Showing posts with label crap. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crap. Show all posts
Friday, 11 January 2013
One Barnet: Judicial Review challenge to the Capita contract
Some very welcome news tonight: Steel & Shamash Solicitors, acting on behalf of Barnet resident Maria Nash, have today (Thursday) issued proceedings against Barnet Council, Capita PLC, EC Harris LLP, and Capita Symonds Ltd.
Ms Nash seeks a judicial review of the Council’s decision to award the contract for the “New Support and Customer Services Organisation” or “NSCSO” to Capita plc, and of the Council’s impending decision to award the “Development and Regulatory Services” or “DRS” contract, to either Capita Symonds Ltd. or EC Harris LLP.
Via the Barnet Alliance website Maria Nash said:
“Despite being involved in local issues, including being engaged in the political process in relation to issues that affect me, I have not been consulted, either individually or as a member of any of the local bodies or interest groups with which I am associated. I have been desperately concerned about the impact of the NSCSO and DRS on me and others, especially the vulnerable such as the elderly, disabled or young. What I would like to see is proper meaningful engagement with stakeholders before a decision is made to outsource services to a private company.”
Steel & Shamash, as Ms Nash's solicitors, issued a press release today stating:
"We have today on behalf of our client Maria Nash, a resident of the London Borough of Barnet issued proceedings to judicially review and challenge the decision of the London Borough of Barnet to award the contractfor the New Support and Customers Support Organisation 'NSCSO' to Capita PLC and to challenge the intended decision to award a contract for the Development and Regulatory services contract.
The principal grounds for the challenge are as follows:
1. The London Borough of Barnet have failed to comply with section 3(2) Local Government Act 1999 and related statutory guidance, which places an obligation on the local authority to fully consult all stakeholders, including residents, voluntary organisations and businesses.
2.Unlawfully denied a legitimate expectation that the London Borough of Barnet would carry out consultations with its stakeholders
3.Failed to discharge its public sector equality duty.
4.Failed to discharge its fiduciary duty; and
5.Breached its obligations pursuant to regulations 18 and 30 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2006 to award the NSCSO to the tenderer submitting the most economically advantageous tender."
This is a hugely significant moment for all those united in opposition to the mass privatisation of our public services, not just in our borough, but throughout the UK.
Our Tory councillors have chosen to pursue the One Barnet programme of outsourcing with no mandate from the people whom they have been elected to represent. The people have now elected to use the due process of the law to challenge their act of betrayal - and what happens in Barnet, as a result of this challenge, may well set a legal precedent, and a warning, for all other authorities around the country.
The legal team instructed by Maria Nash, as it happens, is led by Gerald Shamash, who has acted as solicitor to the Labour party for more than twenty years, and has a wide ranging expertise in law at all levels of political life, at Westminster, in local government, election law - and judicial review.
Oh dear, Tory councillors and senior officers of the London Borough of Broken Barnet: it's all going dreadfully wrong, isn't it?
Don't say Mrs Angry didn't warn you.
Monday, 8 November 2010
The Art of the Impossible
I was looking at the shortlisted artists for the 2010 Turner Prize the other day. Of the four listed, one is actually a painter, although of (yawn) celebrity culture subjects, one an artist who uses her own voice in installations, another a cooperative project working with found objects, and there is also a woman whose work features subjects like a pile of broken wardrobes. Rather like a nasty accident in the Ikea warehouse. But anyway.
Of course this is largely the sort of stuff that that reliable representative of Middle England thinking, the Daily Mail reader, likes to snort at in disgust on the basis that conceptual art, or performance art, or art installations, are all a load of crap, and completely meaningless.
Hmm. Funny that. Because the same sort of Middle Englander, the middle of the road, middle class Tory voter such as we have in shed loads in Broken Barnet, is perfectly happy to accept without question the equivalent meaningless conceptual work of art dressed up as a political model, as presented by their local Conservative council at the last election, and to pay through the nose to share in ownership of a piece of crap which doesn't exist.
I'm talking about Futureshape, of course. Futureshape, or One Barnet, as they want us to call it, in the hope that we will forget the negative press, is a concept as empty and meaningless as anything you may dislike about modern art.
If you look askance at some of the installations in Tate Modern, or snigger at John Cage's 'Four minutes thirty three seconds' of silence, or get cross about Carl Andre's bricks, ask yourself what you were doing voting for a council administration intent on running this borough on the basis of an idea which existed in name only. Of course if you did vote for that, you probably aren't reading this, but there you go.
Futureshape, the easyCouncil concept, is of course a piece of conceptual art - and arguably also an example of installation and performance art. You can't understand it, now you've bought it and taken home to hang above the fireplace because there is nothing to understand. It doesn't exist. It isn't a work in progress, because there is nowhere for it to go.
As we know, the external auditors and sometime art critics Grant Thornton have reviewed the Future Shape plans and dared to mention that - oh dear - two years down the line, there are still basic questions to be asked about the real benefits of the scheme, the cost, the timescale, and worryingly, the 'high level risk profile'. They have had to tell Barnet to stop messing aorund and come up with a business plan, as astonishingly, no such thing has yet been created. Money has been thrown at these alleged cost saving plans but as yet savings have only been theoretically 'identified' and do not exist.
Why is it that ordinary people, who are so resistant to the art of the avant garde, and dismiss such pretentious rubbish out of hand have fallen for the empty promise of this Tory administration's worthless economic policy? Is it because they are too lazy to inform themselves about political matters and simply vote without thinking?
If you've ever had to work in a polling station on an election day, you cannot help but notice the number of people who stand for ages in the booths with their slip wondering who to vote for. They probably haven't given it much thought until that moment. It is a very depressing thought, that so many voters can't be bothered to use their vote in an informed way.
Maybe it is because unlike in matters of art, where someone will think, in time honoured fashion, I don't know anything about art but I know what I like, and is not intimidated into abandoning their love of pictures of kittens in baskets and vases of flowers, when it come to politics they feel out of their depths, intellectually bullied by people claiming they know best, and telling them how to think and how to vote.
Well: if you know how to make money out of a shark in a tank or an unmade bed, why not do it? It's the ultimate expression of free enterprise, and successful modern art is as much of a profit making commodity as anything else. It may annoy the Daily Mail, if you are lucky, but it doesn't have any impact on people's ordinary lives.
If only we could say the same for Future Shape.
Of course this is largely the sort of stuff that that reliable representative of Middle England thinking, the Daily Mail reader, likes to snort at in disgust on the basis that conceptual art, or performance art, or art installations, are all a load of crap, and completely meaningless.
Hmm. Funny that. Because the same sort of Middle Englander, the middle of the road, middle class Tory voter such as we have in shed loads in Broken Barnet, is perfectly happy to accept without question the equivalent meaningless conceptual work of art dressed up as a political model, as presented by their local Conservative council at the last election, and to pay through the nose to share in ownership of a piece of crap which doesn't exist.
I'm talking about Futureshape, of course. Futureshape, or One Barnet, as they want us to call it, in the hope that we will forget the negative press, is a concept as empty and meaningless as anything you may dislike about modern art.
If you look askance at some of the installations in Tate Modern, or snigger at John Cage's 'Four minutes thirty three seconds' of silence, or get cross about Carl Andre's bricks, ask yourself what you were doing voting for a council administration intent on running this borough on the basis of an idea which existed in name only. Of course if you did vote for that, you probably aren't reading this, but there you go.
Futureshape, the easyCouncil concept, is of course a piece of conceptual art - and arguably also an example of installation and performance art. You can't understand it, now you've bought it and taken home to hang above the fireplace because there is nothing to understand. It doesn't exist. It isn't a work in progress, because there is nowhere for it to go.
As we know, the external auditors and sometime art critics Grant Thornton have reviewed the Future Shape plans and dared to mention that - oh dear - two years down the line, there are still basic questions to be asked about the real benefits of the scheme, the cost, the timescale, and worryingly, the 'high level risk profile'. They have had to tell Barnet to stop messing aorund and come up with a business plan, as astonishingly, no such thing has yet been created. Money has been thrown at these alleged cost saving plans but as yet savings have only been theoretically 'identified' and do not exist.
Why is it that ordinary people, who are so resistant to the art of the avant garde, and dismiss such pretentious rubbish out of hand have fallen for the empty promise of this Tory administration's worthless economic policy? Is it because they are too lazy to inform themselves about political matters and simply vote without thinking?
If you've ever had to work in a polling station on an election day, you cannot help but notice the number of people who stand for ages in the booths with their slip wondering who to vote for. They probably haven't given it much thought until that moment. It is a very depressing thought, that so many voters can't be bothered to use their vote in an informed way.
Maybe it is because unlike in matters of art, where someone will think, in time honoured fashion, I don't know anything about art but I know what I like, and is not intimidated into abandoning their love of pictures of kittens in baskets and vases of flowers, when it come to politics they feel out of their depths, intellectually bullied by people claiming they know best, and telling them how to think and how to vote.
Well: if you know how to make money out of a shark in a tank or an unmade bed, why not do it? It's the ultimate expression of free enterprise, and successful modern art is as much of a profit making commodity as anything else. It may annoy the Daily Mail, if you are lucky, but it doesn't have any impact on people's ordinary lives.
If only we could say the same for Future Shape.
Tuesday, 11 May 2010
Mrs Angry and a bucketload of crap
Well, we live in interesting times, don't we? (Fill in your own stuff about coalition governments, minority governments, PR, AV, Liblab , Condem-nation etc, I can't face anymore).
I no longer care who runs the country, and would even suggests that the fact that the world has not come to an end since last Thursday indicates that we probably don't need any government at all, and the country could probably run on its own perfectly well. And think of all the expenses we would save on.
Anyway, I am too busy obssessing about a bucket full of dirt and fag ends sitting in my back garden to worry about political events. Why is this, you may ask?
It's now nearly two weeks since Mrs Smith and all the Smith family, and her toyboy, and the weed enthusiast lodgers, who looked pretty three dimensional but apparently were a figment of our imagination, disappeared over the horizon on their way to a new life on a certain council estate, where no doubt they are endearing themselves to a new set of neighbours. You might think that Mrs Angry is now Mrs Happy, and has drawn a neat line under the whole affair. Not quite. After the initial euphoria, there are still too many unresolved issues.
I tried explaining this to a friend: that it was like someone had been banging your head against the wall for a long time and when they stop, at first you can only feel grateful that your head is no longer being bashed about, but pretty soon you begin to get extremely angry about the fact that someone has been bashing your head against a wall in the first place. In our case, we worry that soon someone else will be grabbing hold of the head, as it were: Barnet Council has refused to say it will prevent the owners of the property from having more Homechoice tenants, despite the negligent and irresponsible behaviour of the owners and the state of the property. I know this seems incredible, but that is how Barnet works. And some fools out there have just voted this caring, compassionate Conservative administration back into power. Well done.
If more tenants arrive, we will be obliged to sell our house and move. We don't want to move: we just can't risk another experience like this. Yet, if we are forced to sell, we will have to disclose the details of the 'dispute' that we have been through, not exactly something that prospective buyers will want to hear, and even if we manage to find a buyer, the value of our house is highly likely to be affected.
Since writing the blog, and publicising in various places what happened to us, I've heard from even more people in the borough who have had similar experiences with Barnet. Unless there is a radical change of housing policy, and a drastically improved committment to addressing antisocial behaviour, there will inevitably be an increasing number of cases like ours. You can't say you haven't been warned.
We are hoping that the landlords of the neighbouring property will sell the house. But who knows what they will do. There have been no signs of estate agents, and what they will do next is anybody's guess. Last week for two days running my heart stopped when I saw male members of the family who own the house turn up and inspect the place. Luckily the harpy sisters did not accompany them, but still I felt myself panicking at the very thought of one of them turning up on our doorstep and screaming abuse at us again.
The thing which really, really bugs me, though, is the petty and completely irrational obsessive thought that somewhere across the borough Tracey Smith is sitting smugly in her new apartment, believing her self to have been so rewarded for all the appalling behaviour presented by herself and her wretched household. Worst of all is the fact that - and I am ashamed of admitting that this bothers me - she has had the last laugh, contemptuously dumping that pile of crap on my doorstep in the middle of the night, and getting away scot free. You might think that was an act of harassment, or intimidation, but as far as we know, nothing will ever be done about it. Does it matter? They've gone, haven't they? Yes, it bloody well does matter to me - it symbolises how we have been completely screwed by these people, and nothing has ever really happened as a result, except a move which they were happy with anyway. Tracey Smith doesn't care that her new tenancy is supposedly subject to supervision and 'support': she enjoys the attention, and knows how to pull the wool over social workers and other authority figures, manipulating the system for her own ends.
Yesterday, for the first time in over a year, I actually pottered about in the garden, and finally swept up the last few roaches and other bits of rubbish the Smiths had kindly chucked out of their windows, or over the fence. And then I opened up the bag of stuff they left on the doorstep again and peered at it malevolently and thought: this is justice, is it, for people like us: a heap of dirt and a pile of fag ends, and an uncertain future? I have a horrible suspicion, you know, that that is exactly how it is, and always will be, for the foreseeable future, here in Broken Barnet.
I no longer care who runs the country, and would even suggests that the fact that the world has not come to an end since last Thursday indicates that we probably don't need any government at all, and the country could probably run on its own perfectly well. And think of all the expenses we would save on.
Anyway, I am too busy obssessing about a bucket full of dirt and fag ends sitting in my back garden to worry about political events. Why is this, you may ask?
It's now nearly two weeks since Mrs Smith and all the Smith family, and her toyboy, and the weed enthusiast lodgers, who looked pretty three dimensional but apparently were a figment of our imagination, disappeared over the horizon on their way to a new life on a certain council estate, where no doubt they are endearing themselves to a new set of neighbours. You might think that Mrs Angry is now Mrs Happy, and has drawn a neat line under the whole affair. Not quite. After the initial euphoria, there are still too many unresolved issues.
I tried explaining this to a friend: that it was like someone had been banging your head against the wall for a long time and when they stop, at first you can only feel grateful that your head is no longer being bashed about, but pretty soon you begin to get extremely angry about the fact that someone has been bashing your head against a wall in the first place. In our case, we worry that soon someone else will be grabbing hold of the head, as it were: Barnet Council has refused to say it will prevent the owners of the property from having more Homechoice tenants, despite the negligent and irresponsible behaviour of the owners and the state of the property. I know this seems incredible, but that is how Barnet works. And some fools out there have just voted this caring, compassionate Conservative administration back into power. Well done.
If more tenants arrive, we will be obliged to sell our house and move. We don't want to move: we just can't risk another experience like this. Yet, if we are forced to sell, we will have to disclose the details of the 'dispute' that we have been through, not exactly something that prospective buyers will want to hear, and even if we manage to find a buyer, the value of our house is highly likely to be affected.
Since writing the blog, and publicising in various places what happened to us, I've heard from even more people in the borough who have had similar experiences with Barnet. Unless there is a radical change of housing policy, and a drastically improved committment to addressing antisocial behaviour, there will inevitably be an increasing number of cases like ours. You can't say you haven't been warned.
We are hoping that the landlords of the neighbouring property will sell the house. But who knows what they will do. There have been no signs of estate agents, and what they will do next is anybody's guess. Last week for two days running my heart stopped when I saw male members of the family who own the house turn up and inspect the place. Luckily the harpy sisters did not accompany them, but still I felt myself panicking at the very thought of one of them turning up on our doorstep and screaming abuse at us again.
The thing which really, really bugs me, though, is the petty and completely irrational obsessive thought that somewhere across the borough Tracey Smith is sitting smugly in her new apartment, believing her self to have been so rewarded for all the appalling behaviour presented by herself and her wretched household. Worst of all is the fact that - and I am ashamed of admitting that this bothers me - she has had the last laugh, contemptuously dumping that pile of crap on my doorstep in the middle of the night, and getting away scot free. You might think that was an act of harassment, or intimidation, but as far as we know, nothing will ever be done about it. Does it matter? They've gone, haven't they? Yes, it bloody well does matter to me - it symbolises how we have been completely screwed by these people, and nothing has ever really happened as a result, except a move which they were happy with anyway. Tracey Smith doesn't care that her new tenancy is supposedly subject to supervision and 'support': she enjoys the attention, and knows how to pull the wool over social workers and other authority figures, manipulating the system for her own ends.
Yesterday, for the first time in over a year, I actually pottered about in the garden, and finally swept up the last few roaches and other bits of rubbish the Smiths had kindly chucked out of their windows, or over the fence. And then I opened up the bag of stuff they left on the doorstep again and peered at it malevolently and thought: this is justice, is it, for people like us: a heap of dirt and a pile of fag ends, and an uncertain future? I have a horrible suspicion, you know, that that is exactly how it is, and always will be, for the foreseeable future, here in Broken Barnet.
Sunday, 2 May 2010
All Quiet on the West Finchley Front
Listen!
An eerie silence has fallen over the neighbourhood, broken only by the sound of Tory party canvassers tiptoing past our house, in an attempt to dodge the bullets. Well, in truth, as the saying goes, I have no gun: but I can spit.
For five nights now, I have actually been able to sleep in my own bed, without fear of being woken up by the noise of a gang of louts next door at one, two, three in the morning. What bliss. Of course I do miss the Ikea camp bed in the kitchen, and the strangely hypnotic sound of the fridge and the boiler, and worrying about the thing that bangs on the living room door, and wondering whether it wanders about downstairs at night, and the nightmares and sleepless nights worrying about what on earth we are going to do - oh and the occasional sound of the Smiths and their yob friends vomiting out of their kitchen window.
The Angry cat is very happy to be allowed back to sleep once more in his rightful place on top of the pile of ironing in the kitchen and is also enjoying nipping over to the Smith's 'garden' to leave his own fragrant token of appreciation, with my blessing. As for the 'parting gift' thoughtfully left for us by the Sniths in the middle of the night, this is being retained for forensic inspection by the local CID (Crap on the neighbours' doorstep Investigation Department).It will then be forwarded to a more appropriate recipient, with our good wishes.
Mr Angry has at last today donned protective clothing, safety goggles, and a pair of oven gloves and sat down to read this blog in the privacy of the dining room. From the strange noises which could be heard from behind the closed door it was impossible to distinguish whether or not he was laughing or crying.
The Angry son and daughter don't quite believe it is all over: actually, nor do their parents, and of course it may not be, if Barnet decides, as it has repeatedly stated, that it will not rule out placing another family with the outrageously behaved owners of the neighbouring property. So far the owners have not shown up at the house. I would like to think that they are too ashamed, but I doubt it.
I think it will take weeks, if not months, before we actually stop twitching and jumping at every sound in the street, thinking the Smiths have rolled up again in their car, slamming the car doors, the front door, constantly in and out, running about the house yelling abuse at each other, fighting, swearing, Mrs Smith threatening her kids with a whack, screaming at them, the boys screaming abuse back at her. Wonder what her new neighbours make of them all? Of course, bearing in mind the nature of the place they have gone to, it may well be that Tracey Smith is ringing up to complain about the people next door. Wouldn't that be amusing?
I don't think we will ever be the same family we were before all this started. It just went on too long, and had too profound an impact. I bitterly regret the effect this has had on all of us but particularly on my children's lives and I can't forgive those responsible for creating and prolonging the situation. The fact that some of them are standing for election as Conservative party candidates this coming week is just too much, and if this blog has persuaded just one person not to vote for these fools it will have been worth it.
Someone has asked if Mrs Angry will now become more temperate. Funny. Maybe. But not yet, Mr S. There are a few things that need seeing to first.
I want compensation from Barnet Council for all the distress the last sixteen months has caused us, and the lasting damage not just to us, but to the value of our home.
I want Barnet to be forced to acknowledge the need for a proper boroughwide antisocial behaviour policy, put into practice by a fully resourced and specifically designated team of officers, and effective procedures for identifying and reporting ASB.
I suggest that there needs to be a review of the way in which the council works, or fails to work, with the police in combating ASB, and improved working practices which will help support the victims of such behaviour rather than the perpetrators. The emergency police response can be improved by as, suggested in a recent report, an improved system of identifying and prioritising calls from the victims of long running ASB cases, and some way of redistributing calls to SNTeams off duty is necessary too.
Barnet Council has already admitted messing up the complaint we made to them in regard to our situation, and the way it was being handled: this 'mess up' unnecessarily and severely prolonged the distress we endured and it seems evident that a review of the way in which they deal with complaints is urgently needed. Also evident is that our experience of the mishandling of Freedom of Information Requests is not in any way unique and appears to be symptomatic of a disturbingly inefficient management of data and information, to put it politely, and don't you agree, DCMD? Let's hope that a new administration, or perhaps the Information Commissioner, will order a full review of this issue too.
It's hard to explain how it feels right now to be liberated at last from the tyranny of the Smiths and their hangers on. I think we are still in a state of shock: or maybe post traumatic stress disorder.
A couple of years ago we were in Normandy, and visited the D Day landing beaches. and other WW2 sites, including a guilty trip to Caen, flattened by the efforts of Mr Angry senior and a Lancaster bomber, in order to aid the allied invasion. I was struck by the posters still displayed, so many years later, everywhere in the villages in the area, expressing gratitude to those who had freed them: 'Merci a nos liberateurs'. Well, I'm not comparing our experience to five years of Nazi occupation but boy can I sympathise with their long lasting sense of relief now.
Alors: merci encore a nos liberateurs, et 'va te faire foutre' aux autres ...
Et vive la resistance.
An eerie silence has fallen over the neighbourhood, broken only by the sound of Tory party canvassers tiptoing past our house, in an attempt to dodge the bullets. Well, in truth, as the saying goes, I have no gun: but I can spit.
For five nights now, I have actually been able to sleep in my own bed, without fear of being woken up by the noise of a gang of louts next door at one, two, three in the morning. What bliss. Of course I do miss the Ikea camp bed in the kitchen, and the strangely hypnotic sound of the fridge and the boiler, and worrying about the thing that bangs on the living room door, and wondering whether it wanders about downstairs at night, and the nightmares and sleepless nights worrying about what on earth we are going to do - oh and the occasional sound of the Smiths and their yob friends vomiting out of their kitchen window.
The Angry cat is very happy to be allowed back to sleep once more in his rightful place on top of the pile of ironing in the kitchen and is also enjoying nipping over to the Smith's 'garden' to leave his own fragrant token of appreciation, with my blessing. As for the 'parting gift' thoughtfully left for us by the Sniths in the middle of the night, this is being retained for forensic inspection by the local CID (Crap on the neighbours' doorstep Investigation Department).It will then be forwarded to a more appropriate recipient, with our good wishes.
Mr Angry has at last today donned protective clothing, safety goggles, and a pair of oven gloves and sat down to read this blog in the privacy of the dining room. From the strange noises which could be heard from behind the closed door it was impossible to distinguish whether or not he was laughing or crying.
The Angry son and daughter don't quite believe it is all over: actually, nor do their parents, and of course it may not be, if Barnet decides, as it has repeatedly stated, that it will not rule out placing another family with the outrageously behaved owners of the neighbouring property. So far the owners have not shown up at the house. I would like to think that they are too ashamed, but I doubt it.
I think it will take weeks, if not months, before we actually stop twitching and jumping at every sound in the street, thinking the Smiths have rolled up again in their car, slamming the car doors, the front door, constantly in and out, running about the house yelling abuse at each other, fighting, swearing, Mrs Smith threatening her kids with a whack, screaming at them, the boys screaming abuse back at her. Wonder what her new neighbours make of them all? Of course, bearing in mind the nature of the place they have gone to, it may well be that Tracey Smith is ringing up to complain about the people next door. Wouldn't that be amusing?
I don't think we will ever be the same family we were before all this started. It just went on too long, and had too profound an impact. I bitterly regret the effect this has had on all of us but particularly on my children's lives and I can't forgive those responsible for creating and prolonging the situation. The fact that some of them are standing for election as Conservative party candidates this coming week is just too much, and if this blog has persuaded just one person not to vote for these fools it will have been worth it.
Someone has asked if Mrs Angry will now become more temperate. Funny. Maybe. But not yet, Mr S. There are a few things that need seeing to first.
I want compensation from Barnet Council for all the distress the last sixteen months has caused us, and the lasting damage not just to us, but to the value of our home.
I want Barnet to be forced to acknowledge the need for a proper boroughwide antisocial behaviour policy, put into practice by a fully resourced and specifically designated team of officers, and effective procedures for identifying and reporting ASB.
I suggest that there needs to be a review of the way in which the council works, or fails to work, with the police in combating ASB, and improved working practices which will help support the victims of such behaviour rather than the perpetrators. The emergency police response can be improved by as, suggested in a recent report, an improved system of identifying and prioritising calls from the victims of long running ASB cases, and some way of redistributing calls to SNTeams off duty is necessary too.
Barnet Council has already admitted messing up the complaint we made to them in regard to our situation, and the way it was being handled: this 'mess up' unnecessarily and severely prolonged the distress we endured and it seems evident that a review of the way in which they deal with complaints is urgently needed. Also evident is that our experience of the mishandling of Freedom of Information Requests is not in any way unique and appears to be symptomatic of a disturbingly inefficient management of data and information, to put it politely, and don't you agree, DCMD? Let's hope that a new administration, or perhaps the Information Commissioner, will order a full review of this issue too.
It's hard to explain how it feels right now to be liberated at last from the tyranny of the Smiths and their hangers on. I think we are still in a state of shock: or maybe post traumatic stress disorder.
A couple of years ago we were in Normandy, and visited the D Day landing beaches. and other WW2 sites, including a guilty trip to Caen, flattened by the efforts of Mr Angry senior and a Lancaster bomber, in order to aid the allied invasion. I was struck by the posters still displayed, so many years later, everywhere in the villages in the area, expressing gratitude to those who had freed them: 'Merci a nos liberateurs'. Well, I'm not comparing our experience to five years of Nazi occupation but boy can I sympathise with their long lasting sense of relief now.
Alors: merci encore a nos liberateurs, et 'va te faire foutre' aux autres ...
Et vive la resistance.
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
What is antisocial behaviour?
What is antisocial behaviour?
From a legal point of view, according to the Crime and Disorder Act of 1998, this is defined by:
"Acting in a manner that caused, or was likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress to one or more persons not of the same household (of the defendant)" ...
To a certain extent, therefore, the perception of what constitutes ASB might be said to be a subjective one, as what causes distress to one individual might seem acceptable to another. And seen in isolation, many of the incidents which amount to ASB may seem relatively trivial, hence the difficulty at times in getting police and other agencies to respond quickly and effectively to what theoretically is a minor misdeameanour. The important thing to realise is the cumulative effect of a series of such incidents, and the devastating impact that this can have on victims.
Unless you have the misfortune to experience personally a situation like ours, you probably imagine that antisocial behaviour takes place in a world far away from you, on a council estate, a city centre late at night; places you never go to and never think about. At least, if I am honest, that is probably a fair representation of my own attitude before all this began, at the beginning of 2009.
Since then, our family life has been turned upside down. In fact, it is not an exaggeration to say it has been totally violated by the continual intrusion of the neighbouring household's violent, reckless, and utterly dysfunctional lifestyle: perpetual domestic conflict, open drug abuse, drunkeness, intimidation and a complete disregard for the effect that their behaviour has on anyone else.
Our children have been continually exposed to the most appalling behaviour and constant obscene language, by which I don't just mean swearing - I mean foul, abusive language used by the neighbouring household as a weapon, an expression of violence within their own family. Obscenities used as abuse, as a perverse form of communication, as punctuation, verb, adjective and noun; used casually or deliberately, the constant use of violent language in every possible context expressing a view of the world as one of utter contempt, alienation and emotional disassociation.
As well as the vile language, our children have had to listen to endless arguments, fights, the frrequent sound of a mother 'whacking' her sons, or threatening to. They have heard a woman apparently attempting to kill her partner, watched a hoodie standing in front of the window brandishing an eight inch kitchen knife, acting out a stabbing, seen yobs jumping into our front of our home making obscene gestures at us, been woken up night after night by the sound of yelling, swearing, fighting, mucking around, one, two, three in the morning, anytime.
Our children have had to try to study for GCSEs in a house where almost no room is safe from this constant racket, as well as deal with the immense anxiety they feel after living for so long next to such a frightening household. Their schools have had to be informed about the 'problem' and they in turn have had to inform the exam boards in case of the detrimental effect on their performance.
On the plus side, their education has been unexpectedly broadened as a result of living next to this family, their numerous lodgers, asssociates and casual callers, and given them an expert knowledge of drug abuse: apart from smoking weed they now know how to use a bong, snort coke and so on. Is there a parent who wouldn't be grateful for that extracurricular experience?
The effect of living like this on my husband and myself has had, not surprisingly, a deep impact on us both. I have had to have medication and counselling for stress, my normally robustly healthy husband, after months of struggling to go to work on little sleep after a night of continual noise and disruption, ended up in hospital with a chest pains and then pneumonia: me, I have now spent four months sleeping on an Ikea camp bed in the kitchen, which is the only room on the house where I know I can sleep without being woken up by noise from next door.
This sort of behaviour has been going on for a year and three months now.
Apart from the disruption, day and night - the house, due to its multiple occupancy, is never empty - we have been sworn at, spat at, laughed at, had rubbish thrown in our garden, and dumped in our wheelie bins, continually intimidated by the large numbers of yobs who attend the property. We have lost count of the numbers of times the police have been called to attend some incident or other, or sat in our front room listening to us pouring our yet another tale of grief as a result of the never ending situation.
Because of course we have, since the very beginning, done all the things you are supposed to do: involve the police and the local authority. We have never retaliated in anyway, despite severe and constant provocation. We have kept, as instructed, endless incident diaries - more than a dozen volumes worth. I weighed them recently: nearly a couple of kilos worth of misery for our family. We were given them by the police, and they were theoretically for the use of Barnet Council's officers when legal proceedings would start. Ha.
Where has doing as we were told for so long got us? Bloody nowhere. Despite all promises, we are still here, they are still there. Why has their behaviour been tolerated by the authorities, after months of being told that ASBO proceedings were inevitable?
Incredibly, and in stark contrast to all well run local authorities, Barnet Council does not have any antisocial behaviour officers. It used to have one, but guess what, despite the growing awareness of the problem of ASB and the need to get tough with it they decided to delete the post last year. Barnet's Tory administration, you see, are not exactly on message with David Cameron's latest worries about 'Broken Britain'. They are obviously still catching up with his earlier and much appreciated 'Hug a Hoodie' idea. Instead of an ASB officer, there is a PIT, a small team responsible for every little irritating local problem from abandoned cars to dog crap. Oh and ASB, when time allows.
So you can imagine, perhaps, how we were left in this mess for so long, and when we began to kick up a fuss about lack of action, a new thought was put to us. The household which was causing all this trouble might be better served if, instead of being punished, they were given 'support for their needs'! Of course, our needs are irrelevant, because we are middle class and expected to put up with this crap and behave ourselves, and we do. What a mistake that was.
More tomorrow.
From a legal point of view, according to the Crime and Disorder Act of 1998, this is defined by:
"Acting in a manner that caused, or was likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress to one or more persons not of the same household (of the defendant)" ...
To a certain extent, therefore, the perception of what constitutes ASB might be said to be a subjective one, as what causes distress to one individual might seem acceptable to another. And seen in isolation, many of the incidents which amount to ASB may seem relatively trivial, hence the difficulty at times in getting police and other agencies to respond quickly and effectively to what theoretically is a minor misdeameanour. The important thing to realise is the cumulative effect of a series of such incidents, and the devastating impact that this can have on victims.
Unless you have the misfortune to experience personally a situation like ours, you probably imagine that antisocial behaviour takes place in a world far away from you, on a council estate, a city centre late at night; places you never go to and never think about. At least, if I am honest, that is probably a fair representation of my own attitude before all this began, at the beginning of 2009.
Since then, our family life has been turned upside down. In fact, it is not an exaggeration to say it has been totally violated by the continual intrusion of the neighbouring household's violent, reckless, and utterly dysfunctional lifestyle: perpetual domestic conflict, open drug abuse, drunkeness, intimidation and a complete disregard for the effect that their behaviour has on anyone else.
Our children have been continually exposed to the most appalling behaviour and constant obscene language, by which I don't just mean swearing - I mean foul, abusive language used by the neighbouring household as a weapon, an expression of violence within their own family. Obscenities used as abuse, as a perverse form of communication, as punctuation, verb, adjective and noun; used casually or deliberately, the constant use of violent language in every possible context expressing a view of the world as one of utter contempt, alienation and emotional disassociation.
As well as the vile language, our children have had to listen to endless arguments, fights, the frrequent sound of a mother 'whacking' her sons, or threatening to. They have heard a woman apparently attempting to kill her partner, watched a hoodie standing in front of the window brandishing an eight inch kitchen knife, acting out a stabbing, seen yobs jumping into our front of our home making obscene gestures at us, been woken up night after night by the sound of yelling, swearing, fighting, mucking around, one, two, three in the morning, anytime.
Our children have had to try to study for GCSEs in a house where almost no room is safe from this constant racket, as well as deal with the immense anxiety they feel after living for so long next to such a frightening household. Their schools have had to be informed about the 'problem' and they in turn have had to inform the exam boards in case of the detrimental effect on their performance.
On the plus side, their education has been unexpectedly broadened as a result of living next to this family, their numerous lodgers, asssociates and casual callers, and given them an expert knowledge of drug abuse: apart from smoking weed they now know how to use a bong, snort coke and so on. Is there a parent who wouldn't be grateful for that extracurricular experience?
The effect of living like this on my husband and myself has had, not surprisingly, a deep impact on us both. I have had to have medication and counselling for stress, my normally robustly healthy husband, after months of struggling to go to work on little sleep after a night of continual noise and disruption, ended up in hospital with a chest pains and then pneumonia: me, I have now spent four months sleeping on an Ikea camp bed in the kitchen, which is the only room on the house where I know I can sleep without being woken up by noise from next door.
This sort of behaviour has been going on for a year and three months now.
Apart from the disruption, day and night - the house, due to its multiple occupancy, is never empty - we have been sworn at, spat at, laughed at, had rubbish thrown in our garden, and dumped in our wheelie bins, continually intimidated by the large numbers of yobs who attend the property. We have lost count of the numbers of times the police have been called to attend some incident or other, or sat in our front room listening to us pouring our yet another tale of grief as a result of the never ending situation.
Because of course we have, since the very beginning, done all the things you are supposed to do: involve the police and the local authority. We have never retaliated in anyway, despite severe and constant provocation. We have kept, as instructed, endless incident diaries - more than a dozen volumes worth. I weighed them recently: nearly a couple of kilos worth of misery for our family. We were given them by the police, and they were theoretically for the use of Barnet Council's officers when legal proceedings would start. Ha.
Where has doing as we were told for so long got us? Bloody nowhere. Despite all promises, we are still here, they are still there. Why has their behaviour been tolerated by the authorities, after months of being told that ASBO proceedings were inevitable?
Incredibly, and in stark contrast to all well run local authorities, Barnet Council does not have any antisocial behaviour officers. It used to have one, but guess what, despite the growing awareness of the problem of ASB and the need to get tough with it they decided to delete the post last year. Barnet's Tory administration, you see, are not exactly on message with David Cameron's latest worries about 'Broken Britain'. They are obviously still catching up with his earlier and much appreciated 'Hug a Hoodie' idea. Instead of an ASB officer, there is a PIT, a small team responsible for every little irritating local problem from abandoned cars to dog crap. Oh and ASB, when time allows.
So you can imagine, perhaps, how we were left in this mess for so long, and when we began to kick up a fuss about lack of action, a new thought was put to us. The household which was causing all this trouble might be better served if, instead of being punished, they were given 'support for their needs'! Of course, our needs are irrelevant, because we are middle class and expected to put up with this crap and behave ourselves, and we do. What a mistake that was.
More tomorrow.
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