An amusing tale...

An amusing incident... Met a chap shopping who went to Oxford Uni then did another degree or masters or something at Dundee Uni.
He was lecturing his son about Romanticism.
He said that "the Romantics included Shelly who wrote Frankenstein and it's Arts way of providing an emotional reaction to the world without any rationale or logic behind it." (He couldn't use simple words of course, it was against his nature and pride after all that expensive education... he didn't want to sound common in his trendy and artistically torn expensive tweed jacket and cordroy trousers.

I almost said, "so killing people for no reason is logical is it, via science, politics and banking and social reform etc?"
Nooooo, Art has never said anything useful has it?

Instead I asked what he had studied at Uni. He snapped back "Art".
I asked his son what he wanted to be when he was older.
He said "An engineer"

I pointed out that good design was down to Art.
"Of course," his dad said, pompous git that he was he didn't much like talking to poor people despite him saying otherwise.
I stopped short of adding that "if you really study Art you will know that absolutely everything is influenced by the designs of nature, and is usually down to the fibonacci sequence which mathematicians unravelled to spoil the mystery for us all." but I didn't.

You get a better class of scum in Waitrose.

It was probably some butler doing emergency shopping for some toff or politician who is even more stupid than he was.

You only get higher class stupidity the further up the social ladder you climb.

BTW: I am not saying ALL highly educated people are niave, ignorant and dangerous to know.as this chap, though I could be wrong. I am so often you see, being so poorly educated as I am.

The Arts were NEVER made for the rich to buy or profit from. They have always belonged to the poorest and most desperate and they will always be it's rightful owners in my honest and extremely biased opinion.

Founders Thoughts: Double edged swords

When it comes to anything to do with the community, be it volunteering, charities, public services or social enterprises there is always a difficult equation to get right. As the services involved effect us all and are the backbone to our sophisticated society we simply cannot do without them, but funding them is (to some minds at least), akin to shredding money and throwing down the waste disposal unit.

There is no limit to what could be spent to help remedy such issues as poverty, crime, health, education and unemployment, hence any accountant is averse to there not being a cap on spending for them all. What price though should be put on these services when it is in all our interests to make them as effective as possible? I would argue that if we want the best of services we have to invest in them more if we are to ever hope to achieve a healthy, well educated society with no homelessness or unemployment.

Where our taxes get allocated is difficult enough without it being compounded by the knock on effects of a recession. How would you choose between homes, health or education? If you just chose to bankroll those three where would that leave our emergency services who have also suffered from massive cuts to the extent that all three are having to scrabble around for staff and some basic resources in order to function at all e.g. equipment not being replaced when it has reached the point of being unrepairable and there are even rumours of fire and ambulance stations closing.

"Why not make them charities?" said one person to me this week. While the ambulance and fire services could be turned into charities (we have the precedent with mountain rescue, air ambulance and the RNLI), I don't think we should, and especially not when it comes to the police! Even so, the difficulty in financing these services does not go away.

When cuts are necessary, I don't believe it is wise to make them by getting shot of staff and particularly not the front line staff as they are the nuts and bolts of any operation. Far better to reduce hours and enter into job shares so that no one need end up being made redundant. In some ways recessions are good for decision makers as it forces people to spend wisely, of it should do. It neatly highlights what the priorities are and what are the essentials to any operation to enable it to function; hence downsizing to a smaller office and pooling resources through collaborations as well as finding more economical suppliers all help.

Lessons in education

Some sectors are hampered in being able to share resources though due to what I'll call governmental rating systems e.g. education. Ofsted is necessary in order to ensure that standards of education are upheld but recently this has led in some instances to some underhand practises from some educational establishments in order to secure that only the most adept students are taken on so that their Ofsted rating never drops. I heard of some schools going as far as sending out invites to the parents of the most successful GCSE students to get them to switch schools for their A levels. Such practises are not new, but it does highlight the negative side of governmental ratings.

While it is quite common for secondary schools to share some facilities with middle and junior schools it is far less common for them to do the same with other secondary schools and colleges. Who loses out? The students. It's almost unheard of for councils to pool resources and although the health service does try to it's far more complicated when some hospital facilities are so specialised and totally impractical for other hospitals to borrow. You can hardly expect them to be able to loan out an MRI scanner as at any point it might be needed in an emergency.

Loaning facilities and equipment is possibly the only way to survive in these times of austerity while finances remain so limited. I would advise networking like never before to maintain good standards of service. It's something that most charities, volunteer and social enterprises are adept in and accustomed to. What remains concerning though is how they are currently being forced to think more and more about funding streams at the potential risk of neglecting service delivery because of the sheer amount of time it takes up.

in my opinion, overall profit should not be the goal and top priority of any service for the community, services should be. Nothing wrong with aiming to make them all self-sustaining, but let's be honest, if we want to live in a world where we all have full access to any and all the services any of us might come to need most services will need subsidising at some point. If we don't won't we be in danger of losing them and if that were to happen wouldn't the problems merely escalate? We are all participants and customers when it comes to community services. How much poorer our lives would be without them and how much more difficult ordinary life would be.

Most alarmingly I recently saw a report this week about how business sponsorship was stretched to its limit now. As I've said before, the same amount of money must be around somewhere from 10 years ago, it can't simply disappear - unless it was never there to begin with. I can only hope that is not true as we could end up undoing all that has been ethically good that we should be proud of. Our nation has worked extremely hard over the last 100 years to get this far with regard to improving the quality of life for everyone living here, it would be to our eternal shame to let it slip or go to waste as aside from all else it helps make our nation economically stable and well... great!

Article: Skills of the future

In the early 1980s I was involved in typesetting. Back then full colour screens and certainly pictures were not commonly available to most businesses; your business was considered advanced and state of the art if it had green and black screens instead of white and black, but at least floppy discs for storing information had arrived instead of cassette tapes. Mobile phones too were just being introduced and were heavy cumbersome things that few could afford and instead of Internet we had fax and answer phone machines.

It meant that everything that needed to happen had to be done at a much slower pace and in a much more manual fashion. Go back a little further in history and typesetting itself was a process of laboriously physically collecting each individual letter to make up words and sentences to produce a page of text - it was called hot metal as that's what the letters were usually made from. The skills required to run any operation in any industry were extremely diverse.

As technological advancement changes so skill requirements to enable businesses to function and survive do. Take as another example weaving and textiles; in the 19th century it was done by people working at home before the industrial revolution brought about mechanised processes. Whole ways of making, producing and functioning periodically change with the result that many manual skills get lost and forgotten. A wholly handmade pair of shoes made by a master cobbler is today regarded as an artisan product and the prices of them reflect the time and craftsmanship as well as the rarity of them in our use for five minutes and throw away modern world. They stand out as being different from what is commonly available precisely because they are not mass produced.

The question that crosses my mind is that by focusing on being able to produce things en mass and do things with ease are we in danger of losing out on many of the pleasurable things in life that enhance the quality of our existence? To just press a button to make things happen is hardly stimulating work and it can lead to all manner of problems if that button doesn't work as the mechanised process grinds to a halt and that then impacts on profits etc. In addition we might well be in danger of failing to develop a myriad of skills by becoming fixated with technology alone.

Today few people have knowledge of what is actually happen when a switch, lever or button is operated; they take it for granted that it will just work and that if it doesn't someone else will fix it. With many modern systems though there are no cogs to align, no wheels to grease, it is mostly down to knowledge of computers, electronics and electrics to kick start things again. 

The inherent problem with such sophisticated systems is that the more complex they are, the more points of failure they will have. It is hardly surprising that those who are particularly adept in computers, programmes and electronics are among the most highly regarded professionals of all due to their sheer usefulness in ensuring things work in our modern world. Certainly if you are involved in technology of any form you are unlikely to find yourself long-term unemployed compared to other aptitudes of skills. What though, does the future hold for those who are not computer orientated and what will the future hold for their skills?

There are of course many other areas which will never become industries of the past; from health care to education, from farming to construction and from plumbers to law enforcement. However the way in which they all work is becoming much more technologically reliant and that could prove to be a problem because if we do not equally value the non-technically orientated we could (and I would argue already are) missing out on the development of many other areas of skill which are not so heavily reliant on technology. 

A person can be taught things without the aid of computers, a better yield from crops can be achieve without them and as yet there is no substitute for the a person knowing by  through experience whether a person is ill or if they are trying to cover up a crime. There is great value from learning how to achieve things via different means, but in our push-button world we will soon not know how to?

Could we function if we had no technology now? Without any clear and viable alternatives to current energy sources which are finite, if the plug were pulled out so we had no electricity supply how would we be able to function at all? Such is the major pitfall of becoming so push-button reliant. That reliance even extends to our spare time and is already throwing up new problems with people simply not knowing how to socialise because they are continually plugged into a computer.

Technology at is best should always aid us, but it should never govern who we are, how we choose to function or what we do next. We should be commanding it and not be dictated by how it operates.

I recently read that children as young as 9 have 'better' (i.e. more advanced) phones than their parents and knew how to use every facility on them. I found that rather sad to reflect on because if the pace at which we work continues to increase, what time will they have to enjoy the planet that sustains their existence and what experiences could they be missing out on? New prejudices are already set to develop against those who are not interested in technology. Are we as a species about to embark on a split between one half of us becoming technophiles while the other half are manual workers. Many would argue we already are and it's certainly been a recurring theme of many a sci-fi story. Historically such differences in aptitudes have fed into the conflicts and been the basis for class systems. So in the future will it matter less how you are educated but matter more what you are educated in for you to make your way in the world?

The fact remains we need both brains and brawn in order to survive and progress, but my concern is that while I see plenty of hype and praise of all things technological, I see little by way of support for other skill bases which are the bare essentials to all of us being able to function at all. There are a lot of non-technical skills which are responsible for maintaining the real infrastructure by which we can have our wonderfully diverse structure. For this reason, while I am a fan of technology myself, I think we would be wise to invest more in ensuring we have future generations to still, farm, build, install electrics, look after our water supply, heal the ill and educate us all. To be blunt in my opinion, we cannot afford not to. 


   

Founders Thoughts: Voluntary and apprenticeship magic

The trouble with anything purporting to be magical is that magic comes in two forms - good and evil, so whether you are interested in signing up for voluntary or apprentice schemes is best to be aware of what should be the benefits and how to reduce the risk of the pitfalls. That applies to candidates as much as enterprises and organisations. 

Voluntary vehicles

With voluntary positions, the aim is to for the enterprise to gain an extra pair of hands and for the volunteer to gain from having a new experience. Unlike apprenticeships there is no formal training requirement and there are no wages whatsoever, although some expenses (e.g. travel, meals and where applicable accommodation) are sometimes offered. Expenses are not compulsory for enterprises to pay, but it is advisable if you wish to retain good volunteers to secure their continued interest and loyalty.

The whole area of the voluntary sector is riddled with challenges to overcome and grey areas such as how do you run a voluntary organisation when you cannot hold people to a contract when they are volunteering for you? How can you maintain consistency of service and/or product delivery with a high turnover of staff that continually need induction training of some kind and who can say, "I'm sorry I can't (or won't) do that task." The answer is to employ key personnel and pay them a wage, but that is not always possible. The Citizens Advice Bureau for example is a charity that is staffed almost entirely by volunteers from all walks of life.

Volunteers though can become dissatisfied because of the lack for formal training, a structure to their expected duties and opportunities for qualifications which the organisation may simply not have a budget for. However, to gain an insight to new job roles; to hone or gain new skills or confidence or to simply make new friends it can be an invaluable and profoundly rewarding experience.

Local Community Volunteer Services (CVS) can play an important role in helping to match interest from prospective volunteers with the skill needs of the enterprise. However, it remains the responsibility of the organisation to be clear and adhere to what they can offer and be diligent in ensuring that they are organised when it comes to making contact, with volunteers and keeping them them informed.

My own experiences echo this for as a former manager who helped to develop volunteers I recognised the importance of listening to their interests for development so that it became a exercise in negotiation to ensure a happy mix of something for them, and something from them for the company. However, as former volunteer I have had a couple of negative experiences due to expectations that I would go beyond what I had offered for free with no pay, but mainly due to the length of time it takes for some organisations to get back to me as to whether they needed me or not. Not good, fortunately though the majority of organisations offering volunteer work do not behave that way. Most of the time I am happy to report no such problems whenever I have taken on voluntary work.

Who uses volunteers?

Voluntary positions can be on offer from just about any type of industry regardless of it's legal structure these days. If you are an employer please be aware that as much time and effort in terms of pre-planning and monitoring is required to be in place for volunteers as much as any paid member of staff. If you doubt that, ask any social firm. Social firms specialise in offering as many opportunities as they can to disadvantaged people. Do not confuse them with social enterprises who may or may not do the same.

The motivation behind why an individual wants to volunteer is extremely varied and so you'd be wise to tailor duties to those requirements. I personally frown on any organisation that uses volunteers (and/or apprentices) as a cheap source of labour not least because it can all too easily lead to a devaluing of their contributions to the whole operation and to society. Without such people many organisations simply wouldn't be able to exist, function or survive including some rescue services such as mountain rescue, RNLI and Air Ambulance.

Recommendations for Volunteers

If interested in volunteering I recommend you do a bit of research on the organisations you are interested in beforehand. Organisations can range from charities, social enterprises, councils and as well as many private enterprises. If you don't know if an organisation welcomes volunteers, phone up and ask and quiz them about what they can offer as standard to volunteers; what benefits they could offer specifically for the role(s) they want volunteers for and what level of regular commitment is required in terms of your time.

Most organisations have websites for your to contact them direct (ideally by email so that you get things in writing), but many of them these days will only take volunteers via a CVS, the VSO (Voluntary Service Organisation) or similar organisation. The aim of these organisations is to encourage volunteering, but also to ensure that both parties are a match where at all possible and all are only too willing to help.

The sorcery of apprenticeships

In common with volunteers, sadly there are some rather nasty employers who view apprentices as a source of cheap labour whereas the intention is to provide people with formal training via apprenticeship schemes. Originally apprenticeships consisted of being paid a living wage and several years of training. It could be argued that for some professions they have never stopped, e.g. medical, legal and financial professions whereby it can take seven years before one is fully qualified.

Modern apprenticeships differ as they are geared toward training people for a shorter period of time and combining it with qualifications which it is hoped will always be an asset to the individual to help them to secure a living wage. Though apprentices get an income, it is not enough for them to live independently unless supported by other means e.g. benefits. 

Most schemes run in conjunction with colleges or universities so that the theory and some practical experience is covered by the college leaving on-the-job training to the employer. While there are some rules and some forms of assessment regarding the employer's part in training, they are not generally geared to be as measurable as educational establishments, which is how employers who have no intention of offering even a useful work experience can take advantage.

While schemes run by education providers will ensure there is an employer already signed up offering work experience, they can only do so much to ensure that experience is to a high standard. Employers, may or may not have affiliations with a particular college, much depends on the nature of the apprenticeship itself. Qualifications may be deferred to later on in the apprenticeship e.g. after company induction training has been completed. Both training providers should have clearly defined structures, aims and objectives and should adhere to and deliver them.

Assuming that all goes well for the duration of the apprenticeship, by far the biggest pitfall for apprentices themselves is whether or not there is a job offer at the end of it at the going rate with the company they have worked with. Perhaps that should be incorporated as a mandatory requirement for all apprenticeship schemes so that at the end of the training process a secure job of at least one year is offered upon successful completion which could either be part or full time. I believe apprenticeships should be looked upon as in depth and intensive probationary periods for new paid employees, after all is that not original intent behind all such schemes?

True magic

Voluntary and apprenticeship experiences can be wonderfully magical and rewarding for all concerned. Regrettable isn't it, how the few can mar even the best of schemes to ruin the good works and dedication of so many. That's not to say there is dishonour in companies who offer apprenticeships every year and who seldom employ afterwards, but the hope is that some of those apprentices are securing employment from them afterwards. Candidates should be bold and ask what percentage of people secure related paid work upon completion before deciding upon which scheme to sign up for.

In theory if the employer's enterprise is viable it should be progressing and therefore recruiting new staff from their apprenticeship programmes as for them it is a sensible way to ensure that new staff are moulded to their way of working while benefiting from essential training at reduced costs. Intelligent employers should be factoring in contingencies for hard times well in advance in their projected forecasts which should always be taking into account trends as well as the overall economy; therefore they should be able to say with confidence that a job would be on offer if the apprentice performs well enough i.e. passes.

Whether you are an employer or a candidate interested in these opportunities, it pays to do your planning and research first. All work relationships that are effective are based on a mutual agreement that not just should, but will benefit both if handled correctly.

Article: Are grown up politics on the agenda?

I was reminded this week of a well documented and reported case of Institutional Neglect where an estimated 1,200 died due to (as the investigation found) cost cutting measures taken in order to meet government targets. The cost cuts were made to staffing levels and in training and the industry in which this happened was health care - Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust 2005-8. I believe it's since improved enormously due to additional support from government. Does that mean deaths have to occur again before government will assist?

Alarming to think how recent that was, and alarming to think what might be happening right now as a result of so many cuts to community and public services. A different government it maybe but the same high risks are there. The same questions have arisen over the Winterbourne View abuses in August of this year.

The cuts have also hit charities, advice services, benefits, councils (who provide a vast range of community services from refuse collection to housing as well as being involved in the provision of educational and social services), and all three of the emergency services - fire, police and ambulance. Don't be surprised if rescue services cannot attend in time when cuts have meant a reduction in equipment and resources all three services want to attend fully equipped, but... If you are contemplating riots though, think again. The police are not the hardest hit, the ambulance service is so if you get injured... good luck.

Meanwhile financial services seem to have found the money to continue to advertise the latest 'must have' products and services such as personalised credit and debit cards and extortionate rates of lending for short term loans e.g. 3-4000% APR interest rates among other things (that means for borrowing £1 you could end up paying £4001.00 unless of course you can pay back early). They strike me as insensitive at best but mostly out of touch with the majority of their consumers - the latter example seems hell bent on profiting from other people's misfortune. I have never fathomed how usury could be legal, but apparently it is; nor can I fathom how it can be legal to have such advertisements on television in an age when ads for smoking is quite rightly banned as detrimental to well-being.

While Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust will undoubtedly have no choice but to learn from it's mistakes, it seem less likely that big business ever will. The drive for consumerism has reached obsessive levels it seems regardless of whatever suffering maybe happening in the world outside of the commercial world. It's almost as if there is a growing belief that any and all hardship are just nasty myths to spoil commercialism's fun.+
Perhaps what is even more alarming is the charting of government responses to serious issues such as child abuse cases, discrimination and equality as it's only really in the last decade or so that much has been done, but boy, what a flurry of activity there's been. Here's just a few examples...

• No Secrets Guidance 2000
• Every Child Matters Initiative 2002-3
• European Convention on Human Rights Act 2003
• Children Act 2004
• Mental Capacity Act 2005
• Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006
• Mental Health 2007
• Health and Social Care Act 2008
• Common Assessment Framework for Children & Young People 2009
• Working Together to Safeguard Children Guide 2010
• Health and Social Care Bill 2010-11
• Equality Act 2010
• Protection of Freedoms Act 2012

It's as if our governments (for they've changed in the last 10 years) are on a catch-up spree with what has been widely reported and known by professionals and communities for years. I'm not complaining that it is at last happening though. these laws apply to every single individual working within any and all sectors involved with the provision of services for others. It's a serious commitment and yet the wages for the average person working in these sectors remains below the national average. By contrast if you are a business, Employment Laws, particularly the Equality Act 2010 and Health and Safety Laws are the minimum you need to know about. Perhaps governments in the future will eventually also get round to penalising and amending laws to reduce bad practises in businesses as vigorously as they do social and health care and come to understand what the majority of honourable businesses need to be able to function.

I've noticed on twitter that ethics are rapidly becoming a 'must be considered factor' in governmental policy making now. Disgusting that it should have taken this long to get to be on the agenda if that's the case. Perhaps if it had been factored in earlier we might have averted another global economic crisis. Maybe in this decade, new laws will not only finally catch up with what is required to protect the vulnerable, disadvantaged and basic human rights, but also aid businesses and encourage an increase in ethical practises there too.

Most significant of all would be a change from governments that instead of catching up with the rest of us, are ahead of us in anticipating what we will need so that instances of institutional negligence and financial crashes become less likely due to laws being brought into effect in time to prevent such things ever escalating to such woeful proportions. One can but hope, but there's a snag with all this.

While different parties continue to concentrate their efforts on bickering and slating each other I fear we will continue to get no where useful fast. In addition, while some legislation such as the above is undoubtedly beneficial, other edicts have proved counter productive and led not only to people feeling their can't or shouldn't do things for themselves but that they are safer in legal terms not to do so. A simple example: Some organisations will sack staff if they use a fire extinguisher to put out a small fire in a bin as having a building burn down is less damaging to their reputation than risking staff injury. It's as if we are heading for an age whereby none of us will do anything unless under license from the government. Costs can be recouped for a burnt building through insurance in a lot of cases after all.

More or less legislation?

For me, it is not a question of whether we have more or less legislation, but a question of whether or not the legislation is of value. Sensible legislation that empowers rather than debilitates us all from being able to function and develop regardless of which sector we work or are involved in is, in my opinion wiser than legislating on every issue that arises. We should amend and create laws that help protect, secure and safeguard our goals to work, live and co-exist in harmony and safety, but not have laws that restrict or discourage our ability to work things out for ourselves as it can all too easily prevent and prohibit progress.

Sooner or later, (though probably not in my lifetime), I would like to think that politics and democracy itself will have a major overhaul for as it stands, changes of government seem to invariably lead to more confusion, u-turns in approaches of the management of vital services when they should of course just be evolving and developing for the benefit of all.

It is why whoever is in power these days invests in independent think tanks. However, given that each political party employs different 'independent' thinkers one cannot help but question if they are independent at all. Is anyone devoid of political bias? Does the party in power actually follow their recommendations or only as and when it suits their own political agenda? In short I feel we need more agreement from our all our politicians these days rather than discord. Why is it that our focus is continually on our differences instead of what we all have in common as human beings?

Having think tanks in place now, begs the question... shouldn't we be electing the think tankers rather than politicians? Perhaps we should be thinking about dispensing with political parties in order to force them to collaborate for the common good. Would it not be better to elect individuals according to their expertise and comprehensive knowledge as even within political parties there is disagreement.

For most people politics has become a mix of who has the most convincing rhetoric at any given point over any issue or a question of which personality appeals; but is that how it should be? Policies, when they are revealed, never seem to go into detail about how they are to be implemented. Is that what we want to be voting for in the future?

Just a pondering - I have not reached any firm conclusions myself yet. Collectively though I believe we could do better than what I have witnessed so far during my lifetime and, so long as our emotions and private agendas don't cloud what could be fairer for all regardless of whether we are rich, poor; healthy, ill; working or not, I believe it should and could be possible.