Neglected Blog Bites Back

I know, I know, I've been neglecting my blog type duties and must mend my desultory ways. Still very busy of course, but that's no excuse. Most focus this week has been on the tragic death of John (Ian) Gibson, a pensioner who was in receipt of a Council care package, being delivered by a private company under contract. The circumstances are such that an investigation is appropriate and underway. Further actions may follow. The Deputy First Minister also got involved by answering questions at FMQ on Thursday in response to the incident. I don't know what type of life Mr Gibson had in the last few years but it would have been nice if his life could have been referred to in the Scottish Parliament because of the excellent services he was receiving rather than his name now being associated with doubts about the quality of care received by him and his sister.

The Integration evolution continues with a good debate at the NHS Lothian Board meeting on Wednesday and a report going the Council's Policy and Strategy Committee next Tuesday which outlines the governance proposals for the shadow Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership. You can read the report on this link. 

Talking of P&S there's also an interesting report on the Welfare Reform changes that are currently being implemented by the Government at Westminster. The report is on this link. In a wonderful piece of "Yes Minister" Local Government speak understatement the author of the report tells us that "The scale of the proposals is significant and there is a substantial risk that the impact on clients and the Council will be adverse in many cases." You can say that again, £2.5bn will be taken out of the Scottish Economy as a result with the majority of the burden being borne by the poorest in society.

Still, at least we're all in this together, eh ?....

Advice and Scouting for Euro disappointment

Today's post reads like a diary excerpt again I'm afraid. Really busy just now but must learn the art of time management and post more regularly.

Monday - Usual run of Monday meetings followed by surgeries at Ratho and Balerno, followed by Ratho Community Council. One or two complaints about anti social behaviour problems in the middle of the village. Police and Council officials have been notified and prompt action is expected.

Tuesday - Very interesting visit to Citizens Advice Edinburgh's new offices in Bernard Street, Leith. I say "new" but in fact it was an old DSS office apparently. Perfect for CAE's purposes though, lots of interview rooms and meeting space. They are as concerned as we are about the impact of Welfare Reform changes and the expected increase in workload that will follow. Created a few ideas about what we could do in the future though.

Wednesday - Myself and my vice convener Cllr Cammy Day visited a group of service users at Gowrie Care's offices in Newington. Significant support is required for this group of vulnerable people who have complex needs, addiction problems and sometimes physical and mental health issues to add to the equation. Its fair to say that life didn't deal them and a particularly strong hand. However, that's not to say that they don't have opinions about the service that they need and we had a really good discussion on some of the perceived weaknesses in the current system. Food for thought for Cammy and I and we have followed up with a couple of further discussions within the Council, hopeful of bringing about some improvements. Then popped in to the open session at Access to Industry and just about managed to get out of the centre of town in time to attend three local meetings on the bounce, Wester Hailes Community Council, WEGARAH and Juniper Green Community Council. All fairly constructive.

Thursday - A relatively short full Council meeting left time to catch up on other business and look forward to the visit of Liverpool to Tynecastle. They left many of their stars at home and had clearly come to play for a draw.  Hearts played well and were extremely unlucky not to be heading south next week with something to defend.

Friday - basically a series of meetings / briefings on various current issues, from Adaptations and older peoples services to Housing and procurement legislation. No wonder my brain hurts ! 

Last night I was delighted to accept an invitation to the AGM of the 51st Pentlands Balerno Scout Group. A packed hall received reports on the year's activities and the heartening news that numbers of beavers, cubs and scouts are steadily increasing year on year. Pretty impressive these days to see local groups that rely on volunteers going from strength to strength. Doesn't happen by accident of course and there is a band of very committed people who carry out all the behind the scenes tasks that are necessary to keep things going.

Fringing and Betrayal

Yesterday's "Fringing" session was superb. Radio Scotland's Festival Cafe, hosted by the peerless Janice Forsyth featured among others, Mike McShane (Mon Droit) and Les Dennis (Jigsy), two veterans of the showbiz scene. Both were entertaining and genuinely made you want to see their shows. A couple of beers in the George Square gardens sunshine and we were ready for the cultural challenge of the festival, *drum roll and fanfare* .... the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppets !!! Brilliantly funny and silly. And a bit crude.

Today, we are deserting the capital and heading west for the Piping Festival in Glasgow. Lured by the skirl of the pipes we are turning our backs on the Edinburgh Festival for a day. Courtesy of Scotrail we shall take the short hop west, where the weather forecast is slightly better incidentally. Rest assured we shall return before night fall in time for preparations for tomorrow's big derby match at Easter Road.

Ragged Trousered Philanthropist

Neil Gore & Fine Time Fontayne

Really enjoyed the "Ragged Trousered Philanthropist" at the Assembly Theatre, George Square yesterday. The classic tale of struggle against capitalist exploitation is not new, and by necessity, over simplified in a two handed 90 minute play, but it was thoroughly entertaining as well as poignant and thought provoking. It was totally absorbing and it really was easy to forget that the biggest arts festival in the world was in full swing outside in the sunshine as we were transported back to a time of grinding poverty for skilled workers in the UK. Congratulations to all involved in the production and to Unite for its backing. I recommend a visit, even if you don't lean to the left.

Policy & Strategy

In the absence of the Council Leader and Deputy Leader I was elected unnopposed to Chair yesterday's Policy and Strategy Committee. The pinnacle of my political career ! :0). All the business was relatively uncontentious but a lot of serious detailed information contained within the various reports on the agenda. From a strategy for jobs to statutory repairs and public protection arrangements there was more than enough to occupy our minds and some very worthwhile contributions were heard from all parties represented. The full committee papers can be accessed on this link

Belladrum memories

Main stage at Belladrum

Brilliant weekend at the Tartan Heart Music Festival at Belladrum. Great atmosphere, great weather and some great bands too at the various / numerous stages around the site. All very well managed and organised. The one pictured is one of the more intimate venues. Probably about 8 or 9 stages in total from the Toadstool to the Potting Shed and up to the main Garden Stage where we saw The South, Kassidy, Travis, the Dangleberries and my own favourites, Bombskare who delivered a great set in front of one of their largest crowds ever I would have thought. Other highlights were the Stagger Rats, Roddie Frame, the Buzzcocks and Johnny Cash tribute band Jericho Hill who were quite superb. Not only did they cover the expected standards but also did excellent versions of "Personal Jesus" and "Hurt". Left there on Sunday and ended up spending the night in Hopeman, a small village a couple of miles from Lossiemouth, in a caravan site overlooking the Moray Firth, dolphins and all. Beautiful spot. Ah well, back to Auld Reekie and Policy and Strategy Committee, - *sigh*.

While the cat's away.....

Council Leader Cllr Andrew Burns has been drafted to London to support the Armed Forces initiative to put bums on seats at the Olympics (otherwise known as his summer holidays). And because the Council Deputy Leader is also out of town at the moment that means yours truly is in charge ! Don't worry, there's still a few competent folk around too, so less risk that I'll mess anything up. Agenda Planning Meeting this morning for next week's Policy and Strategy meeting. Not a huge number of reports on the agenda but they are all significant in their own way. The final versions should on line later tomorrow or early Wednesday and I'll post a link to them then. We also agreed a motion that I've submitted to P&S calling for a report on the impact of the Welfare Reform changes that are in the pipeline. More of that later too.

LCiL

Excellent meeting yesterday with Florence and Sandra from the Lothian Centre for Inclusive Living. From their website http://www.lothiancil.org.uk/ Inclusive / Independent living means " disabled people of all ages having the same freedom, choice, dignity and control as other citizens at home, at work, and in the community. It does not mean living by yourself or fending for yourself. It means rights to practical assistance and support to participate in society and live an ordinary life." Still getting to grips with the main issues, this was a really useful session for me. We covered Self Directed Support, Integration of Health and Social Care and Welfare Reform, all from a service user's perspective. Not bad for a meeting that lasted just less than an hour. I have to say I've had excellent support and advice from Council officials in the last couple of months but there's no substitute for hearing the views of people who use services and need support directly from them or their representatives. Obviously the voluntary / third sector have a huge role to play in supporting people and articulating their views to the likes of me. Look forward to working with them in the future.

Dads Rock

Oh yes they do. Was delighted to belatedly attend one of Dads Rock events last night, the opening of their worldwide photographic exhibition at Eteaket in Frederick Street. All designed of course to promote their real work which is a unique playgroup specially for dads and kids. It seems to have taken off spectacularly and is testimony to the hard work and vision of Thomas and David who conceived the original idea and had the drive to build on it. In today's world where sometimes fathers are criticised for not taking their share of parental responsibility or creating positive role models its great to see an opportunity for dads to spend quality time with their children in an environment where they can also chat to other dads about dad-type issues, which has to be a good thing. Check out their link on Facebook . Good luck to the guys for the future and watch out for their name. Dads Rock have had humble beginnings but I am convinced they are heading towards global domination. Which is a typical dad-like exaggeration !

The Deep End

The recent rain has caused many flooding problems throughout the city, including the golf courses. Parkland courses simply aren't able to cope with the amount of water that has fallen in the last few weeks. Deep ponds have formed all over Kingsknowe and the water has been lying for so long it seems to have attracted some new wildlife to the course. This picture was taken on the 7th fairway yesterday. We're used to seeing rabbits and the odd deer but this is a different prospect altogether.....

Bob McLean

Massive turn out yesterday at Bob McLean's funeral at Mortonhall. Like everyone in the Scottish Labour Party I knew Bob as Secretary of Midlothian CLP and numerous other campaigning roles, particularly his commitment to the creation of the Scottish Parliament. I also had the pleasure of working with Bob when I held the Culture and Leisure portfolio and Bob was a leading figure in the Museums and Galleries marketing team. His funeral service was the longest I've attended I think, over an hour I reckon. But it did mean that we had time to fully absorb the wonderful tributes from Herbert Coutts, former Director of Culture and Leisure and Lord Jack McConnell. I couldn't hope to match any of the tributes paid to Bob's life and work throughout this week but Jack McConnell's obituary in the Scotsman says it all.

Open All Hours ?

Well, not "all hours" perhaps, but still a good excuse to use one of my favourite photos. The Co-op shop and petrol station on Lanark Road West are applying to extend their opening hours to 0500 - midnight, 7 days a week, a significant increase on current arrangements. No big deal, you might think and business is business after all. However, in this case a condition of the original planning permission was that opening hours would be restricted. To change that the planning permission condition needs to be varied. Hence, when neighbours were formally notified of the proposal the letter informed them that the Co-op were seeking to build a fence and "vary condition 6" of their planning permission. No explanation of what condition 6 refers to nor where it can be found. And even then you need to know your way around the Council's Planning Portal to find these things. Most of the Neighbours are elderly and don't have ready access to the internet. Not surprisingly no objections were submitted and the deadline is now passed. One could argue that the information provided could have been a tad more informative ? I've raised this with Planning and they've agreed to have a look. I should add that the Neighbour Notification process is carried out by the Council not the applicant so no blame is attached to the Co-op for this. It's a Council a matter and one which I'm sure we can put right.

40 days and 40 nights ?

Persistent rain is now causing real problems with reports of flooding all over Edinburgh including the Pentland Hills ward. Even though most of the local communities are physically, relatively high, surcharging drains and lower lying properties in close proximity combine to produce obvious devastating results. Visited a constituent this morning in the Cherry Tree part of Balerno whose garage and utility room have been damaged by flood water, not to mention the submerged garden. The imminent installation of a new public drain seems unlikely but I'll raise with the relevant officials and see if there are other, quicker solutions available. 


And the golf was cancelled, again......

Healthy Debate

My first meeting of the NHS Lothian Board this morning. Always strange entering a formal business meeting as the "new boy" but I was made to feel welcome and managed to settle into the business without too much fuss. A meeting of the Health Endowment Trust at 8.30am was quickly followed by the Board meeting itself at 9.30. A packed agenda including reports on tackling waiting lists (not without its controversial elements), an update on the Legionnaires outbreak and the rather difficult decision to close the children's ward at St John's for 3 weeks in July, due to a lack of qualified staff. Not a pleasant position to be in but the clinical advice regarding patient safety seemed pretty sound even though colleagues from West Lothian were understandably less than chuffed. All the board papers can be accessed at this NHS Lothian web-site link.

An extremely short lunch break was followed by an informal afternoon session to discuss Integration. Very interesting for me to hear the views on this from the NHS side of the fence. Pretty sure everyone is united in the desire to make services as responsive, efficient and effective as possible but there are an awful lot of issues to be addressed if the process is to be successfully delivered.

Should have been golfing tonight but Mother Nature put paid to that idea. The course was flooded before I even got the clubs out of the locker.

Full Council tomorrow. Not as large an agenda as one might expect for the last meeting before the break but that doesn't necessarily equate to a quick meeting. Right, what time does the football start ?....

New Generation

Very interesting meeting with Balerno Village Trust on Tuesday to discuss their, now very advanced, plans for a small, community owned Hydro electricity generating scheme next to Harlaw reservoir. The idea is that through a combination of commercial loans and community share investment through a co-operative structure, the plant will be built then the electricity generated by the natural flow of water will be fed into the national grid and the revenue generated from that used to pay off the loans and costs and any surplus is allocated to local community projects in and around Balerno. Clean green energy production, a community co-operative and community benefit. What's not to like ? More info on the BVT website. Still a couple of technical issues to be resolved such as planning permission and negotiating a lease for the land but these are in hand. Should be a scoosh....

What's Developing ?

In between the showers managed to get to Currie Library on Saturday morning to see the exhibition mounted to display new proposals for the Kinleith Mill site in Currie, which has a long and troubled history. The previous planning permission lapsed after the developer went into administration and the site is now in the hands of a major bank. They are seeking to gain new planning permission and resolve all the legal issues around roads consents etc before marketing the site/package to a house builder. May take some time and will not be without it's issues but most people are agreed the site should be developed and if we can get some affordable housing out of it then so much the better.

I suspect there may be a different response to the plans for the Muir Wood Road field site which is in the green belt but is now subject to a planning application for around 90 new houses. The green belt issue and its proximity to the Kinlieth Mill site mean there is already a lot of of local opposition. The planning process must now run its course.

Off and Running

Chaired my first meeting of the Health, Social Care and Housing Committee today. Seemed to go well. No major problems and no blood spilled. In fact, there were quite a few challenging questions and thoughtful contributions from all the parties represented which augurs well and may provoke some vigorous debate in future on the more contentious issues. Some of the more newsworthy agenda items have already featured in the newspapers and on-line media but all the reports can be read here at the Council Papers On Line service.

Managed a twenty minute break for a cup of tea and then straight into a briefing on Health and Social Care Integration which will be one of the major issues in the months ahead. Again, several thoughtful and challenging contributions from elected members. We need to turn our attention now to constructing our submission to the Scottish Government consultation on the issue.

Joint NP Meeting delivers

As requested prior to the elections, we had the long awaited joint Pentlands and South West Neighbourhood Partnership meeting on Wednesday evening at Wester Hailes library to discuss the issues around the new Healthy Living Centre at the "10 acre site". Might not sound like a particularly revolutionary event but it was the first time that the community of Wester Hailes, back by other local communities could properly get their views on record regarding the long running underpass issue and the stalled housing proposals on the rest of the site. It was a good meeting and an example of what the NPs can do when they put their mind to it. Places for People have now emerged as the likely partner to provide mixed tenure housing on the site and were reasonably well received. The underpass remains unfinished business with agreement having been reached on what we all hope will be a short term arrangement with an expectation of further talks to see if we can achieve the outcome that the community and development needs and deserves. Further consultation with the community has been promised and will delivered. More positive signs going forward I feel.

Juniper Green Celebrates

Juniper Green's Eco King and Queen and their entourage board their horse drawn carriage for the parade around the village this morning at the end of a week of events to celebrate the centenary of Bloomiehall Park becoming a local public asset. A cast of thousands, a pipe band leading the procession, followed by the "royal" party, children from Juniper Green Primary and the local scout troups made for a great spectacle and real community feel. Also timed to coincide with the school fair where stalls aplenty of everything from Fair Trade to home baking were on offer.

Managed to make the final of the Bloomiehall Cup last night in the park where local team Bloomiehall Bairns beat another local team from the Royal Bank 3-0 in a competitive contest that was not as one-sided as the score would suggest. The trophy was presented by Juniper Green native Paul Hegarty of Scotland and Dundee Utd and the man of the match award selected by Kevin Hegarty who played for Hearts in the early 70s.

Meanwhile, in other news, after another seriously busy week I'm not quite as adrift as I thought I would be in getting to grips with the new role. And manged my first public / media engagement at the Brake the Cycle launch which is an excellent project getting young offenders on Community Payback sentences to refurbish bikes that are then gifted back to local communities.

Cultivating

Not enough days in this week but I suspect I might be saying that for a wee while. Was successfully appointed as the new Convenor for Health, Social Care and Housing at yesterday's full Council meeting. Now getting to grips with some of the very real issues and expecting to be handed a chunky list of commitments to deliver from the recently signed coalition partnership agreement. Was also nominated yesterday as the Council's representative on NHS Lothian's board. Not a role I had anticipated up until a few days ago but given the obvious cross over between many of the Council's care services and the NHS it makes sense. Apparently my appointment has to be ratified by the Cabinet Secretary for Health so better not make any definite plans until official say so has been received.

Productive afternoon, following a constituent visit in Balerno I headed to Ratho Library for a coffee and a chat with some of the local staff and mums while youngsters played computer games and pulled long balloons into embarrassing shapes. Then on to the Bridge Inn where Cala Homes are showing an exhibition of their plans to replace the previously agreed care home with 14 houses at the Freelands Road site. There is a rationale for this but I suspect there will be a little unease locally at the loss of such an important element in the development.

Remember the blog post I did in February after planting two apple trees in the garden ? Well the photo above is the rather impressive progress being made following a somewhat mixed few months of weather. Not expecting a bumper harvest any time soon but am delighted to see that they seem to be healthy and developing well.