Openness.

This is another work-in-progress note.

The various governments of the so called Western world waffle on about  openness.

Some more than others but the general diatribe goes something like "One of the government's objectives is openness so that the people know what is going on and how we arrive at any given subject.". This means that what a given country's government do that directly or indirectly impact on the people they are supposedly representing will be done is a way that the people can see and what is happening regarding whatever it is that the governemt is concerned with or about. Now, I am very big on openness and open standards so I tend to try and keep up with such matters within my own  government and I urge you to do the same within your own as the definition of the word 'openness' is not what you think is it. This is especially true when defined by our governments.

A perfect example of this is with Internet blocklists. Blocklists are URL's that the are blocked by ISP's. In England this list is edited and held by a none government organisation called the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF). Anyone can send these none official people a URL that they find objectionable. This  request is then scrutinised and if found to hit some hidden definition it is then added to the blocklist which is then picked up by the various ISP's operating within the U.K. Not such a bad thing you may think and it would not be except for two things.

One) The IWF is not a government department. It consists of ordinary people who supposedly make decisions on what is and what is not a naughty URL based on both  what they have on their web site and also the personal tastes of the individual which cannot be avoided.

Two)  The blocklist created, edited and  held by the IWF cannot be seen by anyone outside of the ISP's administrators and those within the IWF itself. It is a hidden list of URL's that holds who knows what.

The first thing mentioned is not so bad until one thinks about it.

Child protection.

No right minded thinking adult would ever consider hurting a child, much less their own child.

With seemingly the front line people, who have an undertaking to first and foremost protect the nations children from harm, not only from those outside the family circle but also the child's own parents, being in total disarray following some high profile,and not so high profile, cases where said front line people have neglected to do their duty, is it not time for a total and complete rethink on how we consider these things?

As a parent of five children myself I abhor any acts of real violence directed at children who cannot protect themselves and even though as a parent i can understand the why i cannot understand the how they can do it to them, much less their own child. With each new case that is highlighted in the press there are probably thousands of cases that go unreported. And that is a scary thought that all decently and right minded parents should never lose sight of.

As a nation we are seen as a set of compassionate people. But, it would seem, we love our pets more than we love our children. One of the major problems under the current  child protection scheme is not the scheme itself nor the rules and guidance which manipulate those scheme but is, as seen from my own eyes, a lack of people on the front line who are parents themselves. Many, many times I have seen social workers who are barely old enough to have children let alone actually have children of their own who have been on cases. This surely cannot be right.

There are many complex reasons underpinning why a child is in danger. Some of those reasons are never immediately clear. Some parents on the 'hit list' of suspected child abuse, at any level, go to great lengths to hide whatever it is that is a danger to their children and it is only one who is a parent themselves that will see through the smokescreen as they know what parenting is all about. It is hard to see how someone who has never had children themselves could ever see through these smokescreens but within the service itself there are many such people.

It is impossible, not to mention irresponsible, for any one to say they can fix what is so obviously broken in an easy and effortless way, though fixing it is what is needed as currently it is so obvious broken. There is much to moan about and not a lot that can be immediately fixed, but our legislators must endeavor to that aim. One thing that can be and should be fixed within the system designed to protect our children from harm from their own parents is to immediately and without question remove those from any position of first person contact without any parenting experience from within the system. While this by itself will not fix  the obviously broken system it will give  the system a boost in the eyes and minds of all  right minded parents around the country. It will also help to shore up the back feeling directed at such services.

Another thing that should be immediately remedied is the current thinking of try at all costs to keep families together even though the child within the family is known to be in some danger from its own parents. Instead any parent suspected, and more importantly properly and correctly investigated, should have their child or children moved out of harms way. While that is open to abuse it will ensure any child or children deemed to be in harms way will not be harmed. I am not for one second saying they should be moved into that other broken system  children's homes. No. They  should be moved into another family circle where children are known to flourish.

Two very simple ideas that should go a long way to fixing this problem area.

Stupid council

HullCC is amongst, at least amongst the places I have lived as well as from various friends in other council houses around the U.K., the most friendly towards most of the people who lived under its jurisdiction. Of course there are some who live in council houses who do all they can to get as much as possible with the minmum of effort out fof the council. Almost the entire Nottingham council tenant fit that bill but this is not about them or any other problem people (as seen by the council they fall under and yes they have such lists).

Here in Hull it is not the tenants that are the issue it is those, not all, of those they employ, which in some cases are not direct council employees but are some 3rd party company but for the sake of simplicity I will call them all council employees. There are some of these employees who seem to work for them only so that they get paid, not for job satisfaction or, as silly at it may seem to some in this day and age, for employer pleasing or customer satisfaction. Indeed, customer satisfaction seems so low down on their list of priorities it may as well not exist at all. Instead they come and look at a reported problem and if they cannot see or experience that problem within 2 minutes of being in the house they leave with some not so helpful advise as "Call again if the problem returns." The problem with that of course is that because the problem we have (more on that below) is intermittent and can last for one, two, three or more days at a time and the fact that the council themselves, rightly, have to prioritise each incomng problem it can take anywhere from 1 to 8 or more days before they schedule a visit by the men who fix things on behalf of the council. Which means, as laid out by Sods Law, that at the time the men who fix things arrive the intermittent problem is working again!

Exactly that happened to us just yesterday. Our central heating has been intermittently cutting out for te last month or so. Because it has not been unduly cold we didn't really notice it until we had a couple of really cold days and especially nights when the central heating decided it wanted a holiday and cut out. Sometimes this problem lasts for a day sometimes 2 days sometimes 3. But, when the man arrived the problem, as always, didn't exist so he uttered those words above. This is all well and good but at this time of the year, with myself being riddled with arthritis and a child under 2 years old, we cannot really be without the warmth the central heating gives us. Now, I am well aware there are obvious limits on how much time they can, or should, devote to each and every job they get called out to but that said surely if, as customers of the council, a problem has been reported then they are, or should be, duty bound to fix it. Even give that the problem is an intermittent one like ours.

Or is that too much to ask? After recieving an email reply from some faceless person who replied to my not so hypothetical question I am still unsure as to the answer. Basically, he/she said that because the man entered the property at a time when the central heating was working normally he would be unable to locate and fix the problem. The problem I have with that is that surely these systems have some sort of error or problem checking procedure they could employ which if done correctly should show up pointers, if not the actual problem area, as to what and why it is intermittently cutting itself off. In fact, I know there is so why is it not used in such cases? That I do not know and neither did it would seem the person who replied to that very query.

As it stands right now we have an obviously dodgy central heating system which cuts out intermittently. But until such a time as we can have the central heating out of action and at that very moment have the guy who fixes such things in the house the problem will not be fixed. Unless the whole thing packs up totally then they will have to come out and fix the damn thing.

Government Databases.

I surely am not alone in being scared of our government, be they Labour, Conservative or any other political party, being ever more willing and in some cases already doing, huge one point databases am I?

They either plan or have implemented all encompassing databases which will include every man, woman and child resident in this country, whether they be nationals (defined as born here irregardless of creed, race or faith) or tourists (business or otherwise). Another database will contain every child and so on.

The number of 'lost' names in recent times is scary enough but a single point database (which means only one entry for access to) containing who knows what of every individual just fills me with dread. I don't know how hackers (defined as those who break into such databases).

We already have the police database, the passport database, the drivers database (think DVLA), a doctor's database and hospital databases, registered with banks and so on. We are first on the goverment radar after being registered at birth and from that time to death, which is also registered) we voluntarily sign up for most, if not all of the services mentioned above. We leave information at various shops where we purchased something. That signals to the bank that at that moment in time where we were, what we  bought and what we spent. All that sort of thing while not voluntary is just part and parcel of everyday life. Having all that information stored in one place and accessed  via one single means is just plain scary. It is bad enough that the number of databases holding all manner of information on individuals exist and some link up so verifications can be made. The fact that this huge database is government run (for now until they decide to sell the information as will surely happen within 25 years of it starting) and owned make it all the more scary.

Our government, or put another way our elected officials, has an appalling track record regarding such things and it is widely and well known that the government, at any level from Westminster to local councils, are useless at governing  any IT project be it small or large. This huge database comes under the banner of the latter.

During the last year various government departments 'lost' private and confidential information. They 'lost' laptops and notebooks with monotonousness regularity usually containing unencrypted data. Their track record is appalling.

I,  for one, find these huge government mandated databases scary.

Hull CC Complaints unit.

Our council here in Hull (Kingston-upon-Hull to give it its full and proper name) has a Complaints Unit. They can be contacted via any means possible except email. I find that in a world where email personifies communications the fact that the one, possibly the most used, area not available via email contact is complaints.

That said, the available complaints procedures are limited in scope and would certainly scare the less intelligent of the local populace (and our Lord knows there are plenty of those here) away from using said service.

We have not as yet used the service but we know plenty of people who have and they say the procedures are so bad the majority would never use it again. In and effort to understand why those who have used the service find it so bad I went out on a crusade to gather as much information from those people as was possible. One area that stood out time and time again was that while it was easy to start a complaint (email not withstanding) once the procedure was underway the nightmares began. Stalling was one complaint. Another was lack of resolution. After gathering as much information is possble over a 9 month period the only conclusion I can come to is that HullCC make it as difficult as they possibly, and legally, can, probably in the hope that the number of complaints go down thereby making it look like the people here have nothing to complain about.

At this time we are considering, or rather was considering, putting in 2 complaints. The fact that there is no email contact has forced us to have a rethink. The 2 complaints we have are as follows:

1) When we were first told of the availabilty of this house we came to have a look. The house itself had had some major work done in it as the previous tenant had deliberately broken a major water pipe (I will leave it to your imagination the   amount of damge that was caused). While the internals of the house had had major work done there was plenty of small to not so small problems that still remained. Before we had moved in the then Housing Officer assured us that any and all remaining problems we found once reported would be fixed. We followed his advice and rang the relevant number with a long list of remaining problems. They sent a  guy round to identify all the problems and he then let the relevant departments know. They all came and fixed nearly all  what the should fix. There are however some remaining and after call after call to them saying what the problems are that still need fixing they remain  steadfastly not fixed.

2) The Housing Officer that was then has now moved elsewhere and we have a new one. She is utterly useless at the job and is frankly totally uncaring. Her attitude is one of "You should be thankful for the house".

3) Before we moved in and with the previous Housing Officer he agreed that the state of both front and back garden should be and would be sorted. 1 year later we are still waiting. The small garden out front is a mass of weeds and a small tree has overgrown. The current Housing Officer has said "The gardens are not our problem". A comment we happen to agree with but as the previous Housing Officer had given us assurances that becuase of the state of said gardens BEFORE we had moved in they remain a council problem and the council should sort them out. We are now in no mans land as we have the agreement with the previous Housing Officer which the current Housing Officer does not care about. Her  exact words were  "The problems are yours and you should pay someone to sort the gardens out". Not exactly nice or correct as the previous Housing Officer has given us assurances that "Because the problem of the gardens was evident before you move in that the gardens are a council problem and the council will send someone around after you move in to sort the gardens out for you". Of course, to this day that never happened and because we have an uncaring Housing Officer for these parts now our chances of getting those jobs done that was a part of our agreement when first signing for this council house are seemingly nil.

It would seem from talking with other residents on this and other council estates we are not alone in having agreements broken and not alone in not liking the current complanins setup of our council. Whether they will take any notice of this or the emails sent or even the written letter sent to them remains to be seen. One thing is for sure though and that is something must change before the council becomes mistaken in thinking all residents are happy as tey have not complained. If the procedure to complain remains an obstical to complaining then that alone explains why people will not complain.