The open register.

A couple of days ago I received a letter from my district council confirming that I was registered to vote. All well and good. That’s me free to vote for UKIP if I so wish.

However there was another section informing me that unless I opted out, I would also be on the “Open Register”. On reading the blurb it would mean that the council would be able to sell information about me to any Tom, Dick, or Harry, whenever they saw fit.

Users of the open register include:

• Businesses checking the identity and address details of people who apply for their services such as insurance, goods hire and property rental, as well as when they shop online;
• Businesses selling age-restricted goods or services, such as alcohol and gambling online, to meet the rules on verifying the age of their customers;
• Charities and voluntary agencies, for example to help maintain contact information for those who have chosen to donate bone marrow and to help people separated by adoption to find each other;
• Charities, to help with fundraising and contacting people who have made donations;
• Debt collection agencies when tracing people who have changed address without telling their creditors;
• Direct marketing firms when maintaining their mailing lists;
• Landlords and letting agents when checking the identity of potential tenants;
• Local councils when identifying and contacting residents;
• Online directory firms to help users of the websites find people, such as when reuniting friends and families;
• Organisations tracing and identifying beneficiaries of wills, pensions and insurance policies;
• Private sector firms to verify details of job applicants.

They must be joking if they think they can get me to agree to the above.

Anyone else received such a missive yet?

Gobbledygook

 

What an earth does this mean?

We are looking for a Integrated Children's System Training Officer to manage a team of Systems Trainers and Support Advisors. The team is responsible for the delivery of systems training and the provision of first line support to the users of the Social Care recording systems, primarily the Integrated Children's System (Protocol) and supporting Management Information system (Swipe). The role will include; management of Training Room facilities throughout the County, development of a blended learning training programme and working alongside other key stake holders to enable the system users to make best use of the recording systems. The ideal candidate will have experience of managing a training team in a blended learning environment, experience of working in a large multi-disciplinary environment and be flexible and responsive to frequently changing demands.

And what an earth is a “Integrated Children’s system Training Officer” when it’s at home?

This little bit of new speak is taken from an ad for a council job.. And it pays well. Too well in my mind.

Salary: £28,500 £50,400
37 hours per week
Fixed term until 31st March 2012.

So if you live in Essex…………………………..

Then of course you could apply for a job of

Food Safety Hawk

U turn. 20 yards ahead

Remember the article yesterday about the council that was going to refer a family to social services for a vicious crime against their seven year old daughter. The crime being, that they allowed her to walk 20 yards to school on her own. And, shock, horror, cross a road alone.

It is a 45-yard walk from school bus stop to front door and seven-year-old Isabelle McCullough’s parents were confident she could handle it alone.

Their home is in a quiet village and Isabelle had already been making the journey across the small 30mph road for the last year.

Unfortunately council officials disagree – and have warned the parents they face being referred to social workers if they do not escort their daughter to and from the school bus every day.

Well it would appear that the council are carrying out a screeching U turn.

Lincolnshire County Council has decided to take no further action over a father allowing his seven-year-old daughter to walk alone to a bus stop.

Of course we have the usual weasel words that it was only for the sake of the children.

Debbie Barnes, assistant director of Lincolnshire County Council's Children's Services, said: "The safety of children is the responsibility of everyone and where a member of staff brings a situation to our attention where the safety of a child or adult is compromised, we must react.

Here’s where it gets interesting though.

"NSPCC guidance states that children under eight should not be out alone; in this instance, a seven-year-old girl has been standing unaccompanied on a roadside and left to cross the road by herself."

What has any guidance from any non governmental body such as the NSPCC in this case, got to do with social services? And where do they get this figure of eight from? My children were quite happily walking a similar distance to school below that arbitrary figure. (I’ve Just walked it).

Of course the law of unintended consequences comes in.

From the Mum

"This has got so much public attention that we will have to be outside with her for the foreseeable future because now everyone knows there is a seven-year-old standing on the side of the road every morning.”

Nanny state at it’s best. Debbie Barnes. You are the weakest link. Goodbye.