A rather heated night in the Town Hall last night at OSC at the Call-In of the executive's decision to massively increase charges of child care by around 25%, meaning a real cost increase for some parents of up to £50 per week!The reasoning behind it was really quite laughable (if it was not so serious!) eg."by putting our prices up private providers look more attractive!". Non of the reasoning made any sense and was quite ridiculous after just setting a 0% increase in Council Tax and cutting over £2M from thew Childrens' Services Budget!
The Lib Dems and Tories were, of course, all whipped in a "non-whipped Committee" to vote the referral back motion down forgetting of the Parent Governor Rep who voted with us making 4-4 with Fiona as Chair having the casting vote so we sent it back!! A great result and hopefully the Executive will give more thought to what they are doing before they do it? ( mind you I am not betting any money on it!)
My only slight regret on the night was that I had the chance of seeing Franz Ferdinand at the Hammersmith Apollo last night but passed on it to do my duty!! DOH!!!
I spent the weekend with the "Alderman" as I call him Ian Driver, and we explored the Cinq Ports and visited Dungeness and Derek Jarman's place and went on a funky miniature railway which was fun!
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