Tuesday’s correspondents discuss Fife Council care charges, the negative impact of traffic wardens, views on welfare reform and MSPs’ use or abuse of expenses.
Fife care home ‘scaremongering’ deplorable Sir,-Ms Maureen Closs of the Campaign Against Cuts And Charges (previously Campaign Against Charges) has, over the past few years, regularly criticised the home care charges introduced in 2007 by Fife Council.
These are consistent, though she omits to mention it, with other councils throughout Scotland.
The Scottish Care Commission Report earlier this year entitled Making The Grade looked at all care services in Fife provided by Fife Council, the private and voluntary sectors and gave Fife the best result in Scotland.
This covered all aspects of care for young people and older people, both in their own homes and in residential care.
In addition, a SAGA UK-wide survey in 2009 concluded that Fife was the best area in the UK for older people to live.
To be fair, this survey did take into account a large number of other factors but it also included social care, including that provided by Fife Council.
Ms Closs is entitled to her opinion but it may be helpful to highlight too, information provided by external and independent organisations.
The deliberate scaremongering by people who should know better about the consultation on Fife’s care homes is deplorable.
How can decisions on home care be reached unless actual and potential users are consulted?
(Cllr) Donald Macgregor.East Neuk and Landward Ward,15 Kinkell Terrace,St Andrews.
Firms harmed by parking charges
Sir,-Robin Valentine’s worries (November 13) about Perth and Kinross Council’s policies on parking creating a negative impact on business are absolutely justified.
The proper purpose of parking attendants is to facilitate traffic flow and access to businesses.
The purpose is not the enforcement of regulations for their own sake, or as a source of revenue by stealth taxation.
Visitors to Interlaken, Switzerland, a town very like the Fair City, would be impressed by the apparent lack of parking attendants but there are no congestion problems and businesses flourish, with closing-down signs a rarity.
Maybe we could learn from this, and reduce, not increase, the surveillance and penalties imposed in damaging ways by local government.
After all, money is short, council staff are expensive and, whatever the council may claim, parking attendants’ work just cannot be self-supporting through revenue collection.
(Dr) Charles Wardrop.111 Viewlands Road West,Perth.
Kirk wrong on welfare reform
Sir,-As a former parish minister I find it deplorable that head-office placemen claiming to speak for the Kirk have attacked the government’s welfare reforms.
Iain Duncan Smith’s Welfare That Works marks the first serious attempt to reform a corrupt and wasteful benefit system that has no place in a modern liberal democracy.
It seeks to create a simple and fair structure to replace the fiendishly complex system inherited from Gordon Brown which had become a clear moral hazard.
The reforms are largely modelled on the welfare programme established in the US by Bill Clinton and will ensure work always pays more than malingering on benefits.
The recent descent of large sections of our society into welfare dependency is a national scandal and ideologically-driven protests from the usual suspects are unacceptable.
(Dr) John Cameron.10 Howard Place,St Andrews.
Politicians profit widows suffer
Sir,-I read Steve Bargeton’s column on Saturday about Keith Raffan being awarded £15,000 a year for life because he retired as an MSP on health grounds. Apparently this cannot be stopped despite his having made a miraculous recovery from a sore back. The rules do not allow it despite the fact that he is working again.
This is the same MSP who claimed £41,000 expenses apparently for driving his car around Scotland.
Contrast this with the position of war widows and injured servicemen who are looking at having their pensions and benefit-related payments cut.
Surely the same rules apply to them once given they cannot be taken away?
Or, again, is it the case that the rules that apply to MSPs and MPs do not apply to everyone else?
Iain McLaren.1 Clinkerheel Drive,Birkhill.
Speed cameras could save cost
Sir,-Councillor R. R. Spink (November 13) in his reply to my letter concerning the decision to spend £3m on a bypass for the Big Tree Bends between Arbroath and Montrose, fails to address the much cheaper solution that I suggested average-speed cameras and prosecution of offenders.
I did not use the term “high speed.” I wrote “travelling too fast.” Perhaps it would have helped him too if I had added the word “physically” to “nothing wrong with the current road.”
The surfaces are sound, as are the verges. There are many roads in Angus which are sorely in need of surface repair and verges where there is a drop-off of as much as a foot at the edge of the hard surface. Surely it would be better to spend money attending to them first?
His mention of accidents which occur by mischance is irrelevant. Such accidents can, and do, occur on straight roads and probably will on the bypass, should it ever be built.
It would be interesting to learn what the cost of acquiring the necessary land will be and who will be the beneficiaries of the sale because I do not believe that it will be the council-tax payers.
John Dorward.89 Brechin Road,Arbroath.
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