After a recent spate of crimes on Castle Vale it is clear that the loss of a viable police presence due to national funding cuts is making our community an unsafe place to live.

East Sussex County Council currently runs some high quality after school and holiday play schemes for 5-19 year old children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND). The clubs are due to have their funding reduced and then completely removed over the next 2 years, leaving these children without the support they need. I am working with Jane, a mum of three autistic children, that has Cancer. She has had a breakdown and also lost the use of her left arm. She needs this support to continue caring for her children. She has tried to request foster care for her children out of desperation, but there are no foster carers available. Like many of the children who use the after school clubs service, her children have been refused a social care assessment by the Local Authority - and have been offered these clubs as an alternative. If Jane loses this respite she does not know how she will cope. These cuts will put these families in crisis. The schools are unable to finance these clubs, so it is likely the services will be restricted and many will be closed. There is no "wider market to be explored", there is no other place these children will be safe, or that has space to take them. We believe that in making this cut the Local Authority is breaching its duty of care to vulnerable families. We want to ensure these clubs continue to support these vulnerable families and the local authority upholds its duty of care to disabled children under The Children’s Act 1989 and S2 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970.

The reduction in opening hours has led to very long queues and waiting times. It is punishing those people who are trying to recycle and dispose of household waste responsibly. Making it more difficult to use the recycling centre will undoubtedly worsen the existing problem of fly tipping in the area.

Seven Hills pool has only been open for 5 years & is unique in its offering, catering for the children of Sheffield & surrounding areas who have SEN needs. Their hydropool is one of few in the area & very important to the children that use it, helping with movement & pain relief. The pool also offers swimming lessons to children locally & is well used. Following talks with the local council, Seven Hills school propose to close this important facility to replace it with a gym which would be of very little use to the children. They state they cannot afford to keep the pool even though the swim school have offered to contribute financially & make up any difference. Please help us save our swimming pool.

The board of the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, which manages Pinderfields, Dewsbury and Pontefract Hospitals, approved plans to create a 'Wholly Owned Subsidiary;' effectively a private company owned by the Trust. Essentially, staff and services currently provided in-house such as, Facilities and Estates, will be 'outsourced' to this new arms-length company in a bid to save money. The Trust claims that money will be saved by exploiting a tax loophole. However, the Trusts CEO has given no guarantees that wages, conditions and pensions of current NHS staff will not be affected and it seems likely that the main savings will come from employing new staff on non-NHS terms and conditions with no access to the NHS Pension Scheme, creating a two-tier workforce. This is a form of backdoor privatisation that will have direct consequences on health workers and could potentially affect patient care and service delivery. Why is it that honest, hard-working people, always seem to pay the price? NHS Staff are valued members of our community, they are our neighbours, our friends and our colleagues, who dedicate their lives to helping others. After years of increased workloads and understaffing due to Austerity and nurses using foodbanks due to the pay cap, this latest threat to jobs is their 'reward'. The Mid Yorkshire Unison Health Branch is due to ballot their members for Industrial Action in a bid to protect jobs. The Wakefield Constituency Labour Party believe NHS Workers deserve better than this, especially at a time where there is a need for higher wages and better conditions. We will be standing with Unison members in this fight and we would like to call on your support in opposing these plans.

The Government has for some time been engaged in closing down Fine Art departments all over England in favour of Computer Studies, Maths and Science subjects. Whilst major colleges; the Royal College of Arts, Slade, Royal Academy schools and Goldsmiths are safe at the moment, gradually what is happening is that the feed from the small schools are being cut off too. Also secondary and grammar schools are being affected by cuts in their Art departments. In any period of recession Governments repeatedly cut the Arts as a means of making savings overlooking the fact the Arts (film, theatre, music, books, ballet etc.) produce for the economy £92 billion a year, bigger than oil, gas, life sciences, automotive, and aeronautics combined. This is at a time when our economic growth is of the utmost importance. Furthermore it would appear that in spite of all the troubles and disagreements, countries such as Russia, America, France, Germany, Australia, China and Japan are all sponsoring their Art talents in order that their future generations will benefit. A real danger for the future would be that Arts will become the domain of the rich thus ruling out at least 50% of the world’s real talent. Past history underlines the fact that all Governments ensure us that the Arts are ‘safe’ in their hands, only to make further cuts. Our country needs further investment in the Arts to benefit our future generations, which in turn will help increase our economies revenue.

From a local resident and campaigner Sam Trask: "Last month, our 5 year old little girl Lucie was admitted to the children’s ward in the Royal Glamorgan Hospital, suffering with a nasty kidney infection. She was treated for the following 6 days, and between us, my wife and I spent the entire time in hospital with her, whilst the other managed to take and collect our other daughter from school, do a couple of shifts at work, and try and keep home life going. Were it not for the ward being local, maintaining school and family life would have been virtually impossible. During the time we spent there, Lucie received excellent care (and has since made a full recovery), and we noted that even though the ward is due to be closed this summer, it was busy the entire time and even overflowing into the ward next door some nights." Closing this ward would mean there would be no children’s in-patient care anywhere in Rhondda Cynon Taff. We are very concerned that losing this ward would mean that a great number of families will face long travel times to either the Prince Charles hospital in Merthyr Tydfil or the Children’s Hospital for Wales in Cardiff, and huge disruption to their lives because of it - especially if they have to use public transport. The same applies to obstetric services: if the maternity ward is closed women in the area, particularly from the tops of the two Rhondda valleys, will face an arduous and unnecessarily long journey either to Cardiff or Merthyr. I believe these proposed closures will put more strain on the already overstretched ambulance service and I believe that lives could be put in danger because of the extra travelling time involved. We the undersigned call on Cwm Taf University health board to maintain obstetric and paediatric in-patient services at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital, as it is a well used and valuable local service to the people of Rhondda Cynon Taff.

The UK Government is looking to outsource Veterans Services without public consultation taking place. Notice of tenders were issued in April 2018 which considerably expand the services that will form part of the Future Service Delivery Contract (FSDC). This contract provides provision of Armed Forces Pay, Pensions and Military HR and Administration Services and will be expanded to include: • Administration of the War Pensions Scheme and Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (including payment and financial accounting with interfaces to other Ministry of Defence and other government department financial systems); • MoD Medal Office – the administration and issue of medals and awards; • Provision of Veterans Enabling and Supporting Services; and • Maintenance and development of existing Information System (IS) and enquiry services in support of the above services. We are concerned about the impact outsourcing these services will have on the quality of service provision that veterans currently receive. We are also concerned that the MoD is reserving the right to include/add any other work related to delivery of Military Human Resources or Veterans Services during the lifetime of the contract. The contract is worth up to £800 million and an estimated 400 jobs are being put at risk.

The importance of this school to it's pupils and their parents is clear from their personal testimonies - This is a unique setting for our medal winning sportswomen and men of the future and present, many of the children at PSS will struggle to find schools with the same provisions, not only in sport, but the SEN support that's available. Dispite a recent disappointing OFSTED report (that we feel does not reflect the diverse work being done at Plymouth Studio School), children are thriving here.

On Thursday 28th June 2018, Herefordshire Council’s Cabinet will meet to discuss the possibility of starting a tendering process to privatise these vital services, based on the “Soft Market Test” report, published in January 2018 and the recommendations of the Scrutiny Committee, which met on 9th April. At a time when there is much evidence to suggest that other local authorities are having to take these services back in-house due to the failure of private companies to run them effectively, we need to control and safeguard the future cultural service provision for our community, particularly for our children, young people, and isolated, vulnerable groups, such as elderly and disabled people. UNISON believes that the public deserve the best possible service when it comes to Museums, Libraries and Archives and our policy is always to keep services in-house. The Council say they need to do this to save money. However, the total budget spend for all 3 services last year represents a spend of less than £8 per head of population. Official figures for the library service already show a below average spend in comparison to similar authorities so it’s difficult to see a reason for taking these services out of local council ownership, when the figures show that it is already a very cost-effective service. UNISON is committed to working with Herefordshire Council to find a solution to its budgetary pressures without undermining our loved arts and library provision. Ealing, along with Croydon, Harrow and Hounslow recently had to take back their library services due to the collapse of Carillion. Staff at privatised library services in Bromley, run by Greenwich Leisure Ltd, have been on strike. UNISON believes Museum, Library and Archives staff deserve to be recognised for the trained, professional job they do, and the threat of future closures, reductions in hours and the loss of friendly, knowledgeable staff is unacceptable, These things are at risk if they are transferred over to a private company or charitable trust. Finally, UNISON has part funded work with We Own It. They are running a pledge for councillors and council candidates in elections to commit to ending all privatisation in local council services. The detail can be found here: https://weownit.org.uk/local-pledge Thank you, Herefordshire Local Government UNISON

The artefacts will go to Lincoln if we do not take action. This building is a community asset and the future of the building and contents will be secure under Stamford Town Council guardianship. The artefacts are of historical importance and should be displayed in our Town for all the enjoy.

The Children's ward at Boston's Pilgrim Hospital is under threat of temporary closure because of staff shortages. As the largest county in England, with it's population spread over a large area of mostly agricultural land it is imperative we keep this vital children's ward open. Grantham Hospital is also scheduled to close, so where are all the children going to go? This could put lives of children at risk! Telling parents they simply have to drive further is not acceptable. Not all parents can drive, or have access to transport over long distances. What happens when the other hospital children's wards are all full? Surely this will just increase the pressure on other hospitals which are already at breaking point. Will children be refused treatment if no beds are available? As the population is expanding why are essential services shrinking? What impact will this also have on the maternity ward, and children born requiring treatment or special care.