New Chief Executive for the West Suffolk Hospital

Hot off the press this morning is the announcement that Stephen Dunn, pictured here, is to become the new Chief Executive of the West Suffolk Hospital.

A local man, who lives near Bury St Edmunds, he fought off keen competition from elsewhere, to secure the role for which he seems very well suited.  Dr Dunn has a PhD in Economics and has held a number of leading roles in the Midlands and the East of England in the National Health Service and in H.M. Treasury.

Dr Dunn will start work in November.   He will arrive at a challenging time for the hospital, as the financial environment is as difficult in the Health Service as it is elsewhere.  Top of the agenda from the perspective of the County Council, is the hospital's active participation in Health and Adult Social Care integration, which, if it can be achieved should, both save money and meet every growing demand from Suffolk's ageing population.

Should school holidays be staggered?

Taking children out of school during term time has become a hot topic recently.

At a recent Suffolk County Council Cabinet meeting, in accordance with revised Government guidelines, we voted to bring in a new protocol which, among other things, increases penalties for parents who decide to take children out of school.  There were good reasons for doing this, not least because we believed that educational standards in the county would not improve if absence from school is tolerated.  However, many believe that this approach is misguided when it comes to giving leave of absence for family holidays.  They cite the high prices charged by holiday companies for departures during the school holidays and also the fact that travel on holiday can be of educational benefit.

It seems that there may be some merit in the latter argument.  Today the Sunday Times reports that the head of a primary school in Reading has analysed the national maths, science and English test results of his 11 year old pupils over the past two years and has found that those who have been taken on family holidays in term time outperformed those who had not.

I have been challenged about this issue by a number of people in the Division as I have done my rounds.   While not supporting random truancy, I think that it is true that from time to time one does hear stories about head teachers who have seemed to be very unreasonable in refusing to allow leave of absence.  I also have a hunch that travel does actually broaden the mind.

A suggestion has been made that schools might choose to stagger their holiday periods.  This would mean that holiday companies would be able to fill their capacity more evenly across the year and accordingly charge less.  This might be a solution to the expensive holiday issue, but it would present the County Council with another, potentially very costly, problem.

At present each year it costs Suffolk County Council a massive £18m or so to transport children to and from school each day. Such efficiencies as we are able to achieve in this area depend on children attending schools between the same dates, and arriving and leaving at more or less the same time.  If schools choose to alter these long standing arrangements the cost of school transport would grow dramatically…something that is simply not affordable in the current financial environment.

Perhaps, under the circumstances therefore, it might be better to allow Head Teachers to exercise a bit more discretion when approached by parents who wish to take children out of school for a break.

The future for Belle Vue?

I understand that later in the month there is to be a consultation about the future of the Belle Vue area in Sudbury.

I am not sure what is now being proposed for the redbrick late Victorian pile, Belle Vue House. There are people, I know, who are vehemently opposed to its demolition.  In my view however this is based on sentiment rather than the house’s claims to any particular architectural merit. It would also need a lot of money spent on it to restore it to a good state of repair.

I have looked on the Babergh website where some plans are available, but think that in order to get the full picture I will need to go to one of the proposed ‘engagement events’ and ask some questions. Having worked at the CAB for several years I do not have particular happy memories of Belle Vue House.  Prior to the recent, largely cosmetic, remodelling of the interior, it was not a comfortable place to be.  We endured cold in winter, heat in summer, tiny rooms and a seriously creepy, damp and spider infested cellar. On one occasion the former manager leant against the wall of the ‘billiard room’ and suddenly found herself in the open air as part of the damp pervaded wall crumbled away.  The house does however have some charms.  Some rooms retain traces of their former glory, it has a pleasant view over the park, and I recall that the stained glass window on the staircase is attractive and probably worth conserving.

The current Victorian house replaced a far more attractive eighteenth century construction.  This was built by Thomas Gainsborough’s first cousin on his mother’s side, Nathanial Burrough.  He was a successful London grocer, who founded a Fortnum and Mason’s type establishment in Throgmorton Street. Having made his fortune in the groceries trade he returned to Sudbury and built the first Belle Vue.  If it were the future of this long gone villa that was under threat I think I would be more concerned.

The former Belle Vue House in 1840

The proposals for the Belle Vue area are available to view on the Babergh website, and there is an opportunity to express your views here.  For those wishing to know more there are three public engagement events later in August.  Two will be held on August 14, one at Sudbury Town Council Offices in the Mayor’s Parlour from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m., and the other at Belle Vue House itself from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m.  The third event will take place on Saturday 23 August from 12 noon until 3 p.m. in Belle Vue Park (near the Cabin)

Rising High in Suffolk

Interns currently working in councils all over Suffolk are now starting the last month of their three month summer placements.  All local authorities in the County are committed to supporting young people and helping them to get the best possible start in the world of work. As part of this commitment,  20 internships were created across Suffolk in both 2013 and 2014.

On Wednesday I took part in judging a competition which introduced 12 Suffolk interns to the world of Resource Management.  Each of them took on a RM role, whether in Human Resources, Finance, Procurement etc. They spent the afternoon developing and presenting a plan for the creation of a mythical Mildenhall Hub, hosted by the County Council, and designed to include representatives from other public sector bodies such as the Police and Probation Services.

Both teams did very well, creating excellent graphics and presentations, and quickly getting to grips with the problems of their brief.   I have to say that observing them at work, I felt like Karen Brady (or perhaps Margaret Mountford!) in The Apprentice, although our young people applied themselves to their task with a lot more intelligence than is sometimes seen on television.   Although one of the teams theoretically ‘won’, both displayed a good understanding of what was required.

Our Interns are paid the minimum wage, which means that the experience does not cost them money, and the scheme tries to match them with areas which reflect their interests and career expectations. They are all at different stages in their further education, some having finished university and others being between university years. The scheme sometimes leads to an offer of permanent work in the Suffolk public sector, and, of course, does develop skills and enhance a young person’s CV

Details of apprenticeships, internships and other work opportunities for young people in the public sector in Suffolk,  including the Council intern scheme, which will be repeated in 2015,  can be found on the Rising High Website:-

www.risinghighsuffolk.org.uk

Two visitors to the wildlife garden

We have had two visitors this week to the part of our garden that we have set aside to try to encourage wildlife of all sorts. 

The first was our charming and enthusiastic weekend houseguest, Charlie Bee, pictured left,  posing on the edge of the patch.  He seems to like sniffing about in the undergrowth and generally making himself at home.  Perhaps that is because where he lives in Thorpe Morieux he has a much larger area which is also specially kept to encourage biodiversity.

The second was local ecologist, George Millins, who came to see how the special plants that he had given us in the spring, chosen to attract and support butterflies, had survived.  At the moment the area is rather overwhelmed with rye grass, and also with giant thistles and ragwort.  However some of the field scabious, birds foot trefoil and other introduced species have survived and there are certainly signs of butterflies enjoying the area.  The ragwort has provided essential sustenance for the caterpillars of the cinnabar moth.  Some of the plants have been completely eaten bare by the distinctive yellow and black creatures.

George thinks it will take about five years to establish the area with the right balance of plants to create ideal conditions.  We will be mowing the area in October, and picking all cuttings up, to try to reduce the fertility of the soil and encourage the right wild flowers to grow.

A result!

I was very alarmed yesterday when I heard that workers in the Passport Office had gone on strike.

To deliberately take this action at a time when many are waiting for passports, perhaps in order to travel to see loved ones, or go on a well earned holiday seems cruel and unecessary.

I was particularly concerned however, because a week or so ago I was approached for help by a Suffolk resident who works in my Division about a passport application which had got caught up in the delays that are currently crippling the system.

Her mother and aunt happen to live in Waldingfield Ward.   Neither of them are in the first flush of youth and both have been recently widowed.  They had made an application for their first passports almost six weeks ago because they had booked to go on their first ever holiday abroad, a cruise leaving in early August.  Concerned that no passports had arrived, they tried themselves to contact the passport office in order to urge matters along but with no success.  These days applications for first passports are much more complex than they used to be, and an interview is necessary before one can be issued.  Prospects of getting everything organised in time were looking increasingly bleak.

I suggested that my correspondent ask her own District and County Councillor, Richard Kemp, to contact Tim Yeo's office, and I offered to write an urgent letter to Teresa May on behalf of my residents.   I suspect that my intervention is still waiting in the Home Office In Tray, but Sarah, Tim Yeo's fantastic assistant at the House of Commons, managed to get things moving.

I received an e mail today to say that an interview was arranged on Friday and that the Passports arrived yesterday in the nick of time.  It seems that my concerns about the strike action were unfounded.

All credit to Tim Yeo's office for their speedy work.  It is good sometimes to be able to hack through the thickets of bureaucracy and achieve a result.

David Ruffley, lessons learnt?

I am experiencing no great feeling of satisfaction this morning following David Ruffley's announcement that he will be standing down at the next election. I feel that had he been open from the start he could have saved himself, and I also believe that some sections of the Conservative Party have, once again, shown themselves to be out of touch with the realities of contemporary life. The Suffolk Domestic Abuse Partnership needs to redouble its efforts to promote understanding about domestic violence in all its forms.

David Ruffley's letter to his constituency association shows a man who still seems to be in a state of denial, a man who does not see what he has done wrong, a man who continues to blame everyone but himself. The villains of the piece are it seems the media, those who are 'misinformed', those whose motivation is in doubt. It was all a private matter which he considered  'closed' and which should have remained closed once he had apologised.

The truth is however that once an incident involves the police it can no longer be a private matter, and as a lawyer and politician Mr Ruffley must know this.  He must also have known that whatever the actual facts of his particular case, any suggestion that domestic abuse was involved was unlikely to be ignored.  As he once wrote himself on his website 'one incident of domestic violence is one too many'.  Surely then. had he believed that the altercation in which he was involved did not constitute domestic violence, he should have told the world why. Alternatively, if abuse was suggested, openess at the start, a pledge not to reoffend and a public apology might have saved him.

Silence was interpreted as indifference by many of us who know the damage that domestic abuse causes to so many lives, and to whom such indifference is intolerable. Unfortunately silence and indifference also seemed to be the initial reaction of too many in the local and national Conservative Party. 

In a hard hitting document published in March this year,  the very same month that David Ruffley's caution was accepted, the Home Secretary Teresa May wrote 'I am determined that violence of all kinds against women and girls sould end'.  She called violence against women 'a despicable crime which has absolutely no place in our society'.*

I think some in the Party need to follow Mrs May's lead and take her words seriously.  They need to wake up to the issue and perhaps take time to learn more about the blight in society that is domestic violence. 

The Suffolk Domestic Abuse Partnership should also learn from this.  We make the assumption that domestic abuse is now much better understood.  However understanding clearly has further to go in some quarters.  We need to redouble our efforts to raise awareness, and, as the Chairman of the Partnership, I will be focussing on this in the months to come.

*A call to end violence against Women and Girls. Action Plan 2014. H,M, Government Publication