Another story which caught my eye this week was about a local free school in Slough having to bus its children to lunch as the intervening road had no safe crossing point.
No! Slough Borough Council can’t alter the traffic light sequence to allow the children time to get across a busy road.
No! Slough Borough Council won’t provide a lollipop person.
No! Slough Borough Council won’t provide a Zebra Crossing.
Yes! The problem is the school’s fault.
What’s betting if the school was one controlled by Slough Borough Council all the above would miraculously become possible and that their refusal to help the school get its pupils safely across the road is more to do with spite and political dogma than anything else.
Another example of Council spite came to light in a report that Wakefield Metropolitan District Council’s hived-off housing department, Wakefield District Housing, was reneging on an undertaking given to tenants of a block of flats.
It would seem that when WDH took over the flats seven years ago they changed the tenancy agreement banning tenants from keeping cats and dogs.
However, an undertaking was apparently given by the then tenancy manager that existing tenants could keep their pets for their lifetime, a sensible and compassionate compromise.
Now however the new Area Manager for WDH, one Joanne Smith, is seeking to enforce the tenancy agreement. Whilst admitting that an undertaking had been previously given she is now adamant that she can’t, or won’t, over-ride the tenancy agreement.
Needless to say, the original minutes recording the compromise seven years ago have been ‘lost’!
How convenient for WDH.
Mrs Smith says she will ‘work sympathetically with residents’ – but not apparently sympathetically enough to abide by a promise freely given seven years ago.
No harm can possibly be done by allowing a seven year old agreement to continue and it seems to me like another example of petty council spite for the sake of it.
Sunday 22 September 2013
The Law of Unintended Consequences (or how to do more harm than good)
I read in today’s newspaper that the actions of charities like Oxfam, who ship some 2000 tons of old clothes to Africa each year, is destroying the culture of countries such as Ghana by replacing its traditional clothing with western-style jeans and football tops.
Another and more serious consequence of this mass shipment of cheap clothing is that it is now affecting the countries’ textile industries, destroying jobs and undermining their ability to grow their own industries and so overcome poverty.
Not unsurprisingly, Oxfam’s Trading Director, Andrew Horton, defends the trade in second-hand clothes and with a mind-boggling dichotomy of thought says that the trade creates jobs but undermines local garment industries!
I don’t suppose Mr Horton’s defensive position as anything to do with the money Oxfam makes out of this trade but wouldn’t it be better to invest in improving the local infrastructure, so that countries such as Ghana can become less reliant on aid, than to simply use them as a dumping ground for our un-wanted cast-offs?
Another and more serious consequence of this mass shipment of cheap clothing is that it is now affecting the countries’ textile industries, destroying jobs and undermining their ability to grow their own industries and so overcome poverty.
Not unsurprisingly, Oxfam’s Trading Director, Andrew Horton, defends the trade in second-hand clothes and with a mind-boggling dichotomy of thought says that the trade creates jobs but undermines local garment industries!
I don’t suppose Mr Horton’s defensive position as anything to do with the money Oxfam makes out of this trade but wouldn’t it be better to invest in improving the local infrastructure, so that countries such as Ghana can become less reliant on aid, than to simply use them as a dumping ground for our un-wanted cast-offs?
Thursday 12 September 2013
Briscoe Primary School and Exclusions.
It's been reported that Briscoe Primary School, part of the Hearts Academy Trust, has excluded nine Primary School pupils because their parents failed to attend an induction session on, amongst other things, Health and Safety.
The Health and Safety Executive is reported to be critical of the school's action saying "there are no Health and Safety laws which would require parents to attend such a briefing".
No doubt many other issues were covered as well as Health and Safety but it would seem even then the school has acted unlawfully in excluding pupils for a week and until their parents attend a fresh briefing session.
I quote from the Department of Education's Statutory Guidance and Regulations on exclusion:
Section 12 of The Guide to the Law states:
It is unlawful to exclude for a non-disciplinary reason. For example, it would be un-lawful to exclude a pupil for a reason such as the action of a pupil's parents.
The Health and Safety Executive is reported to be critical of the school's action saying "there are no Health and Safety laws which would require parents to attend such a briefing".
No doubt many other issues were covered as well as Health and Safety but it would seem even then the school has acted unlawfully in excluding pupils for a week and until their parents attend a fresh briefing session.
I quote from the Department of Education's Statutory Guidance and Regulations on exclusion:
Section 12 of The Guide to the Law states:
It is unlawful to exclude for a non-disciplinary reason. For example, it would be un-lawful to exclude a pupil for a reason such as the action of a pupil's parents.
I was, for many years, the Chairman of a Local Authority School's Exclusion Appeals Panel and fully expected, with the advent of Academies, such as the Hearts Academy Trust, that situations like this would proliferate, especially given that parents can no longer appeal to an independent appeals panel such as I chaired, but only to the School Governors who, in my experience, have never failed to confirm and support a Headteacher's decision to exclude, no matter how flawed in law that decision might have been.
Wednesday 11 September 2013
Michael Le Vell and Elephants
I can't say I'm surprised at the jury's verdict in the Le Vell case but what does surprise me is the decision of the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute a case which, according to their own criteria must be "in the public interest" and "have a reasonable expectation of conviction".
As to the second criteria, how the CPS ever thought they would get a conviction for five counts of rape when the medical evidence was that the girl in question had never been sexually penetrated astounds me.
RAPE - the offence of forcing a person, esp a woman, to submit to sexual intercourse against that person's will.
Their decision is even more puzzling when considering the history of the case; in 2011 and twice in 2012 the CPS determined there was insufficient evidence to support a conviction, no medical evidence, no forensic evidence, no supporting evidence and no witnesses! So what changed, what made the CPS consider it to be in the public interest to mount an extremely costly prosecution with no likelihood of conviction?
Jimmy Saville did!
And the whole media circus surrounding the alleged molestation of young people by 'celebrities'. Even the CPS's barrister, Eleanor Laws, felt the need in the Le Vell case to say to the jury "Is there some kind of witch hunt?" It's often said that if it looks like an elephant and smells like an elephant then it probably is an elephant - well the Le Vell case and others do look and smell like a witch hunt!
It also looks like a discredited CPS grasping at straws to atone for the fact that Jimmy Saville is in his grave and so beyond the reach of anyone save the Almighty.
What also concerns me is the ease with which anyone, celebrity or otherwise, can have their reputation ruined, their career ended, and their marriage destroyed, even if exonerated, on the un-supported say-so of some deluded, lying accuser, safe in the knowledge that she (it's usually a she) is immune from the consequences of her lies.
This cannot be fair!
A cornerstone of the entire legal process is that there should be a 'level playing field' between defence and prosecution and in cases such as Michael Le Vell there simply isn't! The field is tilted massively in favour of the prosecution. I accept that without victim anonymity many genuine cases would never come to court but hasn't the time now come when we should address the imbalance this causes and grant pre-conviction anonymity to those accused of such crimes?
As to the second criteria, how the CPS ever thought they would get a conviction for five counts of rape when the medical evidence was that the girl in question had never been sexually penetrated astounds me.
RAPE - the offence of forcing a person, esp a woman, to submit to sexual intercourse against that person's will.
Their decision is even more puzzling when considering the history of the case; in 2011 and twice in 2012 the CPS determined there was insufficient evidence to support a conviction, no medical evidence, no forensic evidence, no supporting evidence and no witnesses! So what changed, what made the CPS consider it to be in the public interest to mount an extremely costly prosecution with no likelihood of conviction?
Jimmy Saville did!
And the whole media circus surrounding the alleged molestation of young people by 'celebrities'. Even the CPS's barrister, Eleanor Laws, felt the need in the Le Vell case to say to the jury "Is there some kind of witch hunt?" It's often said that if it looks like an elephant and smells like an elephant then it probably is an elephant - well the Le Vell case and others do look and smell like a witch hunt!
It also looks like a discredited CPS grasping at straws to atone for the fact that Jimmy Saville is in his grave and so beyond the reach of anyone save the Almighty.
What also concerns me is the ease with which anyone, celebrity or otherwise, can have their reputation ruined, their career ended, and their marriage destroyed, even if exonerated, on the un-supported say-so of some deluded, lying accuser, safe in the knowledge that she (it's usually a she) is immune from the consequences of her lies.
This cannot be fair!
A cornerstone of the entire legal process is that there should be a 'level playing field' between defence and prosecution and in cases such as Michael Le Vell there simply isn't! The field is tilted massively in favour of the prosecution. I accept that without victim anonymity many genuine cases would never come to court but hasn't the time now come when we should address the imbalance this causes and grant pre-conviction anonymity to those accused of such crimes?
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