Wilt Portfolio

You see, Wilt is a bit of a simple bloke really. OK, he may have gone to Oxbridge and is Conservative in relation to his politics but his roots are very humble having been raised in a small terraced cottage with an outside loo and no running hot water and indeed no bathroom.

Watchful will be amazed to learn that at one time Wilt was left of left having being taken under the wing of some Trotskyite mad fella, also Oxbridge educated. Believe it not Wilt would go to picket lines, supported the miners’ strikes in the 1970’s and was even known to have long hair and hitch hiked to the Reading Festival and Glastonbury – he even dabbled with some illegal substances but like Bill Clinton he never inhaled – mmmmmm.

Even more amazing was that Wilt was to become a fully paid up trade union member and not only an activist but a senior shop steward. Wilt reflects, what might have become of him had he continued in that way?

Wilt Portfolio

Well, here is the answer: http://order-order.com/2011/06/15/nothing-is-too-good-for-the-workers/

‘Mad Boy’ Bob Crow is obviously living the high life in Mayfair. Mind you his £2555,000 per year salary would allow him such a luxury as a £650.00 lunch. Wilt must have taken a wrong turn in his career choice at some point.

Wilt Portfolio

Fucking unbelievable!

Wilt Portfolio

Actually Wilt thinks he did make the right choice – at least his six figure income is well earned, is looking in far better shape than Crow (despite Crow being a lot younger) and can look at himself in the mirror without feeling he has got to his position in life without shafting trade union members – all be it many trade union leaders need a good shafting, preferably with a red hot poker.

Wilt

Wilt Portfolio

Oh boy – will these people never learn? Going on strike never works these days. Public sector finance and the overall UK budget are in a complete mess and we have public sector workers, teachers et al going out on strike to achieve what exactly?

The response of these public sector workers http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13772326 will have no effect – really. Take it from Wilt the public sector pensions and service conditions are beyond the dreams of those in the private sector. And who funds the public sector? The private sector of course, unless someone can tell Wilt otherwise.

This goes beyond social work concerns – perhaps social care is a special case (Wilt admits it is) but something has to give. Wilt for one is fed up of hearing teachers who work only half a year complaining and of civil servants and local government officers thinking that the public will have sympathy with them – they won’t believe me.

Wilt Portfolio

What will be achieved will be a massive saving in salaries on those days they go on strike – I suppose every cloud has a silver lining.

The crisis in social care, in the public sector at least, is far less to do with economics and far more to do with the simple fact that it is a difficult profession to work within and hindered by a hostile public and, particularly, media environment. Yes we can blame the press and a few twats of the likes of Calleja and Plaskitt to a certain extent, but in reality the profession needs to sort out its own image.

Bringing local authority pensions, salaries and conditions of service into line with the private sector will not impact upon social care recruitment or retention (in the long term) in social care. Those who ‘can’, just get on with it, those who ‘cannot’ just wait out their days claiming sick leave for recurrent six month stints on full pay.

Wilt Portfolio

Do social workers need more sick leave? Well, if they do then solve the core issue and do not pass on the bill to Wilt who does not enjoy the opportunity to take sick leave, on full pay for six months – if he goes sick there is no money. No paid holidays either or his salary if he needs to do, for example, jury service. Least of all will his private pension be gold plated and when on holiday do you think he can claim off the taxpayer his equivalent earnings?

There is statutory sick pay and statutory minimum holidays – that is excellent but Wilt cannot understand why someone in local/central government service have far superior conditions of service to those in the private sector? No longer can it be argued that public sector workers are lower paid because that is a simple untruth. In fact, if anything, the opposite is true.

The prospective summer-autumn-winter of discontent will be, well, a mild irritation, we suspect. Civil servants and local authority staff do not hold the same kind of power that the miners had in the years prior to the Thatcher era – think on Brethren and Sisters before inviting even more stringent legislation to govern ‘industrial’ and trade union ‘powers.’ Scargill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Scargill) failed – take note.

Wilt Portfolio

Wilt

Wilt Portfolio

Yet again the GSCC have made a major fucking cock up and to add injury to insult (or vice versa) have imposed a inconceivably disproportionate sanction on a social worker registrant:  http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2011/06/13/117003/social-worker-guilty-of-misconduct-in-case-beset-by-delay.htm

It has taken the GSCC two years to conclude the case against Eric Rickerby who was initially suspended from the Register but then reinstated after an appeal to the Care Standards Tribunal who ordered his reinstatement: http://www.carestandardstribunal.gov.uk/Public/View.aspx?ID=1088

That was in July 2010 – nearly 12 months later they finally conclude the case. They blame the delay on administrative shortages but they accept there were unacceptable shortcomings and have learned lessons to ensure there are improved services to registrants – now where has Wilt heard that before?

Having effectively deprived the guy of work for two years, and a loss of an estimated £90,000 in salary they add insult to injury by admonishing him for 4 years.

Wilt Portfolio

One can only assume that Rickerby will also appeal that judgement on the grounds that the decision was both perverse and utterly disproportionate.

Will these fuckers at the GSCC never learn? If Rickerby had not had to defend himself any reasonable lawyer would have torn the GSCC apart and shamed them into thinking that the guy had already served time. Effectively the fella will effectively serve 6 years – that is longer than some rapists serve!

What utter fucking bollocks.

Wilt

Wilt Portfolio

Wilt Portfolio

Oh dear – Ed Balls is having a hard time. He of the surname reflecting something spherical and in the plural has been found out: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13736406

It could not happen to a nicer bloke – he remains looking like an evil bastard, something akin to Damien out of that film The Omen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Omen

Obviously someone within the Labour ranks have it in for him – no doubt Blairites.

Obviously Mr Brown (Gordon ‘Nokia’) did not come out looking too good either. Boy did Wilt have a jolly good chuckle. It however gets worse.

Meanwhile the two Milliband’s and the Labour party overall are not having a good time: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13741517 The internal feuds’ within Labour and a piss poor leadership from Ed is making them a laughing stock. Ed Milliband needs to keep a careful eye on his right wing brother David seeking to dominate the game while his (so called) team mate Ed ‘Ferkin’ Balls has been effectively put ‘offside’ in his over ambitious efforts to catch the eye of the supporters at the football venue. It sounds like a yellow card for Balls whilst the other Milliband (David) has decided to take a ‘wait and see’ position on the field.

Wilt Portfolio

Meanwhile the conservatives, playing mostly right and centre are in the possession of the ball (and got Balls by the balls) and are falteringly driving down the pitch to the Labour party goalposts – regrettably their left wing Lib Dems are either not playing ball or have forgotten whether they are playing up field or downfield, or indeed what field. They appear more concerned with whether the team Trainer and Medics have the correct focus.

Team captain Ed in the mean time seems to have lost the plot, and his goalie, and is having to look left and right to ensure that the team are on form, supportive of his tactics (sic) but as a consequence has lost sight of the ball. Of course Ed never really got the full backing of the team support club; indeed the majority would really have preferred to have had David as team captain.

Ah well, all that captain Dave (Cameron) needs to do now is to sort out the Lib Dem aspect of the team – then we will see some real football.

Wilt Portfolio

Not that Wilt even likes football.

Wilt

Wilt Portfolio

And another success: http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2011/06/10/116976/baby-p-social-worker-to-receive-damages-from-the-sun.htm

See also here: http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2011/06/09/116977/baby-p-verdict-a-victory-for-social-workers.htm

It was Deidre Sanders of The Sun who was in 2009 identified as a keynote speaker for the GSCC 2009 Conference which was received with disbelief and anger by both the social care press and social care workers. In fact a petition was signed by Wilt and several hundred others objecting to Sanders being given a voice by the GSCC.

See here: http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2009/10/15/112878/deidre-sanders-tells-gscc-conference-tide-has-turned.htm

And here: http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2009/09/30/112712/anti-deidre-sanders-petition-gets-over-350-signatures.htm

Wilt Portfolio

The fact that The Sun is now to pay substantial damages to a social worker falsely accused by the newspaper of being implicated in the death of Baby Peter not only implicates The Sun but also the GSCC who were so insensitive to the views of the social care sector.

So GSCC, another nail in your coffin – you are a disgrace. Tabloid journalism is one thing, but tabloid regulation falls well short of what was intended and is unacceptable.

Shoesmith is only the beginning – like Arthurworry (Climbe) before her, there are a few other social workers lining up to challenge their treatment by the quadruplet congenial self-preservation society of Haringey, Ed Balls, Ofsted and the GSCC.

This is also a blow to the likes of Calleja who we know has tried to cash-in on the Baby P disaster by claiming she also was failed by social workers i.e. her convivial meeting with Mary ‘Contrary’ Wakefield which led to the Spectator article, see here: http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/all/3061606/after-baby-p-the-crisis-in-child-foster-care.thtml#comments

Wilt Portfolio

More like a Jackanory story.

Wilt

Wilt Portfolio

As predicted, Elizabeth Calleja of Leamington Spa, is accessing Regulator Watch above her normal average of three times per day to 4 – 5 times per day from her Android telephone. How not remarkable! She is so predictable, she is like clockwork and equally as uninspiring.

Her latest efforts are to trawl Regulator Watch daily, going through each section one by one in (we suspect) the desire to put together a portfolio of all the postings that refer to her. She was however particularly fascinated by the post ‘squeezed’ upon which she spent nearly 30 minutes – she thinks she may have some clues to the identity of Wilt but in reality nothing will identify Wilt as he is very well defended, thank you.

Wilt Portfolio

What is wonderful, because of her use of a mobile phone, every time she access’s Regulator Watch her location shows up because of the network of mobile phone towers within the UK. It is like snail slime that one might observe on the patio which leads you to the offending garden slug without a house on its back. It is obvious she does not care – such is her arrogance.

As predicted by Wilt and company, and especially by friends in Salop, the woman will not give up. Let us not forget that she has been hitherto and remains determined to destroy certain individuals, see here: http://regulatorwatch.co.uk/2009/10/a-bit-of-a-bully-x-2/ She now knows not to contact Pixelmakers and try to bully them.

Wilt

Wilt Portfolio

The first line manager (Team Manager) within children’s services is both the most critical of roles and the most stressful, even more stressful than frontline social work in Wilt’s opinion. It is hardly surprising therefore of a high turnover as set out in this article: http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2011/06/07/116954/line-manager-turnover-adds-to-frontline-stress.htm

The thing is most people move into that role mostly because they technically proficient and not necessarily good managers – obviously as in most cases they will not have had prior management experience. It is also the case that professional competence is not of itself enough.

Whereas there is in political terms talk of the ‘squeezed middle’ if you really want to know what it is like to be squeezed try being a first line manager.

When Wilt ‘was a lad’ he had to have a minimum of 5 years qualified experience to become what was then a senior or principal social worker – even in those ancient days pre the children act 1989 Wilt found the transition hard. Unusually in those days of mostly ‘generic’ social work teams (i.e. social workers carried both children/family and adult cases) Wilt’s early ventures into the world of management caused him sleepless nights and a need for considerable reflection – was he ambitious? Yes is the simple answer, although he was in denial of this for a long time.

Wilt Portfolio

However he was lucky as the local authority which appointed him in his first management role (at least in fieldwork) was very progressive, had an inspiring director and was regarded among the best in terms of managerial and professional practice – it had a very strong managerial culture and in those days if a manger said ‘jump’ you jumped. Not a bad environment to work in as a social worker as professional excellence was demanded and managers (compared to today) were relatively well experienced and frontline staff felt safe. That is in stark contrast today where it seems many staff have very inexperienced managers and rarely feel safe.

The key quality of any first line manager is the ability to enable his or her staff. It helps of course if you have staff capable of being enabled – never make that assumption as there poor social workers too, and I do not mean in terms of salary.

Anyway, Wilt went on to greater heights in management, skipping several intervening positions and pay grades to the near top of management – quite frankly he was never cut out for the top role and was never inclined to apply for any vacancies. Indeed he saw the light, left local government and built up his private business – and thank Gawd he did.

Wilt Portfolio

Have a thought though for that lonely Team Manager having to know the ins and outs of every open case of the several people he/she manages. Believe me, it aint easy.

Wilt

Wilt Portfolio

Guido and Wilt are at one on this issue: http://order-order.com/2011/06/06/the-war-on-pilgrims-goes-international/ as are the vast majority of sensible thinking people – which obviously excludes those full-time paid union officials at public expense.

Now if the unions want full time officials then we suggest that they pay them themselves and then we will see what the membership might think.

Meanwhile poor old Vince Cable http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8559306/Vince-Cable-heckled-at-union-conference.html is taking on his own war of words with the unions. He threatens new laws against strike action. Bring it on says Wilt.

What is the point of striking? There will be, as Wilt has long predicted, huge cuts in non-jobs, a realistic pension scheme, a freeze (i.e. cut) in salaries and a severe curtailment of outlandish conditions of service.

Before you know it, there will be some kind of equality between the public and private sectors.

Wilt Portfolio

Wilt being a businessman, not a trade union member and unable to claim sick pay or take paid holidays believes these civil servants and local authority persons to have taken the piss for too long. Furthermore, Wilt has to finance his own office costs, heating/lighting and his own pension fund – neither does he have (as do public servants) a whole infrastructure of publicly funded finance officers/accountants to sort out his accounts, payments of wages and sort the tax return. Wilt does all that, at his expense/own time, in addition to the day job.

These public servants need a good dose of reality. That will cure them.

Wilt (grrrr)

Wilt Portfolio

Wilt Portfolio

It could only be a Brummy who would be foolhardy enough to name their boat Titanic II. What an utter Dork. See the article here:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8559138/Titanic-II-sinks-on-maiden-voyage.html

You could not make it up.

Wilt

Wilt Portfolio

The Traffic on Regulator Watch is definitely growing – not quite at the rate yet of Guy Fawkes blog http://order-order.com/ upon Wilt has based his own.

For example, according to WordPress (the blogging platform used for Regulator Watch) there have in the last 24 hours been 452 visits viewing 1662 pages. Over the last month 12647 visits viewing 30637 pages and the last year 59982 visits viewing 127458 pages – but there is a six month gap where Regulator Watch temporarily hosted the site not using WordPress.

So the real 12 month figure would be closer to 120000 visits – brilliant.

Now those are visits as distinct from visitors – there is an increasing number of regular followers (apart from Calleja) not only from the UK but in fact from several continents and numerous countries. Multiply that for a two year period and we begin to approach a ¼ million.

In Google terms, Regulator Watch is well valued.

Wilt Portfolio

Calleja has been visiting Regulator Watch virtually since its inception at a rate of three times a day and according to my calculator that represents 2190 visits – more than any other single visitor, including Wilt.

Wilt