In the past three years the following 10 former council services have been outsourced to another provider: 1. Your Choice Barnet 2. Housing Options 3. NSL (parking) 4. Capita CSG: Finance, HR, Payroll, Estates, Property Services, Pensions, Revenue & Benefits, 5. Capita Re: Building Control, Environmental Health, Planning, Trading Standards & Licencing 6. Legal Services 7. Registrars & Nationality Services 8. CCTV 9. Music Trust 10. Mortuary Services The Council is about to begin Competitive Dialogue procurement for Education & Skills and School Meals services with the following contractors • Capita Business Services Ltd • EC Harris LLP • Mott MacDonald Ltd, trading as Cambridge Education Looking at Capita’s track record to date http://www.capita.co.uk/who-we-are/our-history.aspx in bidding and winning contracts it is highly likely they will win this contract making it the third big contract they have won with Barnet Council. Outsourcing is no quick fix or easy win. Here in Barnet we were only 16 months into the Capita contracts when it was announced on Barnet Council website that Capita had received £110 million http://barnet.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s21029/Appendix I - Capita Payments.pdf Outsourcing is being promoted not just in Barnet but across the whole of the public sector as the answer to shrinking budgets. This dogma is being promoted contrary to the rapidly growing evidence from We Own It web site that it leads to: 1. Your Services get worse 2. Your costs go up 3. You can’t hold private companies accountable. 4. Staff terms & conditions are undermined which impacts on quality of services. 5. It is risky and difficult to reverse. Supporters of outsourcing often claim that the public isn’t bothered about who runs services. Again contrary to the evidence which found: • Only 21% of the public trust outsourcing companies - the lowest level of trust compared to other organisations like the NHS (79%), the police (65%) and the armed forces (79%) • 64% distrust outsourcing companies • 69% of the public think Atos, Capita, G4S, Serco are motivated by maximising profit - while 38% think this should be important • 22% of the public think Atos, Capita, G4S and Serco are motivated by providing the best service to the public - while 80% think this should be important • Only 28% of people think it is appropriate for private companies to run prisons, and only 25% think it is appropriate for them to provide court services • 65% of the public would not feel comfortable using GP services provided by a private company like Atos, Capita, G4S or Serco • Only 16% think there is adequate regulation of private companies running public services, compared to 59% who think more regulation is needed http://weownit.org.uk/privatisation-doesn%E2%80%99t-work/whats-problem-outsourcing-companies Barnet Council is now promoting itself as a Commissioning Council. The clue is in the title and for our members it simply means they will be working for someone else not the Council. Commissioning is being driven by consultants and their friends in the public sector, who secure contracts for them to outsource services. They have no interest in service delivery which inevitably leads to greater inequality both in the workforce & the community we serve. Please view short Animation explaining how Austerity is impacting on our community The Disappearing Council https://youtu.be/YQ5t63fSu-s

As business leaders have been widely reported warning of possible Labour damage to the economy, why has the BBC made no mention of this important intervention by top professionals warning of possible Tory damage to the NHS. Not reporting this letter is political bias, and allows a huge section of the population to be misinformed about an issue that is of huge national importance.

Broxtowe is undergoing great change with centrally-imposed infrastructure projects radically altering the area. The impact of this centrally-imposed, swingeing cut on the local council budget will destroy all hope of mitigating against such changes. Front-line services will be under threat, with the impact being felt by all residents; with the most vulnerable being hit hardest. Read more here: http://www.nottinghampost.com/Borough-faces-biggest-spending-cut-country/story-25737818-detail/story.html

Evictions are at a record high. Council house building is being destroyed and sold off with waiting lists growing. Housing has become insecure, often unsafe and unaffordable Companies are exploiting workers in homeless organisations and Housing Associations, organisations which are often seeing surpluses, yet cuts to pay and important services are being cut. Companies who have blacklisted workers in trade unions are being contracted for public contracts, we say NO. All of this and sadly, too much more, are reasons for our manifesto demands at this key time: 1. Stop the cuts - Austerity for the 99% ! 2. Build and repair over 300,000 Council houses per year, incorporating improved accessibility and environmental standards. 3. Stop the transfer of council stock to housing associations. Stop the social cleansing 4. End the right to buy - We lost over 44,000 homes in 2013-2014 5. Bring in Rent Controls and establish a national register of private landlords to protect tenants 6. End unfair benefit caps and other benefit cuts such as the Bedroom tax and cuts in council tax benefit. Restore and increase the Independent living fund. 7. Protect Supported Housing - Stop the cuts and ring fence services which are vital for some of the most in need of specialist support 8. Decent Pay and conditions for workers in housing and social care 9. Bring in an £10ph National Minimum wage 10. End the Blacklist - restrict commissioning of social housing and maintenance services to providers who have signed up to the Joint Industry Board National Agreement for Engineering Construction. Act to remove approved providers found guilty of blacklisting. 11. Nationalise the Banks - Taking over the banks on a permanent basis would enable investment to be planned in line with democratically decided priorities including housing that working people can afford. We must put a stop to the disaster of austerity and build secure homes for the 99% The full manifesto can be found here - http://www.housingworkers.org.uk/readnews.html?con_id=172 Please cut and paste the full manifesto or add the link and ask your MP's and councillors to pledge their support. https://www.writetothem.com/ And if your looking to find out candidates for local or general elections please use - https://yournextmp.com

People should not be forced to choose between bad and worse candidates. We should be able to reject candidates outright, all candidates if need be. We spend too much time waiting for unqualified, lying, cheating, unworthy, ethically and morally corrupt individuals to serve their time in public office at our expense when many of us would have preferred they not be there in the first place. It's time we had the democratic option to say no from the start.

Wandsworth Council have approved an application by the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum to build a six-story car park in Battersea for over a hundred luxury cars. At a time when the need for affordable housing has never been more urgent and pollution levels in London are making headlines, we ask that you overturn this decision and make a powerful, symbolic statement which shows that you really care about London. There is an urgent need for affordable housing in the UK, particularly in central London. You have a golden opportunity to make a meaningful statement. Rather than encouraging pollution, obscene riches and the exacerbation of extreme social inequality in central London, you have a superb opportunity to highlight the urgent need for more social housing and move London in a positive direction by publicly rejecting Wandsworth's decision. Homes for hundreds of Londoners, or hundreds of cars for one billionaire? Boris, this is a real chance for you to prove to us that you care.

We want the Government to amend the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) to: 1. ensure that development is preferred and prioritised on brownfield sites. 2. protect green areas of special value to local areas. 3. allow all permissions to be counted as part of the 5 year supply definition. 4. give greater weight to heritage, ecology, and culture 5. ensure that developments are sustainable and that adequate infrastructure (roads, public transport, schools, health facilities and leisure facilities) are built in time to meet the needs of the first resident as well as the last. 6. give communities the same rights of appeal as developers in planning law. 7. accept that the expectations for the production of Local Plans in the allotted time-scale were unrealistic and allow a further period of grace to those local authorities that are still struggling to achieve this.

In 2009, a survey suggested that most fans felt that the F.A were not doing enough to tackle homophobia in football. Six years on and this is still the case. In 2012, the F.A released a video of premier league players discussing the topic, this is simply not enough.In a Wikipedia post, it states that'The Guardian's Secret Footballer columnist said that a gay player would be accepted in a typical dressing room instead said that the worry for any would-be gay player would be the abuse from the terraces.' From this quote you can infer that the football governing body is simply not doing enough to tackle the issue. To exacerbate this an Integrated Household Survey estimated 1.5% people in the UK identify themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual. From these statistics it is clear to see that the amount of open LGBTs in football is far below the national average ; from previous information, it is apparent more needs to be done in the terraces rather than within the club. By treating Homophobia the same as other discrimination types such as racism (by creating harsher punishments on those convicted) we will see a dramatic decline in homophobic abuse and football will move on and will catch up with the modern society where everyone is accepted for who they are.

The Folkestone Town Sprucer is under attack by Shepway District Council. Sprucer Peter Phillips and his team of volunteers are an independent community-based initiative that litter-picks, removes graffiti, repairs minor infrastructure, cleans litter-bins and signs, plus 101 other chores to help restore civic pride. Peter is arguably Folkestone’s most popular public figure. In an attempt to clear rubbish and a jungle of fly-tipping, needles and rampant overgrowth from Westbourne Gardens, a once elegant tree-lined park, the Sprucer team has been stopped in its tracks by threatened prosecution from SDC. The allegation: that trees have been lopped without permit in a conservation area – cutting that was necessary to get at the layers of rubbish dumped beneath the trees. Facing a possible £20,000 fine, Sprucer organiser David Taylor has already been interviewed under caution by SDC officers. Sprucer Peter Phillips faces a similar interview on May 12. Had they known the green square was in a conservation area, both would have sought leave to cut, although it takes six weeks for a permit to be issued, if it’s issued at all. This petition calls on SDC to immediately halt the witch-hunt, apologise to the team, grant a permit and work with the Sprucer to restore Westbourne Gardens to its original charm - a task that SDC has flunked by failing over many years to compel the owners, would-be developers, to clean-up the park, designated as an inviolate green space. Why has taken the intervention of the Folkestone Town Sprucer to focus SDC and the owners on tackling this appalling public eyesore?

This so important, there has always been an on going joke about the Dental health of people in England, well being someone who after 2 years of not seeing my own dentist I was removed from their books, meaning that just something as simple as losing a filling, I now have to see an emergency dentist with no follow ups and then being told I had to still find a new dentist to take me onto their books. So I registered on to the waiting list to be offered a place for an NHS dentist when one became available. Well I got the call saying there was a place available, but it is almost 12 miles away in a village where I would have to catch 2 buses and a train to get there, which would take 2 hours to get there. This is ridiculous, why she people have to suffer this way, especially when there is so many dental surgeries with in a 10 minute bus ride away and not one of them is taking on new NHS patients, This really needs to be looked out and to be sorted.

The government have decided to take NHS money out of hospitals, call it the 'Better Care Fund' and give it to Health and Wellbeing Boards. In Kirklees, this body has sitting on it, the Chair and Chief Officer of Greater Huddersfield Clinical Commissioning Group and the Chair and Chief Officer of North Kirklees Clinical Commissioning Group. It also has a number of councillors and a representative of a company contracted to do work for the CCGs, the representative of the council responsible for Public Health and sometimes representatives of Mid Yorkshire Hospital Trust, Calderdale Hospital Foundation Trust and Healthwatch. The NHS has always been run with a public service ethos. Increasingly multinational companies without that ethos, are being awarded contracts to deliver services and they fail to honour their promises. Any private company is vulnerable to takeover bids from larger firms. We consider it worth reminding the bodies responsible for allocating around £2.5m of public money, that money channelled away from the hospitals has a potential to weaken them and that there is no clear evidence that 'Care Closer to Home' will either keep people out of hospital or save money for the NHS. eg. A very recent Kings Fund report - 'The Reconfiguration of Clinical Services - what is the evidence?' (Nov 2014) has stated that there are consistent findings that moving care out of hospital does not cut costs or reduce admissions to hospital. In fact in one study (Roland et al 2012) it increased admissions. The report states that in fact, this kind of reconfiguration of clinical services can act as a distraction from core tasks and can increase risks. North Kirklees NHS Support Group and Dewsbury Keep Our NHS Public (KONP) have been out in Dewsbury, Cleckheaton, Birstall and Batley with paper petitions, but the area of the CCGs stretches to Heckmondwike, Mirfield, Hopton, Kirkburton, Meltham and Huddersfield and district. It is with the idea of giving people a chance to sign in all the relevant areas, that we are running it for a short time online. Please sign and share, if you have a Kirklees postcode. Thank you.

as a mother,auntie and sibling of somebody on the spectrum , I know how hard it can be.The reason for my petition is that i believe that the current system of gaining a blue badge for my child is wrong and deliberately discriminates against the condition and displays a clear lack of understanding of the true nature of the condition and the impact it has on its families