A Productive Week
As I approached the offices of Heart FM earlier this week I was very hopeful I would get a question in to the Prime Minister. Then as I turned the corner I realised the true scale of the operation.
There were around a hundred people queuing to get on the bus. I hadn't expected this at all. My opportunity to get my killer question in looked diminished to say the least.
After being frisked and having my I.D checked I stood outside and looked around. Two sniffer dogs were under the bus I was about to board and two suits with dead eyes were scanning the crowd getting on the bus. Quite possibly secret service. The suits not the dogs.
Then we boarded the bus and with the help of a police escort, we were on our way to 'the secret location'. This turned out to be the George Spencer College in Stapleford.
Fortunately I got to ask my burning question.
I wanted to know how David Cameron's ambitions for the 'Big Society' could be squared with the voluntary sector suffering 70% of cuts in Nottinghamshire.
In my own organisation, we've crunched the numbers and we know this would mean the end of Framework services in Nottinghamshire.
Now more than ever these services are needed. With cuts to public services and redundancies looming for public sector colleagues, our remit is to keep people in their own homes and keep people away from mortgage repossession.
The spin off from asking the PM a fairly decent question while the national media looked on has been helpful so far.
Sky news broadcast my question on their prime time news. The Evening Post featured the story on pages 1 ,2 and 3 and on Friday I interviewed on radio Nottingham.
The upshot of all this is still uncertain. I want Nottinghamshire County Council to publicly commit to cutting the SP budget by under 12%. This, following the guidance of central government.
There's a lot of negotiation to be had yet though so I would encourage restraint from colleagues who may wish to take a more militant line. We are still in with a chance of resolving this quietly and diplomatically.
Save Framework. Save the voluntary sector in Nottinghamshire. Save services to vulnerable people.
