Having a few connectivity issues in current location, so will be back with new posts later this week.
Still available for abuse via phone on twitter @hangbitch.
Be good.
Monthly Archives: January 2011
Lancashire cuts
7
Update January 12 2011: The link to the pdf on Lancashire council’s site below seems to have broken, so I reposted it here.
So – here’s a sorry pile to read, if you were looking for one: Lancashire county council’s proposals for service cuts.
Not much escapes the scythe here. Note the proposal to tighten eligibility criteria for adults needing care (page 18: the council wants to raise the base eligibility rate from “moderate to substantial”) and to increase charges for homecare (page 68). There’s a general proposal to cut the overall level of non-residential social care services: a move that would reduce the levels of support by up to 20%.
As one parent of a severely disabled man said to me today – “they’re going to consult us on how they cut, but they’ve already decided to do it and decided how in a fair amount of detail.” Indeed they have. A great deal of time has been spent on the paper linked to above.
My “Banned Recording” recording
Perhaps not quite as thrilling as the title of this post would have you believe… but this is the recording of the December West Lancashire borough council meeting that WL Tories told me to drop.
The chief executive stopped the meeting about halfway through to tell me to stop recording and tweeting.
The argument about my recording and tweeting starts at the beginning of the first clip below.
Councillors debate the recording issue for about a minute, then return to the discussion they were having about the refurbishment of council buildings.
Labour leader Paul Cotterill picks the recording issue up again at 6:56. Councillor David O’Toole, who made the complaint about the recording – and the dangers of members of the public editing recordings unprofessionally – is heard from towards the end.
Clip 1 (10 mins)
This second recording is an unedited version of the entire meeting.
Full (102 minutes)
A small resistance to be sure, but one I wanted to see through. Next West Lancashire council meeting is in a couple of weeks.