Unreliable Words

From time to time one hears someone make the general comment about politicians, “you can’t trust a word they say”. Curiously the people who say that rarely mean a specific politician or have a particular comment made by one in their mind.

But this past week in Parliament we perhaps got some insight into why such attitudes exist. The Parliament’s Justice Committee heard from Labour’s Justice Minister, from the head of the Scottish Prison Service and from a Reliance boss. You will have guessed by now that the subject was – prisoner transport – and the manifest deficiencies in the new privatised arrangements which have seen unauthorised releases of dangerous people.

The rich colour of the English language contains just the phrase to describe what the committee heard - pusillanimous persiflage. What the Oxford English Dictionary (www.oed.com) defines as “a frivolous manner of treating any subject” which is “lacking in courage and strength of mind”.

Because according to the Reliance loon, the prison service had not provided proper information about the workload they were expected to take over. So it was not their fault it all “fell about” on the very first Monday at Hamilton Sheriff Court then.

Next up to the witness box, the Justice Minister pleads alibi – the prison service is a government agency, not a department, and is therefore not a direct responsibility of hers. That’s OK then?

Pusillanimity reached a new level when “old lag”, and prisons boss, Tony Cameron took the stand. Now in the Scottish legal system, the jurors do not normally hear of the accused’s previous convictions. There are exceptions, for example, in the case of previous rape accusations and a track record for perjury.

So it is as well to note that Cameron has relevant “previous”.

During the campaign to save Peterhead prison, he also had to appear before the same committee. On that occasion he seemed not to know, among other things, how much it had cost to build Scotland’s only private prison. This despite his service having published proposals to privatise more of the prison service.

His latest pleadings included the astonishing information that he had not been party to a contract being signed by the service he is paid (quite substantially) to manage – a contract worth more than £100 million. Once again, the boss is nowhere to be seen when a complex and expensive contract is agreed.

He did accept that the information given to Reliance was poor but suggested that the people taking over from his service were in a better position to know what was needed than he was!

So with the three parties to the prisoner transport debacle all pointing fingers at each other, and denying that “they” were responsible, it may not be surprising that some members of the public say; “you can’t trust a word they say”.

Let’s restore a little public confidence and make sure someone pays, and is seen to pay, the price for incompetence. Prison boss Cameron is number one in the frame for me and with previous form, a long sentence is appropriate.

But maybe a short one would do. How about; “You are fired”?

Unreliable Words - 2

A deluge of secondary legislation comes MSPs’ way. This week I had the pleasure of having to study the draft “Town and Country Planning (Electronic Communications) (Scotland) Order 2004. Don’t you just love these snappy titles?

A perfectly well intentioned Order which will allow certain communications to be made by email. If that speeds things up and lets people make faster, cheaper progress with their planning applications, well and good.

But, and it is a big but, the implementation does not suggest that the civil servants understand this “new” way of passing messages.

For one thing there is no service standard that requires that email be delivered within any particular timescale. And in any event what does “delivered” actually mean – available to be retrieved by your computer for you to read? – actually read by you? – perhaps even it means “sent”.

Because in planning as in many other areas of government, time is important to the processes.

More fundamentally, as anyone who receives unsolicted emails – spam – knows, one cannot be certain that the apparent sender is really who sent it.

Imagine acting on a “false” and malicious message – for which there no specific legal remedy.

But even if it came from the right person it might have been deliberately altered during transit. Emails are like postcards. Anyone handling them once they are “in the system” can read them and could change them.

So for a piece of legislation to ignore the technology that would mean secure messages can be sent and received is simply not good enough.

The Order has already been withdrawn, amended and re-tabled once. Hopefully they’ll make further changes.

Dentists

The excellent news that Banff is to get half a million pounds for a new dental centre is very welcome.

With the government announcement of £2.5 million more across Scotland for dentistry came the news that twelve more salaried dentists would be recruited by the NHS. But given the very real difficulties that local dentists have already experienced in recruiting new assistants, where are they to come from?

Such an investment ought to give heart to dentists considering Banff as their base as it indicates, at very long last, a serious commitment to tackling our long term shortage.

But where should it go? With the Chalmers hospital development committed but distantly timetabled, the planning for that may have some awkward interactions with our new dental facility.

I hope that townsfolk with an interest in the subject will join me in writing to NHS Grampian and express their view. The alternative might a decision in a vacuum and we would be unlikely to approve.

Charity Begins at Home

The government has just issued a consultation on their proposed new charity law. My initial view is that we have between three and four hundred voluntary bodies or trusts in the Banff and Buchan constituency who might be affected by proposed changes.

As I will be on the Committee which will consider this Bill, I will be taking a close interest in this.

Although I shall try to contact as many charities as I can, there is no complete central list. I hope they will put their view to me – soon.