Report comment

'what we currently have which is a budget-centric arbiter awaiting the instance where cost hits a threshold that justifies ruining three lives to avoid using a few extra social worker hours per week.' Anonymous.
This sums up the tenor of some other comments, and is another justification, if it were needed, of the contempt I feel for Council officials, especially Directors and suchlike, who take on (not 'are given') responsibilities which, they then protest when they are attacked for failures, they do not have sufficient funds/staff to perform. Do they resign? Have Directors of Children's or Social Services, who hold vulnerable lives in their hands, ever jointly protested loudly and publicly, accusing named politicians of not providing enough money merely to ensure as nearly as possible that no child is suffering whom the proper exercise of their responsibilities would save - perhaps coupled with a threat of joint resignations if their needs are not met? Have elected Councillors, with whom the buck really stops, beaten down the doors of their national counterparts, who are so ready to pounce on these failures, despite being themselves responsible for the paucity of funds that is mostly responsible for them? Have those Councillors calculated how much they could divert to meet this shortfall by ceasing less essential, even though desirable, services? Of course not, especially not the last, which is entirely in their hands. I have puzzled over 40 years what kind of mean and twisted mentality makes them think it's fine, eg, to keep spending on (often things I enjoy) cutting the grass in parks, prettifying 'their' neighbourhoods, running sports facilities etc, when they know there are children and other vulnerable people, for whom they are supposedly responsible, suffering because shortage of funds means shortage of facilities and staff, including the readiness to off-load their responsibilities onto front-line staff who are numerically incapable of fulfilling that responsibility. While the population, as well as Ministers and news media, is unjust in its apparent delight at throwing the blame on them, they share the blame through also not combining to reject responsibility for more clients than professional standards prescribe.