Tucked away on page 30 of the first CP of the new year was the heartening news that the Council's Children's Services has hung on to it's Ofsted rating of "adequate" (2/4).
Commenting on this fulsome praise the responsible cabinet member, francophile Cllr. Alain Wells - clearly a fan of either Edith Piaf or Norman Le Mont - said he was heartened by this "recognition" and that the challenge was now to continue this "improvement".
Unfortunately, while he has been "consolidating" his position, the rest of the Country has been moving on, and the 75% of councils are now "good" (3/4) or "excellent" (4/4), leaving yet another important service on the Isle of Wight dropping into the worst quartile nationally. Only 5 councils in the Country are scored worse than us.
This has been achieved by the usual formula - inept and incessant buggering about at senior level (four heads of children's services in three years) - coupled with a continuous diversion of resources away from front line service provision to fund back office consultants, fat cats and spin doctors.
The Manifesto is oddly quiet when it comes to vulnerable children, perhaps judging rightly that in a society which gives several times as much to the RSPCA than to the NSPCC it's not much of a vote winner. When things go tragically wrong, however, it can certainly be a very big vote loser.
Manifesto score? 0% of nothing is still diddly squat.
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