Monday 6th October 7.30pm

Waste Strategy Workshop

This was a consultation event which invited residents to give us guidance about how to choose the location of new waste management sites. I had been invited by Cllr. Richard Bailey, who sits on the Joint Waste Strategy Committee, to attend to find out more about the consultation and get an idea of the views of residents. We were presented with some background information about how we are running out of landfill space and need to look at new facilities to manage waste more sustainably. Currently we are working with the boroughs of Croydon, Merton & Kingston to develop a South London Waste Plan. All the boroughs are running similar consultations with residents. We were split into groups and asked to discuss and prioritise factors that might affect the location of the various types of waste management facilities. Our group had a lively discussion, with the overriding concern being that facilities that had a potential health impact should be very carefully placed, well away from residential areas & schools. This would apply to polluting and hazardous waste facilities, whereas recycling centres would have less health implications. Issues about the amount of waste we should plan to deal with were also discussed.

 

You can read about the South London Waste Plan on the Sutton Council website: http://www.sutton.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=3910

Thursday 2nd October 7.30pm

Merton, Sutton & Surrey Joint Health Scrutiny Committee

The sole focus of this evening’s meeting was to receive an update on the Better Healthcare Closer to Home programme.

 

After some years of floundering at the ‘good idea’ stage with few fully worked up plans for practical implementation the programme has made rapid progress in the last few months under the steerage of Stephen Waring the new programme director.

 

Although a somewhat shrunken vision which now concentrates only on Sutton & Merton (Surrey has developed its own healthcare modal Fit for the Future), and with plans for refurbishment of St Helier Hospital rather than a brand new build, we were pleased to at last be presented with Outline Business Cases for the main elements of the programme. These plans gave detailed descriptions of what services would be provided at the four proposed Local Care Centres (Shotfield, Wallington; The Nelson; The Wilson & a new centre at St Helier); what specifically would be reprovided in the new-build part of St Helier, and plans for the next stage of St Helier refurbishment to include an urgent care centre.

 

The update was presented by a panel of NHS executives involved with the programme and included Stephen Waring, Bill Gillespie Chief Executive of Sutton & Merton Primary Care Trust, Sam Jones Chief Executive of Epsom & St Helier NHS Trust, Martyn Wake Sutton & Merton PCT Medical Director, Dr Jonathan Kwan Epsom & St Helier Medical Director and Pippa Hart Epsom & St Helier Director of Nursing and Care Standards.

 

We were advised that the outline business cases had received approval from the various trust boards and was now set to go to NHS London, the regional body, for approval. The panel advised that this may be their last chance to obtain the funding for the project because the delays up to this point may mean that any further delay could result in this project being overlooked in favour of further advanced programmes elsewhere in the region.

 

The programme fitted in well with other healthcare changes such as the D’Arzi proposals and recent white papers such as ‘Our Health, Our Care, Our Say’ so it was expected to be approved by the London NHS body.

 

My first question was what plans were in place to monitor the outcomes of the proposed changes to check that they did indeed meet the objectives of the programme which were to improve patient experience and provide better accessibility to a range of services? Unfortunately I was feeling unwell and as a result I suspect that the thrust of my question got a bit lost so the answer I received didn’t quite fit the question. The response from the panel was that the planned improvements were based on evidence and studies which supported providing healthcare in local settings with particular emphasis on providing facilities in areas of depravation to help address health inequalities.

 

Other committee members received assurances that there would still be capital finding available to make improvements to Epsom Hospital.

 

I asked whether the PCT would continue to support the intermediate care beds currently provided at Ludlow Lodge in Wallington, to which the response was that the support would only continue until the opening of the Wilson’s intermediate care centre. This was disappointing as with the plans for intermediate care beds to be provided at Carshalton War Memorial Hospital dropped the majority of intermediate care facilities will be in Merton. This is slightly tempered by the fact that 80% of intermediate care is planned to be provided in people’s homes.

 

I was dismayed when a Surrey member of the committee raised the suggestion that the outline business plans might represent a significant variation in service which would require formal consultation. The Sutton Chair Cllr. Gordon-Bullock stated his agreement that they might be interpreted this way.

 

I had to step in and articulate that whilst the changes may well be significant in respect to the proposed delivery of services, there had been a full and extensive formal consultation on the proposals in 2004. As the objectives had not changed from the beginning of the project that consultation was still relevant and satisfied the obligations of the NHS bodies. There had been overwhelming support for the principles of the Better Healthcare Closer to Home programme and these outline business cases simply represented the practical implementation of those principles. I doubted that the public would be happy to see yet another consultation on the issue and would much rather see the trusts getting on with the improvements. The panel stated that they believed that the delay caused by going to consultation once again might jeopardise the whole programme.

 

Fortunately the committee unanimously agreed with me and voted against calling for a further consultation.

 

Lib Dem Councillors Dave Callaghan and Sheila Andrews were also at this committee and as representatives of St Helier ward they both put in passionate pleas for improvements to the hospital building and welcomed all plans for new facilities at the site. It was disappointing to learn that although other elements of the programme would start immediately, it was expected to be 5 to 7 years before we would see major work starting at St Helier Hospital.

 

Thursday 25th September 9.30am

Meeting with Support Group for Parent/Carers of Children with Aspergers

I attended this support group meeting to get the parents’ views on the new Special Educational Needs (SEN) Transport proposals so that I can represent them in my role as Carers’ Champion.

 

The group were kind enough to welcome me to their meeting at short notice and very willing to talk to me about their views on the proposals.

 

This was the second time I had attended a meeting of this support group. The first time I had been struck by the number of obstacles parents of children with Aspergers faced to get help for themselves or their children, from obtaining an initial diagnosis to social service provision. The stress of everyday life caring for a child with Aspergers on the parents and indeed on their relationships was described to me. It is acknowledged that there is a higher risk of marital breakdown where there is a disabled child to care for and I think that this is pertinent as many of those parents requiring SEN transport may also be parents coping alone.

 

It was useful at this meeting to hear views both from parents who use SEN transport & those who don’t, as the reasons for not using the service are as informative as the reasons for it.

 

All the parents at the group were fantastically open and honest. It was good to hear that they understood that the service was expensive and why it had to be reviewed, however many doubts were expressed about the practical problems the proposals would incur. There were also some alternative suggestions for cost savings on transport put forward which would be worth exploring.

 

I will use the information I have received from these parents, and others who have contacted me, to represent the views of parents and carers affected by the transport proposals, when the results of the consultation are considered.

 

I am more than happy to hear from other parents who may be affected by the proposals and you can find my contact details on this blog. Your responses to the following questions would be helpful, but any additional information you give will be welcome:

Do you currently use SEN transport and in what form?
If not why not?
Did you receive a consultation form?
How does SEN transport help you and your family?
Will you be affected by the proposed changes and if so how?

Wednesday 24th September 12.30 pm

Mint House Site Visit

Richard Bailey & I had been invited by the Shotfield GPs to inspect the progress on the Mint house extension. Mint House is having two additional floors added so that it can accommodate the two Shotfield GP practices whilst the Shotfield Health Centre is rebuilt. We were taken up to the roof first and then shown where the lift shaft would be installed to allow disabled access. We were also shown the location for the family clinic. Work was progressing smoothly and expected to be finished within expected timescales.

 

Tuesday 23rd September 7.30pm

Scrutiny Overview Committee

The two main topics of interest on the agenda were the second evidence gathering session on Direct Payments and a progress report on the relocation of Stanley Park High School.

 

To help the committee with its review of the low uptake of direct payments in Sutton four parents of children from different age bands that were in receipt of direct payments had been invited to answer questions on their experiences. In an attempt to make the session less formal and intimidating we all moved away from the table and sat in a circle.

 

From previous experience I was aware that the Tory councillors’ questioning can sometimes come across as quite aggressive, even perhaps when they don’t mean to be, so I was keen to get in first with a ‘gentle’ question to try to put the parents at ease, rather than feel they were under interrogation. The discussions went extremely well and the parents gave us an excellent insight into their experiences with direct payments. They also had some very useful suggestions for ways to improve the take up, the main one being to build on the fact that a lot of information was passed from parent to parent.

 

I was pleased to hear that generally the parents’ experience of direct payments had been very positive, but there were fragmentations within the system that meant that all parents’ experiences were not the same.

 

The progress report on the building and relocation of Stanley Park High School detailed the risks still identified as being barriers to the project and gave the results of the independent CABE design review. As one of a number of school rebuilding projects nationally we were pleased to hear that the CABE review had given Stanley Park the highest score of the projects so far and was being cited as an example of best practice in this area. However it was apparent that some of the risks associated with the project were still highly significant. There was much questioning along these lines.

 

I sought information following up on some issues that had arisen at the previous update.

 

Of particular significance for Wallington South was the understanding that a proper planning framework was needed for the existing site in advance of its disposal. This is something that Colin, Richard & I are keeping a close eye on. We have already expressed our desire to get resident engagement and involvement in considering the future for this site and we will be working with the planning department to achieve this end.

Credit Crunch Hits Sutton

Sutton has found itself amongst the number of local authorities and regional bodies affected by the collapse of the Icelandic bank Landsbanki. We find that we had £5.5m invested in the UK subsidiary of the bank – funds that are currently frozen.

 

We are fortunate in Sutton that our prudent policy of spreading our investment portfolio across a number of institutions means that we are only affected by the Icelandic bank collapse to a relatively small amount.

 

We have received assurances from the chief executive that there will be no effect on services or need to impact on future years’ council tax levels.

 

The council’s treasury management is regularly reviewed by the Audit Committee as a matter of course. This committee was newly established by the Liberal Democrat leadership in June 2007 and we requested that it be headed up by a member of the opposition group to ensure rigorous scrutiny of the Council’s financial arrangements. I remember speaking strongly in favour of setting up a separate audit committee as it is considered best practice in the private business sector.

 

Conservative councillor Terry Faulds agreed to take on the chairmanship of this committee and I also sat on it when it considered our policy of short term investments back in December 2007.

 

The Council’s policy is to only invest in banks with a high credit rating. Councillors have been advised that when the deposit was placed with the UK Subsidiary of Landsbanki it still had a high credit rating. That rating was only revised on 1^st October this year.

 

However as a matter of good practice and to see if there are any lessons that can be learned for the future Cllr. Drage the Executive Member for Resources has requested that there is a joint review of the matter by the Audit Committee and the Scrutiny Overview Committee. As a member of the Scrutiny Overview Committee I will be involved in that review.

Tuesday 23rd September 1pm

Meeting to discuss Wallington Station Access Scheme.

I met with engineers & officers to see the proposed scheme to be submitted to TfL for funding. We discussed the proposed move of the bus stop closer to the bridge to make it easier for pedestrians to cross the road safely. In light of the concerns expressed at the Local Committee meeting we went into some detail about the rationale for this. It was agreed that it was necessary for the plans to try to address the current safety issues at the existing stop in order to obtain funding, but any practical problems could be brought out at the consultation stage.

 

Alternative solutions for a loading bay to prevent the current problems with lorries blocking the bus stop outside Tesco on Woodcote Road were discussed and we hope to see action on this shortly.

 

The plans also contained proposals to make many of the residential streets in the wide vicinity of the station 20mph zones. As I have received requests for traffic calming from residents in nearly all of the affected streets I suspect that this will be well received, however again formal consultation will be the real test.

 

We also discussed plans for consultation and I suggested we have a display & questionnaires in Wallington Library with officers on hand to answer questions & explain details. This would be in addition to the usual leafleting.

Monday 22nd September 9.30am

Meeting with Superintendent Warren Shadbolt on the New Domestic Violence Strategy

This meeting had been arranged as I had some concerns about the new Domestic Violence Strategy and Superintendent Shadbolt had offered to give me an update on the changes. I was worried that the new proposals meant that there would be less safe refuge places for women and children wishing to escape domestic violence situations and I was reassured to learn that the changes would not affect the number of places available for victims.

 

It was explained that there would be greater emphasis on prosecuting the perpetrators of domestic violence to underline the message that it was an unacceptable and criminal offence. This direction was welcomed by the groups which support victims of domestic violence.

 

The strategy also aims to help prevent domestic violence occurring in the first place by adopting a holistic approach to the causes, looking especially at the influence of alcohol and drug on abusers.

Financial Crisis or Free Market Success?

From a purist perspective the free market experiment can be judged to be a success, as we are now seeing the financial system in the process of self regulation; or perhaps self-correction is a more appropriate term. Financial institutions have extended extreme levels of credit with insufficient security; house prices have inflated unsustainably, and there has been over reliance on the continuous rise in equity values. Like the house of cards it is the market has overreached itself and is now collapsing down to a more stable equilibrium.

 

On the other hand the system has failed; as Governments are afraid to bear the full brunt of the downturn and feel obligated to step in and protect us all from the expected fallout of the crash. So what has in fact happened under the free market system is that the banks, the traders, the fund managers and the wealthy have all been allowed to reap uninhibited the vast rewards of the boom period, but now they are facing the opposite end of the scale their losses are to be capped, the effects mitigated by a Government bail out. And who in the end who will be their saviour? The taxpayer, the average family, you and me.

 

Yes the G7 recovery plan may also protect us – the taxpayers, from the extremes of the crisis, but as with the rewards of the free market, the pain too will be unfairly distributed. So the traders may have to forgo their bonuses for a few years, and downsize their city penthouse for a modest semi. The wealthy CEO may need to reign in his early retirement plans, and the wealthy sell off their private plane or yacht. There may be redundancies in the city and those affected will need to readjust their lifestyle and expectations. But compare that to those people who are already on the breadline and can downsize no further. What of the worker with retirement looming who has seen the value of his pension halved and an old age of financial hardship waiting? The prospect of job losses with uncertain bank savings is terrifying for families. The small business may go bankrupt as the bank refuses to extend the overdraft and creditors default on payments.

 

Yes all taxpayers will have to bear the burden. But in Britain where the least well off pay a greater proportion of their income in taxes than the wealthy, and the tax bills of the super rich are an obscenely small percentage of their overall income, once again the greatest burden falls on those who received the least benefits of the experiment.

 

The premise of the free market is that the rewards would eventually filter down from the wealthy to the average taxpayer. We have now had a long enough period from the Thatcher years to evaluate whether this has been the case. There have been a number of recent reports that point out that the gap between rich and poor has actually widened. In Britain we still have unacceptable pockets of poverty and deprivation, including here in Sutton. But in the meantime the rich have got even richer, leaving the rest of us still clinging to the lower rungs of the ladder.

 

However there has been incredible economic growth, money is out there to be made and in the Western world we have innumerable luxuries at our fingertips. So what has been the trickle down effect from the rich to the ordinary? Unfortunately I believe that it has been greed and envy. Rather than sensible aspirations it has led to the “I want it and I want it now” generation. We see what the rich and famous have and we want some of it. We have been brainwashed through advertising and celebrity culture to aspire to things we didn’t realise we needed. We have been tempted by subterfuge and marketing to believe that we too can be beautiful and happy as long as we spend enough money. We have been encouraged to consume, consume, consume, and to do so we have needed to take advantage of the easy credit that has been offered to us. It is this vicious circle of greed and consumerism that has caused the market to inflate to an unsustainable peak.

 

What I have been pleased to witness over the last few years is a public beginning to reject this vacuous lifestyle. Even before the crisis some people have been choosing to downsize, opting for lifestyles that are more about quality of life. The harm our consumerism and wastefulness is having on the planet has become more widely accepted and acknowledged. The rise in organic farming, growing your own food and rejection of excessive packaging all show that people are looking for a different way of living. A cultural change has been brewing and this financial crisis may be the turning point. We are now being forced to examine our way of living and ask ourselves just what is really important.

 

The free market experiment has failed because it has proved it is necessary to regulate the financial markets, but the interventions have not been applied fairly. ‘Light’ regulation has benefited the well off, the financiers, but not the average taxpayer. The trickle down effect has been toxic, and I suspect when disassembled may prove to have had more insidious consequences than we realise.

 

But the meltdown may in the longer term be a good thing. A new financial model will have to be prepared, and people will be forced to tighten their belts and start to live within their means. Once we have weathered the storm the future may contain a lot less bling, but we might all be the happier for it.

Wednesday 17th September 12.30pm

Jeffrey House Visit

Together with other Health & Well Being Scrutiny Committee members I visited Jeffrey House in Cheam which is a set of flats specifically designed for adults with learning disabilities who are being moved from the Orchard Hill facility. The flats will allow a number of adults to live independently but with 24 hour support. There will be on site care workers at all times, and each flat has an inbuilt unit which alerts the care worker if a window is unlocked, or if there is any form of emergency. The flats were beautiful, with disabled facilities and fully fitted kitchens. Some had extra bedrooms for a carer to stay in and the penthouse flat had been chosen especially for a specific adult from Orchard Hill who loved gardening – it had a lovely roof terrace. Two Orchard Hill residents had chosen to live together and another flat had been designed with their needs in mind.

 

We all agreed that we would be perfectly happy to live in such well designed accommodation, and the location was excellent too. We were told that the prospective tenants who had visited had also loved the flats and were very excited about moving in.