Time for city council to deliver after My City, My Say consultation…

The feedback event for the My City, My Say campaign.

So that’s that. The My City, My Say consultation exercise organised by Stoke-on-Trent City Council is over.

In all likelihood, you probably didn’t attend one of the 49 meetings which took place across the city.

I know this because only around 200 people turned up to the key events.

The chances are you didn’t fill in a questionnaire either.

I’m told just over 900 people did.

Being brutally honest, these numbers are pitifully low given how many people live and work in Stoke-on-Trent.

Then again I’m not sure what was expected given that at local elections the turn-out in some wards in the Potteries hovers around the 20 per cent mark.

That’s right. Only around one in five people can be bothered to vote to elect local councillors. It’s frightening.

I was chatting to someone who did attend Tuesday night’s feedback session at the King’s Hall in Stoke and he blamed the lack of engagement in the My City, My Say process on a general feeling of apathy and disillusionment towards politics and politicians – especially at a local level.

I certainly wouldn’t blame anyone who feels angry or frustrated at the city council – or rather the council’s leaders – given some of the decisions that have been taken (or not taken) during the last 15 years.

Today’s front page, for example, will certainly divide opinion…

However, it’s one thing to feel fed up with the local authority’s leadership and it’s another thing entirely to remove yourself from the mechanisms which allow you to change what you’re not happy with.

Some people have blamed the poor attendance on the fact that they didn’t know the events were taking place.

All I can say is that the meetings were publicised in The Sentinel, on local radio, on social media and via organisations including residents’ associations and schools.

As well as the key events, there were many other meetings at churches, children’s centres and even supermarkets.

Suffice to say tens of thousands of people did know about the events but, for a variety of reasons, chose either to not read the information or not to engage in the process.

Some people may have avoided the My City, My Say debates because they believed them to be little more than a stunt, perpetrated by the council’s Labour leadership, to make them seem all warm and cuddly ahead of next year’s local elections.

This isn’t a view I subscribe to, given the conversations I had with council officers before the campaign started. Otherwise I, personally, wouldn’t have given up my time for some of the events.

What’s more, if senior officers and councillors stick to their pledge of holding these consultation exercises on a regular basis then they cannot simply be dismissed as a token gesture or electioneering.

Were the My City, My Say events perfect? Absolutely not. Would I have organised them differently if they had been my gigs? Definitely.

For starters, I wouldn’t have made the discussions so prescriptive or short. At times it felt like people were being rail-roaded away from asking certain questions by the very nature of the topics or duration of the chat.

It was just too ‘stage-managed’ for my liking which inevitably leads to accusations that big, controversial decisions like relocating the council HQ from Stoke to Hanley or the fight to give Fenton it’s own town council were off limits. There was also too little time for questions from the floor.

Having said all that, this was the first time the council had embarked on such an extensive consultation process and thus it was a steep learning curve for all concerned.

It was still, in my opinion, a very worthwhile exercise because the people who did attend engaged in a high level of debate – making some terrific (and occasionally left-field) suggestions about what our priorities should be, both as a city and as communities.

This feedback, along with the information garnered by the 900 plus questionnaires, is incredibly valuable market research for the council and should help officers and politicians to better tailor policies to local priorities.

So where do we go from here? I guess that’s the big question. Well, for me it’s very straightforward.

The council needs to analyse the data properly and then demonstrate within the next couple of months (certainly this side of Christmas) that tangible results have come from this exercise.

They need to show that the people who engaged with the process have been listened to – and the only way to do this is to act on some of the ideas put forward for action at a local level.

Secondly, the authority must keep its promise of holding such consultation exercises more frequently than once every three or four years.

Why? Because local authorities up and down the country will be facing the same tough budgetary decisions for years to come and the need to talk to tax-payers about their priorities has never been greater.

Of course, if you still think it’s all a sham and you don’t like what you see and hear, you can always do something about it come polling day in May.

Read my Personally Speaking columns every Friday in The Sentinel

Army trials highlight the best of our youth

Officer candidates put through their paces at AOSB.

‘Are you sure, red one? Think carefully, red one.’ The Group Leader’s unflinching gaze bore into the nervous-looking young man stood in front of an audience of six of his peers and three high-ranking Army officers who looked on impassively while scribbling on large, white noteboards.

The other candidates sat in mute sympathy in a semi-circle with their backs to me, clad in all-in-one green jump suits – distinguishable only by the numbers on their red bibs.

You could have heard a pin drop in the briefing room as the lad shuffled uncomfortably, looked to the ceiling for inspiration and then replied: ‘1500 hours, sir?’, more in hope than anything.

‘You’re making it up, red one,’ replied the emotionless young Rifles officer from behind his desk. ‘Does anyone else know the answer? How about you, red three?’

And so it went on for two hours as each member of ‘red group’ was put under the spotlight during the planning exercise element of their three-day assessment at the Army Officer Selection Board (AOSB) at Westbury in Wiltshire.

You may have heard of the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst – the British Army’s initial training centre for officers. Well, to get to Sandhurst you have to graduate, for want of a better phrase, from AOSB.

In order to be selected for officer training, a candidate – male or female – has to prove themselves mentally and physically able to cope with the rigours of one of the toughest jobs in the world.

There is no hiding place for candidates at Westbury: It isn’t just a matter of how academically gifted you are; It isn’t just a matter of how fit you are; It certainly doesn’t matter if you have a relative who was or is a serving officer. There are no ‘jobs for the boys’. Or girls, for that matter.

At Westbury all young men and women are equal. It matters not whether you attended a state or private school or whether you have a plummy accent or grew up on a rough northern council estate. AOSB is a genuine leveller.

Referred to only by the colour of their bib and a randomly-assigned number, over several days candidates are put through a complex series of assessments designed to expose any weaknesses and character flaws.

I was shown a picture of His Royal Highness Prince Harry, taken during his time at AOSB. “He was Blue 13,” said one of the officers with clear pride. “He was treated no differently to anyone else. The truth is, first and foremost, Harry’s a very good soldier.”

If he hadn’t of been, HRH simply wouldn’t have made it through Westbury. As one Lieutenant Colonel told me: “I’ve just returned from Afghan, so I’m fairly ‘current’. There’s nothing like an operational tour to reinforce the fact that we can’t afford to have weak leaders for our soldiers because they could get people killed.”

Amen.

It is a fascinating and, at times, emotionally draining experience to watch these young people give their all to join Sandhurst’s elite.

You can’t help but feel for them. Indeed, at times it’s human nature for a civilian observer like me to even root for them – if only to alleviate the awful, awkward silence as they grapple with a complex equation or struggle desperately on an outdoor obstacle. Bear in mind the candidates receive no affirmation. They are given no positive or negative feedback during the process.

They have no idea how they are being scored on those ubiquitous white boards the assessors carry around.

During their time at AOSB the candidates live together, eat together and endure together a series of tests which will, ultimately, result in almost half of them being rejected – or ‘not selected’ in kinder phraseology. They can apply for selection once more, but AOSB operates a strict ‘two strikes and you’re out’ policy – and it’s worth saying that 20 per cent more candidates pass at the second attempt.

Set in the beautiful grounds of an impressive country house, Westbury immediately sets a tone which is aspirational.

Candidates are not competing against each other. Instead they are competing against the minimum standard expected of an Army officer.

That could be, for example, completing X number of obstacles on the individual assault course in three minutes. Or it could be how they score when briefing their peers on a command task. Or it could be displaying a degree of empathy or the integrity expected of someone who may one day lead troops into a fire-fight or represent his or her country in a battle for hearts and minds.

At every point during the three-day process the candidates are observed by a number of officers who are themselves being monitored by an assessor whose job it is to ensure that standards are maintained across the board and that each candidate is given the same opportunity and undergoes the same level of scrutiny as their peers.

The officers who will ultimately make the decision on who is selected (and who isn’t) do not compare notes during the assessment. They focus solely on their part of the process. Some have limited knowledge of a candidate’s background and academic prowess – others do not even know a candidate’s name throughout the testing.

On Friday morning the officers come together as a ‘board’ to discuss each young person in depth and score them according to a remarkably scientific yet flexible grading system.

As someone who takes great interest in the military and is exceptionally proud of this newspaper’s long links with the Armed Forces and our local units, what was so reassuring about my visit to Westbury was that so much time and resource was devoted to each individual. The system is fair and robust. Nothing is left to chance when choosing the officers to lead our boys (and girls) into battle.

What’s more, it doesn’t matter which part of the country you’re from, what school you attended or what your parents do for a living. It’s what’s inside that counts.

The bottom line is: Anyone can earn a place at Sandhurst – if they’re made of the right stuff.

What was also life-affirming is that by the end of the week even those candidates who were patently struggling by all AOSB measures had been accepted into their ‘team’ and were receiving the same sort of help, support and encouragement from their peers that one would expect from a platoon commander: The kind of support they can expect from the Army ‘family’.

If you’re wondering what happened to ‘red one’, he passed. Bright as a button, extremely likeable and with good leadership potential he has been identified as having the raw potential for being a fine officer one day.

He received his congratulatory letter this week and will be at Sandhurst in a few months.

All the young people I saw were the best of their generation. Exposed to the stress of thorough interviews, tough physical assessments, academic trials and mental aptitude tests they were pushed to their limits without complaint.

I came away with nothing but admiration for both those who were selected for Sandhurst and those who weren’t but who, during their time at Westbury, learned an awful lot about themselves in what is, effectively, an intensive three-day job interview.

It underlined for me the importance of looking for the potential in all young people and the dangers of judging any book by its cover.

For more information about applying to become an Army officer, visit: http://www.army.mod.uk/join

Read my Personally Speaking columns every Friday in The Sentinel

Afore ye go… what about the rest of the United Kingdom?

Are our flags about to change?

This time next week we could be living in a very different country.

Maps may have to be redrawn to remove the words ‘United Kingdom’. Certain flags may become obsolete and sporting unions would have to be changed dramatically ahead of, say, the next Olympics in Rio. Currencies would have to be re-thought.

I would suggest the loss of MPs north of the border would also make it far more difficult for Labour to win a General Election when relying on an electorate in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Yes, the list of repercussions of a ‘Yes’ vote in next week’s Scottish referendum on independence from the Union with England, Wales and Northern Ireland goes on and on. And on.

Why anyone would want to carve up our tiny island further is beyond me – particularly as the inevitable consequence will be that each part will have its influence on the world stage diminished as a result.

Having covered General Elections as a journalist since 1992 I’ve developed a healthy disregard for opinion polls.

But it seems that the result of next week’s vote is genuinely too close to call.

To my mind, both sides of the debate are guilty of scaremongering and crass hypocrisy.

I think the truth is neither side fully understands or can predict all the ramifications of Scotland going it alone.

Sadly, the main parties in Westminster give the impression they have only just woken up to the possibility of the ‘Yes’ campaign winning.

The sight of the Prime Minister, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg scurrying north of the border to bolster the ‘No’ campaign smacked of desperation to me and I can’t believe it will have any substantial effect on voters.

Meanwhile, Alex Salmond and the nationalists can’t shake off the simple fact that independence is a huge gamble – not just for Scotland, but for the UK as a whole.

Not that the SNP give much of a monkey’s about the rest of us.

A lot of the ‘Yes’ campaign’s rhetoric seems to be based on perceived historical injustices and the fact that the south east of England gets all the money and attention from the powers-that-be at Westminster.

Of course, on that basis, anywhere north of the Watford Gap has a gripe.

Indeed, I eagerly await Stoke-on-Trent’s bid for independence from London and the ‘sarf’ east.

I will, personally, be extremely sad to see a majority of the people in Scotland vote for independence. I love the place. I holiday there most years and I think it has the best landscape in Britain and, perhaps wrongly, I consider it part of ‘my country’.

I’ll be sad because we’ll be saying goodbye to hundreds of years of tradition and ties – involving, for example, the military and the Royal Family.

The Union that survived two world wars will have been undone by the drip, drip effect of devolution.

Even if it’s a ‘No’ vote this is a ‘win-win’ for Mr Salmond and the nationalists because more powers will be ceded north of the border by the main Westminster parties as an incentive to keep the fragile Union together a while longer.

I dare say there are plenty of people here in England who will say, without hesitation: ‘Let them go and have their independence!’.

They will be angry that the constituents of Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown continue to enjoy free prescriptions and free university tuition paid for, arguably, by taxpayers in the rest of the UK.

Meanwhile, here in England prescriptions cost £8.05 each and a university education is cost-prohibitive for many because it equates to a second mortgage.

I’m not jealous of the Scots. Good on ’em, I say.

In fact, here in England I would suggest we could learn a few lessons from them with regard to their relentless pursuit of equality and fairness for all.

I joked earlier about the Potteries and the north seeking independence from London and the south east. But I believe there is a genuine argument for the rest of the country outside London no longer being treated like second class citizens on account of the capital being ‘the City’ and our ‘financial powerhouse’ – as Boris Johnson and the like constantly to refer to it.

From an English perspective, the Scottish referendum on independence is sort of like watching your brother rail against his parents and threaten to leave home.

What’s worse is that you’re not allowed to have a say in his decision – even though your brother’s departure will have a huge impact on the family as a whole.

Whatever happens, I wish the people of Scotland all the best for the future because I consider them my friends and neighbours – even if they do take the high road.

Read my Personally Speaking columns every Friday in The Sentinel

No excuse for not playing your part in local democracy

One of the My City, My Say debates.

This is one of those columns which I’m going to be slated for. This is one of those columns where I can’t win.

Then again, as my forerunner – the late John Abberley – once told me, being a newspaper columnist isn’t a popularity contest.

I’ve chosen a subject where the opinions of people who may wish to comment are so polarised that they can’t even, through gritted teeth, acknowledge that maybe the other side has a point: That maybe, just maybe, there could be some common ground.

Have you heard of the My City, My Say debates taking place across Stoke-on-Trent? No?

They’ve been promoted in The Sentinel, on local radio, on social media and even on billboards and flyers.

There are 35 events taking place across the Potteries, organised by the city council, with the aim of giving local people – local taxpayers – a say in the future priorities for their communities.

When any initiative like this is announced there is an awful lot of cynicism and I can understand elements of it.

Some people will say: ‘Isn’t it funny how the council – or rather the ruling Labour group – has decided to roll out these forums in the run up to next year’s elections?’

It’s certainly no surprise to me that some opposition councillors are boycotting the meetings and presumably telling everyone they’ve ever met to do the same.

(Although I should just give a big shout out here to councillor Randy Conteh for being part of Wednesday night’s excellent debate at Thistley Hough Academy in Penkhull – irrespective of his political persuasion – having clearly seen the value of the event).

Other people say: ‘What’s the point? The council never listens anyway. This is just a PR stunt.’

I’m sorry but that’s a huge abdication of responsibility – similar to the one some people would accuse the council’s leadership of.

Even if you think it’s a PR stunt, if you’re not there voicing your frustrations then how could anyone know what they are?

All you are actually doing is perpetuating this awful apathy that pervades politics in general in this country, and our city. The apathy which sees only 20-something per cent of people turn out on polling day.

I’ve also seen people posting on forums arguing that the ‘council’ – I guess they mean the leadership of the authority – doesn’t care about their communities because they haven’t supported or funded projects that some local people are passionate about.

That is a very fair and valid point. You could certainly argue that some towns in Stoke-on-Trent (Fenton being the obvious example) seem to have been overlooked in recent years and campaigns such as the one to save Fenton Town Hall haven’t received the support from councillors, MPs and people in positions of power, that they deserve.

But not turning up to meetings and not articulating these views accomplishes nothing.

If you, for example, think the authority shouldn’t be relocating its headquarters from Stoke to Hanley then why not come along to one of these meetings and tell council leader Mohammed Pervez?
You can even come and praise him too.

If you think Hanley doesn’t need a second large retail centre called City Sentral – particularly as the other one, Intu Potteries, is expanding, then why not go along to a meeting, have your say and write your comments on a form?

If you are concerned about fly-tipping locally, or the grass needs cutting somewhere near you, or you have an issue with another council service, why not come along to one of these meetings, fill in a ‘service card’ and you’ll get a reply within two weeks (Or so I’m told).

To my knowledge the My City, My Say initiative is the first time the council has done such a public exercise – putting councillors, officers and representatives of other key partner organisations on the road for people to meet, quiz and debate with.

Despite the cynicism of some, if I was the council’s PR chief I’d be saying this was exactly the kind of initiative that’s needed at a time when the authority – like every other in England – is staring down the barrel of continuing budget cuts.

Otherwise, how can you – in all good conscience – know what the priorities of the local electorate and taxpayers are and how they want money to be spent on their communities?

I got involved in this initiative as one of several ‘independent’ people – including the Editor of The Sentinel – who host the evenings and effectively chair the discussion.

We don’t get paid (other than cups of coffee provided by the venue). I’m doing it because I care about the future of Stoke-on-Trent. I also honestly see the value in ordinary people, taxpayers and voters voicing their opinions and concerns. This is democracy.

Of course, the key now to making My City, My Say a real success is demonstrating that the priorities of local communities start to come through in the council’s policies and budget allocations.

Read my Personally Speaking columns every Friday in The Sentinel

I’d rather trust teachers in the sex education debate

What age (if at all) do you believe sex education should be taught in schools?

As we stumble towards the general election, a few eye-catching policies are starting to trickle out from the main parties.

This includes the Liberal Democrats who this week ruffled a few feathers with the suggestion that sex education should be taught in schools to children as young as seven.

Yes, I know it’s only the Lib-Dems but there’s every chance that the smaller parties could hold the balance of power in Westminster come next May and such policies could therefore become key bargaining chips.

As a parent, my instinctive reaction to the sex education proposal is to recoil in horror at the thought of my youngest, who just happens to be seven, being exposed to this sort of knowledge at such a tender age.

Surely children should be allowed a childhood before they have the grim realities and responsibilities of relationships thrust upon them?

At the age of seven I was enjoying Scooby-Doo cartoons, playing with toy soldiers and cowboy guns, and hoping against hope that Santa Claus would bring me a Raleigh Grifter.

Girls were those other people in my class at school. The ones with the long hair who used skipping ropes at playtime and showed no interest in my half-full Panini sticker album.

They were just different to us boys. It didn’t matter why, they just were. It didn’t matter to me because I was seven.

Having been a governor in a primary school for several years I am only too aware of the fact that at the age of seven many children are still painfully shy and struggle to communicate and integrate with others.

Some don’t play well while others may not be able to read or write as well as many of their peers.

So how on earth would such children, or even their more confident and mature classmates, cope with sex or relationship education?

The truth is I’m not against the Lib-Dem proposal per se. For me, it’s more about how such knowledge is delivered and who it is given by.

When I was a shy, tubby 12-year-old at Holden Lane High I remember flushing red with embarrassment as the biology teacher asked the class to turn to the pages in our text book focusing on reproduction.

Cue much sniggering from the boys and girls in what was the top class in the year.

It seems to me there has always been a strange blurring of the lines in schools in England between where the duties and responsibilities of parents end and where those of teachers begin.

When I was growing up in the late Seventies and early Eighties, sex was not discussed in the playground or the PE changing rooms until the boys in my year hit 14 or 15.

Some may have known a while before how babies were made but, if they did, they kept it to themselves.

A few doubtless found out from their parents in a traditional ‘birds and bees’ type chat. However, I dare say the majority of us learned things from older siblings or friends.

Most of us didn’t have girlfriends or boyfriends until we were in our final year at high school, aged 16, or perhaps even later.

At no point did anyone sit us down and explain that what is more important than sex is how you treat the other person before, during and afterwards.

Nobody told us that during the course of adolescence we’d all have our hearts broken and our dreams crushed.

Nobody taught us the importance of respect and trust either.

I dare say my class and my year (1988) was no different to any other around that time.

Arguably, because of mobile phones, the internet, and social media, nowadays children grow up even more quickly and are exposed to the kind of chatter and images that would have sent teenage me running for cover.

But I would argue the same problems still remain. Unacceptably high rates of underage pregnancy, sexually-transmitted diseases, broken relationships and domestic violence.

I can’t help but think that if children were, as part of their general education, given some help and guidance in the perils, pitfalls and practicalities of relationships, it would perhaps better prepare them for life.

We’re not very good at honest debate in this country but sex (along with booze and drugs) is a subject which our young people need help with in order to understand and deal with it in a responsible fashion.

Perhaps seven is a bit young, but I’m damn sure that by the time most children reach high school these days they will be mixing with others of a similar age who know a lot more than they perhaps should and learnt it from a less reliable source than their friendly class teacher.

Classrooms the length and breadth of the country already teach personal and social education and promote respect.

Surely education in relationships is just the next step along that path.

Whether or not teaching staff in primary schools are qualified and feel comfortable talking to their pupils about such things, well I guess we’d have to ask them.

But I’d rather trust their judgement than a politician’s philosophising.

Read my Personally Speaking columns every Friday in The Sentinel

Gender is irrelevant: It’s how good people are that matters…

Minister for Employment and Disabilities Esther McVey.

It was less Night of the Long Knives and more Morning of the Rolling Pins in Downing Street this week as the Prime Minister gave us the first glimpse of the kind of shenanigans we can expect in the countdown to next year’s General Election.

It was thumbs up to women and mothers in David Cameron’s new-look cabinet and thumbs down to white, middle-aged men.

Speaking as one of the latter, I should just say that I wholeheartedly agree with the oft-quoted aim of having more women in senior positions within government.

In fact, you can apply that objective across the entire UK workforce as far as I’m concerned.

Having more women chief executives, directors and managers makes absolute sense. Why wouldn’t we? I can name you half a dozen brilliant female executives working here in North Staffordshire who you’d be proud to have as your boss.

For me, it’s not about gender equality – it’s simple maths: As a society we are clearly missing out on some really talented and capable people if so few women are able to get the top jobs.

Men do not, despite what some of them may think, have a monopoly on good leadership. Neither are they unique in having the best ideas, the highest IQs or the ability to take difficult decisions.

By the same token, hands up if you’ve worked for a bloke who was so inept he couldn’t run a bath? Yes, me too. And hands up how many have worked for similarly poor female managers who think pastoral care is a type of low fat milk?

Am I pleased that the Prime Minister has replaced a bunch of men in suits with a bunch of women in, er… suits?

Well, I suppose before you answer that you have to look at Call me Dave’s reasons for ringing the changes because I’m sure it has very little to do with smashing through the so-called ‘glass ceiling’ which prevents women from rising to the top of their profession.

It’s surely no great surprise that Education Secretary Michael Gove has been unseated ahead of the country going to the polls.

He’s so unpopular with the teaching profession because of the reforms he’s implemented in recent years (some of them entirely justified, I might add) that if he was a schoolboy he’d be Billy No Mates up the corner of the classroom with head lice and a penchant for eating his own bogies.

I’m afraid to say that, to my mind, Gove has been cynically sacrificed in the pursuit of votes and to avoid damning soundbites from Labour and the trade unions and nine months of negative headlines from left-leaning newspapers.

In total David Cameron has promoted 10 women in this reshuffle. I don’t know them. They may all be brilliant. Perhaps they are and the PM has only just noticed.

Or perhaps, more likely, Mr Cameron is trying to give his party – which is caricatured as millionaire Eton types who are all friends with bankers and don’t know the price of a Wright’s pie – a softer, more human veneer.

As opposed to the millionaire Labour front-benchers, of course…

Perhaps the thinking is, rather patronisingly, that women will vote for a party with more women. Or that because women still, statistically, do the majority of household chores, look after family finances and provide most of the childcare in the UK then they will have more faith in other women to run the country.

Those who can remember Labour sweeping to power under Tony ‘the Iraq war was entirely justified’ Blair will recall similar excitement in the national press when the ‘Blair babes’ – not my phrase – were unveiled, and more women than ever before were elected to Parliament.

I have to say that this is all just window-dressing to me.

Honestly, I couldn’t give a monkey’s who’s in the cabinet or how many women MPs we have so long as they do a good job.

That, of course, is an entirely separate debate – the answers to which will vary depending on whether you’re sporting a red, yellow or blue rosette come May.

In wishing the women who’ve just been promoted to the cabinet all the best in their new posts I would just caution them not to get too comfortable in their new offices or get carried away with ordering too much branded stationery. After all, 10 months is a long time in politics.

Read my Personally Speaking columns in The Sentinel every Friday

It’s not just public sector workers who’ve been suffering

Union members on strike in Stoke.

I was unfollowed on Twitter yesterday by someone who didn’t like the fact that I wasn’t throwing my weight 100 per cent behind the strike action taken by around one million public sector workers.

For the lady in question it was really simple. She wrote: “Either you support the public sector workers or you don’t. The inconvenience of the strike shouldn’t change that.”

I would agree with her if it was only that simple.

Yesterday hundreds of thousands of firefighters, teachers and civil servants exercised their democratic right to take industrial action.

The GMB, FBU, Unison and Unite unions asked their members to go on strike for 24 hours in a dispute over pay and conditions.

Throughout the Coalition Government’s term of office, the public sector workers’ unions have complained bitterly about constant attacks on their members.

They rightly point out that there have been many job losses and they also argue the Tory-led Government has eroded the terms and conditions of employees across the public sector – in terms of pay, pensions and their day-to-day working lives.

For its part, the Government asserts that under several Labour administrations the public sector became bloated and unwieldy and argues that, during a time of great financial uncertainty, tough action was, and still is, required to stabilise the UK economy.

This, they say, includes making the public sector more efficient.

Both sides would have you believe they have the moral high ground.

It, of course, suits the Government for private sector workers, many of whom were inconvenienced by yesterday’s strike, to feel resentful towards public sector employees – creating an ‘us and them’ situation.

The unions would have us believe this is a ‘power to the people’ scenario, that they are protecting the lowest-paid and most vulnerable in society, and that we must all stand together against those nasty millionaire Tories – creating an ‘us and them situation’.

In all honesty, I sit somewhere in the middle. It worries me hugely the way the Government has gone about butchering budgets for local authorities and tinkering with the NHS, education and the way in which our emergency services and Armed Forces operate.

I feel like the cuts are too deep and it concerns me that morale among public sector employees affected must have been severely dented. To my mind soldiers, emergency services personnel, teachers, health workers and local authority staff deserve to be treated with more respect when changes are made to their working lives.

By the same token it is worth pointing out that public sector workers are not alone in their suffering during this time of continuing austerity.

Many in the private sector have lost their jobs, had their pay cut or have endured pay freezes for several years. Many of these work in non-unionised workplaces and have no recourse to industrial action and don’t want to rock the boat for fear of being targeted for redundancy.

There are also those within the private sector who feel, perhaps with some justification, envious of public sector workers’ pensions, the age at which many retire and the fact that some public sector workers accrue more holidays after years of service than is the norm in the private sector.

Even within the public sector itself there is jealousy and resentment.

I know plenty of council workers who will tell you they think civil servants have an easy life and that their terms and conditions are far superior. And what about those workers within the public sector itself who don’t agree with the strike but are forced to go along with it anyway?

Those such as a teacher I spoke to on Wednesday who feels she is well paid for the job she does, appreciates the amount of holiday time she spends with her children, and didn’t want to lose pay when she has work to do.

Finance experts and Government ministers can talk up the recovery all they like but isn’t the truth of the matter that the vast majority of us – in both the private and public sectors – have been hit hard in recent years by the economic downturn and while we can arguably see the end of the tunnel we haven’t emerged out of the other end just yet?

Whether or not you support yesterday’s industrial action, please don’t forget that there are two sides to every argument.

Read my Personally Speaking columns every Friday in The Sentinel

We must help families whose children root through bins for food

Hollings Street where children have been seen rooting through bins.

Don’t laugh, but I’ll admit I had a hard time believing our own story the other day.

The headline certainly grabbed me: “Starving children are eating from bins in Fenton.”

Really? Surely not, I thought. Not in this day and age. And where are their parents anyway?

Can it honestly be the case that in one of the richest countries in the world in 2014 there are hungry children rummaging through bins for other people’s leftovers?

This is the kind of thing you shake your head at when you see it on the TV in some Third World shanty town on the TV.

It’s like something you’d read in a post-apocalyptic novel. Some sort of twisted future where a privileged fview live in safety, comfort and sometimes luxury and the rest eke out a living in medieval-style villages or Dickensian urban squalor.

But, according to eye-witnesses, this is actually happening in certain parts of our city – the Hollings Street and the Brocksford Street areas of Fenton, to be precise.

Concerned residents raised the matter at a recent meeting with police – citing the problems of rubbish-strewn streets and the potential risk to the health of those involved.

One of the people quoted in our story was Glenn Parkes – a volunteer at the local foodbank and someone I know. If Glenn says this is happening, then I believe him.

But why is it happening? Why are children, especially, going hungry and resorting to such sad, desperate and potentially dangerous measures?

The answer may be complex and multi-faceted but it also fairly obvious.

Families who were previously almost entirely or perhaps solely supported by the welfare state have seen their incomes dramatically reduced under coalition gGovernment reforms.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for everyone contributing to society and getting the feckless and the lazy off their backsides.

They do exist and they make my blood boil in the same way useless bankers and untouchable public sector executives do when they’ve done a poor job and then get a ridiculous pay-off.

But the one-size-fits-all approach to welfare reform adopted by the Government assumed that families for whom benefits was a way of life would overnight become hard-working and valuable citizens.

I’m sorry, but in the real world that just doesn’t happen without massive intervention on the part of the state to help turn such lives and aspirations around.

And wWhile Chancellor George Osborne eulogises about the recovery and talks of the need for further reform, the truth is many families who are his ideal ‘hard-working’ stereotype are themselves on the breadline because of redundancy or continuing low wages.

Then there are those parents who simply aren’t very capable – lacking either the knowledge or care to properly look after their children and prioritise their needs.

People of my age will remember there were always one or two children who were seen as poor and unloved in their class or year at school. The ones with the messy hair and shabby clothes, with shirts and blouses un-ironed and ill-fitting, scuffed shoes.

Strangely, it seems to me there are a lot more of those these days than there were 30 years ago.

There are, of course, other factors too – such as a flawed immigration policy.

This certainly plays its part in perpetuating deprivation in areas where local services can’t cope and where integration of various cultures doesn’t fit the grand vision of our multi-cultural utopia.

Whatever the reasons, as a society we surely can’t stand for a situation where children, from whatever background, are rifling through rubbish for food?

There is clearly something very wrong when foodbanks are expanding quicker than multi-nationals and where ordinary families are constantly being asked to set aside tins of beans and packets of pasta and rice for people living down the road in Stoke-on-Trent.

If anyone knows of a family or individuals in such desperate need that they resort to picking through other people’s leftovers then for heaven’s sake do something to help them.

There’s no shame in someone falling on hard times or wanting help and support.

The shame is if we, as a society, turn our backs on them in their hour of need.

Read my Personally Speaking columns every Friday in The Sentinel

Don’t just sit and moan: Have your say on future of the Six Towns

The Wyg report says the city council is right to focus on Hanley as the retail centre of the city, but suggests Burslem and Fenton are downgraded.

It was easy to spot the killer line in the report which attempts to create a retail blueprint for Stoke-on-Trent over the next 15 years.

The reclassification – a softer term than the perhaps more honest ‘downgrading’ – of Burslem and Fenton would see them viewed as district centres, along with Meir, rather than town centres.

I can’t help it but I instinctively balk at the suggestion that the Mother Town of the Potteries along with Fenton, which successive administrations at the local authority have overlooked, should no longer be considered towns.

It may annoy planning officers and those tasked with attracting inward investment to the Potteries but, for me, Stoke-on-Trent IS the Six Towns.

The fact that we have the Six Towns, each with their own heritage and distinct identity, is one of the city’s many unique features.

After all, Arnold Bennett didn’t write a novel entitled: ‘Anna of the four towns and two or three district centres’.

The problem is, of course, that over the last 20 years or so some of the towns have benefitted from investment, time and resource and others have not. Burslem, a town I know well, has never really recovered from the closure of the Royal Doulton factory in Nile Street.

It is no longer somewhere that people go to do their shopping – like my mum did every Saturday when I was growing up in the Seventies and Eighties.

It has no supermarket, no indoor market, no big chain stores. Instead it relies on craft-type shops and a night-time/weekend economy.

However, there are at least grounds for optimism in the Mother Town thanks to the advent of the Burslem Regeneration Partnership, the proposed Haywood Academy and the planned work of the Prince’s Regeneration Trust on the Wedgwood Institute – (facilitated, I should point out, by the city council). Boslem also, of course, has a League One football club.

There is, as far as I can tell, no such optimism surrounding the future of Fenton which seems to have been branded little more than a residential zone.

I suppose the devil is in the detail of this study. The sobering statistic is that 22.8 per cent of retail space in the city is empty – a figure which is twice the national average.

In simple terms, then, there isn’t the capacity to sustain all those vacant units and so we need to rethink our retail strategy and that will, inevitably, impact on other planning matters.

As I understand it, the report by Manchester-based consultants Wyg suggests that Burslem, Fenton and Meir be considered ‘local centres’ in retail and planning terms.

This is because towns such as Longton and Tunstall are seen as having a more sustainable retail base.

Meanwhile, Stoke (minus the Civic Centre) will hopefully benefit hugely from the relocation of Staffordshire University’s Stafford campus and all those students needing accommodation and shops.

But what are the consequences of a ’reclassification’ for Burslem, Fenton and Meir? Will it, for example, mean that businesses wanting to set up shop in Burslem will instead be encouraged to opt for Tunstall where the retail base is viewed as more viable?

Will chain stores looking at Fenton simply be steered towards Longton? It is vital that this is explained properly to people living in these areas.

And what exactly is the plan for Fenton over the next decade beyond it being a place where people live?

It doesn’t have Burslem’s magnificent architecture but it does have a beautiful Town Hall and square which should surely be the focal point for investment and the community.

We should remember that this report focuses purely on the city’s retail needs and, as one commentator posted on Facebook: ‘There’s more to life than shopping’.

However, Wyg’s study will feed directly into the city council’s Local Plan so its findings are significant and we should all take note and make our views known.

I believe the council is right to prioritise Hanley as a strong city centre. It is, to my mind, key to the regeneration of Stoke-on-Trent as a whole. (Note to planners: It should never be referred to as Stoke city centre because Stoke is, of course, a town).

Hanley is, after all, where the bulk of our shops are. It is also the home of three terrific live entertainment venues as well as the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery.

Hanley will be fine. We just need developer Realis to get their skates on and deliver what they promised in terms of an, albeit smaller, City Sentral shopping centre as soon as possible.

I can even live with the daft name if they show a little willing now by bulldozing the eyesore East/West precinct.

Likewise, I think there are also plans for Stoke, Longton and Tunstall which will ensure their viability in the medium-term.

What I would like to see now is two things. Firstly, a pledge that the local authority will put some energy and resource into the regeneration of Fenton and Burslem so that the former, in particular, does not continue to be the ‘forgotten town’.

Secondly, I‘d like as many local people as possible to be involved in a big conversation about the future of our city.

Write to The Sentinel, comment on our website, contact your ward councillor and attend meetings in your locality or at the Civic Centre.

Just please don’t sit there and moan because this is too important for people to fall back on the old chestnut that the ‘council is rubbish and no-one ever listens’.

Read my Personally Speaking columns every Friday in The Sentinel

Fining ‘bad parents’ won’t solve any problems…

Schoolchildren need the help and support of their parents. No excuses.

There’s been much discussion this week about the role and responsibilities of parents in relation to their children’s education.

I thought Ofsted’s chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw said some very sensible, and long overdue things, when interviewed by The Times.

He underlined the apathy that pervades sections of society and hampers the development of many children and young people whilst also acknowledging that the State has a role to play in requiring certain standards of parents.

However, Sir Michael also opened a can of worms in doing so and received criticism from the usual suspects – i.e. teaching unions and left wing commentators.

Ofsted’s chief is right when he advocates telling parents if they’re failing their children by not reading with them, not helping with homework or continually failing to turn up for parents’ evenings.

He’s also surely correct when he says that if parents love their children they should support them through school. After all, who doesn’t want their children to do well and aspire?

Where I disagree with the Ofsted chief is in his assertion that schools should start fining parents who don’t properly support their children.

I’m afraid that, to my mind, the issue of parental responsibility for a child’s education is simply too nuanced for such a simplistic approach.

Fining parents is the bureaucratic equivalent of a sledgehammer to crack a nut and I genuinely believe it would do more harm than good.

Let me start by saying that I’m sure my fellow columnist Tristram Hunt MP, the Shadow Education Secretary, will have an informed take on all of this.

I can, however, only come at the subject from the point of view of someone who was supported well through school by my own parents and who now takes an active role in the school life of my own children.

At home I, or my wife, read to our children nightly before bed. We help them with homework.

We even try our best to stimulate them through the TV programmes they are allowed to watch and the computer games they play.

Dull as it may seem, education is always the watch-word in our house. Tea-time is when we talk about the school day and Lois and Mina blurt out what they’ve learned that day (along with who fell over in the playground and what their friends ate for lunch).

My wife and I attend every parents’ evening – together when possible. We have also been on many school trips, helped out at school fairs and sports days and even run fund-raising discos.

As the Deputy Chair of Governors, I was present during the last Ofsted inspection and I write this column a few hours ahead of a two-hour, full governors’ meeting at little ’un’s school.

Bear in mind that I’m extremely lucky, however. I have a job which involves me working long, often anti-social hours but which is also relatively flexible.

This means I can attend most governors’ meetings and parents’ evenings. I can go on some school trips.

Most evenings I am there to read to my children before they go to sleep.

There are millions of parents just like me the length and breadth of the country who do the same.

However, we must also accept that there are many mums and dads across the UK who, for a variety of reasons, do not or cannot devote as much time to their children’s education as perhaps they, or society, would like.

Perhaps they are single parents with little or no support from relatives to enable them to take a more active role in school life. Or maybe they are families with no grandparents to help out with babysitting.

Perhaps they are shift workers or one of the growing number of people with multiple, low-paid jobs.

Perhaps they themselves had a poor experience at school and received little or no support from their own parents and therefore have no positive educational experiences to draw upon.

Perhaps they are embarrassed because they can’t read or write well or because their grasp of numbers is so poor that they are simply unable to help their own children.

Deprivation, poor levels of parental education, low aspirations and generations of worklessness have created large numbers of families for whom education simply isn’t a priority.

It’s shocking and deeply sad but we all see it every day. The latch-key kids, the children falling asleep in class because they’ve had so little sleep or because they missed a proper breakfast. The kids whose lunchboxes contain nothing but crisps, chocolate and sugary drinks.

The increasing number of children whose behaviour would have been called just plain ‘naughty’ when I was at school. The lack of respect from some children towards teaching staff.

There is no denying the apathy among some parents towards their children’s schooling and, whilst we may be able to explain it, it is inexcusable and unforgivable.

However, fining these people won’t make them homework geniuses, encourage them to go on school trips or suddenly make them better scholars themselves.

In fact, I would suggest that if schools were to start dishing out fines to ‘bad parents’ then this would simply lead to a further deterioration in the relationship between teachers and these mums and dads. That won’t help their children and surely they should be our priority here.

I’m not making excuses. This is the reality in Britain in 2014 and unless we help to motivate, rather than punish, such parents we are in danger of merely perpetuating the problems.

Read my Personally Speaking columns every Friday in The Sentinel