Tories hit us with their laser beam

In the wake of the Lloyds job losses, the Council have decided to do their bit for economic development and employment - by cutting 160 jobs. More than 50 of these will be in Adult Social Care, a service which has just been assessed as 'good' by the CQC. How 'good' it will be after the Tories' decimation is anyone's guess.

Tory leader Mary Mears has described this as a "laser-like focus on delivering value for money". Funny, looks like old fashioned Tory slash and burn to me. Although delivering the news from a hoilday cruise was a real touch of class I thought.

The justification for this is to deliver on the Tories' election promise to reduce council tax, but if services deteriorate and charges and costs go up, the most vulnerable in society will end up worse off. But the Tories are a minority administration and they have no mandate to attack jobs and services.

What's a Labour Government for?

Having slagged off Cameron in the previous post, now it is the turn of Brown and Darling - fiddling while Brighton's financial industry burns.

The announcement yesterday by Lloyds Banking Group that it was shutting its call centre in Gloucester Place - in fact they are vacating the building completely - was a major shock. Some 500 staff are facing either compulsory redundancy or compulsory relocation.

The shock was all the greater given that the bank is largely owned by the government. So....er....are they actually going to do anything? Not on your life!

This actually goes to the heart of New Labour's problem. It could win some support by being seen to assert some authority over the bankers, but they can't - they are trapped in the headlights of their own neo-liberal policies.

It is time for the unions to step up to the plate. Unite needs to extricate its head from New Labour's arse and get organising. It also needs to sink any differences it may have with the more parochial LloydsTSB Union. Many people think (rightly or wrongly) that the LTU has the greater credibility with the workforce. Now is not the time for internecine squabbling.

The building at Gloucester Place is a symbol of the big expansion of the then-TSB in the mid-1980's, when it made Brighton the centre of its operations. Many people have worked there for years.

There is a possibility for a real campaign around this, not least because the bank have given 6 months notice - lets not see it wasted.

Don't let the Tories take away our right to be safe

Dave's dabbling again. This time the object of his pronouncements is health and safety legislation. And no Daily Mail myth and cliche is left unused in his crusade.

Does anyone remember the 1980's? A decade famous for Thatcher (of course), as well as some dodgy music and even dodgier dress sense. But the disasters were not just sartorial and musical. There are some very '80s names to remember as well - Hillsborough, Bradford, Zeebrugge, Purley, Marchioness, Kings Cross, Piper Alpha. The 1980's will be remembered as the decade in which people died in huge numbers in dreadful disasters (never call them "accidents") whilst mainly doing very mundane and supposedly risk-free things. What these disasters had in common was that they were all preventable; they all occurred for the want of basic safety provisions - a lookout on the dredger which sank the Marchioness, proper crowd control measures at Hillsborough, not putting to sea with the bow doors of a ferry still open! This was the decade when we were free from the shackles of rules on safety and "common sense" ruled the day.

Of course, Cameron's speech ties in nicely with the media paranoia about 'elf n'safety, which distorts and exaggerates every apparently inappropriate and overbearing use of the legislation, and no doubt Cameron thinks this will grub him a few votes.

But there is more to it than that. His is a message which the deregulation enthusiasts of big business want to hear. The hidden agenda is a war on the basic standards of health and safety at work which it took the labour movement generations of campaigning, and thousands of lost and damaged lives to achieve. Even now we have only just got corporate manslaughter onto the statute book, and there has still been no prosecution as far as I am aware.

Don't let him get away with it. Don't let the next 10 years become another disaster decade.

Blair lied....no s*** Sherlock!

After a week the Chilcot inquiry confirms what we already knew.....Blair lied.

He lied about the threat posed by Iraq, he lied about their weapons capability, he lied about them being ready to attack within 45 minutes, he lied about being a "restraining influence" on Bush.

The anti-war movement knew this, and the 2 million who marched knew it too.

So what were our MP's doing at the time (you know...those people we vote for to "hold the executive to account")? Checking their expense accounts? Climbing the greasy pole to the dizzy heights of Parliamentary Private Secretaryhood? They certainly weren't applying even a scintilla of scepticism to what they were being fed.

So, Des, David and Celia (oh yes, and Ivor too!), what's your excuse? How did you not spot what anyone with half a brain was able to?

Answers on a postcard.............

Stop Cissbury Sell Off - all smoke and mirrors from Worthing Council

Stop Cissbury Sell Off. November 27th 2009

Contact: David Bangs, T: 01273 620 815, dave.bangs@virgin.net. Trevor Hodgson, T: 01903 602 200, thodgson@pccomplete.co.uk, Chris Hare, T: 01903 200 648, chrisharex@yahoo.co.uk

Worthing’s Downland
When is a sale not a sale ?

We would like very much to offer three cheers to Worthing Council leaders’ proposal to Worthing Cabinet to withdraw the Council’s Cissbury downland from the market[i].
Sadly, we cannot.
Indeed, the proposal to replace the sale of the Cissbury Downland with ‘long term leases’ looks like an attempt to dispose of the substance of their ownership of this Downland, under cover of the near-worthless retention of the legal freehold.

Pulling the wool over Worthing peoples’ eyes.
The council will thus receive the credit for dropping an unpopular sale, but still gain the capital receipts from the sale of the leases. Worthing people will gain little or nothing in terms of the management and improvement of their downland.
In effect, this proposal revives the discredited idea that covenants will adequately protect the future of our downland, by using the slightly different legal form contained within a long-term leasehold agreement.

It is telling, also, that the idea of the sale of the downland through long term lease has its origin in external advice from a ‘prominent developer’[ii].

Councillors should bear in mind that it was the Council’s past history of distance management of their farmed downland on long term agricultural tenancies that has encouraged the Council to forget the original purposes of their ownership in the first place.

‘Long term leases’ are not a solution. Thus: -
- The National Trust own about 450 acres of downland at Beeding Hill on ‘long term leases’. That form of ownership means nothing. They have no management control over any part of the resource except the tatty little fly-tipped car park. The rest of the downland has been bulldozed and relentlessly ploughed. The public have lost all rights of access, and all the archaeology and the ancient flowery pastures have been destroyed.
- Adur Council own large amounts of farmland north of Shoreham and Southwick, which is let on long term leases, and over which the Council has no management control. That downland has been stripped of almost all of its wildlife interest, its archaeology, and its public access.
- Brighton City Council own the freeholds of both Benfield Valley and the Devils Dyke Golf Course, yet they are let on long term leases. In the case of Benfield these leases have been owned recently by several developers and have not prevented several damaging development proposals for parts of the Benfield Valley land. In both cases the leases give the Council zero management control over these downland areas.
We urge the Council to develop democratically accountable forms of management for all its downland, which optimise their control over the land and their ability to put in place all the enhancements that would benefit Worthing people. These structures may well include carefully drawn up Agricultural Business Tenancies, but they would not include any ‘long term leases’ or ‘long term’ tenancies.
Particularly, the Council should write a Management Plan for their owned downland and consult with Worthing people and other interested bodies on the contents of that plan.
Such a Worthing Downland Estate Management Plan should include:
- Free and open access over all the council owned downland, as was always envisaged when the Borough purchased it, and as is strongly needed on this urban fringe Downland within the new National Park. All of Mount Carvey already has such access, and Tenants Hill had it in the past, and needs to be returned to that free and open condition.
- Management of all the farmland as permanent pasture, with the removal of most of the internal fencing at Tenant Hill and some at Mount Carvey.
- A project of enhancement of the quality of this permanent pasture, so as to re-create the flowery, species-ri ch pastures which were so central to the place identity of the South Downs in earlier generations.
- This project of enhancement to be done with the close partnership of Worthing’s neighbours, the National Trust, the new National Park Authority, Natural England, and local experts.
Eastbourne Council have undertaken just such an enhancement project over the past 15 years with excellent results for all visitors to their downland at Beachy Head and on the heights above the town, for wildlife, and for the restoration of a badly damaged down landscape.
With such a plan Worthing, too, can make its Cissbury Downland an iconic landscape for the new National Park.
Please reject any return to the bad old days of distant Council management and loss of all memory of the public values for which our downland was first bought.


[i] (Worthing Borough Council Press Release, 26th November 2009, and WBC Cabinet Meeting Agenda item 9, December 3rd 2009).

[ii] (Agenda Item 9, para. 3.2, Report to Cabinet: 3rd December 2009).

Local Union activist threatened with sack!

This just in from the National Shop Stewards Network. I know Zena, and this is quite incredible. This NHS trust doesn't just want to get rid of her - they want to be able to appoint the union rep to take her place!


Zena Dodgson, the elected Trade Union Facilitator (TUF) for staff at East Surrey, Crawley and Horsham hospitals, has been threatened with dismissal by Surrey and Sussex NHS Trust. Zena is also the elected Secretary of Surrey and Sussex Healthcare Branch of Unison, but would be unable to continue in this role unless employed by the Trust.

She was elected to the TUF post by the trade unions in 2005 and has been re-elected every year since by her union colleagues.

The Trust has unilaterally decided to make Zena’s elected post redundant and replace it with an appointed Trade Union ‘Convenor’ role at the end of 2009. She has been issued with an 'at risk' notice. The management want to have the 'new' post appointed by a panel which will include them! The union side is opposing this and defending their right to elect their officers.

The Trust in the past had a management appointed staff side coordinator and it took a four year effort to end this arrangement.

Zena is obviously seen as an obstacle to the plans of the Trust. Along with her Union colleagues at the Trust, she strongly opposed the ‘reconfiguration’ of Crawley hospital, which involved the downgrading of some services.

The decision to dismiss Zena is part of SASH management’s effort to turn it into a Foundation Trust, allowing it to be run as a business in the health care ‘market’. In the Marketing and Communications Strategy Update presented by Andrew Hines, former Director of Corporate Services and Facilities, to the SASH board meeting on September 24, 2009, he wrote:“If the Trust is to be effective in the future as a Foundation Trust, it needs to develop a mature approach to marketing.”The staff have started a petition to defend their elected Trade Union Facilitator.

Zena’s union, Unison, has lodged an appeal against her dismissal, which is scheduled to be heard on Monday, 23rd November.All supporters of the NHS should oppose this attack on Trade Union democracy.

The Chief Executive of Surrey and Sussex NHS Trust is Mrs Gail Wannell.Send letters of protest to her at: Maple House, East Surrey Hospital, Canada Avenue, Redhill, RH1 5RH.The phone number is 01737 231825, or email at gail.wannell@sash.nhs.uk

Please send messages of support to zena.dodgson@nhs.net

National Shop Stewards Network

Council helps itself to employees' pay

Now, tempting as I am sure it will be to some to write this post off as the special pleadings of a featherbedded public sector worker, do please stick with it. Any worker could potentially find themselves in a similar position.

At the end of last month, we finally got the pay award that was due from April, the delay being due to some very protracted negotiations (well actually some protracted stalling from the national employers).

Only several hundred employees didn't - the reason supposedly being that they had previously been overpaid a year previously when last year's pay award was applied. The Council took it upon itself to simply withhold people's pay on the basis of a "maybe" People weren't told this until they enquired - no explanation, no justification.

Now people are starting to have deductions made from their pay for these supposed overpayments, but still no explanation of these overpayments has been forthcoming. People have been given no opportunity to challenge the decision that an overpayment has occurred, nor to challenge the decision that there is a legal right to recover.

Needless to say, the union is on the case. We are disputing the Council's right to act in this arrogant and high-handed manner, and we are demanding that employees are given the right to challenge these decisions before money which they have earned and are relying on is snatched away from them. Now that they are being challenged they are starting to back down.

John Barradell, the new Council CEO, places a high premium on good customer service. But of course, if any user of council services were to be treated like this, there would be hell to pay.

Expecting council workers to show respect for service users starts with some respect being shown to them. Over this issue, Brighton and Hove City Council has shown its employees no respect whatsoever.


PS - if you find your pay packet suddenly "light" because of an alleged overpayment, challenge it quickly. Demand an explanation, and demand the right to negotiate around whether and how it should be recovered. Use your employer's grievance procedure and get the union involved if you've got one. What the employer won't tell you is that they may not have the legal right to recover the money at all, if you received it in good faith and had no reason to believe it was wrong.

Make sure you get advice quickly!

UPDATE - the council has now backed down in the face of pressure from Unison and the GMB. Everyone is getting the money they are owed and anyone the council thinks it has overpaid will get a letter of explanation and a chance to discuss and dispute the issue. The council looks like it will still seek to recover the money but we will be arguing strongly for it to be written off.

Yes..I know...lots of "righteous indignation" from the usual suspects on the Argus Comments about this great "windfall" council staff are supposedly enjoying - but if you have ever been overpaid benefits, tax credits or wages you'll know what a nightmare it is. You have got used to living on a sum which you had every reason to suppose was correct, then it's taken away from you when someone discovers the mistake. That in itself is bad enough, but then they want back all the money you've had been overpaid in the past as well.

Don't forget - if you didn't know it was wrong and had no reason to suppose it was, and you have acted on the basis that it was right, it is highly likely that the employer has no legal right to demand the money back. In Keenan vs Barclays Bank, an employment tribunal ruled that the employee had so built her life around the salary which later turned out to be incorrect that it was not only unfair to ask her to repay the sum hitherto overpaid - but that it was also unfair to expect her to take any reduction in the salary she had been wrongly paid for the future. Now there's an interesting precedent to quote at your friendly local HR department!