Which Superhero are you ?

As a bit of fun over the holiday season I decided to take the Which Superhero are You quiz - see link below - and whadyaknow, I inputted a few porkies and got matched with ol Spidey here.

Spider-Man		90%
Green Lantern		80%
Robin		80%
Hulk		70%
Superman		60%
Batman		60%
The Flash		60%
Supergirl		60%
Wonder Woman		50%
Catwoman		50%
Iron Man		20%

You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility. You are also a bit off the wall and loathed by bureaucratic corporate types who wear tights inside their sensible shoes rather than over their heads.


Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...

Unanswered Questions about Lockett's Pocket Money

To: diane.woods@surreypct.nhs.uk
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2006 9:04 PM
Subject: Freedom Of Information Request

Dear Diane

I have been able to ascertain that you will be able to help me. I would like to how much the PCT (previously called East Surrey PCT) paid for Helen Lockett to do her work in post as Project manager by the Work Services Commissioning Group (see email below for clarity and ease of understanding) . You will note the post was nationally advertised and publically paid for . MY understanding according to the email below is the PCT paid for the post .

Please be good enough to outline the costs of the Project Manager and any other associated costs with her role ..


Regards


Paul Brian Tovey


Independent Monitor Mental Health Matters ...



Email Sent to me below by : katy.turner@surreycc.gov.uk

Dear Mr Tovey


Thank you for your request for information under the Freedom of Information Act. Having examined your request I can now give you the following response:-


The Work Services Commissioning Group was a jointly commissioned service with Surrey County Council taking the lead commissioning role. The other commissioner was East Surrey Primary Care Trust (PCT).


1 What was the cost of this Post to the Council?


East Surrey PCT, not Surrey County Council, paid for the post of Project Manager held by Helen Lockett. The appointment followed a national advert for a project manager, which allowed the PCT to benchmark the costs of this post against other project manager posts. There was no specific budget allocated by the Work Services Commissioning Group for this post.


2 Were the costs of this Post shared with anyone else?


As stated above, East Surrey Primary Care Trust paid for this post.


3 Responsible Commissioners and their contact details?


Donal Hegarty (Policy & Commissioning Manager, Adult Mental Health & Substance Misuse, Surrey County Council):


donal.hegarty@surreycc.gov.uk 01483 517944


Diane Woods (Director of Mental Health & Learning Disability Commissioning, East Surrey Primary Care Trust):


diane.woods@eastsurrey-pct.nhs.uk 01737 214874


4 What kind of Democratic Mandate did the User and Carer Representatives on the Work Service Commissioning Group have?


The Commissioners were committed to have service users as part of the Group and although there was no Carer representative we did consult with local Carer groups. The service user representatives brought the user perspective to the Group and one of the representatives was mandated to keep service users in the area informed of progress. Because they represented the service user perspective they had a legitimate mandate to be part of the Group.


5 What was checked to ascertain that they were representative?


Both service user representatives came from East Surrey and had used services.


6 Did they receive Expenses or Payment for their time?


Both representatives were paid expenses for travel to attend meetings etc. This was paid by Surrey & Borders Partnership NHS Trust whom I am sure have a financial audit trail of expenses paid.


7 What Evidence did the Health Overview Scrutiny Committee obtain and retain for record that there was in fact individual informed service users “evidenced” consultation done at services.


The Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee would have a record of what was submitted and discussed at the meeting in November 2005. I would suggest that you contact Derek Cunningham, Policy & Development Manager on 0208 541 7591 (email: Derek.Cunningham@surreycc.gov.uk) as he supports this Committee and will have a record of all the relevant information submitted.


I hope this response addresses all the questions you have raised but if you require further information please do not hesitate to contact me.



Yours sincerely,



Donal Hegarty

Policy & Commissioning Manager

Mental Health & Substance Misuse

Another Christmas Delivery

Dear Jill,

I apologise for the delays in sending you a reply to your request for information and refer to your emails dated 16th November 2006 and 7th December 2006 and our subsequent acknowledgements dated 17th November 2006 and 8th December respectively.

We refer to your email of 16th November 2006, and after further investigations we are now in a position to be able to respond to the questions:

In answer to your question regarding the discrepancy of 20 people who have had their £3 a day payments reinstated, we would comment as follows:

This has come about because during the period of time between Peter Kinsey’s response and my response, a number of people have left the service and others have subsequently joined. Additionally, Assembly Matters in Redhill and in Horley has amalgamated and Netherne Print has now been externalised. Generally the number of people in the service will always be changing.

In answer to your question relating to the number of disabled service users Surrey & Borders Partnership NHS Trust employs across the trust and in what positions, we would comment as follows:

We do not hold contemporaneous information on the health status of our employees. We have now published on our website our Disability Equality Scheme 2006 –2009. In Part 7, Employment Duties section (page 29) it identifies that there have been general constraints in data collection influenced primarily by the merging of three Trusts in April 05. The action plan commits to meeting the collection of a minimum data (page 29) and publishing annually staff in post figures (page 31). Quarterly reporting, analysis and remedial action plans will also be provided. You can find this document via the following hyperlink: -
http://www.sabp.nhs.uk/news/folder.2006

In answer to your question regarding the Old Moat Enterprises account, we would comment as follows:

The information that you are requesting is enclosed within the Trust’s Business Case dated January 2006. Peter Kinsey’s letter to you dated 23rd August 2006 informed you that this document was exempt under Section 36 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, he also explained the reasons why this decision was made and why we were unable to disclose the information to you. This situation has not changed and therefore I have nothing further to add to this issue.

In response to your email dated 7th December, we have now addressed the questions you raised in your email of 16th November 2006. You also asked us to respond to issues that you raised about the content of a response sent in reply to a FOI request made by Mr Curley.

We have received no reply from Mr Curley to the response sent to him, or any indication that he had passed the matter to you to deal with. We would therefore require you please to clarify your position in relation to Mr Curley and his FOI request.

( To clarify, I repeatedly wrote to Jo Young and Fiona Edwards about Jo's failure to respond to or address my FOIA request and I have no objection to SABP answering Jill Goble's queations on this matter however I do have objections to Jo young implicating me in her distortions and lies and am copying this to her and Fiona as a formal complaint to let them both know this.

I hope this answers your questions satisfactorily however if you would like further clarity please contact me.



If you are dissatisfied with the outcome of your enquiry, you have the right to appeal and in the first instance this should be to the Head of Healthcare Systems, Surrey & Borders Partnership NHS Trust, Elaine Gould on 01737 281046 or email elaine.gould@sabp.nhs.uk



If you are still not satisfied with the outcome, you can write to:



The Information Commissioner

Wycliffe House,Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF

Telephone: 01625 545700

Yours sincerely,

Jo Young

Jo Young

Director of Services for People with Learning Disabilities

c.c. Elaine Gould, Head of Healthcare Systems

A Christmas Miracle

And Lo and behold in a blinding light there suddenly appeared the following long delayed Freedom of Information Act response from SABP Fairy Jo Young.

Truly Christmas is a time of wonder.


Learning Disabilities Services
The Ridgewood Centre
Old Bisley Road
Frimley
Surrey
GU16 9QE

Tel: 01276 605553

Fax: 01276 605599

Email: Jo.Young@sabp.nhs.uk JY/ame

21st December 2006


Mr. Des Curly


Dear Mr. Curly,

We refer to the Freedom of Information Act requests in your email dated 21st November 2006 and our subsequent acknowledgement dated 22nd November 2006. We are now in a position to respond to your request.


FOI Question

I note that on the SCMH website see below - Ms Helen Lockett has no difficulty claiming ownership of the bungled 'modernisation' of Surrey & Borders Partnership NHS Trust work services whereas the Trust itself appears to have some difficulty in remembering what its financial links to Ms. Lockett actually were/are.

"Helen has been an Associate Consultant with the Employment Programme for the past 5 years and carries out both research and service development. Helen has been working in the field of employment and mental health / disabilities for the past 10 years.

Helen's most recent work includes research into patients' experiences of a work rehabilitation project with Broadmoor Hospital and for the past 18 months Helen has been project managing the modernisation of employment and day services within Surrey & Borders Partnership NHS Trust"


In the interests of establishing just how committed the Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Trust is to getting its service users into paid employment would you please explain how much Ms. Lockett was paid by your Trust or on its behalf for managing the modernisation of your Work services and also clarify what Helen's SCMH mentor/manager Dr Bob Groves was paid for his widely reported input.

Lastly, would you please acknowledge that you knew of Ms Lockett's prior relationship with MCCH Ltd and log and deal with this and the above questions as Freedom of Information requests.

Response

Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Trust does not hold any contractual arrangements with SCMH nor are we aware of any contractual arrangements between SCMH and the former Surrey Oaklands Trust.

However, in the summer there was training provided by Helen Lockett to our Employment Advisors in the north west of the county. This was paid for from grant monies which we attained through a bid jointly with MCCH from the Mental Health Capital (Revenue) Grant Scheme via Surrey County Council.

This training was separate and not related to the “Building on the Best” Work Services Review, Eastern Surrey.

The Building on the Best Work Services Review was a commissioner led programme jointly managed by the former East Surrey Primary Care Trust, the former East Elmbridge and Mid Surrey Primary Care Trust (now Surrey Primary Care Trust) and Surrey County Council.

It is our understanding that Helen Lockett was employed by these parties as the Project Manager for this review. She was at no stage employed by Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Trust. We therefore have no information related to this contract and pay.

We are informed that Helen did liaise with SCMH during this project, however this would not be unexpected as they are one of the the leading improvement agencies advising the government and others nationally on employment matters and mental health.*.


I am sure that as Helen was employed by the above organisations she was being paid for this work. However, as stated above we have no information related to this contract and pay.



I hope this answers your questions satisfactorily however if you would like further clarity please contact me.



If you are dissatisfied with the outcome of your enquiry, you have the right to appeal and in the first instance this should be to the Head of Healthcare Systems, Surrey & Borders Partnership NHS Trust, Elaine Gould on 01737 281046 or email elaine.gould@sabp.nhs.uk



If you are still not satisfied with the outcome, you can write to:



The Information Commissioner

Wycliffe House,Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF

Telephone: 01625 545700

Yours sincerely,

Jo Young
Jo Young
Director of Services for People with Learning Disabilities


c.c. Elaine Gould, Head of Healthcare Systems

Merry Christmas on £3 a Day or Less

Regular readers who have commented on or contacted us with concerns about lack of posts in recent days need not worry about the campaign winding down, we are simply chilling out over the holiday period as the CEO and Managers of the Surrey & Borders Trust have probably not done a stroke of work to answer any of our questions throughout December and have no intention of doing so until well into 2007.

Work?

Bah humbug! Its only the general public picking up the tab anyway ......besides isnt our NHS the envy of the world?......

Once again we'd like to thank everyone who has been involved in or simply supported the campaign and wish you the all the very best over the Christmas and New Year period.

We'd also like to wish Fiona Edwards , Jo Young and the other members of the Surrey & Borders Trust Board a very Happy Christmas and hope this pic of warm hearted Fiona in her nightgown adds to the festive cheer.

Stay Well

Timely Reminder to Fiona Edwards & Mighty Jo Young

Dear Jo Young and colleagues,

I would like to remind you that I am still waiting for the reply you promised below. I am also very concerned that the reply you have sent to Des Curley concerning the number of disabled people employed by Surrey and Borders NHS Partnership Trust is woefully inadequate. Basically you say that you do not know how many disabled people are employed by the trust because you do not monitor this information. Does the Trust claim itself to be an equal opportunity employer? If so how can you justify this claim if you do not monitor your own equal opportunity policies?

If this had happened in the United States in the 1980s where I studied at a Commission Against Discrimination your organisation would have been fined a great deal of money for not monitoring this basic information in order to show your
employment practices were not discriminatory and yet here we are at the end of 2006 and you are practically showing off the fact that you do not keep basic employment statistics to monitor your own equal opportunity practises. I find this situation quite archaic.

Bearing this appalling situation in mind perhaps we can make some sense of the information you do keep. You say that you only know if those employed by the trust are disabled if they mention this in their application forms. Well then please tell us exactly how many people employed by the trust have mentioned they are disabled in their application forms and in what positions they are employed? Then also please tell us how many people are employed by the trust in total. From these figures we will then be able to work out the percentage of disabled people employed by the trust and compare this with the percentage of disabled people in society. This will give us a basis for judging SABPTs record in employment for disabled people but considering you and the PCT have just awarded a 5 year contract to the Richmond Fellowship who have no intention of creating any new jobs for the disabled I doubt that your record can stand up to any scutiny.

Please give us this information immediately because we have waited long enough being fobbed off and we are tired of SABPT hiding behind these prevarications and excuses. Especially now with the new Disability Equality Duty it is time your policies and practises are open and accountable.

I will be waiting for your reply which under the Freedom of Information Act rules is already way overdue.

Yours Sincerely

Jill Goble

Disabled People Twice As Likely To Be Poor

From Jill Goble

I found the following article in Community Care and it shows just how much this Disability Equality Duty is needed. Strong equal opportunity policies are needed but the Surrey & Borders Partnership NHS Trust does not even monitor where it is employing disabled people. Officially they do not even know if employees are disabled unless they mention this on application forms. That is Jo Young et als answer to making sure hey have good equal opportunity policies. They don't. They bury their heads in the sand and give a contract to run services to The Richmond Fellowship who will create no new job opportunities. And so we see below disabled people end up twice as likely to be poor:

Disabled people twice as likely to be poor

Helen McCormack writes

An assessment of poverty in Britain has found disabled people are twice as likely to be poor than the able bodied, and the gap has widened in the past decade.

The annual report by think tank the New Policy Institute found 30 per cent of disabled adults of working age lived on 60 per cent of average income levels.

Lack of access to paid work was cited as the main reason, with disabled graduates who wanted to work considerably more likely to be unemployed than an unqualified able-bodied person.


The report, funded by Joseph Rowntree Foundation, also found that benefits for out of work people without dependent children were worth 20 per cent less, relative to earnings, than in 1997

Disability Equality Duty

The Disability Equality Duty for the public sector came into effect today.

For the best chance to achieve disability equality, public authorities should involve disabled people in the development of their Disability Equality Schemes and beyond.


Fiona Edwards and the Surrey & Borders Partnership Trust have not been doing this, we have had to campaign to get our voices heard.

The involvement of disabled people requires active engagement of disabled stakeholders rather than purely consultation. ( which Fiona was none to keen on anyway)

It must also be focused and joined up to avoid involvement fatigue on all sides.

Disabled people can bring a wide range of knowledge and expertise. This campaign has shown this to Fiona and the Board of the Surrey & Borders Partnership Trust and the new duty is a great opportunity to tackle inequality and allow the Trust to utilise the expertise on its doorstep.

Could we please have the equal Opportunities stats for how many service users SABP employs in manual jobs at the National Minimum Wage and above now Fiona as this just became a Disability Access to Public Services Issue.

Surrey & Borders Partnership trust Wastes Money & Still Expects More

Unison is calling on the government to give more money to the NHS, amid fresh protests across the UK against plans to cut services but its now reached the point where the sheer amount of public money wasted on layers of NHS Trust bureaucracy and managerial shennanigans has engended compassion fatigue for the NHS from patients and the general public.

Unison says the Chancellor Gordon Brown should use next week's pre-Budget report to help NHS trusts tackle financial deficits.

Why should we support more money going to the Surrey & Borders Partnership Trust when we've just seen Fiona Edwards waste tens of thousands of pounds treating service users badly and Jo Young still wishing to play stupid games at the taxpayers expense?


These people are flushing public money straight down the toilet.

Sure, we'd all like service users to get better treatment and care but the Surrey & Borders Partnerhip NHS Trust's costly lies , bungling and stupid games are not going to improve anything.

I dont think SABP should get another penny until Fiona Edwards and her staff start working with rather than trying to deceive and exploit service users and members of the public.

Please Help Campaign to Get SABP to Tell the Truth!

Surrey & Borders Partnership Trust's Chief Executive Fiona Edwards recently instructed Jo Young to provide the campaign with the most provocatively evasive FOIA response to the question " How many service users does SABP employ in manual jobs at the national minimum wage or above".

Jo and Fiona seem to think its a bit of a giggle.

Fiona doesnt want to provide an honest answer because it will simply confirm that SABP has always treated its service users badly and that the Trust has been routinely discriminating against them as an employer.

If Coventry City Council can be up front with their equal opps stats then so can the Surrey & Borders Partnership Trust .

It's important that we have these stats as service users are not simply being discriminated against in employment terms by Trust's like Surrey & Borders they are also being shoe-horned into unpaid work schemes run by organisations like the Richmond fellowship and MCCH Ltd , targetting that is often justified by questionable stats the Trust's and charities appear to have no problem conjuring out of thin air.

The Surrey & Borders Partnership Trust shouldnt be sitting on information here - lets see how successful it is at employing its own service users in non ' user involvment ' type jobs at the national minimum wage or above.

Lets have the figures.

Come on, give us the stats you pratts!!!

In search of Eternal Youth

In what seems to be nothing more than a vanity driven tantrum MCCH Ltd have subjected their official website to a trendy makeover and pulled all those appallingly ugly photos of their directors and senior managers.

A source close to the charity tells me that MCCH Ltd's elderly Directors were considering using a new photographer but glumly realised that even new technology wasnt going to make them appear any more attractive so they decided to totally remove all their details instead.

Here's a Before and After sequence

Before



After



Thwy should haver sought Fiona Edwards advice. She's obviously had a nip and tuck job as every time she blinks her ears move.

Surrey County Council's FOIA response ref Work Services Commissioning Group

Families Directorate
Adult Services
3rd floor Grosvenor House
London Square
Cross Lanes
Guildford
Surrey GU1 1FA


1 December 2006


Dear Mr Tovey

Thank you for your request for information under the Freedom of Information Act. Having examined your request I can now give you the following response:-

The Work Services Commissioning Group was a jointly commissioned service with Surrey County Council taking the lead commissioning role. The other commissioner was East Surrey Primary Care Trust (PCT).

1 What was the cost of this Post to the Council?

East Surrey PCT, not Surrey County Council, paid for the post of Project Manager held by Helen Lockett. The appointment followed a national advert for a project manager, which allowed the PCT to benchmark the costs of this post against other project manager posts. There was no specific budget allocated by the Work Services Commissioning Group for this post.

2 Were the costs of this Post shared with anyone else?

As stated above, East Surrey Primary Care Trust paid for this post.

3 Responsible Commissioners and their contact details?

Donal Hegarty (Policy & Commissioning Manager, Adult Mental Health & Substance Misuse, Surrey County Council):

donal.hegarty@surreycc.gov.uk 01483 517944

Diane Woods (Director of Mental Health & Learning Disability Commissioning, East Surrey Primary Care Trust):

diane.woods@eastsurrey-pct.nhs.uk 01737 214874

4 What kind of Democratic Mandate did the User and Carer Representatives on the Work Service Commissioning Group have?

The Commissioners were committed to have service users as part of the Group and although there was no Carer representative we did consult with local Carer groups. The service user representatives brought the user perspective to the Group and one of the representatives was mandated to keep service users in the area informed of progress. Because they represented the service user perspective they had a legitimate mandate to be part of the Group.

5 What was checked to ascertain that they were representative?

Both service user representatives came from East Surrey and had used services.

6 Did they receive Expenses or Payment for their time?

Both representatives were paid expenses for travel to attend meetings etc. This was paid by Surrey & Borders Partnership NHS Trust whom I am sure have a financial audit trail of expenses paid.

7 What Evidence did the Health Overview Scrutiny Committee obtain and retain for record that there was in fact individual informed service users “evidenced” consultation done at services.

The Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee would have a record of what was submitted and discussed at the meeting in November 2005. I would suggest that you contact Derek Cunningham, Policy & Development Manager on 0208 541 7591 (email: Derek.Cunningham@surreycc.gov.uk) as he supports this Committee and will have a record of all the relevant information submitted.

I hope this response addresses all the questions you have raised but if you require further information please do not hesitate to contact me.


Yours sincerely,



Donal Hegarty

Policy & Commissioning Manager

Mental Health & Substance Misuse