The Failure That Is Anglesey

This week, we latest GVA statistics were released for Wales.  They make for despairing reading, if you live on Anglesey.

GVA - Gross Value Added - is a measure of the contribution of each individual producer, industry or sector in the UK.  It is commonly modified to a GVA per head of population, where it becomes 'how much of a contribution each person made to the UK economy.'

Anglesey has the lowest GVA figure across the whole UK.  Not just Wales - the whole of the UK.  And indeed, this is not the first time we've seen this outcome - it's been the same for a very long time.

And it's not just a slight difference that leads us to the bottom - our GVA per head is less than half the UK average.  We are, in every sense, a poverty-stricken island.

My name?  Anglesey.

Worse than this is the fact that Gwynedd has seen a rise of 3.4% in the period 2012-13 in its GVA figures, whilst Anglesey dropped 1.5%.  So it can't merely be blamed on geographical location.  There's something special about Anglesey that leads it to consistently be a huge under-achiever.

But maybe this is not surprising when our current portfolio holder for economic development is a former farm insurance salesman who, later, couldn't even make a sweet shop pay.  That, and the legion of well-paid tortoiseshell bespectacled officers who don't appear to be on any sort of performance-based renumeration.  If they were, perhaps we'd see something better than sitting back and watching the island sink into economic oblivion.

Sadly, the answer has, for many years, been seen as 'Wylfa B, Wylfa B, Wylfa B'.  All the eggs in one basket.  A simple measure of desperation.  You'd think the politicians would learn and set their sights on a diverse economy based on small, efficient businesses.

But, why worry when your councillor's allowance each year take you twice as high as the per-capita GVA?  That is the simple disconnect between the governed and the governors.  The workers and the wasters.  Whilst they may laugh in the poor people's faces, it is a dangerous place to go, as any history book will inform.

Caught by the glitz, the self-importance and the trips abroad, our council can only join-in with its central government master and repeat that the vast majority of people support Wylfa B, when independent studies do not support this idiotic bleating.

Meanwhile, it's clear that Anglesey has been ill-goverened into the ground whilst our noddies fought amongst themselves for power and privilege. Reap the benefits, folks, and pack-off your kids elsewhere.  Oh, and pray that Cardiff will wield its legal powers to bring the sick joke that is Anglesey Council to a very swift end.

Anglesey Council - The Dumb Dinosaur Wakes Up.

This week, Anglesey's bumbling Chief Executive, Richard Parry Jones, has written what is described as a 'frank but constructive' letter to Horizon Nuclear.

Horizon, whose knees probably won't be trembling very much, say they are 'disappointed' by the Council's letter.  Hey, join the queue of the disillusioned, Horizon!

The motivation is said to be the lack of clarity over just how many jobs, and just how much economic benefit Horizon will provide to locals, as opposed to workers parachuted-in from new plants reaching completion across the world. This, from a Council whose own clarity consisted of trying to keep hidden from the public its interim MD's pay packet (that was £1200 a day, plus a few more perks, by the way.)

It is remarkable that Anglesey is only now asking these questions.  Residents have been chatting about them for years now.  For years, the Council has been ramming its 'Energy Island' (a trademarked, jolly cover for 'Nuclear Island') down the throats of residents, even though the programme appeared with no public consultation nor any identifiable mandate.   Search online, and you will find endless rose-tinted press releases by the Council, coupled to ludicrous certainty about the New Dawn awaiting Anglesey, if it gets Wylfa B.

Energy Island(TM) has delivered dubious results for Anglesey.  Most of the whoopla about tidal energy has died away, leaving little more than, erm, Wylfa B and ever-more wind turbines that would have arrived without the Council's hamfisted involvement.

The point never addressed by our hopeless Council and our uselessly compliant local media is that Anglesey has had a nuclear power station operating since 1971.  During that time, it has stood as a perverse, government-sponsored mini-island of prosperity for the few who work there, whilst the vast majority of the island's 70,000-odd population have just grown poorer in a rapidly-declining economic environment.  Nuclear power does not bring widespread and lasting economic prosperity.  Wylfa A proves that much.

Also rammed down our throats has been the shrug-shoulders to new pylons across the island, whilst other parts of the UK have protested their way to climb-downs by National Grid, now burying their lines in many parts of England, where the people are less willing to sit and do as they are told.  According to insiders, Anglesey Council has been busy working hand-in-hand with National Grid to aid their 'preferred option' of more pylons whilst trying to appear at arms' length to the public.

The new nuclear build is said to be wanted by the majority of Anglesey residents - but only if you listen to the biased views of Horizon and the Council.  A study by Bangor University found the wrong questions were being asked and, consequently, yielded the wrong answers.  The majority, it seems, are not in favour of 'Wylfa Newydd' and its patronisingly Welsh cottage-like name.  The latest missive of concern by Parry Jones now insists that the "vast majority" support Wylfa B, and that this support is "of the upmost [sic] importance."  No points for written English, then.   No doubt by 2015, it will be 'everybody, to a man'.  Such are the assertion-laden tendencies of little men.

The reality of Wylfa Newydd has been apparent to everyone except Richard Parry Jones and his merry men, it seems.  Whilst Horizon has been tokenistically pumping money into Coleg Menai and training a few people up, these are not going to be the experienced engineers and plant installers that will be needed for an efficient construction project.  Nobody believes that those people will be local; they will obviously come hot from other projects to keep their skills honed and ready for the next one, somewhere else.

Sure, some people like painters, plasterers, and maybe a builders' yard or two may become rather wealthy from Wylfa B, the vast majority of spending will not be local due to its highly specialised nature, and the expected reliability of supply.  'New turbine assembly, you say?  Yeah, I had one round the back, somehwere', isn't the kind of exchange we're likely to see at Llangefni Jewsons any time soon.

It's rather galling to find the Council repeatedly make reference to 'evidence-based' decision making, when its own claims about the degree of public support has already been shown to be highly-questionable at best, and plain wrong at worst.  

It's also a bit rich that this Council wants clarity and adherence to policy by industry when its own development plans ground to a halt years ago.  This is, in every way, a failed Council trying to make out it's an authority with clout.  It's a bit late for that.

Still, maybe Parry Jones and his lot can take another fully-justified and necessary trip to Japan to 'clarify' the position.  Nice work, if you can get it...

Anglesey County Council: Back to Normality

In the week where we discovered the 'Basket Case Council' sent a Council tax invoice for one penny to a father who'd recently lost his daughter (being invoiced), we find general business is back to normal in Llangefni.

Over the past couple of years, Cardiff has been gearing-up to rid itself of the financial dead weight that 22 local authorities represent in Wales - a nation of just 3 million people.  The clearest signal that change would happen, no matter what, came when new legislation - the Local Government (Wales) Measure - to permit a forced amalgamation of local authorities was passed in Cadiff in 2011.


Despite the endless slef-interested bleatings of the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA), it's clear that not only is Cardiff intent on cutting the number of councils, but is intent on doing it quickly.  After all, the financial crisis has been going on for five or more years by now, and the impacts about to be felt by the average Joe.

The Williams Commission was clear in identifying the problems and providing the solutions on a plate to Ministers.  Under such pressure, several councils, including Gwynedd, have already relented to the very clearly inevitable and offered themselves up for amalgamation.

Anglesey, however, has other ideas.  Never one to be anything other than ridiculous, Anglesey has stated it will stick it out and resist amalgamation.  It says is wants a meeting with Cardiff to "learn more" about the process of amalgamation.  This is very interesting, because for months, the bumbling and ageing Chief Executive of Anglesey, Richard Parry Jones, has been popping down to Cardiff for plenty of meetings.

Chop, chop - merge now!

There is no defence against cutting the bloated public sector within Wales, which in many areas provides the only well-paid employment to be found.

It's also clear that much of the resistance to amlagamation is utterly predictable and self-interested moaning from councillors and senior officers alike, both groups fearing a curtailment to their lavish expenses and very positions.

Anglesey's councillors, for example, now cost well in excess of £1 million per year in annual allowances.  One elected member pocketed £43,000 last year (2013/14), according to Anglesey's own data.

Yet, whilst there is plenty of hand-wringing about how services "must be cut", and endlessly raising Council tax by 4.5-5% per year  - every year - none of the councillors discuss cuts to their own allowances, which are in many, if not most cases, higher than the average annual salary for the island.

Anglesey has never worked as a Council.  Mired in scandal and alleged corruption from the outset, it has been subject to condemnation by one District Auditor after another.  In the 1990's, heads did roll, albeit with golden 'goodbyes' and nothing by way of personal accountability, as is the way of the State.

We've since seen direct control from Cardiff by Commissioners, the initially top-secret payment of £1100 per day to a parachuted-in and widely-derided interim MD, and various special measures of various departments.

More recently, a Family Court Judge, no less, stated very publicly that he suscpected Anglesey's Social Services might be trying to cut costs when they completely failed to adhere to the law in stopping a child returning to its mother.

This is not a council in which the public can have faith.

The message to the self-interested public money grabbers who are once more putting their pockets, rather than the people first, is clear: you must merge, and quickly.  You have no track record other than failure on which to rely, and it is to be hoped that Ministers will dismiss the bleatings, and wield the axe in a deicisive manner.

Anglesey Council's Potential Deafness Problem

Anglesey Council, who initiated their much-vaunted and trademarked 'Anglesey Island' concept many years ago now, may have a big legal problem on their hands if new research is put to the test in Court.

Researchers in Germany have unearthed mechanisms by which the ear's natural sounds are amplified by stimulation by low frequency noise, which campaigners often claim to be emitted by wind turbines.  The paper itself makes no mention of wind turbines.

Sunny and noise-free.  Or so the authorities and developers would like you believe.

Planning consent is such that levels of noise at LF are never taken into consideration, because the frequency and loudness levels are at points of the auditory spectrum where, even if these LF problems were shown to exist, they would never provide a legal basis for planing consent breaches. 

Only by the notoriously difficult-to-demonstrate route of statutory nuisance can LF noise currently be brought to Court.  Local authorities, whilst obliged to order assessments when reasonable complaints arise, are often in friendly liaisons with turbine developers, and in most cases, get the developers themselves to assess the noise.  It's hardly a recipe for objectivity.

But, with this evidence, part of a developing body of research that indicates LF really is a problem and could damage health, those whose lives and property are blighted by wind turbines will feel emboldened.

Anglesey has been an enthusiastic supporter of energy projects, and wind energy insiders report that senior officers are "very keen" when presented with new turbine proposals.  The public, however, have a different view.

The tide has turned against onshore wind farms.  Their proliferation in the crowded UK has become a significant poilitical issue.

For now, it appears that this latest research is one further nail in the coffin of those who have hoodwinked local politicians and the public alike into believing wind turbines never cause health problems.  If they really believed that, then they would embrace LF noise clauses in planning consents.  That this is never the case reveals the true situation with respect to turbine developments.

Indeed, the government fairly recently relaxed limits on noise for wind turbines.  This blogger, who seems to be an ardent supporter of the wind industry and perhaps part of it, claims the German research is "bad science."  As his riposte, he ridiculously posts an online video taken with a simple video device, claiming that the wind farm in question has "no noise."  

Where the blogger is right is in his claim that the term "wind turbine" does not appear in the text of the research report. 

Whilst this is so, it is a bit like saying a research paper reporting that "high energy collisions with the human body cause injury" can't be linked to motor vehicle accidents, and so there's no need for anyone to worry about cars hitting people.  The link to turbines is self-evident and unambiguous through the range of frequencies under consideration.  The paper provides food for further research thought in direct respect of wind turbines.  

Anglesey Council's Ludicrous 'Considerations'

Anglesey Council, hardly the exemplar of local government over the past 30 years, is 'considering' a waste collection option that could see black bins emptied only every three or four weeks.

One can certainly be kind to the council and say they have both legally-enforceable recycling rates to hit, and financial savings to make.

Now it's 1,2,3 weeks per collection, not 3,2,1,!

However, the EU legislation that necessitated recycling targets came into effect a very, very long time ago.  Like many other councils, Anglesey have simply sat on their hands for several years before getting to grips with the problem of waste reduction.

But let's get back to the immediate problem: can a monthly bin collection work?  An analysis of waste going into my black bin casts very serious doubt that it can.

This family recycles all that the council accepts.  This excludes a large number of plastics, notably packaging plastic and films, that the council can't get rid of.  As a result, our bin content over two weeks is currently almost entirely made up of packaging plastic.  All our food waste is composted within our garden.

What this tells you is that, for families, monthly collections will result in ludicrously full bins.  In summer, they will smell, although the reduced amount of food waste put into them should limit this compared to days gone by.

Councils, of course, have never been able - or perhaps willing - to tackle sellers and makers of food on the plastics they produce.  As a result, the manufacturers are able to dispose of the waste they (and not us) createat zero cost to themselves.  This has always been a sore-thumb sticking out in need of attention, but it's remained unresolved.

One might argue that, with monthly bin collections, the pressure will mount on food producers to cut down on the amount of thin and film plastic they use to wrap all our products in.  But it's uncertain.  Plastic bags didn't really become a controlled item until the Welsh Government banned free bags.  I think packaging plastics will have to similarly be controlled through legislation.

So, yes, the Council does have a genuine problem on its hands.  But then, has anyone started to look in depth at the years-long contracts handed out to private companies - who must make a profit - for taking over the waste collection and processing functions in the first place?  Therein must lie some pretty hefty savings - provided you can find good managers that are allowed to manage by Councils.

Anglesey GCSE Results

If there's one thing you can rely on any flavour of government to do, it's abusing numbers.

This lunchtime, a little while behind the other local authorities, Anglesey has appeared from behind the bushes to announce - wait for it - that "99.5% of students attained grades A*-G." 

Ha ha!  They may as well say "100% of students got a grade A*-Fail."  It's a pathetic, pointless number to quote that deliberately serves to produce a short-lived 'ta-da' moment. 

So, where did Anglesey score?  It's using the word "maintained" in relation to its results.  That means not up, not down.  Is this correct?

Anglesey got 67.7% in the still very wide grouping of A* to C.  The emerging national (UK) average is 68.8% (BBC figures).  So whatever Anglesey is doing, it's 1.1% below the national average.  Anglesey seems to mean "Wales" when it uses the term "national."


As to maintaining its position, Anglesey appears to be doing itself a bit of a disservice.  Its own press release claims the 2013 figures A* to C was 65.6%, so 2014 seems to be a 2% improvement.  Similarly, the pointlessly wide range of A*-G is up a very tiny 0.2%, which we can accept is treading water. 

Anglesey's spin doctors haven't said what proportion achieved the grades A* and A.  If they are anything like the national picture, they will have dropped markedly.  

According to sources, education chiefs are "not in the country" at the moment.  This may well be reflected by the disappointing revelation that a councillor hasn't even bothered coming up with anything new to say, this year's press release containing the verbatim-same note of congratulation as last year's:

"We can be proud of the educational success of our young people which is crucial to the future prospects for Anglesey."

Well, any sensible students and their parents will be taking their academic successes thus far and crossing over the nearest available bridge to the Great Wide World beyond, just as soon as they possibly can.  That way, they can get away from the shame of Anglesey and its council, famously described as a "basketcase" by Private Eye.

So, Anglesey is treading water once again this year.  This despite special measures following its failure to provide a good service.  In the end, how many people get any sort of grade is utterly meaningless smokescreening.  It is how many people get the top grades that counts.  Sadly for any spin doctor charged with making things look better than they really are, Anglesey, like the rest of Wales, continues to occupy the abyssal depths of the PISA tables - a much more telling result.

Social Services - Anonymous Complaints

If you want to lodge a complaint about someone putting up an oversized shed next door, but want to remain anonymous, planning authorities will typically tell you to get stuffed. 

Why?  Well, it's pretty obvious.  Complaints where neither the authority being complained to, nor the person being complained about know who's behind the moaning inevitably lead to open gates for malice.

But if you want to remain anonymous to Social Services?  No problem!  They don't ask who you are, because, they say, the interests of the child are paramount over any concerns about anonymity.  It sounds good, until you ask: is Social Services about family wellbeing, or just protecting children?  It ought to be an equal concern.

This is the terrible place local authorities up and down the UK have taken us.  Arse-kicked into covering their own backsides after high-profile failures on their part, they've now swung to the other extreme of making everyone guilty until they can prove otherwise.

It is, in no uncertain terms, a turning of centuries of legal safeguards against arbitrary punishment by the state on its head.  Forget Magna Carta, because Social Services plebs think it's a kind of upmarket coffee.

And forget, too, the line that "if you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to worry about."  It's a lie.  If someone that hates you cottons-on to the fact they can make as many complaints about your parenting abilities as they like without anyone asking who they are, chances are they will.  Children are emotive.  They grab the headlines.  Especially when Social Services get things wrong. 

Many will say that anonymity encourages reporting of bad parenting.  Probably true.  But then, it was an ethic used to terrible effect by the Stasi, too.  Is that where the UK has come to?  It is.

It's time Parliament put an end to entirely anonymous reporting of allegations against parents.  If complainants want their details withheld, the Data Protection Act 1998 already allows that with no difficulty.  If this practice were to end, then it would be easier for parents maliciously targeted by former partners, estranged spouses and neighbours with nothing else to do of a day, to tell Social Services who they think is responsible, and match that against what is often long-term harassing conduct by others, and often a matter of clear police record, too.

So long as Social Services redefine innocence by allowing completely anonymous accusations to be filed, parents - and their children - p and down the country remain at significant risk of further distress and harm.  After all, send a shirty letter to a parent that someone, somewhere has moaned about them, and chances are they won't be taking it very lightly.  It's an incredibly awful experience, sometimes pushing already stressed parents to the edge.

It's no good saying, on first complaint, that the "file is closed."  If anonymity is OK, then Social Services can't tell whether the first anonymous complaint wasn't also made by the same person as the second.  So, when they do get the second malicious complaint, they assume it's made independently of the first.  They have to, because nobody asks who's moaning.  This is just fundamentally wrong and ought never to have been allowed to become the default arse-covering, anti-rule of law system that operates daily in the UK. 

It is a shame on the British spirit of justice, no less.

Anglesey Incompetence and a Judicial Condemnation

Anglesey Council has this week found itself in the remarkable and shameful  position of being condemned by a family court judge for failing to follow basic procedures relating to a child's care.

The child's mother, as is widely reported elsewhere, suffered a temporary psychiatric illness.  As a result, the child was properly put into care.

But when the mother recovered and returned home, the Council, in a move that can only be described as utterly incompetent, refused to give the child back for five months.  During all that time, they had no Care Order of any description, and thus no lawful basis on which to prevent the child from being returned to its mother, who had a right to be so returned at any time.

Only on the award of an injunction - stopping the council from acting unlawfully - did it return the child as it ought to have done from the outset.

Judge Gareth Jones (Family Division, Mold) commented about his suspicion - which he stressed was only a suspicion - that the Council had failed to follow procedures in an attempt to reduce its costs, hoping that these suspicions would not be confirmed.

Anglesey Council might do well to read this book...

 
The Judge also commented on the obvious: that the Council had not asked itself even basic questions as to the legal grounds on which it was preventing the child returning home.  So, rather than just not following procedures, the Council seemed to simply have not considered the basis on which their daily work is directed.

For anyone who thinks following procedures is an inconsequential technicality, it isn't.  An Authority attempting or in fact acting outside the law has become a dangerous animal.  On that basis, the rule of law fails to control the state, which continues to act according to its own, illegitimate rules.  

Judge Jones clearly fired a very large shell across the bows of the once-more listing Anglesey ship when he made clear to them that they are not above the law, and subject to it.  We might be grateful to Judge Jones for quite such a setting-straight of the manner in which the UK should and must operate.

Judge Jones commented that the Social Services Department appeared not to have been under the proper control of the Authority's Legal Department, which one might interpret as a thinly-veiled swipe at the latter department.  He said he had formed similar suspicions in a previous case involving the same council.


The child's mother is now seeking damages from the Authority, which has accepted it failed to follow proper procedures but claims it did act in "good faith".  Good faith is an oft-used term in local authority circles.  But in this case, it is unsustainable precisely because acting in good faith necessarily meant acting according to the law that directs the manner in which councils operate, which Anglesey accepts it failed to do.

Judge Jones asked the council to demonstrate to the public it could again discharge its function without external help competently, adding that it had "failed abysmally" in the present case.  The entire Council was put under special measures from Cardiff in 2011, with its Education Department separately receiving the same in 2012.

Few who keep an eye on local politics on Anglesey think that the same tired faces trying to stretch out to their gold-plated pensions can make the meaningful long-term cultural changes needed.  Instead, just a couple of years on, we seem to be already on a steady return to the kind of unacceptable normality Anglesey exhibited since it became an Authority in the 1990s.

One can only hope the claim and eventual award to the child's mother reflects the exceptional seriousness of a Council acting outside the law, and the grave impacts this had on the family.

As to those within Social Services, the Legal Department and others who landed Anglesey taxpayers with another hefty legal bill, one can only hope against hope that a senior someone, somewhere, will get the chop - without a golden, 'keep your mouth shut' compromise agreement 'goodbye'.  Not that anyone is holding their breath...

Cardiff Backs Off From Home School Law

A consultation report on a possible law to regulate home schooling has come in for severe criticism and been rejected as a good idea by over 80% of respondents.

The Education Minister launched a consultation on whether introducing legislation to force parents to register and engage with local education authorities had support amongst the public and LEAs.

Over 80% of parents responding to the consultation rejected the proposals, which included a possible legal right of entry into parents' homes.

As a result, the Minister has backed-off from introducing legislation, highlighting the very clear battle line drawn between parents, who overwhelmingly saw the moves as "state interference", and LEAs, who thought they'd like to start pushing their weight around inside people's homes because there could be welfare issues to consider.

A dark undercurrent in fact flows through the position of the LEAs.  Their responses show a clear prejudice against the whole concept of home schooling.  LEA responses seem to apply a suspicion that those parents who pull their children out of what are, within Wales, often dire schools, must have some motive other than alternative educational provision. 

As is usual for just about any public body trying to get its own way these days, the words "health and safety" are used as justification to enter homes and inspect just what's going on inside.  However, laws already exist to allow intervention where there is no evidence of reasonable educational efforts going on at home.  Similarly, there are laws to deal with those tiny minority who may be hiding something sinister by keeping their kids from school.

But this is clearly not enough for the LEAs.  Rather than accept the doctrine of innocent until evidence shows otherwise, they want to label everyone a criminal who must prove their innocence.  They very much want to see parents as suspicious simply for wanting to home school.  Their responses show a deeply troubling attempt at an extension of their mandates as educational authorities to something much more like a combination of police and social services.

One parent made the point, and I can confirm the sentiment, that dealing with a local authority was "the most stressful and time-consuming" thing she'd ever done. Across Wales, we have stories of authorities making false claims against parents, poor relations between schools and homes, and almost all 22 LEAs failing to meet those expectations for which they are paid handsomely to achieve.


Parents angrily made the point that LEAs don't, themselves, have a good definition of what a "suitable education" actually is, typically have a bias against home schooling for no good reason other than for being different, and cannot, in most areas of Wales, themselves deliver a suitable education.  Witness the PISA results over many years to find justification for this view.

The Minister has, for his part, exercised what can only be termed good judgement in immediately pulling back from legislation in this area.  Forging ahead would have led to an inevitable and rapid digging of deeper trenches between a state that wants to interfere deeper and deeper with personal lives, and those who are self-sufficient and see the Welsh education system for the total failure that it is.

The message from parents is clear: if the government provided education to an acceptable standard within Wales, they wouldn't have to sacrifice their lives to home schooling.  The LEAs must look at their own, appalling record sheet of failures before they start telling parents they don't know what they're doing.

In the end, the parent has a legal duty, not just a right, to ensure the suitable and sufficient education of their children.  That has always meant they have a choice to educate outside the state provisions, and even outside any formal school organisation.  This must never change, and local authorities must never be allowed to be judge and jury in their own cause.

Gwynedd Council - A Failure of Government

Gwynedd Council, strapped for cash (but not for those in 'important positions') has announced it will reduce bin collection frequency to once every three weeks from October.

Appearing on BBC news, a councillor (elderly, not very good at speaking english, you know the sort), asserted that "we can't keep on putting rubbish in the ground, those days are over."

Only three weeks to go before bin day...

Well, he has a point, of course.  But let's think about this for a while.  Putting things into the ground has been a legal aim for councils for very, very many years.  Legislation originating in Europe was complied with quite quickly across the member states, apart from one laggard - the UK.  Being a former imperial colonist, the UK knew better than everyone else, so just kept putting it off.

Now, the solution to not putting things into the ground is rather more complex.  But what's blatantly obvious is that you can't do it just by not collecting bins quite so often.  You don't generate less rubbish simply because the bin men aren't coming.  You just delay its entry into landfill, not avoid it.

The main reason Gwynedd won't end-up with less landfill with a three week collection period is that the people who generate all that packaging - the manufacturers - have never meaningfully been targeted by government.  No, they are a bit too difficult to tackle, and we have a free market, and so on.  So, here, have more cellophane around an individual biscuit, wrapped in three further layers of plastic, just in case.

As usual, it's a mild case of 'when there's a problem, hit the poor public'.  It is bad government, with very little thinking other than 'must save money' behind it.  Maybe, if councils stopped signing-up to expensive contracts with private companies who must make a profit, they could save money that way.  But, oh no, that would mean someone in the council would have to get up off their arses, instead of being made to feel important by private companies for doing very little other than holding sway over where the contracts go.

So, the challenge is to see (a) how much money Gwynedd really do save with three week collections and (b) by how much landfill volumes fall as a sole result of three week collections.  Oh, and (c), how much more fly tipping and toxic burning will take place, and how CCTV shut-downs will allow perpetrators to do so with impunity.

And all that's without even touching on the health effects of a bin, sweltering away for three weeks in the summer sun.

Nice one Gwynedd!  Another example of why local government is such a joke.

Anglesey: Vive la Revolution!

Here we go again!

As predicted and expected, Anglesey Council is well underway to ripping itself apart again.

Taken over by direct control from Cardiff a couple of years ago, a newly-elected council, drawing on re-drawn ward boundaries, is already splintering.

Anglesey: the latest, and unlikely venue for a 'revolution'.

Jeff Evans and Peter Rogers have formed a new 'Revolution' group, claiming that cuts and closures are a "fait accompli".  This, they claim, leaves councillors as mere bystanders as the hard line from Westminster is, for the first time since the financial crisis began, becoming sorely evident to Joe Public.

If the motivations are as they say, then Evans and Rogers are to be congratulated in focusing on super-critical analysis of what cuts are proposed, and what alternatives may exist.  The Council, on the other hand, seems intent on getting as many cuts through as quickly as possible, in order to meet their financial projections.

Rumours have it that a senior officer of the council has been suspended, pending an investigation surrounding an allegation of failure to cooperate with councillors.  As a result, the council seems to be on a sure course to self-destruction and so, one might even hope, setting itself up nicely for absorption by Gwynedd. 

Anglesey Council's Heavy Hand

Late last week, some protesters - witnesses say they numbered about 6 - gathered outside to protest about the alleged neglect of horses at an Anglesey farm.

The Council, together with the RSPCA and other agencies, had been involved with attempting to resolve the horses' claimed plight.

Anglesey Council's next security cordon for peaceful protesters?

The six protesters, however, were met with about twenty private security heavies, paid for out of your hard-won taxes.

So there you have it.  Politicians and authorities doing what it has always done in the face of dissent - put up aggressive, disproportionate barriers between it and the people who pay their salaries.

Anglesey Council - Hypocrisy Central

Anglesey Council has "categorically" stated that there will never be a nuclear waste repository on the island.

This reveals the monumental stupidity and sheer hypocrisy of this council and its noddy councillors, who have often been labelled a "basketcase" council by Private Eye.

Anglesey wants the good, but not the bad.

You see, Anglesey has, for the past several years, been enthusiastically embracing a new nuclear build - now to be called Wylfa Newydd, as though it were some innocuous family farm.  This, in addition to its mindless support of the existing Wylfa, now half a century old.

Anglesey council even decided years ago to trademark itself as "Energy Island", although their mandate for doing so is open to serious question.  

So, the message is precisely as we would expect from the parochial, provincial little people who make up Anglesey Council: we want the benefits of nuclear, but not the waste that industry generates, thanks.

This kind of idiotic argument reflects the populist, pathetic politics of recent years in relation to nuclear: those parties, like Plaid Cymru and the Lib Dems, who had 'official' positions against nuclear, saw their local candidates warmly supporting the industry.

The message there was as hypocritical as that against nuclear waste: we want the votes, and opposing nuclear won't deliver them - or so they think.

An Anglesey councillor: "we want niwcliar jobs, not waste.  Baaa.."

Popular support for new nuclear on Anglesey is more an assertion and industry distortion, rather than fact.  An independent, academic-led survey of attitudes to new nuclear asked far more subtle questions of the Anglesey population.

The outcome of the survey by Bangor University researchers was in contrast to industry-conducted surveys: the majority were opposed to new nuclear, not in support.  It all depended on how your framed the question.

So, for the past few years, Anglesey politiicans and the council have been leading the people up a garden path, forcing them to accept new nuclear, new pylons, but no waste.

On all counts, Anglesey fails.  Its Council, already mired in cuts amounting to £20 million over the coming years, is apparently "categorically" refusing to consider the hundreds of millions of pounds offered on a plate, were they to host a repository for waste.  

If ever you needed an example of why people are disengaging with politics, this shameful episode must surely rank as a classic.

Collective Failure

A few days ago, the media rushed through the Executive Summary of the OECD report into welsh education, trying to make headlines before their competitors did.

Overall, the media rightly reported that the OECD study concludes that Wales is well behind other OECD nations, most notably in reading and mathematics, these being rather critical to living a life and finding a useful job.

The report highlights the lack of direction within the welsh system.  This, despite the clear message that Wales is doing very, very badly, and that a clear direction is urgently required.

But, nobody really seems to have a clue.  We're endlessly locked into 'well, Wales isn't like Finland', so we try to ignore everybody else's successes, whilst reinventing the wheel for ourselves - only to find it looks more like a square.

Accountability is highlighted in the report.  The welsh education system is singularly incapable of accepting proper, transparent and fair accountability.  Instead, the profession has ensured teachers and headteachers, LEAs and the education bods win Cardiff are all able to instantly wash their hands of any criticism from parents, carers or anyone below ministerial level. 

That needs to change, because avoiding accountability is the first sign of a failing system, and one that is trying to keep the status quo to maintain face.

Have a look at the graphic on page 24 of the OECD report. It is, without any doubt, depressing, showing Wales bumming along the bottom of the pile.  It is a terrible indictment of everyone within the welsh education system.  Nobody can avoid responsibility for this result, yet everyone is trying to do just that.

Astoundingly - and this is a figure you won't readily find elsewhere - a full two-fifths (that's 40% to you and me) of primary school headteachers have been judged by Estyn to be inadequate.  Read that again: 40%. 

Yet, approach any headteacher with concerns or complaints, and you'' quickly be shown the door, or run through a ridiculous 'complaints process' that nobody has any interest in operating in the spirit of improvement and transparency.  Instead, it's closed doors all the way, aided by nodding donkey governors who, all too often, are precisely those 'local worthies' alluded to by Michael Gove himself. 

The real point that is missed - or is diplomatically blind-eyed by the OECD, is that the welsh education system is a bit like a Masonic lodge or a mafia gang.  It is insular, self-interested and overwhelmingly defensive in its approach.  It is a bunch of people who clam-up on the outside world.  They are within the schools whilst you, the public, are kept firmly 'out there', where you belong and can't interfere.  By following this path, proper scrutiny is unachievable, which is precisely why this path has been followed and reinforced for so long.

Indeed, the OECD report repeats the Estyn view that governors' ability to tackle change is "weak".

Only a strict regime of performance assessment, proper and meaningful parental engagement, and true accountability will do for our kids.  Yet, there are today plenty within the system who will fight tooth and nail to avoid this coming about.  They prefer to damage our kids' prospects than damage their reputations and careers.

I say to those people, 'get out!', because your failure is laid bare in the appalling, terrible outcomes of the system you operate.

Taffia Banshees Out Again

Here we go again!  The Taffia are out to force-feed the welsh language on the unsuspecting populace of Carmarthenshire.

Following the shock!  horror!  finding that welsh is rapidly being dumped as a language by those in the county - which has a rather troubled council, to say the least - the Taffia are out in force (usually about four teenagers, typically kids of ministers, teachers and public sector workers).

The Taffia want the situation reversed.  One wonders about their mandate, but one can only presume, given the downward spiral in the use of welsh, that such a mandate is weak, at best.

It is a damning indictment of the Welsh Government that it readily gives in to the Taffia, and so fails to force-feed 'modern languages' - that is, those which will be of real, practical use - to kids at primary level.  Instead, in the state schools, welsh is seen as somehow a terribly worthwhile language that will somehow drag Wales out of the economic, educational and other doldrums it variously occupies.

The sad reality is that welsh is in decline for a number of complex reasons.  But in simple terms, it is a language spoken by only 250,000 people and falling, is of no use outside Wales (or even, much, within), and the kids of today are looking for something more rewarding than a secure but dull 'job for life' with the local council.

Good luck to them, because the best thing anyone in Wales can do is - yes - join the Germans, French, Polish and Russians, the vast majority of whom speak at least three, useful languages.

Pushing God in Schools

God is a contentious topic, most of all when it comes to God in school.

In the UK, the majority of people call themselves Christian, mostly out of a mindless repetition of what their parents used to say.  Hardly any of this majority, though, pray, attend church or exhibit any identifiable characteristic of a Christian.

A large proportion of the UK, of course, is not Christian.  They may be active Muslims, Buddhists or atheist.

God's got his fingers in education within Wales.

Whilst I have no problem whatsoever with those of a religious persuasion, or in measured teaching of religion,  I do have very great concerns about state-sponsored religious education when it is not balanced in presenting the non-religious view.

Here in Wales, a remarkable statutory requirement is in place to ensure Christian values predominate and our kids are brainwashed into becoming bible bashers.  Or so they hope. Standing committees known as SACREs are in place across the nation, consisting of do-good preachers, religious zealots and such like who like to see their position as telling others what to do.

In Wales, such religious fanaticism is usually blended to make a toxic mix of public sector jobs, narrow-minded welsh nationalism and, more often than you might want to comfortably accept, membership of the Masonic lodge.  In other words, these are the kinds of people that can only get on and influence the world through arse-licking and joining childish roll-up-your-trousers kids' clubs.

The harsh reality is that, whilst these committees are worrying, single-issue aberrations from the past, nobody really takes any notice of them.  Most schools have simply got more important things to do.

Sitting quietly, often lax in their presentation of what actually goes on in those meetings, these SACRE men do, however, do their best to pontificate on how they can make schools - that is, our kids - more Christian.  I'm not sure how many decades behind society these people are, but the sad fact for them is that whilst you may be able to just about get a kid to repeat some bible stuff because they have to, as soon as morning service is over, they ditch God.  Once out of school, they overwhelmingly ditch Him for good.

It's simply a quirk of power and tradition that we still have these SACRE bodies.  A once-powerful church swung legislation in its favour, whereas in Wales, such laws found willing supporters in the shape of 19th-century attitude preachers and good, old-fashioned welsh values (according to them.)

I'd be much more willing to accept SACREs were they balanced by a statutory advisory body on Science.  But they aren't.  In an overwhelmingly secular society, where science and technology have already pushed religion to the severe margins, there ought to be no special, separate place for religion over science.

It's time someone living in chapel la-la land looked at the statistics.  If they did, they'd have to accept that Wales will never be going back to building chapels and churches around every street corner.  Personally, I'd be happy to see a few mosques and synagogues popping up to add some welcome diversity in this monotonal principality.  But I doubt the chapel-meisters would welcome those with open arms, because they are generally not the tolerant sort of people Jesus would have promoted. 

Remarkably, whilst we in the UK think of the US as still locked in church-going and bible-bashing, that view is not generally correct when it comes to schools.  It is, in fact, unlawful to promote (or inhibit) religion in US schools under the First Amendment, a remarkably democratic piece of early law-making that, sadly, has no parallel in the UK.

So, let's make an amendment of our own to change the law, ditch these outdated SACREs, and let those retired, white-haired, white-skinned chapel men go to their maker.  That would be the best way to move our children - and the failed welsh education system - into a brighter future.

Schools: Now it's Cardiff

Cardiff's LEA is the latest casualty in inspectorate reports.  A couple of days ago, Estyn, the welsh inspectorate, classified it as needing "significant improvement", or one step above the bottom, "unsatisfactory."

As this blog endlessly reminds readers, the quality of education, and the ability of anyone to improve it, is in very deep doo-doo, and nobody is taking decisive action.

Because LEAs have consistently been unable to improve the situation, they are claimed to no longer have this responsibility.  Quite why we still have 22 LEAs can probably only be explained by some back-room dealings to ensure those in well-paid jobs can get to their pension without too much fuss.  Those hoping for a cut or even an abolishing of LEAs altogether, have been disappointed.

But, you may also be disappointed if you apply some thought - never a welcome thing with councils - to how 'consortia' are constituted.

Who are the members?  Well, for north Wales, which has come in for particular criticism from Cardiff Bay over the past few months, this is not as readily-determined as it could be.  Their current website is full of tosh about their hopes, but precious little is given away as to who does what.  A large part of the non-PR stuff seems to be accessible only to members.

What can be deduced from the sparse documents made available to the plebs, is that the consortium is simply a gathering of senior LEA staff from each of the constituent councils.

In other words, the consortium is nothing new at all - it is simply those LEAs pretending that, somehow, as a bigger group, they are different and better, and won't be liable to failure as many of them have been as standalone LEAs.

One could call it a gathering of the failed.

So now you know.  Not only have the bigwigs managed to keep their LEAs and perks from the chop, they've shape-shifted into what is in many senses, and quite falsely, being presented to the public as a new way of doing things.  But if the same people are in new clothes, what, other than the clothes, has changed?

Just like the welsh TV channel that nobody watches, we're yet again stuck with the same, tired old actors, and a comfortable knowledge that today is as familiar as yesterday.  That's education.  That's Wales.

Anglesey's New Education Clothes

For as long as anyone's been using their brain, the more considered observers of society have noted how quick the ruling class is to produce new clothes for the Emperor when things aren't going so well.

Recently, the beleaguered Anglesey education department, taken under special measures by the Welsh Government in 2012 for being "unsatisfactory", has been handed a large, multi-million pound grant to consolidate its school buildings and overall services.  The council is match-funding the grant.

But, given that clever people of old were educated with little more than floors to sit on and sand to draw lines in, is spending money we haven't got on razzamatazz new buildings the answer Wales is looking for?

To me, this looks very much like trying to plaster over the criminally poor performance of the welsh education system.  No doubt buildings with better facilities will improve matters somewhat.  But they won't, of themselves, bring about the dramatic and urgent improvements needed to get our kids on a level that isn't, as it currently is, bottom of the PISA pile. 

No, we're so far behind the rest of the world that doing anything other than paying architects, lawyers and LEA chiefs huge wads to build new 'ta-da' constructs is simply too tall an order.  Ergo, revert to the usual answer: bamboozle!

Up and down the country, hundreds of millions are being spent on new school buildings.  Yet, if a fraction of that money were spent on the salaries of the best teachers, and schools given much more independence from the bureaucratic and interfering nightmare of LEA control, then we might find the cost-benefit analysis looks a lot more attractive.

Sadly, we are simply seeing more of the same old crap: throw money at tangible things politicians can say "Look!  See what we have given you!  We are already addressing the problems.  Be grateful and vote for us!"

With a population almost entirely switched off from the self-importance and, more locally, basket-case activities of politicians, far too many tick their ballot boxes without a second thought.  On Anglesey, the electoral results clearly show people, when it comes to the quiet anonymity of their polling booth, vote predominantly for those they know and speak welsh, irrespective of how rubbish they actually are as their representative.

So, the next time you find yourself slightly awed by the glitzy new multimedia, green-powered, sedum-roofed local school, spare a moment to consider that the kids educated in there - and their kids after them - will be the ones paying for it when the current politicians have taken their credit.  It really is 'buy kudos today, pay later'.  Or, as the same politicians always wag a finger at, exactly what we shouldn't do.

Spare a thought also for those countless ones before us who have moved humanity on in leaps, not by relaxing in plush new schools, but by being blessed with naturally superb teachers and an application of talent. 

Home Schooling

Families meet in all sorts of weird and wonderful places.  Here, they exchange views, gossip, and often very valuable information.

Recently, a close friend of the family revealed that her primary-age daughter was experiencing bullying at school.  Despite rafts of documents claiming 'concern', 'best practice' and 'good family relations' from the school and LEA in question (that'll be Anglesey LEA), the family alleges that the bullying has not been properly addressed.  Indeed, the mother felt it had not been taken seriously at all.

As a result, the child has been taken out of the school and is now educated at home, and appears to be working out well.  More recently, an inspection found that the mother was acting in an exemplary manner in teaching her child at home.  Praise, indeed.

The removal took place about three months ago.  The 'care' and 'welfare' from the LEA?  According to the family, they have received no contact at all, despite some new 'policies' on home schooling contact published recently.

Mind you, most people wouldn't want much contact from an education service labelled in 2012 as "unsatisfactory" by Estyn, the welsh inspectorate, leading to it being put in special measures.