Hello from over here – the Wilt has again been flying off to warmer climates on business, despite the BA strike. He is arriving back today and the Salty Dog and Mrs Wilt are away to North Wales for the bank holiday weekend. Nice!

The cider here is not real cider – it is more like, and there is no more eloquent way of describing it, Piss!

Anyway, we have been keeping up with the news on Sky and over the internet and my heart sinks – in fact, in a political context, Wilt is giving up the will to live: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/7780642/MPs-Expenses-Treasury-chief-David-Laws-his-secret-lover-and-a-40000-claim.html

See also: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8712383.stm

Having got rid of the many bad apples from that so called Honourable House (like Plaskitt) the British public are faced with Laws being among the worst offenders and whose exploits of fiddling the expenses system is revealed shortly after he draws up plans (quite rightly) of cutting back on the expenses claimed by government staff, and even better cutting back on quangos.

The man is a complete fucking moron. Whatever lame excuses he makes his decision to pay back £40,000 (I wish I had that much cash to throw around) and to refer himself to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner cannot distract us from the fact that his Cabinet Member status (even his MP status) is utterly untenable. Quite simply the man has to go – so go to it “call me Dave” Mr Cameron. Sack him and if Clegg objects, sack him too.

What is wrong with these people? I just simply despair – I really do.

Ah well – Salty Dog (and Mrs Wilt of course) has been sorely missed. My flight is now ready to board and in just a couple of hours Wilt will find himself with a real Cider – if he can wrench it from the lips of Salty Dog.

Oh what nice teeth you have Salty Dog – don’t look at me with that attitude!

Wilt

And so the fun begins – the cutbacks. Much of the broadsheet headlines are outlining planned cuts, including some quangos. Wonder if the GSCC will survive? One thing is for sure, there are going to be mergers and cost savings across Whitehall (which include quangos) with hundreds of thousands of job losses.

And about time too! After the mess Gordon created together with his other party friends it was inevitable, whoever won the election. The Times has the best coverage, me thinks:  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7134040.ece

followed by the Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/david-cameron/7753829/Queens-speech-revealed-David-Camerons-500-day-programme-to-change-Britain.html

See also the BBC online news: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8699117.stm

All very scary stuff and as the Times points out it will not just be Whitehall, but also local authorities, health trusts and education funding, among others.

Of course there will be an impact an of the likes of Wilt as there is less money to go around, but he has sources of work outside of the UK to tide him over to retirement (or at least semi-retirement as Wilt is unlikely to stop working altogether). Next week and indeed throughout the rest of the year Wilt has more work outside of the UK than actually within the UK – doing a good job and word of mouth is better than any advertising. However, his website does help a great deal in bring in business.

Not long now and the pensions will kick-in and the mortgage paid off. Wilt can do as little or as much paid or unpaid work as he likes. Indeed all retired people I know are busier than they were when working! Indeed some of them are hardly in the country as they are semi-permanently on holiday.

Returning to the budget cuts, the Tories are very good at cutting budgets – they take a much uncomplicated approach. They simply stop new recruitment, slash budgets and leave it up to the mandarins and local government chiefs to find the solution – they are after all the experts. I know, in an earlier life Wilt had to find those savings under previous Conservative administrations. In those days I hated Margaret Thatcher http://www.margaretthatcher.org/ but it is remarkable how looking back one can view her differently and that is particularly so with the ongoing industrial relations in the BA dispute: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/10140911.stm

See also: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1280583/BA-stockpiles-1-7bn-fighting-fund-WIllie-Walsh-vows-dysfunctional-cabin-crew.html

If I ran BA – I would sack the strikers. There will be several thousand unemployed coming onto the market. Oh, and I would reward those who did not strike. This is the most pathetic set of industrial disputes in recent history; save for the fools who go on strike because of job losses – what fucking purpose does that serve?

It is noted that there is reference in (see Telegraph article) the Queens speech to getting people back into work – that is code for making work more attractive than benefits and means that people will take available work rather than opt for remaining on benefits. What do they think people in private business do? If it came to it Wilt would do whatever work if it kept the lights on and the food on the table – even Gordon (Cyclops) has considered doing something other than politics. Many wish he would – the majority of the catastrophes that have hit the UK and are about to fall on those employed in Government are specifically because of him and his odd political ideas. Well, at least we lost Plaskitt – so it aint all bad!

Let us just hope that Cameron does not have a Thatcher “pole tax” type moment.

Meanwhile the rest of Europe and the Euro Zone are in utter shambles – very predictable. Soon one will get so many Euro to the Pound that going abroad will be on prescription from your family GP. I always did like the old Greek Drachma – it might yet become currency.

And that reminds me of the old adage “beware of Greeks bearing gifts” – it can apply equally to Greek culture as to this Coalition Government given that the gift of budget savings is a potential Trojan horse. I knew that classical education would come in handy at some point.

Cameron has before him a host of other Tories who have attempted to regain ground and fight back against the tidal wave of public spending – creating spending is a whole lot easier than cutting it back. That is why he needs to be a lot more clever than Brown – whatever one may say about the bloke, Brown was/is not stupid. We think/hope however that “Dave” is a very shrewd man – more power to his elbow, we say.

And that other bloke, the Deputy PM – he may think he has a “deal” but Nick (the Romeo shagger of all times – other than possibly Achilles) also needs to learn about Greek tragedy. Whereas his wife may (or may not – probably not given they are both Lib Dems) launch a thousand ships, she is Spanish for Gawd sake and what exactly do they know about economics, or indeed for that matter Armadas? Nick (former MEP) will be having some interesting pillow talk (not with David!) over the Coalition Government embargo on the UK helping to bail out the Greeks or anyone else, and indeed on any extension to new EU powers. He will come to understand that our man “Dave” is a bit of a wooden horse containing a few tricks up his sleeve. Another adage: “beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing.”

Wilt will be watching with great interest how progress (or not) will be made. Be sure he will be observing too.

Wilt

This was an interesting find: http://www.neumansllp.com/legal_support/social_workers/index.html

This firm of solicitors are offering specific services to social workers and in particular dealings with the GSCC – I like them already. We will add them to our recommended list of helpful websites.

They claim to be a UK wide service and I guess out there will be a customer base to serve the frontline social workers. For certain the traffic to Regulator Watch (based on search terms) indicates there is continued anxiety among GSCC and other social care Registrants about the GSCC and others. Here are some exam-le search terms from the month so far:

mike wardle

ofsted reports sandwell social service

interim suspension order draconian

robin weekes gscc

mike wardle sacked

michael wardle ofsted

gscc south Africa

falsifying qualifications social work

suspension of the gscc’s chief executive mike wardle peter

eleni cordingley

gscc incompetent

gscc fail

sssc sites

social worker poor record keeping

can cafcass request crb checks

gscc hearings

go straight to the care standards tribunal

sssc register

gscc legal cases

sssc cases won at appeal

disband the gscc

gscc notice of decision

the power to dismiss gscc committee members

gscc fucked

social workers under investigation by the gscc

what happened before gscc

gscc investigation process

regulator mrs c

gscc bullying

gscc special measures

shirley o malley social worker

robin conduct manager gscc

gscc panel members vacancies

gscc regulator

mike-wardle

poor record keeping by social workers

hate gscc

westberkshire council tribunal

The full list of search terms which lead to Regulator Watch can be found here: webstats 21 may

What is quite remarkable is that the search term “the power to dismiss gscc committee members” was made by a well known London firm of solicitors who have frequently and regularly represented the GSCC in conduct cases, at investigation stage (conducting investigations), in prosecuting misconduct and in defending (not very successfully always) appeals to the first tier Care Standards Tribunal.

We wonder which committee member they are trying to get rid of?

This Robin Weekes fella at the GSCC seems to get a regular search on the internet – he is or was the head of conduct at the GSCC who thought he had confidentially disclosed that Mrs C (her of the Hovel) as “actually being vexatious.”  On that much he was certainly right.

Mrs C remains the most frequent visitor to Regulator Watch – bless her, the poor twat.

We will report further at the end of the month on the full access to Regulator Watch with a particular emphasis on Mrs C and her declining number of enforced and unwilling supporters.

Wilt

Brick over at Wall http://wallofbrick.wordpress.com/ has been very busy with further amusing observations. I wish I had the time at the moment they had to keep up with the latest developments.

We like reading Mr or Ms Pink Floyd’s Blog. S/he has updated the Playground Theme and look forward to the next instalment. We wonder if they also have a Dark Side of the Moon theme tucked up their sleeve? I think there was already something about Flying Pigs.

Together with Wilt and several other very good Blogs on social care, not least award winning http://winstonsmith33.blogspot.com/ the social care profession is pretty well served.

On the subject of Blogs, Wilt’s inspirational Blogger Guido Fawkes http://order-order.com/ has a series of “diary” notes relating to the exploits of Ed (the Ferkin) Balls bid to win the leadership of the Labour party. Now that is a real flying pig – and I mean no insults to pigs.

I foresee Blogging becoming much more popular in the months and years ahead – thanks in no small part to Guido and the likes of Brick and Winston Smith. We like to think we have played our part too.

Wilt

Meanwhile, that quango we all like to hate – Ofsted are back in the news. Echoes of Haringey and Baby P in this Channel 4 story:   http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/domestic_politics/ofsted+fails+to+tell+public+about+sexual+abuse/3653912

Overall, the teaching profession have some strange attitudes to a little thing called boundaries and gross exploitation of young people. And it aint just the male teachers either. I can hear them say now “she was asking for it, Me Lud.”

Mmmmmmm.

One can imagine that Ofsted will be a major casualty when it comes to budget cutting by the new government – they have one of the largest budgets. And do not forget that Conservative aim to put more power in the hands of parents, to free up schools and reduce the burden of inspection – code for Ofsted are crap.

This little empire will be cut down to size we think – shame it never happened before Baby P and the shafting of Sharon Shoesmith. Unfortunately, the banana republic will still survive – but only probably.

Wilt

Wilt has been busy but keeping up with the news. It seems social care blogging is getting attention as outlined in this reference in Community Care: http://www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/mental-health/2010/05/social-care-blogger-wins-natio.html

Winston Smith (as in Orwell’s 1984) has won a prize: http://www.theorwellprize.co.uk/the-award/events-diary.aspx and his very humorous blog can be found here:

http://winstonsmith33.blogspot.com/

Congratulations.

Wilt

Happy birthday Regulator Watch – you are one year old.

On 14^th May 2009 Regulator Watch went live and is now a worldwide phenomenon with a hoard of regular readers, contributors and stalkers. Of course our number one fan is Mrs C from her hovel in Warwickshire together with her numerous entourage of people to whom she complains – the list is far too long and boring.

Wilt having recently made his epic sail from the Mediterranean to the shores of his homeland is back and has gathered much information from Malta. It’s enough to make an old Templar cry in laughter. Much fun will be had. Not so much as lost or stolen files as brand new files – that should get the Information Commissioner and a poor harassed constable of Banbury a phone call. Shiver me timbers mates, the Wilt is back yet again from his sojourn. More travel (business) is on the near horizon, although this time via tarmac and airports as distinct from choppy seas. There might just be a few Salty Dog trips to North Wales – you bet there will.

But what a year Regulator Watch has seen – it has created a bit of a stir among the regulators in social care, the social care press and the press as a whole. Not to mention interest from some political figures and the like minded reasonable thinking people of the Wilt age i.e. sceptical friends of social care (like a critical friend). The police have had complaints (at least two police forces) from Mrs C (bless her), as have the GSCC and a host of other quango and government agencies. A huge fan has of course been James (The Dunes) Plaskitt, now a former MP of Warwick and Leamington Spa, and those he enlisted in his support – various Ministers, Ofsted and the Information Commissioner. All in an effort to close down Regulator Watch and find out who this dreaded Wilt is – they think they know who he is but it is belly breaking with laughter to keep them guessing. It is even more amusing, to Wilt at least, to know that in this hide and seek game that they are nowhere near warm, let alone hot.

It is of course very odd, in fact absolutely crass and indefensible, that on the one hand Mrs C and Dork Plaskitt try to gag Wilt whilst Mrs C breaches every aspect of confidentiality at will and Plaskitt attempted to exclude MPs from FOI requests – fucking brilliant. In true “1984” style this pair wanted to rewrite history and prevent any dissent or opposition. Now in the case of Mrs C she can be understood, she is a simple minded plebeian, but Plaskitt read PPE at Oxford – he must have missed the lectures on democracy.  Fucking Dorks, the pair of them – George Orwell will be laughing in his grave and saying “I told you.” Not that I am suggesting that Mrs C and Plaskitt are Mr and Mrs Stalin – well actually, I am!

And how UK politics have changed – apart from the decimation of Plaskitt! Gordon the Cyclops has gone after tearing out his fingernails hanging onto his desk, Ed the Ferkin Balls is a “has been” (but still an evil looking/acting bastard) and “Dave” the man is farting in the same place where Gordon frequently experienced dysentery – the Number 10 PMs private bathroom. It is rumoured that the party manifesto is used as a bog role!  We have hopes for Dave, after all he got our vote, and our local Conservative MP reckons that this coalition will result in real change.

We can but hope.

The year ahead is going to be very choppy – not only in wave action terms but also in CUTS. Big CUTS! We approve.  Big government (Whitehall/quango) will suffer immense trauma and just several hundred thousands of people will be looking for “real” jobs – you know, like earning a living.  No huge pay offs, a few quid and here is your P45. Oh, and don’t bother attempting to claim dole money cos you will effectively sign up to a contract of doing community work – Wilt needs his lawns, flower borders and fish pond tending to, and a few paint jobs. He will even let you clean his 3 cars. These (so called “employed”) scroungers will become nothing more than the drug taking alcoholics they think themselves to be above – they will all become very reliant on the decreasing state subsidies of other scroungers and beggars, notwithstanding “Cyclops” created a whole host of decent people unemployed through no fault in their work ethic.

And it will not just be Whitehall/quango. Hello local government – the smile is about to be wiped from your face.  A cut of 30% (in numerous places around the UK) will result in major job losses too. Again, we approve. Wilt is not aware of any local authority that will not make cuts in the range of 10 to 20%.

Business, including that of Wilt’s will boom for sure. Gone will be the influx of cheap labour from abroad as the increasing domestic workforce market “gets real” in terms of available options and enterprise flourishes – no longer the Albanian weekly car wash and more like the Swindon Cooperative of Ex-Government Employees Franchise Car Wash. So that these nice Whitehall and quango people fully understand, the current (Albanian) cost of a complete valet of a car is £10 (less the charitable on-cost for pension fund), is usually involving 3 persons, it takes about 30 minutes and they smile. OK they (Albanians) sleep 15 to a room (Gawd the smell must be awful) and might get pissed (for US readers – drunk) on occasion, and at which times lock up your daughters and sons, but you know, it is their choice and for them at least it provides a means to a living.  They certainly provide a service which I will pay for, and do so weekly. How then will our domestic workforce respond in the light of a choice between jobs/enterprise and a reduction in benefits?

We will see.

Anyway, it’s party time and I have to go blow out the candle on the birthday cake.

Wilt

Hello from from Gibralter – next stop Portugal (somewhere), then Atlantic France before the final leg to the UK and home port.

We will try to be keeping up with the news and posting anything interesting.

Wilt

Due to the loss of James Plaskitt (Dunes Boy) from parliament Regulator Watch is in mourning: http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/election2010/results/constituency/e94.stm

There is nothing amusing about this outcome – no really! No sniggering is allowed – just think of poor Mrs C!

Wilt

In a matter close to Wilt’s heart (and his wallet) Community Care report on the fiasco with the LSC (Legal Services Commission). See article here: http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2010/05/05/114425/lawyers-hit-out-at-court-fee-cap-on-social-workers.htm

Another article here: http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2010/05/04/114412/cut-in-independent-court-report-fees-imperil-expert-input.htm

This has been going on for months – it’s an effort to restrict the ever growing public law court costs in child care cases. Essentially reducing the costs paid out in expenses to expert witnesses in preparing reports and in giving expert evidence. However it is restricted to reducing the costs of social workers specifically, as distinct from other experts such as psychologists/psychiatrists etc., etc.

Now Wilt, even though this work is the backbone (although not exclusive) of his business, has mixed feelings.

YES, all budgets need cutting back, and in my opinion far too many experts are engaged and not always successfully, Dr David Southall being a prime example http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8661639.stm

But why single out social work experts? Use them less is my answer, not cap their fees – but of course the LSC aint got any control over that.

And it is true, very experienced and competent experts will simply “fade away” and do something else – no doubt the LSC will have factored that scenario into their equation – I would as a business person, managing a budget.

The overall problem lies with the Children Act. The so called “charter for children” (as it was hailed) was nothing remotely resembling anything concerning children or putting their needs as “paramount.” The pecking order is as follows:

i)             Lawyers

ii)            Children’s guardians

iii)           Expert witnesses

iv)           Parents

v)            Children

Court proceedings involving children is big, big money. Utterly hopeless cases are examined to such a degree that is bewildering – however justice has to be done and be seen to be done, but not before the lawyers, guardians and experts have taken their (several) pounds of flesh in fees, and yes sometimes very high fees – you ever seen a poor solicitor?

If the Act is to do justice to children, it needs a massive overhaul. Do not get me wrong, there are some excellent lawyers, very sound guardians, very competent experts and some brilliant magistrates/judges – between them they resolve some highly complex cases, and in others cut through the crap and get to the point.

Expert social workers are sometimes necessary because, we know, some local authorities (not necessarily their social work staff) are utter crap. But folk can we please also recognise some local authority social workers (because of or despite of their organisation) are experts in their own right – yes there are indeed good social workers, and good organisations. It should not, as is common practice, to require an independent social worker to confirm this.

The simple message is – reduce demand on experts and do not cap fees. How that is done?  Change the legislation.

Community Care reported earlier here: http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2010/03/16/114063/court-fees-insult-to-independent-social-workers.htm

Wilt being both an “expert” witness (I prefer the term professional witness) and Independent Children’s Guardian has some insight into these matters. How many social workers, for Gawd sake, does it take to change a light bulb or indeed resolve a court matter – typically there is the local authority social worker (even several in some cases), possibly an “expert” social worker and then a children’s guardian.

Wilt is of limited ability but even he can count – that accounts for a minimum of three, and very possibly more, social workers per case.

There is already an expert in the proceedings – they are called a Children’s Guardian. Does it really need several more social workers?

Wilt