Week 6 2013

Tendring Topics.......on line

April Fools!

 1^st April is traditionally the day on which we get surprises – many of them unpleasant ones.  Most will disappear though, as with a triumphant cry of ‘April Fool!’ the surprise is revealed to be a hoax.

            Sadly, there will be nothing good humoured or ephemeral about the unpleasant surprise that, for many of us, will be manifest from the first day of April this year*.  This is the day on which the government’s economic measures, designed – so they say – to reducing and ultimately eliminating that deficit about which we hear so much, begin to take effect.  The immediate effect will be to make the poorest and most vulnerable of our fellow countrymen and women even poorer and more disadvantaged than they are at present.

            From that day, there will be no Disability Living Allowance.  This will be replaced by a new allowance payable only to those who can demonstrate being capable of no work whatsoever.   Others will lose the £208 disability living allowance currently paid to them and go instead onto the £112 job seekers allowance payable only for as long as they are actively seeking any work of which they may be capable.

            Then there’s the ‘bedroom tax’ that will mean that families in social housing with a spare bedroom will have the choice of paying extra rent or of moving into smaller accommodation.  The poor are not permitted to have an unused bedroom for the occasional use of adult sons or daughters or other friends or relatives. They’re not really being offered much of a choice because there won’t be smaller accommodation available for them.

            And don’t let us forget that the government is withdrawing from local authorities the funding that made it possible for them to reduce or waive altogether Council Tax on properties occupied by the unemployed or the disabled.  I have just watched on tv an unemployed (but seeking employment) middle-aged woman in Cornwall in tears because she says that she is already living frugally to the very limit of her meagre income.  ‘How am I going to find the money for Council Tax;  by giving up heating….or eating?’

            But, of course, we don’t have to go to Cornwall to find examples of extreme hardship.   In Tendring, because benefits for the elderly have been ring-fenced and our district has a very high proportion of old people, the withdrawal of this funding will mean a loss to the Council of two million pounds!  The Clacton Gazette carries a report of a sixty-year old who has worked all his life but is now full-time carer to his stroke-stricken and disabled wife.  They have been exempt for Council Tax but have been told that they will now be expected to pay the full amount.  How are they to find it?   They are just one couple among thousands suffering similarly nationwide.

            In this instance the Government has been particularly clever/cunning (delete as preferred).  Local authorities don’t have to withdraw this subsidy on unemployed and disabled liability for Council Tax.  They needn’t do so if they can raise the money involved in other ways – by such means as cutting libraries or sports centre services, reducing the frequency of collection of refuse and recyclables, or postponing the repair of highways and footpaths.  This will cause antagonism between the working population and the unemployed and disabled, both of which groups will resent the exemption of us oldies from these austerity measures. And it will be local government, not national government that has to make the final decision.  Thus it will be ‘That lot in the Town Hall’ not ‘them in Westminster’ who will get the blame.

            Just to add insult to injury, 1^st April will also be the date on which the seriously wealthy – those with incomes in excess of £150,000 a year - will have their higher rate of income tax reduced!  We’re all in this together?  Now that is an April Fool hoax!

*I have just learned that our water and sewerage charges (from the privatised water companies) are to go up by an average of £13 per annum from April. This will mean nothing to the lucky minority who will be having their income tax reduced at the same time.  It won't mean very much to me.  But there are those for whom it will be the final straw that breaks the camel's back 

‘Making sick people sicker’

            A few weeks ago there was condemnation from both sides of the House of Commons of the way in which thousands of sick and disabled people had had their benefit axed after the private company Atos, that the government has employed to ‘weed out slackers and scroungers’, had wrongly found fit to work.   There had been a number of deaths, including suicides, by people who had been assessed as fit for work following what was described as ‘a demeaning process that was making sick people sicker’.

            Private Eye, a publication that probes deeply where others walk hastily by, has learned that, despite these revelations, the government has tabled amendments to the employment and support allowance legislation which academics and campaigners say will lead to even greater suffering by the genuinely ill. 

 Private Eye reports that:  ‘Plans include withdrawing benefit if an assessor decides that a claimant’s ability to work could be improved by aids, such as guide dogs, walking sticks or prosthetic limbs – whether or not the claimant has access to them or can use them. Atos assessors already have the power to carry out an ‘imaginary wheelchair test’ by which they decide that a person could work if they used a wheelchair – even if they do not have one.  Under the changes, due to take place without public debate, people will also lose benefit if the assessor decides that adjustments could be made for them in the workplace – whether or not those changes have been made.’

            MP Tom Greatrex is reported as saying, ‘The fact that people can be assessed as fit for work on the basis of an imaginary guide dog, without taking account of the availability of guide dogs and the time taken to train both dogs and users, highlights just how far the Department of Work and Pensions seems to be prepared to go to find people fit for work without the support they need to make work a reality’.

            All of the above reminds me that my blue ‘disabled parking’ badge (that I use infrequently and only when my sons or a friend give me a lift) expires in July.  I shall have to apply for it to be renewed. Previously they were prepared to take the word of my doctor that, to use today’s new-speak, my mobility was strictly limited. I understand that there are new, more stringent, eligibility criteria nowadays. I may have to appear before government employed assessors. I certainly don’t look forward to parading my disability before those who are employed to try to catch me out   I really can’t walk safely, even the shortest distance, without a stick – and I’m much happier when I have a companion to take my other arm, or there is some furniture or perhaps a railing, with which I can steady myself.  I hope that will satisfy the assessors.  If I have to be even worse than that to qualify for a blue badge there would really be no point in my having one – because there would be no way I could walk from the parked car to the shop, cinema or church that would have been my destination.

A Dubious Triumph

          Both my sons were pupils at Clacton County High School in the 1960s and early ‘70s.   One went on to Cambridge and graduated with a good degree.  The other decided not to seek university admission but to leave school at 16, take a job and study for a professional qualification in his spare time.  He did so very effectively, taking the two parts of the Institute of Housing’s examination for professional Housing Managers and passing both at his first attempt.  Both my sons have had satisfying and socially valuable working careers.

            Consequently I have always held Clacton County High School in warm regard and was delighted when, referring to the CCHS, the Clacton Gazette carried the headline Valuable triumph – School among the country’s top performers.

            Reading on however, I discovered that the CCHS wasn’t in the top flight of schools for its GCSE or ‘A’ level results but had achieved one of the highest ‘value added’ scores in the country.  Very creditable, of course, but it may say almost as much about the abysmal ignorance of some of the pupils when they came to the CCHS aged eleven as it does about the standard of education that they later achieved.

            The Gazette published ‘league tables’ showing the actual exam results of ten north-east Essex educational establishments.  No-one would expect Clacton’s Comprehensive Schools’ results to equal those of selective schools like Colchester Royal Grammar School and Colchester County High School for Girls – but it was disappointing to see them at the very bottom of the list!   Right at the bottom was Clacton Coastal Academy, formed by the amalgamation of Bishop’s Gate College and Colbayns High School.   Only 36 percent of their students taking GCSE’s achieved 5 A* to C Grades at GCSE or their equivalent, including English and Maths.  Next above them was the Clacton County High School with just 51 percent.

            Needless to say the Head-teachers of both schools cite the controversial changes in the marking of GCSE English exam papers during the year in explanation – but these changes surely affected Colne Community School, Brightlingsea (72 percent) and Tendring Technology College, Frinton (69 percent) as much as they did the Clacton Schools.

            It is certainly an achievement to have raised the standard of children of low achievement at primary school – but if this result was achieved by neglecting the encouragement and support of high flyers, and there must surely be some of these (as there were in 1970 when Clacton County High School sent no less than four of its sixth formers to Cambridge) it was a somewhat hollow triumph.

Week 11.10

Tendring Topics…….on line

We Mobility-Scooterists are in trouble again!

Ought mobility scooter users face a test before being allowed out onto the pavements on their iron steeds? Ought our mobility scooters to be – like cars – compulsorily registered and insured against third party injuries? These are said to be measures that the government is considering. We in the Tendring District have particular reason to be interested in this since we are said to have the highest proportion of disabled people in Essex. Also, according to the Daily Gazette, our district ‘has witnessed a growing number of accidents involving motor scooters in recent years’.

Have we though? The only evidence the Gazette produces to support this claim is that in 2005 a woman scooter user suffered fatal injuries when her scooter was in collision with a car in Clacton’s Marine Parade East, and in 2006 an 80 year old woman from Walton called for a change in the law after she was hit by a scooter and a Walton toddler ‘was dragged under the wheels of one’ (considering the size of scooter wheels that takes a bit of imagining!). Also in 2006, Tendring Council considered banning scooters from cliff paths and seafront promenades, after a woman on a scooter suffered fatal injuries when she accidentally drove her vehicle off the prom.

If one swallow doesn’t make a summer, four accidents involving mobility scooters that took place between four and five years ago, hardly make a cause for serious public concern today. How many accidents involving cars, commercial vehicles, motorcycles and pushbikes have taken place in our area since 2005? Considerably more, I fancy, than the four in which mobility scooters were involved. We don’t even know in how many, if any, of those four accidents the user of the mobility scooter was to blame.

Having said that, I can’t bring myself to go all the way with Gordon Beare of the Tendring Pensioners’ Action Group who claims that the idea of the test is ‘an outrageous suggestion……..I’m certainly against having to take a test. I’m sure there would be a charge for it, which many elderly people can’t afford’.

I have been a scooter user rather longer than Gordon Beare, and I am not quite so sure. Driving a mobility scooter, crossing busy roads with it and behaving correctly towards other road and pavement users isn’t quite as simple as those who have never tried it might think. Mobility scooters go faster than the average pedestrian (not many people can walk at 4 mph) and they have very powerful motors. It was at least a fortnight after purchase before I felt sufficiently confident on mine to venture into the town centre. I think that some kind of a test might be a good idea. It is unlikely that the test would be free but then mobility scooters aren’t exactly cheap either. Surely most people who could afford to buy one would also manage to find the extra pound or two for the test.

As for registration and third party insurance; registration needn’t cost anything and most responsible scooter users already have third party insurance. I certainly wouldn’t be happy without mine. The low premiums charged testify to the small number of claims that are actually made.

I am fully in agreement with Gordon Beare on one point – the unpredictable and thoughtless behaviour of some other road users can present mobility scooter users with problems. I am particularly wary of pedestrians walking down the middle of the pavement towards me, engrossed in conversation on a mobile phone. They’re clearly not looking where they are going and depend on pedestrians coming towards them stepping aside at the last moment. That is something a scooter user can’t do! I have even seen someone tapping in a text message while striding blindly along the footpath.

Other ‘hates’ that one develops when driving (or should it be ‘riding’) a mobility scooter are the motorists who leave their cars right across the dropped kerbs that we rely on when crossing a road, and those (commercial vehicle drivers are major offenders) who park partly on the footpath, leaving just sufficient room for a fairly slim pedestrian to squeeze through. Motor scooters and, I imagine, those pushing prams or wheel chairs simply can’t get past.

These are a minority though. I have found most motorists, and most pedestrians, to be courteous and considerate. We scooter users must remember that we take up rather more room, and move faster, than pedestrians. It is up to us to cause as little inconvenience as possible to others, to give way on narrow or partially obstructed footpaths, and never to forget to smile, to say please or thank you, and to apologise whenever an apology is due.

Could do better……much better!

What on earth has happened to Clacton’s secondary schools?

Only last week in this blog I commented on the fact that Bishops Gate College and Colbayns High School during 2008/2009, the last academic year of their existence, had the highest truancy rates of any school in Essex! Their general progress showed much to be desired and they have been amalgamated as The Coastal Academy in an attempt to save them from failure. Only time will tell whether or not this move will prove to have been successful.

Two ‘likely lads’! Pete and Andy, the Hall brothers in 1966. Both were pupils at Clacton County High School in the ‘60s and early '70s

At least, I thought, Clacton County High School remains a centre of secondary educational excellence. I hadn’t realized how much that school has changed since the 1970s! Then both my sons were pupils. They were among many who were a credit to the school, and have since
pursued profitable and socially useful careers. In his final year, my elder son was one of four sixth form students who were offered and took up places at Cambridge University. Many others went to other Universities.

Now it seems that Clacton County High School is also in trouble. Following an Ofsted inspection last November, the school was criticised for having inadequate teaching and falling GCSE grades. The report said that its leadership team had not recognised significant weaknesses in the way that it dealt with bad behaviour, and with pupils having learning difficulties. Student attendance was too low and GCSE maths results were consistently below average. Some pupils and parents had also complained that the school’s disciplinary policy was unfair. The Governors were criticised for not questioning high exclusion figures.

I must say that I have some sympathy with the Head-teacher Mr Jeff Brindle in connection with the exclusion of pupils whose behaviour disrupts the education of others. What other effective disciplinary measures are available to head teachers these days? I wonder to which schools Mr Brindle is referring when he claims that his exclusion figures were still ‘lower than other local schools’. Could it be Colbayns and Bishops Gate?

It is amazing how eager those in public office (whether they are MPs referring to their expenses claims or school governors discussing adverse Ofsted reports) are to put unpleasant facts behind them and ‘look to the future!’ My former colleague Bert Foster, now Chairman of the CCHS Governors, says, ‘What is important now is the interests of our students. We intend to move forward, put this report behind us, and build on the many strengths the school has’.

I think that the Governors and Head Teacher should not put that report behind them, but keep it in front of them – as a reminder that they must do a great deal better in the future. I don’t envy Clacton parents with ten-year old sons and daughters about to begin their secondary education.

Another, ‘Modest proposal……..’

Those readers of The Times who are well past the first flush of youth may have been shocked to read an article in which novelist Martin Amis (son of Sir Kingsley Amis) shared with readers his solution to the ‘problem’ presented by our ageing population.

He suggested that we deal with this ‘ticking demographic timebomb’ by providing euthanasia booths on every street corner. If we fail to do this, he suggests, ‘There’ll be a population of demented very old people, like an invasion of terrible immigrants, stinking out the restaurants, cafes and shops. I can imagine a sort of civil war between the old and the young in 10 or 15 years time’.

Possession of a very fertile and active imagination is, I am sure, on the CV of every successful author. The article was surely a satirical one, in the same vein (and as deliberately tasteless!) as the famous ‘Modest proposal…’ of Dean Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels. In it he appeared to suggest infanticide and cannibalism as a solution to many of society’s problems. Some of his contemporaries imagined that he actually meant it!

It is to be hoped that Martin Amis’ intention was satirical, because a search on Google Chrome reveals that he is himself 60 years old. If there were to be a civil war between young and old in fifteen or twenty years time he could expect to be in the front line – and on what he would now consider to be ‘the wrong side!

A few months ago we were celebrating the life and work of Charles Darwin. Martin Amis’ article is of value in that it graphically illustrates what I think of as ‘Fundamentalist Darwinism’; the conviction that the survival of the fittest is the primary law of nature and that the sole purpose on earth of every living creature (including every man and woman) is the perpetuation of its species. The old, the disabled, the infertile and the impotent have no evolutionary purpose. Therefore they have no place in Darwinism’s ultimate Brave New World. ‘Away with them, to the guillotine, the gas chambers, or the euthanasia booths!’

The Fateful 6th May

It is now almost certain (if not entirely ‘beyond reasonable doubt’) that the General Election will be held on Thursday 6th May. What is even more certain is that its highlight will be a carefully staged and televised debate between the leaders of the three main political parties.

The way in which the debate is to be held and the propaganda that is already preceding it make it even clearer to me that on polling day we will not be expected to choose between different sets of policies (there is not a great deal of real difference between them anyway) or even between political parties, but between three individuals; which one ‘comes over’ best on the small screen! If his party has a substantial majority the winner can expect to be able to exercise dictatorial power for the next five years, since all the rewards (for party loyalty) and all the penalties (for what would be seen as disloyalty) will be in his hands.

It seems to be assumed that a ‘hung parliament’ in which neither of the two largest parties have an overall majority, would be a national disaster. It would mean we couldn’t have a strong government. My experience of strong governments suggests to me that it would be the best possible outcome of the election.

If we hadn’t had a strong government in the 1980s and early ‘90s, we wouldn’t have had the almost universally detested Poll Tax (They really should have known better. An attempt to impose a similar tax in the 14th century had triggered the Peasants Revolt!) If we hadn’t had a strong government in the first decade of the third millennium, we wouldn’t have embarked on a bloody and illegal war in Iraq.

Were there good things that happened under those two governments that wouldn’t have happened if we had had a hung parliament? I suppose that there must have been. Off hand, I can’t think of any though!