing aquaintance with local democracy, in all its glory, but nobody has been able to tell me how I can engage with Suffolk Council's New Strategic Direction. I am still in the dark about the 'proactive and wide ranging engagment' that the council voted to carry out amongst the communtities in Suffolk that it represents. I have had no replies to my emails and telephone requests for information. The head of the council, the chief executive's office, my MP....no reply, no reply, no reply....blah, blah, blah....
So what is one to do?
I know the answer to this really is 'Do Nothing' because there is nothing that you can do.
But I have decided to console myself with another email and have sent a Freedom Of Information request to the council. I have asked for all the information on the strategy drawn up by the council in order to fulfill its committment to engage with the public about the New Strategic Direction.
I am working on the theory that in order to carry out this sort of engagment in any kind of meaningful way the council will have to have drawn up a plan of some sort- with designated roles, responsibilities, tasks, a budget, and a set of over arching aims and objectives etc... I don't know. I've never worked for the council so I don't know how these things pan out but there will have to be a plan of some sort.
So either the plans exists, in which case I want to see it...Or the plan does't exist. If it doesn't exist how can the council show that it is taking this process of engagement seriously. If it doesn't carry out this process of engagement with transparency and intergrity how can the council be trusted to go ahead with devolving all of its services as proposed under the NSD?
Well, I will wait and see.
It will probably come as no surprise to anybody reading this who has more than a passing aquaintance with local democracy, in all its glory, but nobody has been able to tell me how I can engage with Suffolk Council's New Strategic Direction. I am still in the dark about the 'proactive and wide ranging engagment' that the council voted to carry out amongst the communtities in Suffolk that it represents. I have had no replies to my emails and telephone requests for information. The head of the council, the chief executive's office, my MP....no reply, no reply, no reply....blah, blah, blah....
So what is one to do?
I know the answer to this really is 'Do Nothing' because there is nothing that you can do.
But I have decided to console myself with another email and have sent a Freedom Of Information request to the council. I have asked for all the information on the strategy drawn up by the council in order to fulfill its committment to engage with the public about the New Strategic Direction.
I am working on the theory that in order to carry out this sort of engagment in any kind of meaningful way the council will have to have drawn up a plan of some sort- with designated roles, responsibilities, tasks, a budget, and a set of over arching aims and objectives etc... I don't know. I've never worked for the council so I don't know how these things pan out but there will have to be a plan of some sort.
So either the plans exists, in which case I want to see it...Or the plan does't exist. If it doesn't exist how can the council show that it is taking this process of engagement seriously. If it doesn't carry out this process of engagement with transparency and intergrity how can the council be trusted to go ahead with devolving all of its services as proposed under the NSD?
Well, I will wait and see.
Wednesday, 13 October 2010
The New Strategic Direction and Suffolk County Council Care Homes
It's been a few days since I've written anything. I have sent off lots of emails and had little response. It has become abundantly clear that those handy links on websites where you can send off an email at the click of a mouse are simply a form of distraction, a palliative to sooth the fevered brow of the desk bound (and not particularly active) activist. I have become disheartened. But then, last night on the local news there was a report about Suffolk Council which has sent me into a frenzy again.
The Council has announced plans to review the operation of the sixteen care homes that it owns throughout Suffolk (shouldn't that be, the sixteen homes that the people of Suffolk own?). The council is going to undertake a process of consultation with care home residents, their families and staff to consider three options. These are:
When the news first broke about the NSD it was suggested that the so called 'early adopter' services would be children's centres, libraries, parks and youth clubs. Bad enough, but three weeks in and the future for Suffolk Council's care homes and their elderly residents is uncertain.
The decision to move from ones' own home to a residential setting is rarely an easy one. It means giving up not only bricks and mortar and the familiarity of one's own routines and habits but also of the notion of being independent, master or mistress of one's own destiny. It requires a huge adjustment- often at a time when life has become particularly difficult- perhaps due to ill health, increasing fraility or bereavement. It is at these points in life that we most need to cleave to our routines and the people that we know best, to gain comfort and ballast from what is most familiar to us. The positive side to a move into a care home (for some people it is simply the only option, but others make an active choice to move) is that a new home can be created, a place of safety, a seeming last resort, can become much more than that. But it takes time, and it takes trust, and it means building relationships both with other residents and with care home staff.
Today elderly, vulnerable residents throughout Suffolk, who have already made the difficult transition to a care home will again be faced with uncertainty. They will no longer have the security of knowing that the friendships that they have developed and the relationships of trust built up with care staff will continue. They have no way of knowing where they will be living a few months hence and who will be caring for them. As for the staff of these care homes, they will be expected to continue care for others, in the knowledge that they too face an uncertain future. I know, having been a nurse for many years, how difficult it can be to continue caring when you feel that you yourself are not cared for.
I believe this situation, created by Suffolk Council, in advance of next week's spending review, simply as the next step in an ideologically driven master plan, is a disgrace. Irrespective of the outcome of the consultation today in Suffolk it will already be causing people to feel fear, anxiety, apprehension and distress. The people who have voted for this should hang their heads in shame. What sort of Big Society are we engineering here in Suffolk?
The Council has announced plans to review the operation of the sixteen care homes that it owns throughout Suffolk (shouldn't that be, the sixteen homes that the people of Suffolk own?). The council is going to undertake a process of consultation with care home residents, their families and staff to consider three options. These are:
- Closing the homes and buying in services from the private sector
- Selling off all the homes as going concerns
- Cosing six homes and trying to sell off the remaining ten.
When the news first broke about the NSD it was suggested that the so called 'early adopter' services would be children's centres, libraries, parks and youth clubs. Bad enough, but three weeks in and the future for Suffolk Council's care homes and their elderly residents is uncertain.
The decision to move from ones' own home to a residential setting is rarely an easy one. It means giving up not only bricks and mortar and the familiarity of one's own routines and habits but also of the notion of being independent, master or mistress of one's own destiny. It requires a huge adjustment- often at a time when life has become particularly difficult- perhaps due to ill health, increasing fraility or bereavement. It is at these points in life that we most need to cleave to our routines and the people that we know best, to gain comfort and ballast from what is most familiar to us. The positive side to a move into a care home (for some people it is simply the only option, but others make an active choice to move) is that a new home can be created, a place of safety, a seeming last resort, can become much more than that. But it takes time, and it takes trust, and it means building relationships both with other residents and with care home staff.
Today elderly, vulnerable residents throughout Suffolk, who have already made the difficult transition to a care home will again be faced with uncertainty. They will no longer have the security of knowing that the friendships that they have developed and the relationships of trust built up with care staff will continue. They have no way of knowing where they will be living a few months hence and who will be caring for them. As for the staff of these care homes, they will be expected to continue care for others, in the knowledge that they too face an uncertain future. I know, having been a nurse for many years, how difficult it can be to continue caring when you feel that you yourself are not cared for.
I believe this situation, created by Suffolk Council, in advance of next week's spending review, simply as the next step in an ideologically driven master plan, is a disgrace. Irrespective of the outcome of the consultation today in Suffolk it will already be causing people to feel fear, anxiety, apprehension and distress. The people who have voted for this should hang their heads in shame. What sort of Big Society are we engineering here in Suffolk?
Thursday, 7 October 2010
I sent off a raft of emails this morning and have had a couple of replies. An email sent from the department of Customer Rights, Scrutiny and Monitoring on behalf of the Chief Executive's office said that further information would be availible tomorrow. I also had an email from Jane Storey the Deputy Leader of the Council. I will paraphrase here. Essentially there hasn't been much consultation yet because the Council meeting ont the 23rd was purely to reach agreement on the principle. The engagement strategy is being drawn up and more details will be available soon.
It is remarkable how better disposed one feels towards people when they actually reply! There is a lesson here about having a system so that somebody sending an email knows that it has reached its intended destination- even if this is an electronically activated out of office message.
But I digress...
The upside of this waiting game is that it has given me the opportunity to repeat my question many times to numerous different people and in doing so refine it and become clearer about what it is that I am trying to find out. Given that the NSD is going to be a long process with a number of different phases it feels important for to me to focus on specific issues with clearly defined aims and objectives. I am a lot less vague than I was a ten days ago.
To recap, agenda item 7 concerning the New strategic Direction contained the following clause:
That there should be proactive and wide ranging engagement across Suffolk to establish that the NSD proposals find favour with the communitites we all represent before moving forward to implementation, and the findings from this engagement be reported back to Full Council at the meeting on 2nd December 2010 [stress added].
Given that the engagement strategy is still being drawn up there isn't a great deal of time to fulfill the commitment made in this clause.
What I want to know about the (hopefully soon to materialize) engagement strategy is this:
It is remarkable how better disposed one feels towards people when they actually reply! There is a lesson here about having a system so that somebody sending an email knows that it has reached its intended destination- even if this is an electronically activated out of office message.
But I digress...
The upside of this waiting game is that it has given me the opportunity to repeat my question many times to numerous different people and in doing so refine it and become clearer about what it is that I am trying to find out. Given that the NSD is going to be a long process with a number of different phases it feels important for to me to focus on specific issues with clearly defined aims and objectives. I am a lot less vague than I was a ten days ago.
To recap, agenda item 7 concerning the New strategic Direction contained the following clause:
That there should be proactive and wide ranging engagement across Suffolk to establish that the NSD proposals find favour with the communitites we all represent before moving forward to implementation, and the findings from this engagement be reported back to Full Council at the meeting on 2nd December 2010 [stress added].
Given that the engagement strategy is still being drawn up there isn't a great deal of time to fulfill the commitment made in this clause.
What I want to know about the (hopefully soon to materialize) engagement strategy is this:
- What methods are going to be used to 'engage'?
- What is the underlying rationale for these methods being chosen?
- With whom will this engagement take place?
- How will the outcomes from these methods be recorded and analysed?
- Who will be carrying out this analysis?
- Who will be writing up and preparing the report?
- What analytic criteria will be used to decide whether or not favour has indeed been found?
Wednesday, 6 October 2010
Brian Keenan at Suffolk Book League
I heard Brian Keenan speak at Suffolk Book League last night. I went with little idea of what to expect and arrived late. This meant that my friend and I arrived at the venue when the talk had already begun. This is never a comfortable situation to be in and I took my seat with a heavy heart. Would I be able to pick up the thread? I had felt a strong compulsion to hear Keenan speak and I wanted to see him in the flesh. I was 19 when the hostage crisis hit the newspapers and it provided one of the ongoing narratives of my early adulthood. The work of Gill Morrell and the Friends of John McCarthy meant that the plight of the hostages was in the news seemingly daily for four or so years. As we were leaving my friend told me that she remembered the mast head of her daily newspaper counting up the days that John McCarthy had been held hostage. I had a vivid recollection of a postcard that I had on the wall in my bedroom when I first moved to London with the slogan Remember the Hostages. The illustration showed two hands gripping the bars of what I read to be a prison window. The bars were in fact pencils-a visual reference to McCarthy's job as a journalist.
So my mind was full of my own thoughts and memories and it felt serendipitous that at points in the talk Keenan spoke about the difference between history and memory, and of the difference between memory and forgetfulness. He has written a memoir of his childhood and the talk wove together memories of his childhood self, the process of writing his book about Alaska, the death of his mother and much else besides. The threads of his story wove together and then split apart again. He created endless patterns and reoccuring motiffs- not a linear account but something much denser with each memory bringing forth another memory and then another- the passing of time rendered seemingly timeless, something tangible and very much of the here and now as well as of the there and then. I was reminded of the period after my own mother's death when images of her seemed to cascade through my mind- not as she had been, her dying self, but as a young woman and a child, before I was born, memories of things it was indeed impossible for me to remember. It was as if I was building up a composite image of her, to keep within me, in place of the flesh and blood woman.
Not easy to write about without sounding pretentious- but I have had a bash at it because the overwhelming feeling that I had, hearing Keenan speak, was one of an emotional connection. I will probably never speak to him (although I'd move heaven and earth to hear him talk again) but it feels so important to have been able to sit in a room full of people, ostensibly strangers, and yet feel a strong connection to my fellow human being.
And that's why I'm writing about Brian Keenan in this blog. Because if one of the strands of my story is about the Big Society then it is also about my own political dissaffection.The alienation and isolation engendered by the day-to-day grind of the political reality that we face, is the antithesis of what I experienced last night. Remembering the hostage crisis I also remembered how it felt to be one of Thatcher's generation- of growing up in the Eighties amidst unemployment and the assault on the unions, of earning £4 000 a year as student nurse when people in the city were earning millions, of constantly voting for the loosing team. Defenders of the Thatcher legacy will often argue that her famous comment that there is no such thing as society, only men and women was taken out of context. In or out of context it seems apposite- there is no such thing as the Big Society only men and women standing alone waiting for the axe to fall.
And no, of course I haven't heard a thing about the council's plans to consult with the public over the New Strategic Direction. As If!
I heard Brian Keenan speak at Suffolk Book League last night. I went with little idea of what to expect and arrived late. This meant that my friend and I arrived at the venue when the talk had already begun. This is never a comfortable situation to be in and I took my seat with a heavy heart. Would I be able to pick up the thread? I had felt a strong compulsion to hear Keenan speak and I wanted to see him in the flesh. I was 19 when the hostage crisis hit the newspapers and it provided one of the ongoing narratives of my early adulthood. The work of Gill Morrell and the Friends of John McCarthy meant that the plight of the hostages was in the news seemingly daily for four or so years. As we were leaving my friend told me that she remembered the mast head of her daily newspaper counting up the days that John McCarthy had been held hostage. I had a vivid recollection of a postcard that I had on the wall in my bedroom when I first moved to London with the slogan Remember the Hostages. The illustration showed two hands gripping the bars of what I read to be a prison window. The bars were in fact pencils-a visual reference to McCarthy's job as a journalist.
So my mind was full of my own thoughts and memories and it felt serendipitous that at points in the talk Keenan spoke about the difference between history and memory, and of the difference between memory and forgetfulness. He has written a memoir of his childhood and the talk wove together memories of his childhood self, the process of writing his book about Alaska, the death of his mother and much else besides. The threads of his story wove together and then split apart again. He created endless patterns and reoccuring motiffs- not a linear account but something much denser with each memory bringing forth another memory and then another- the passing of time rendered seemingly timeless, something tangible and very much of the here and now as well as of the there and then. I was reminded of the period after my own mother's death when images of her seemed to cascade through my mind- not as she had been, her dying self, but as a young woman and a child, before I was born, memories of things it was indeed impossible for me to remember. It was as if I was building up a composite image of her, to keep within me, in place of the flesh and blood woman.
Not easy to write about without sounding pretentious- but I have had a bash at it because the overwhelming feeling that I had, hearing Keenan speak, was one of an emotional connection. I will probably never speak to him (although I'd move heaven and earth to hear him talk again) but it feels so important to have been able to sit in a room full of people, ostensibly strangers, and yet feel a strong connection to my fellow human being.
And that's why I'm writing about Brian Keenan in this blog. Because if one of the strands of my story is about the Big Society then it is also about my own political dissaffection.The alienation and isolation engendered by the day-to-day grind of the political reality that we face, is the antithesis of what I experienced last night. Remembering the hostage crisis I also remembered how it felt to be one of Thatcher's generation- of growing up in the Eighties amidst unemployment and the assault on the unions, of earning £4 000 a year as student nurse when people in the city were earning millions, of constantly voting for the loosing team. Defenders of the Thatcher legacy will often argue that her famous comment that there is no such thing as society, only men and women was taken out of context. In or out of context it seems apposite- there is no such thing as the Big Society only men and women standing alone waiting for the axe to fall.
And no, of course I haven't heard a thing about the council's plans to consult with the public over the New Strategic Direction. As If!
Tuesday, 5 October 2010
I had an email from my county councellor this morning. As an opposition concellor she wasn't able to shed any light on the consultation process but will keep me informed when she does hear anything.
I emailed Ben Gummer MP for Ipswich this morning. I told him that I was trying, in the first instance, to find out about the consultation process that is supposed to be taking place with the people of Suffolk prior to the next council meeting on the 2nd December. I received an electronic email from his office acknowledging that my email had been received. I will have to wait for a reply to the specific question.
I haven't had an acknowledgement or a reply from the head of the county council or the chief executive despite emailing them last week. I have had an email from Customer Services at the County Council in response to a question about the policy for responding to emails. An intial response is supposed to be made within five days. After this each department has it's own time frame. So this doesn't really help me much- what do you do if you haven't received a reply after five days? Send another email?
It's eight days since I decided to try and find out what is going on and to get involved. So far I have found out apsolutely nothing. This says a lot for the concepts of participation.
I emailed Ben Gummer MP for Ipswich this morning. I told him that I was trying, in the first instance, to find out about the consultation process that is supposed to be taking place with the people of Suffolk prior to the next council meeting on the 2nd December. I received an electronic email from his office acknowledging that my email had been received. I will have to wait for a reply to the specific question.
I haven't had an acknowledgement or a reply from the head of the county council or the chief executive despite emailing them last week. I have had an email from Customer Services at the County Council in response to a question about the policy for responding to emails. An intial response is supposed to be made within five days. After this each department has it's own time frame. So this doesn't really help me much- what do you do if you haven't received a reply after five days? Send another email?
It's eight days since I decided to try and find out what is going on and to get involved. So far I have found out apsolutely nothing. This says a lot for the concepts of participation.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)