NHS in Crisis, Edwards Family Doing Very Well.
Jill Goble has informed me that despite receiving an e-mail from Dianne Woods formerly of East Surrey PCT but now with Surrey PCT assuring her that her Freedom of Information request, dating back to October 2006, would be answered by ' end of play ' yesterday, she still hasnt heard anything.
I informed Jill that Fiona Edwards , Chief Executive of the Surrey & Borders Partnership NHS Trust was also jerking me around over my FOIA requests , playing bureaucratic games to further drag things out just because she can.
Jill has flagged up conflicting interests between Helen Lockett, MCCH and the Surrey and Borders Partnership Trust which have been ignored by the Surrey & Borders PPI Forum and the PCT's related to the Trust.
I think the following information helps explain Fiona Edwards reluctance to come clean about ripping her Trust's disabled garden centre workers off as she appears to view her position within the Surrey & Borders Partnership NHS Trust as a bit of a family business.
Click on images to enlarge and for perspective please remember that this campaign started when Fiona Edwards decided to approve cutting the pitiful £3 a day her Trust's disabled garden workers were paid and have them work for nothing.
Here is SofTools homepage - note the DWP and East Surrey PCT contracts, even though the latter has now been amalgamated within the Surrey PCT. Note as well as being out of date the SofTools site isnt fully accessible.
This is interesting too.
Company Register Information
Company Number: 03571184 Date of Incorporation:27/05/1998
Company Name: SOFTOOLS LIMITED
Registered Office: 17 BISHAM VILLAGE, MARLOW
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE
BUCKS
SL7 1RR
Company Type: Private Limited Company
Country of Origin: United Kingdom
Status: Active
Nature Of Business (SIC(92)): 7221 - Software publishing
Key Filing Dates
Accounting Reference Date: 31/05
Last Accounts Made Up To: 31/05/2006 (TOTAL EXEMPTION FULL)
Next Accounts Due: 31/03/2008
Last Return Made Up To: 27/05/2006
Next Return Due: 24/06/2007
Last members list: 27/05/2006
Last Bulk Shareholders List: Not available
Current Appointments
DIRECTOR: BRUCE, ANDREW JAMES
Appointed: 27/05/1998 Date of Birth: 21/09/1959
Nationality: BRITISH
No. of Company appointments: 4
Address: 17 BISHAM VILLAGE
BISHAM
MARLOW
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE
SL7 1RR
DIRECTOR: EDWARDS, MARK ANDREW
Appointed: 01/07/1999 Date of Birth: 29/11/1968
Nationality: BRITISH
No. of Company appointments: 4
Address: COURT BARN HEYWOOD FARM ( not exactly living in squalour then )
WALTHAM ROAD
MAIDENHEAD
BERKSHIRE
SL6 3LL
Directors Renumeration for 2006 £143656
And still keeping it in the family, there's this:
So, Fiona Edwards the Chief Executive of the Surrey and Borders NHS Trust agrees to cut pathetic £3 a day payments to her Trust's disabled workers and have them work for nothing without even consulting them but has absolutely no objections to helping network work to her husbands firm and/or imposing huge costs on taxpayers with the bungled externalisation of her Trust's work services, a project which also appeared to be designed to transfer payments and /or assets to organisations which also have serious undeclared conflicting interests.
Softools states:
SofTools applications deliver three business benefits to clients:
# increased senior management visibility and control of operating performance
# improved operational effectiveness and efficiency through the consistent application of best practice
# continuous learning and knowledge sharing across diverse teams
Softools hasnt exactly given the taxpayer value for money here then, has it! Anyone noticed an increase in management visibility or performance?
We've seen a lot of over anxious top down control and spin but little else.
Has anyone noticed an improvement in operational effectiveness , efficiency and best practice?
Hardly, with Fiona instructing her staff to deliberately obstruct complaints and FOIA requests from service users and members of the public.
Has there been any continuous learning and knowledge sharing across teams?
Eh, nope all have had to be repeatedly reminded to address FOIA requests and/or provide other basic information and Fiona Edwards herself appears to have networked this deliberate obstructiveness to the PCT's and PPI Forum as well to ensure that service users and members of the public , who have put forward constructive suggestions for improving performance, are kept in the dark.
The Surrey & Borders Partnership Trust claimed it had the best disability employment advice available yet it completely botched its ' modernisation ' of the Old Moat Garden centre , alienated service users and the general public and the Trust and PCT now threaten - yes, Fiona has been selectively 'honest' about sharing information with a few individuals - to close the garden centre rather than seek real independent business advice to use the vaulable resource for the good of service users and the local community.
Fiona Edwards had Jill Goble and a Professor of Ethics and Business Mnagaement write to her requesting that the Trust and PCT do this yet this was ignored presumably because the garden centre issue was already a done deal.
This is fair comment.
posted by simply human @ 9:33 am
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Oooooooh... So it is not what you know but who you know... Can't believe Fiona Edwards is so cheeky to give her husband contracts. What are the rules against nepotism?
I have finally heard back from Diane Woods at the PCT but she won't let me see the MCCH report for a couple of weeks due to amendments being made. Also she is threatening that the only choices for the Old Moat are the voluntary sector or closure. Her mail to me will be put up at a later time. I am not happy with it at all. It feels like we are being blackmailed to keep quiet or they threaten to close the place.
Well done on tracking down the info re Fiona Edwards husband being given contracts. This is the sort of information the press should take up.
Fiona Edwards declared an interest but not the extent of it. There are serious financial and informational conflicts here not simply within SABP but with a commissioning PCT as well.
The fact that Fiona's husbands firm Softools uses the SABP contract as a case study on its website - and Fiona lets them - without declaring an interest is also pushing it .
I dont give a damn when these two met, what I care about is that they do not use their personal relationship to promote and/or professionally reward each other.
I've sat on this information for some time but have had a really bad spell of depression recently , I've been taking medication, and have just had Fiona respond in an extremely provocative way when she clearly didnt need or have to. Her PA even apologised for not providing me with information saying she was only a PA and had to follow Fiona's instructions.
I expect Fiona's husband to take that case study of his site because to not acknowledge his relationship to the CE of the Trust is unprofessional and misleading to potential clients of Softools . The information on its site is out of date anyway - i.e. the East Surrey PCT . Softools has work to do.
Fiona also needs to think about where she goes from here as well and at the very least start to build bridges to undo some of the damage her Trust's arrogant conduct has caused.
Ditto for the Surrey PCT.
Where is the evidence that Softools acheived any of its stated aims here when Fiona Edwards, the wife of the firms co-founder , is clearly encouraging her managers and staff too stonewall people and be uncommunicative in the extreme.
It is more than fair comment.
I actually think that the sort of 'business' transactions that are going on should be made illegal.
Then again, we aren't even looking at a business but a public service..(public money).or am I missing something here?
Does the local MP know about this?
Quite an astonishing amount of information that creates a cause for concern .
Its really not on at all that the work should have been awarded to her husband and the extent of the conflict of interest here really needs to be looked at very deeply .
The social enginnering of the Users whilst the gloss of "how good we are" continued with this Trust who were quite content to take away money from those Users coupled with the impression of self interest here of social firms and contracts awarded too closley to the CEO's own husband is of deep concern ..
Fiona Edwards is a public servant at the end of the day and I feel there is the standards in public life committee who ought to be aware of these patterns of close family involvements in contracts ..
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