PDE column, 30th March 2009 – Music tuition cuts, NHS living wage, Clergy hospital visits, BA maintenance, Big Lottery fund

Music Tuition cuts

Despite mounting criticism, Renfrewshire’s SNP led Council stand by plans to reduce music tuition to once fortnightly and axe 7 full-time-equivalent staff. As support against the cuts gathers pace, I’ve set up an online petition against this http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/rcmusic09/.

By forcing kids to look elsewhere and for those who can afford it to go private, we are undermining the chances of this and future generations. When we hand over the pleas from concerned parents and pupils, I hope councillors who could find more than 8 times the cost of the music instructors to build up balances – will now have the good grace to think again.

Please sign the petition.

Disappointed At Scottish Government Response to NHS Living Wage

I am disappointment at The Scottish Government’s refusal to accept Labour’s proposal to introduce a living wage for all NHS workers of at least £7 per hour.

The NHS is Scotland’s biggest employer with over 165,000 people on its payroll. According to Scottish Government officials, 7,867 of those workers earn less than £7 an hour.

UNISON’s Scottish Regional Secretary Dave Watson also welcomed the idea to give a living wage to the final, small groups of low-paid health care staff who carry out vital services for us all.

A minimum of £7 per hour would tell employees at every level of the health service how much we value them and making work pay and I believe everyone would benefit from this policy.

The Scottish Government could implement this policy tomorrow if they wanted to as the financial commitment involved is less than a tenth of one per cent of the overall health budget and could be delivered without taking a single penny from frontline services.

Putting more money into the pockets of the lowest paid workers would be another reason for Scots to take pride in the NHS.

Clergy Hospital Visiting Lists

I am concerned to learn from the Paisley & Greenock Presbytery of the Church of Scotland of the withdrawal of clergy visiting lists from local hospitals including the RAH.

Currently local ministers of various faiths have been able to visit their parishioners whose religion has been identified on admission. The churches are dismayed at no prior consultation or warning and wish to ensure that the spiritual care of patients in hospital remains a high priority for those requiring that particular comfort. The reason given for the withdrawal apparently is Data Protection but I hope that some solutions can be found and have written to the Chief Executive of the Health Board on the matter.

British Airways Maintenance at Glasgow Airport

Next month British Airways Maintenance Glasgow proudly passes a major milestone in its history when they complete work on their 200th Airbus. I was pleased to attend their ‘200th Airbus Presentation’ recently at the British Airways Maintenance Base at Glasgow Airport. BA’s Chief Executive Willie Walsh along with senior Airbus personnel celebrated with the Airport based staff – but the undoubted show stealers were the children from Bushes Primary School in Paisley who were involved in a competition to design a poster and logo to commemorate the occasion. Well done to Emily Muir who won 2 free flights to London for her winning poster.

The Big Lottery Fund
Many congratulations to local Company Kidd’s Distribution Services Ltd (KDS) winning an excellent £285,000 Big Lottery Fund award. This will enable them to run a number of training academies where people will learn everything from Attitude and Motivation future planning through to customer service and interview techniques. Upon completing the course they will be matched with potential employers. This Lottery grant is one aimed at supporting the efforts in tackling unemployment. More than 200 long term unemployed adults across Scotland will be supported to find work.
So I urge local companies and organisations out there to consider whether they could apply this year coming? Application forms are now available from www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/prog_peoples_millions and the deadline for submitting them is 15 May 2009.