Ban on council prayers still in place?

Coming from the Wyre Forest Agenda where it appears our local council are still including prayers as an official part of the meeting despite the High Court ruling that they can't. Ah but it's okay as Eric Pickles has rode to the rescue by pushing forward the Localism Act 2011 which will restore the right to hold prayers; but does it?

Here's the key point in the Local Governments Act 1972:

Without prejudice to any powers exercisable apart from this section but subject to the provisions of this Act and any other enactment passed before or after this Act, a local authority shall have power to do any thing (whether or not involving the expenditure, borrowing or lending of money or the acquisition or disposal of any property or rights) which is calculated to facilitate, or is conducive or incidental to, the discharge of any of their functions.

To parse that down this is a power granted to councils with restrictions. Now to the new Localism Act 2011 that grants the council a general power to do that which an individual can:

If exercise of a pre-commencement power of a local authority is subject to restrictions, those restrictions apply also to exercise of the general power so far as it is overlapped by the pre-commencement power

where a:

“pre-commencement power” means power conferred by a statutory provision that—(a)is contained in this Act, or in any other Act passed no later than the end of the Session in which this Act is passed, or(b)is contained in an instrument made under an Act and comes into force before the commencement of section 1.

Everyone understand that?  Any restrictions in place to a power contained in a previous Act apply to the general power granted in this Act. Given that the Localism Act 2011 does not rescind the Local Government Act 1972; nor does it specifically amend section 111  then its power with restrictions still apply to the general power granted by this new Act.

In other words a council is still restricted only to those acts that "facilitate, or is conducive or incidental to, the discharge of any of their functions" which has been decided doesn't include prayer.

More Mitton Street roadworks

Or maybe not seeing as someone's blocked off the left-hand lane of Mitton Street from its junction with Worcester Road all the way up to Lion Hill (leaving enough room for ingress and egress and gaps for access to frontages) without apparently doing any work.

Worse yet not only could I not see any notices as to who was carrying out the work (with emergency contact numbers) but on the approach from Gilgal two signs have been placed either side that completely obstruct the footway with no accommodation made to get around them.

It does seem petty to have to keep pointing out these things, but those whose job it is to monitor these things can't be anywhere and I feel that roadwork crews have been getting away with lax adherence to the rules for too long. As such it's something we the public have to keep on top of.

[Update 28/2 - Still there last night with no work being done; still there this morning. If there's still no work being done they're obstructing the public highway which is a criminal offence and a matter for the police]

[Update - The council have been assured by the contractors that there is work going on now which of makes one question why these restrictions were put up yesterday. I've also pointed out that they're pushing vehicles into the right-hand lane too soon and that the lane-ahead closed sign on Gilgal is nonsensical because their left-hand lane (to the island) isn't closed]

[Update 29/2 -At long last some work was being done - one of the residents was taking the opportunity of the lane closure to paint their fence. As for the reason for the lane closure - the road was still unblemished leaving no reason why vehicles couldn't use it. I did note this morning that one of the roadwork signs in Gilgal has been removed and the other shifted to allow pedestrian access; the incorrect lane closure signs are still up though.]


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And still the Tesco crossings

Yes sorry, but you know I wouldn't have to do this if the council actually provided the information rather than make me dig it out or ring them up to get ahold of it.

I noted that a sign had gone up on the junction of Mitton Street and Vale Road (church corner) stating that the Road would be closed for 4 days. This is wrong on multiple counts:

1. The order has yet to be correctly published;
2. It's only the junction that will be closed not the entire road as this could be seen to imply;
3. According to the inaccurately published order and the information from Worcestershire county council it should only be closed between the hours of 09:30 and 15:30hrs each day.

I bet they're as fed-up with me ringing them as I am at having to do so.

Discrimination as a market commodity

This isn't about the gypsy/traveller situation per se; but is just tied in to various commentary I've picked up in a wide area mostly from bigots. The argument that is made or at least colours their comments is that it shouldn't be up to the government to punish people for discrimination. People should be allowed to discriminate and it's up to society to penalise them for doing so if it wants to. If it chooses not to who are the government to step in and say that we the public are wrong? It's an application of free-market forces to society.

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Blue lights on vehicles

Over the past week I've been spotting more vehicles porting blue front LEDs. "Huh" I thought "Aren't blue lights reserved for emergency vehicles only?". Turns out maybe they're not.

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Outlook and Exchange

Remind me never to do that again. Just tried to set up an Exchange Account on Outlook with minimal information on a system where there's already a default POP3 account in place.

First of all the delightful bit that although it's possible to tell Outlook to set-up such an account one cannot be done while Outlook is open. So why give me the damn option?

So anyway chastened I scurried to Mail in the Control Panel; added in the information I had and hit Resolve and was told that the name couldn't be resolved unless Outlook was "active"; oh gee thanks for that. Seems the information was wrong.

So I cancelled out; fired Outlook back up and up popped a balloon telling me that send/receive wasn't working as there was no default store. "Huh?" The store was there and happily populated. Checked the accounts and everything was pointed in the right direction except... the default store was no longer the default store. Hit the default button; waited; closed Outlook; re-opened it and everything was fine.

In other words despite cancelling out of the creation of an account Outlook went ahead and started to set one up anyway and didn't bother to change the settings back. Delightful!

Workfare - yes or no?

If you haven't heard about Workfare where have you been? In essence it's a scheme to get the long-term unemployed back into work; which sounds great. However issues have been raised about its nature.

To begin I'm in two minds about this. Fundamentally I see the need for this type of scheme. Having been unemployed I know how difficult it can be to get out of that mindset and back into a 'work' mindset; particularly when it seems you're getting paid for doing nothing. Add in those who graduate from education straight onto the dole and it must be particularly difficult to shift.

Likewise I can see the need to force people onto this scheme. Given the choice to be paid to do nothing or something; who can be blamed for choosing the nothing option?

Given all that why is there a problem? Firstly there was the alleged disingenuity of the premise - the scheme was voluntary however once volunteered it became compulsory. The second major point was the companies being targetted as providers of this service - big billion pound profit companies. Which makes the third point even worse - these companies weren't paying for the services.

We the taxpayers through the government were paying people to work at companies returning massive profits. Backlash!

As more details emerged this seemed even more unfair. Allegedly miss a day of work and your 'quota' would be reset. Companies were obliged to provide a job interview at the end of the period; but not an actual job. This meant a company could 'hire' someone to do the job for free; interview them at the end and say "Sorry no job" and then 'hire' another person for free to do the same job. All at our expense. Why would the companies do that though; surely the time taken to have to induct a new set of trainees outweighs the 'freeness' of their work. Well yes if what they were doing was trained work; it's not it's all unskilled work that requires little to no training with minimal supervision required.

In short the companies were essentially being placed in charge and being appeased; hardly surprising of the Conservative Party though.

What could make this scheme work though? Firstly the company pays the trainee directly and then claims the money back from the government; and the amount paid post-tax must be equal to the JSA. This is important as it puts the trainee on the companies books and they become protected by the standard employment laws.

Secondly if after the trial period has finished the company decides whether or not to employ that person for that position. If they decide not to hire them then they cannot take on another trainee for that work unless they explain why the previous trainee wasn't suitable.

Thirdly the layoff terms must be balanced - the company can 'return' the trainee if they find them unsuitable (again with an explanation); but the trainee must also be able to leave the company without forfeiture (again providing an explanation).

All this should get the long-term unemployed into a work habit without leaving them open to exploitation by the companies.