Large clunking fist

Talking about people who need to check their facts, comments by Labour AM, Val Lloyd, in today's Evening Post, seem remarkably off-message.

She is undoubtedly aware of the enthusiasm of her Labour colleague, Leighton Andrews, for transferring Council housing stock to a community mutual housing association in Rhondda Cynon Taf and also of the way that Labour run Councils in Bridgend andTorfaen have led the way on this agenda. She will also be aware, because she was there, that both First Minister, Rhodri Morgan, and Social Justice Minister, Edwina Hart, have reiterated the policy of Chancellor, Gordon Brown, that there is no fourth option. And why should there be? After all, to secure such a fourth option the Government would need to find an additional £300 million of public spending in Wales alone.

Despite all of this Mrs Lloyd continues to advocate a 'fourth option' and suggests that this is also the policy of the Assembly Government. If she is not careful the great clunking fist of the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Social Justice Minister will strike her down for being seriously off message.

No brainer

Reluctant as we are to spoil the Insider Outers little rant but it does seem relevant to point out that their memory may be playing tricks on them with regards to the motion on mobile phone masts.

Far from voting against the idea of restrictions for these masts, the Administration actually referred the issue to a scrutiny board where it could be fully investigated. That board is getting on with this work even as we type.

All of this is completely in line with the contents of the motion now submitted to Council by Nick Tregoning and John Newbury.

Let us not forget by the way that all of the £450,000 income from masts on Council-owned land comes from agreements made by the previous Labour Administration before we were elected into office.

Labour spin corps

We are not sure what exactly the Labour Insiders have against spinners, after all they are pretty proficient at the art themselves. Take their latest posting on bed-blocking.

They point out the article in today's Evening Post that claims that delays in transferring patients from hospital to council commissioned residential care – is around the £1 million mark, with a total of 43 cases being “social care-related” and they imply that this is somehow a Swansea problem and specifically the fault of the Administration. A commentator on the paper's website also believes that this problem could have been avoided if the Council was not rebuilding the Leisure Centre. Perhaps he has been drinking with some Labour Councillors.

The money being spent on re-opening the Leisure Centre is, of course, capital spending, whereas the shortfall described by the Local Health Trust is revenue. The fact is though that this sort of bed-blocking is rife across Wales and Swansea is by no means the worst area.

In the last budget round the Administration increased the amount of money available for Social Services by a substantial amount. It was noticeable that when the Council debated these plans, Labour failed to raise the issue of bed-blocking at all. The truth is that the Trust is playing a game of its own, trying to put pressure on other authorities to bail it out.

We suspect that if the Labour Assembly Government got its act together and actually forced health and social services to pool their budgets, whilst throwing in some extra cash to initiate long term projects to do away with bed blocking, then the issue could be sorted out.

Update: An e-mail sent to all Councillors from the Director of Social Services trashes the claims by the NHS Trust. His letter to the Evening Post states that the latest census report for the period to November reveals 70 Delayed Transfers of Care for Swansea residents, 16 related directly to Social Care.

He goes on to say that the figures in the Trust's report relate to the whole Trust not just Swansea residents (and therefore Swansea Social Care), they provide insufficient analysis of type of delay to be helpful, and they use a definition called Social Care, which is not the same as Social Services.

In other words our analysis that the Trust was playing a political game to put pressure on its partners and the Assembly Government to bail them out appears to have been correct. Perhaps if they learnt to work with other agencies instead of undermining them they might not be in such trouble.

Dumb and Dumber

Rumour has it that Lis 'bandwagon' Davies has now joined up with Ray Welsby in his campaign to single-handedly prevent stock transfer.

We are told that Lis is helping organise a public meeting in Sketty next Tuesday in which the gruesome twosome hope to rally thousands of tenants in opposition to the proposal. Alas, if the meeting is anything like those Ray Welsby has held previously then it will consist of about two dozen Trots and a couple of bemused tenants.

Quite why Lis is interested in this issue is not clear. She has never previously shown any knowledge or awareness of Council housing. We can only speculate that she views this campaign as yet another opportunity to bash the Swansea Administration.

Hitting out at the Administration is a speciality for Lis Davies. For many she has become a cartoon villain as she has increasingly sought out any ally and any issue she can, irrespective of logic or principle, in an effort to hit out at her sworn enemies. In doing so she has got herself into trouble with the ombudsman and completely undermined any respect she may once have had. This latest partnership with Ray Welsby may well be the final nail in the coffin of her credibility.

Learning to count again

Oh dear, presumably thinking that they are now safe from contradiction, the Inside Outers are up to their old tricks - spinning the facts in a way that fits their story rather than telling the truth.

They are fully aware that the e-government programme did not cost £90 million and that it is much more than mainframe renewal. After all it was their programme. The Administration just scaled it back to make it more affordable and deliverable.

The value of the phase one contract is £83 million over 10 years. The majority of this cost is to run the Council’s ICT Service which was transferred to Capgemini when the contract was signed. Included in that sum is £18 million, which is the cost of the new ICT system. In addition to the cost of the contract the Council will incur costs of £15 million over the 10 years, which is mainly how much the Council needs to pay to manage the programme and the outsourced ICT contract. Therefore the total value of the project is £98 million over 10 years.

The programme will be funded from a combination of the existing ICT budget totalling £53 million over ten years, new investment of £3.7 million a year and savings of £8.5 million over the period of the contract. The council has already identified half of those savings before the first year has concluded.

Labour and the Inside Outers are very fond of using the word 'incompetence'. We would suggest that the main reason for that is that they are so intimate with the concept. It was their mishandling of e-government that led to a strike and pie-in-the-sky arithmetic that we had to bring back down to earth.

It was their incompetence that led to the closure of the Leisure Centre and a bill for maintenance across the Council's property portfolio that runs into tens of millions of pounds. There is a whole catalogue of similar charges that Labour have to answer before they can go shouting the odds about others. We are sure that future posts will elucidate further.

Rise of the Phoenix

From the ashes of Inside Swansea rises the new Phoenix. No porn here and no mercy will be shown to the denizens of Labour (old and new) as we expose their inconsistencies, lies and hypocrisy.

We will also re-post some of the best of the old Inside Swansea site.

Control Freaks

From the previous Inside Swansea blog:

An interesting item recently appeared on the Mount Pleasant Residents Association Website. It was penned by its chairman:

"Councillors Barbara Hynes and Alan Lloyd raised a query stating that the attendance of Councillors from the Uplands Ward was un-constitutional and that they should not attend MPRA meetings.

I have checked the constitution and there is no defined boundary other than that stated as ‘Mount Pleasant’.

I have no intention of establishing a definitive boundary and then excluding members and Councillors from this area, if someone from this general area wishes to come to the meetings, and become members, then they are more than welcome to."

Unsurprisingly this was linked to the fact that for the first time all four Castle Ward Councillors plus Derrick Roberts in tow were there, five more than had ever bothered to turn up at the last meeting.

We are wondering that if the same treatment was afforded by Babs and Alan to the four Uplands Labour Councillors prior to them being sent hopping by the electorate in 2004.