Day Two

I am posting late in the evening (well actually it's now well into tomorrow morning - I had to start this again as I had a major computer crash and lost the first version of this post) because this little man has had a busy day!

I got home about 8.30pm and after eating (chips – comfort 'I can't be bothered to cook' food, but still very very wrong!) I watched Criminal Justice on Catch-up. I missed it when it was on last week (evening commitments again) and have been trying to catch up with it ever since. But x*!?# Virgin had some national problem, twas ever thus, so now I have to watch several episodes at once before they take it down.

I couldn't get to the Area 2 Site Visits today – as it was an all day (well 10am-3.30pm) trip around the Gower – and I had lots of other prior appointments/meetings. There are a considerable number of site visits called for the Gower – I can't believe they are all necessary, as I can't that they all need to go to Committee. Still that's a matter for another place on another day.

This morning I dealt with a couple of phone calls from constituents and discussed these with my ward colleagues. (Although the Leader of the Labour Party I am still a ward councillor and have to carry my share of that workload as well). I also made another assault on my email mountain (a bit like climbing Crib Goch ridge in the rain, three steps up and four back; as fast I get rid of them they arrive) but I think I've made a dent in the backlog, inasmuch as the net total was smaller than when I started – even if by not much!.

After lunch (which I don't eat – leaves space for the chips later!) I had a meeting with the Vice Chancellor of the Metropolitan University. I always enjoy meeting Prof. Warner; he's such a live wire. I don't know how many cylinders he's got, but he's certainly firing on all of them. And he has such commitment to the University and to the city. I believe there's no doubt that he turned the Institute (as was) around and made it into the dynamic force that it is today. Amongst other things we were discussing the University's community commitment and how it might this might develop. Very stimulating.

After that it was straight back to County Hall for a briefing on 'self-evaluation' for the Children and Family Services Scrutiny Board. Most people will be aware that Swansea's Children Services were severely criticised and judged inadequate by Inspectors and an Intervention Board was appointed by the Assembly Government to oversee the delivery of an Improvement programme. The Children and Family Services Scrutiny Board was part of the Council's response to the Intervention. It has proved very effective, indeed it's one of the best performing Scrutiny Boards (and that's not just my opinion or to belittle the work of the others). Its effectiveness is a tribute to the commitment of the members from all political parties, and to the dynamic leadership of the Chair and vice-Chair, Cllrs Mark Child and Paxton Hood-Williams respectively. Nonetheless, this is a highly complex area and despite our best intentions we are in danger of information overload. This was a 'professional' guidance session on how to assess and make the best of the enormous amount of information that we are presented with, the sort of things that we should understand and the questions we should ask. Very informative and useful. That was immediately followed by a meeting of the Board itself and the approval of the reports our various working Groups had prepared on our respective investigations. The conclusions are too long to go into here – but are publicly available. I continue to be surprised at the depth of knowledge the Board members have and the considerable amount of time that they are prepared to put in to get this right. We hold many more meetings that the scheduled cycle – indeed 2 or three times as many. But everyone willingly accepts it, but I do find it difficult to get to all of them.

Then straight onto an Association of Governors Body meeting (which was to have a presentation of dealing with the more gifted pupils. Unfortunately, I had to leave early as I had to go to meet some constituents to discuss a problem.

Amongst the problems that my Castle ward colleagues and I are currently dealing with is the issue of the use and storage of mobility scooters in residential complexes. I won't say which complexes, but we do think that the Authority (through some of its officers) is being entirely unreasonable in its response to its tenants. Electric Scooters have transformed the lives of infirm people, who previously would have had to rely of someone pushing them around in a wheelchair. Now they have regained a considerable element of freedom and re-asserted control over their lives. Nonetheless, I do acknowledge that some of the Authority's facilities were not designed to accommodate these vehicles and that that poses problems. However, they are now a fact of life and the Authority should really be being more pro-active in finding a solution. Instead of being (as it often seems) the Authority that finds reasons to say 'NO', it should be finding the ways to say 'Yes'. My colleagues & I have pushed the matter a bit higher up the tree and we are hopeful that a solution will be found.

I think that tomorrow (or today) is scheduled to be quieter – let's see how that works out!