The number of 18-25 year olds who are homeless is ever increasing and looking for a roof over their head is made difficult by barriers put there by Medway Council. This is completely unacceptable and we call for change regarding this is issue, especially in the winter months.

Mental Health services are stretched to breaking point there is a severe lack of units for both children and adults, sometimes resulting in people being held in police cells which is both ethically and morally wrong! People in crisis and their families have little to no help whilst awaiting a bed and often have to travel hundreds of miles away from home due to lack of suitable units close to home, breaking families apart for weeks and even months at a time. Community services, crisis teams and social service departments are not fit for purpose due to a lack of funding and staff shortages, the increasing demand of community care not being supplied is causing bed blocking in many units and is causing many to not receive the help they need to prevent admission in the first place. The whole system is in need of change and it needs to be made a high priority because the numbers of people in need and in crisis is rising fast!

It’s been a while coming but it has been revealed that TerraQuest has been chosen by DCLG to partner with them in a joint venture to provide the ongoing delivery and commercialisation of the Planning Portal service. This has been quietly processed to avoid the public having their say. The joint venture has claimed it will not charge applicants or LPAs for using the Portal’s 1App planning application service [yet] and that a new and improved 1App and website will be delivered by TerraQuest’s prime subcontractor Civica, later in 2015. They say existing service will remain in place until the new website is launched – they promise there will be no disruption to the public, but how can privatisation of a core planning service be in the public interest? It is the intention to transfer staff to the new business before the end of the financial year however the JV is subject to final negotiation and therefore any questions regarding the process of commercialisation should be urgently directed to the Minister to question how the government can justify this conflict and prevent this public service being privatised. Why privatise something that is not intended to make money and that is presently free to everyone?

It is making the lives of non-resident father's (who often experience debt, drink/drug problems, unemployment & PAS as a result of broken relationships) a misery, sometimes taking extortionate amounts of money direct from their wage packet, irrespective of being on an IVA programme, having massive travel costs to see their child etc). Also, the blanket 15% - often higher to address arrears which fathers often incur due to dispute with mother on separation - is unfair and should be lower. The mother often chooses to leave and has to bear responsibility for this. Plus she gets benefits for having children, so is doubly rewarded.

The hospital is used by many patients with chronic health conditions that require regular tests, meaning some people could pay large amounts in parking charges over the year. It amounts to a tax for being ill. Furthermore, all revenue from fines imposed goes to ParkingEye, the contractor managing the site, not the hospital.

Recent cuts have lead to unnecessary deaths, as funding has been cut too far back for these services to function. People with critical illness, such as heart and even strokes had to wait 15 minutes before an ambulance appeared. Police can not attend emergency calls, as manpower has been cut. A&E is over stretched with 4 hour queues as we had nearly 15 years ago, due to unnecessary cuts by East Cambridgeshire county council. People are being placed in unnecessary range and death, as emergency services have been cut far to far. Government has falsified their statements of supporting the NHS, as they talk about a few extra millions added this winter, when in fact they have cut NHS funding by £30 billion plus. This was a tactic to be able to say that the NHS needs to be privatised, which in fact will cost as far more than we have paid so far, as shareholders expect huge shareholding premiums. Be not be fooled. the NHS worked fine, not perfectly but it was good. It was just mismanaged by various governments in the last 30 to 40 years, but in particular in the last 20 years.

Because I feel it is taking money unfairly from single parents to provide for their one or more children.

This is especially important to the NHS. The NHS gets a LOT of funding, plenty of funding to provide an excellent 24h 365 day service to millions. BUT: A HUGE amount of this funding is syphoned off to "Private Finance Initiative" deals whereby a hospital that costs 1.34Bn to build is actually costing 10.32Bn via PFI repayments. This is the reason the NHS is so stretched,- the amount given by the treasury to the NHS is plenty for the service, but it its being massively wasted by epically badly planned government devised PFI deals whereby middle men and hedge funds make an absolutely (offshore) fortune from the fact they can charge anything (and do) and the government can't (legally or morally) give in and let hospitals go to waste. ===== Why has this occurred? The PFI deals came around from Gordon Brown as Treasury Cabinet Minister to allow the government to make massive expenses and to not declare them because they're actually "Private business" expenses, so the government says "Over the course of 10/25 years we will pay you an amount you want if you build this [hospital/airbase/whatever] for us right now. The Businesses said "oooh yes!" and built what was asked and had a legal contract in place that the government would pay them back a net sum approximately (as illustrated above) of approximately ten times the build cost. Failure to pay back the costs (for example if voters forced government to renegotiate or void the contract) would also be covered by legally binding charges for ~8Bn, in the example above and rather than paid for over years that would be IMMEDIATELY REQUIRED. So the government and the NHS is saddled with massive charges that are extortionate, just for build now, pay later hospital buildings. ===== What we Can do: We can not (as detailed above) void the current contracts, but we can push and force the government to remove PFI as an option for any future contracts for any public service, and also make government only take contracts where the costs are reasonable, and provable - as often PFI contracts where awarded by only being a few hundred pounds under the nearest competition offer - and then once awarded the contract costs "escalated". Certain politicians (David Cameron, I believe) did promise to end PFI before taking office, but has now changed his tune - force him to keep his word. Force his successor to keep his word. PFI is now widespread across the NHS and is the principle cause of shortage of funding, it is also getting a larger and larger hold in the UK Armed forces as well as other departments of government. We Must Stop It. ===== Background reading: This issue is well outlined in Private Eye 1383 page 10. this issue is also very well explained in the Private Finance Initiative Special Report by Paul Foot in 2004.

Ignorance creates division and fear, that is what is dangerous.

This is important because we are democratic, aren't we? 79% of the general public believe the leader of the Green Party should be invited to debate, found in a poll by ICM Unlimited. Currently, 81% disagree with Ofcom's statement that UKIP is a major political party, but the Greens aren't. Younger populations must not be alienated from the processes that will decide their future. http://www.icmunlimited.com/media-centre/polls/4-in-5-greens-should-be-part-of-leader-debates http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/poll/2015/jan/08/ofcom-ukip-greens-major-party http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/electoral_commission_pdf_file/0019/16093/youngpplvoting_6597-6188__E__N__S__W__.pdf

On the 22 October 2014 Jonathan Ashworth, Labour MP for Leicester South, in a written question 211600 to the Secretary of State for Health about NHS spending on temporary workers? It was answered by Dr Daniel Poulter on 29 October 2014. Following the Francis report many trusts were required to increase their spend on temporary staffing to meet safe staffing levels. The Department expects trusts to have a strong grip on their finances, and manage their contract and agency staffing spend (including use of locums) responsibly through effective and efficient workforce planning and management and to minimise temporary staffing costs in future years. The amounts spent on agency and contract staff (including locums) in the National Health Service in each year since May 2010 are as follows: NHS Foundation Trusts 2010-11 - £854,700,000 2011-12 - £907,000,000 2012-13 - £1,101,000,000 2013-14 - £1,396,200,000 Total - £4,258,900,000 This means that over a 4 year period from 2010 to 2014 - £4,258,900,000 has been taken directly from the public purse and paid to privately run recruitment agencies for the hiring of contract staff within the NHS without any consideration for the effect this has on the end user. At a time when massive government cuts are being made to spending across the board on all public services, I think this is wholly wrong and quite frankly, obscene. When other public sector establishments such as schools and social care authorities and the exorbitant costs of hiring temporary staff in these places are also taken into account, this means that the only winners in this scenario are the privately run Recruitment Agencies. Similar comparisons can be applied to the Education Sector where schools are spending huge amounts of money on supply staff from private recruitment agencies. In response to the problem, I have developed a blueprint for change entitled ‘Share and Share Alike’ administered through a new social enterprise business called ‘Social Recruitment Solutions Limited’ that will recycle 60% of its Net Profit back into the system on a pro-rata, dividend basis and will also give a further 10% to charity. I want to make my vision a reality by garnering support from like-minded individuals who share my belief, to come together through the spirit of partnership and co-operation in order to make a real difference in the field of Public Sector Recruitment for the benefit of all UK citizens. We cannot affect the lack of council funding but what we can do is change the way recruitment is carried out through my New Social Enterprise Model. This model will save millions of pounds in the cost of temporary and permanent recruitment and at the same time ‘give back’ to the stakeholders who work within these sectors and also to charity. Using the figures provided by the government as mentioned before, £4,258,900,000, my new social enterprise business model will see the NHS get back £391,631,100 and the staff the same amount distributed on a pro-rata, dividend basis. In my area, the new Hexham General Hospital cost £54,000,000 over 3 stages. This means the money given back over the same 4 year period through using my model - 7.25 new hospitals could be built at no extra cost to the tax payer. I firmly believe that the time has come for change. We need to remember that privately run recruitment agencies have their place in the Commercial Sector but not within the Public Sector. Why should a hospital have to pay a £7,500 for offering a supply nurse a permanent contract? Multiply that by 100 (100 nurses) - £750,000. As far as education is concerned, I know that many supply teacher agencies are offering 2 for the price of one? How does that affect the professional status of a teacher? How does that make them feel? It makes them feel like a commodity to be bought and sold like a loaf of bread. These introduction fees that agencies charge for staff to be taken on full-time contracts can be up to 25% of their annual salary. It prevents schools and hospitals being able to offer permanent positions to temporary staff because they simply cannot afford to do so. This is part of the recruitment problem particularly in the NHS. My Social Enterprise model will not charge these introduction fees and as a result schools and hospitals and other public sector establishments will be free to offer permanent contracts to temporary staff if they wish to do so without being penalised by massive temp to perm fees. They will not have to think twice about offering staff contracts because it will cost them nothing. This model can be used by all NHS Foundation Trusts and all Schools and Social Care Establishments run by Local Authorities, across the whole of the UK with no geographical boundaries. It all depends on which local authority has the desire to change, the vision to make a difference and the courage to take the bull by the horns and do something about it.

Safety of vulnerable and poorer people of Merseyside. Possible exploitation of those vulnerable Unfair dismissal and silencing of staff and volunteers. We NEED a fire service which helps ALL the people of Merseyside to keep safe, not to place restrictions and make fire safety an issue only for the middle-classes only.