Union opposed private finance for NHS
Letter of the week: Adrian O’Malley, chairman, Mid Yorkshire branch of Unison
Dear Sir,
I read with a mixture of anger and disbelief your Letter of the Week from self-proclaimed ‘Tory rabble rouser’ Mr Alan Carcas of Liversedge.
I have never met this individual who apparently knows me well enough to say that the Private Finance Initiative is the policy of my “revered Prime Minister and Chancellor Gordon Brown” and that PFI has been introduced “thanks to the stupidity of people like trade unionist Adrian O’Malley because I bet Unison thought it was a brilliant idea at first.”
For your readers and Mr Carcas’s information I can proudly say that our Unison branch has been actively opposing PFI for over 15 years when it was first invented by the then TORY government as a way off keeping public spending “off the books.”
It is to Labour’s eternal shame that they adopted PFI and other pro big business and privatising policies into the NHS which has resulted in the job losses currently taking place within the Trust.
Rather than revering Gordon Brown I condemn him for squandering billions of pounds which should have been spent on developing the NHS.
I will send Mr Carcas copies of the numerous letters we have sent to Government ministers, local MPs and trust managers opposing PFI and calling for the new hospitals to be built with public money.
We are also calling for the re-nationalisation of the PFI contract now that the main financiers of the contract, the Royal Bank of Scotland, has been bailed out by taxpayers and is over 80 per cent publicly owned.
Can we take it that now that Mr Carcas’s Tory rabble are back in power he will support us and help us ensure that £40 million is not syphoned from the Trust every year into the private sector’s coffers?

Mail meddling
From: A disgruntled postal worker
Dear Sir,
I would like to draw your attention to the diabolical ways in which Royal Mail management are enforcing new changes to deliveries, whether its workforce and, more importantly, the customer like it or not.
It would appear that these more recent ways of making savings have become less about ‘saving money’ and more about lining the pockets of the overpaid management who come up with unreasonable ways of driving forward ridiculous changes.
Meanwhile they (the alleged and rather faceless decision-makers) sit on a rather nice bonus for saving the company a few pounds on a job they have never done, and never will do, in their lives.
Why do we also have managers who agree with delivery staff in terms of how idiotic the changes are and yet still push through the changes?
They just toe the line even when the enforced changes don’t work.
Why can’t managers be allowed to manage their own individual office? Let managers manage rather than pander to the egos of those higher up the food chain.
Most delivery staff will agree that occasionally change is needed to invest in new machinery or make savings but change for the sake of it every few months is madness and will damage customer relations.
It will damage customer relations because it makes delivery spans longer and pushing delivery times back further and further will not only hinder the company as a whole but play into the hands of rivals.
These companies will not think twice about making earlier deliveries and Royal Mail’s loyal customer base will flock there if they get a better service.
There would also be the potential for experienced staff jumping ship leaving Royal Mail with too many part-time staff, who will still expect - somehow - their duties to be prepared for them by full-timers.
There are not enough full-time staff now as management are set on reducing the number of full-time contracts rather than cutting management.
If this company is intent on pushing through changes without consulting its frontline staff or listening to customers then a great British institution will disappear quicker than you could wave a privatisation stick at it.
Delivery staff find out what the customer wants.
Customers prefer early deliveries – before school runs – when they are actually in and don’t have to wait until Saturday morning to collect a parcel from the nearest office.
Surely, with the introduction of new sorting machines, Royal Mail would profit from going back to an earlier delivery?
Maybe that would instil confidence not only in the customer but also in frontline staff who would not only be happier in their jobs but better too!

Trust police?
From: Paula Miller, Dewsbury
Dear Sir,
My heartfelt sympathies go to the family of Ian Tomlinson, a decent working class man who was knocked to the ground by a masked cop while other police officers with batons and attack dogs looked on. He then died shortly after.
Although Ian was video-taped being beaten and knocked down currently no charges have been brought against this cop.
The reasons are the disagreement between pathologists about the cause of death and a six month time limit on some assault charges.
Well I’m one member of the public who thinks the coroner’s office and prosecution service should have worked to a time frame that would have allowed an assault charge to remain an option if murder charges were not appropriate given the evidence.
We need to get in touch with the government and tell them Dewsbury people expect them to contact the Tomlinson family and send their respects and ask if they can help.
Sadly it seems all our politicians are so immersed in their own careers, image, and expense accounts we cannot expect them to be so decent by themselves.
And who suffers most as a result of this government indifference and bureaucratic incompetence?
Working class families in most need of help, and vulnerable children such as baby P who was reliant on a social services that were not there, a policeman that never arrived, and a government that was simply too late.
Sadly for Mr Tomlinson this seems to be the case again.
Our society is not broken – it is slowly decaying.
We need to wake up and get our government moving.
If we cannot trust the police to be on our side, and not working against us, what hope is left!

Birkdale pride
From: Greg Lambert, Dewsbury Moor
Dear Sir,
I’m pleased that people are getting behind Birkdale High School. To be honest most people (including me until recently) still have a bit of a poor image of the school which is not deserved any more.
They still refer back to GCSE results from years ago when they talk about a failing school, but that all changed a while ago.
I have no connection to the school at all, but I want them and the pupils to have a fair crack of the whip.
If public opinion is taken into account when they’re thinking about closing schools then I hope people have got the right facts at their disposal and don’t judge Birkdale on its past reputation.
From the details and results I’ve been reading about, it’s not the same school any more.

A place for our hidden treasures
From: Name and address supplied
Dear Sir,
I’m writing to express my anger about the future of Knowl House in Mirfield. The council have denied they’re going to sell it, but there’s no smoke without fire.
I wouldn’t want it to fall into private hands as whoever buys it may not have the interests of Mirfield at heart. I’d rather let the Walker family have it back instead.
The covenant should protect Knowl House from sale, but in the event that it doesn’t the money Kirklees gets for it may not be spent in Mirfield either.
It would be a blow on top of losing council jobs to Huddersfield or somewhere else at a time when employment is hard to come by following the recession.
But I’ve always thought that using Knowl House for ancillary council services was never the best use of the building anyway as it’s not open for all the public to use.
If catering and cleaning are moved out of Knowl House I’d like to see it turned over for Mirfield residents to use in some form that’s more in keeping with the covenant.
One idea could be for an art gallery as I believe Kirklees, like many councils, have hundreds of paintings and sculptures in storage that people never see.
I’ve long thought that such a magnificent old building, complete with lovely grounds, would make a nice setting for the many treasures Kirklees keeps hidden.
It would get people from Mirfield and all over visiting Knowl House in a way they don’t at the moment and the idea might pay for itself with a shop and cafe.
But I suspect the looming cuts mean such ideas will never come to fruition, short of a lottery windfall. The main thing is Knowl House should not be sold off.

Thanks for
your generosity
From: Wendy Senior, Dewsbury
Dear Sir,
I would like to thank everyone who put money into my collection tin in aid of the Help for Heroes charity.
Thanks to their generosity I have been able to send a cheque for £100 to the Headley Court Rehabilitation Centre to help soldiers wounded in Afghanistan.