Fighting Dodgy Local Employer

I’ve just had the third piece of casework about an alleged dodgy employer on Lordship Lane.

The employer apparently hates paying their staff wages. Suggestion they employ illegal immigrants, and other allegations. To ensure when leaving you get paid your wages staff book holidays and then have to fight for their holiday pay. One’s not taking this approach owed many hundred of pounds. Generally not rich teenagers being exploited. This is exactly the sort of dodgy business behaviour that gives free enterprise a bad name.

I’ve contacted the local “dodgy” business person about one case and been blanked. They’ve always been very vocal to me about issues that bother them but suddenly silent. No response. The silence feels damning.

If you find yourself in this position – tell me. If I get more casework I will feel obliged to go public.

You can also follow this step by step guide, amending things with your details, to try and resolve things if you have this problem:

Send the following letter to the employer by recorded delivery.

“Dear Ms xxx

Re: Letter before action for non payment of wages

As you are aware I was employed by yyyyyyyyyy from xx to xx.
My last working day was xx
Despite numerous efforts to converse with you I have yet to receive a response as to why you have failed to pay my outstanding wages and holiday pay as follows:

– detail wages owed
– detail holiday pay owed.

This may well be an oversight on your behalf.

Please can you pay the outstanding amounts within the next 7 days.

If you do not pay the outstanding amount within the seven days I will commence proceedings against you in the employment tribunal.

I look forward to your response.

Yours faithfully ”

If you get no response after seven days you need to start the employment tribunal process

Three points regarding the employment tribunals:
1. Needs to be within 3 months of the last day of employment.
2. First stage is to contact ACAS for early resolution mediation which may resolve the issue if not they will provide a certificate. Need for next stage.
3. Fees – whilst employment tribunals require a fee of £160 to lodge a claim it is possible that as a student or low wage earner you could be below the monthly income threshold and exempt from paying.

If it gets this far you may want to seek Southwark Citizens Advice Bureau help.

Either way never let a rogue business person rip you of.

Southwark Children Health Exposed

In 2012 I exposed the debacle of Southwark Council not ensuring through inspections that all Southwark schools have safe food hygiene. Then a number of schools had shockingly low food hygiene scores and real issues to fix. Things have been improving. Or have they.

You can see Southwark school current food hygiene ratings here: http://ratings.food.gov.uk/enhanced-search/en-GB/%5E/%5E/Relevance/7845/528/%5E/1/12/10

Currently we have:

1 x 2 * The play shelter Ltd, Snowfield Primary School, SE1

4 x 3* Surrey Square Primary School, SE17, St.Anthony’s RC Primary Schoo, SE22, Pembroke College mission, SE17, 1st choice day nursery, SE1.

15 x 4*’

98 x 5

But the following schools have not had any food hygiene inspections for some considerable time (over two years). The recommendation is yearly as children as young as 4 can not shop around or spot bad food hygiene practices. That a third of such schools have had no inspections to ensure they’re still providing safe healthy food for Southwark young people is shocking. I’m shocked at the rapid return to food hygiene complacency of Southwark Labour.

4*’s – school name – date of last inspection – not inspected for over 2 years

London Christian School, Porlock Hall, SE1 3RY 4 July 2012

Drummond Road ,SE16 6EE 13 September 2013

London College of Communications Student Union 30 August 2012

 

5*’s – school name – date of last inspection – not inspected for over 2 years

Comber Grove Primary School- 5 March 2013

Bacons College 14 March 2013

Bright lands 27 Jan 2011

Southwark College, Keens Road 24 Jan 2013

Harris Boys East Dulwich 25 Sept 2013

Dulwich Village CofE Infant 24 Feb 2012

Crampton Junior & Infant 13 July 2012

Pupil Referral Unit, Davey St 25 Nov 2014

St.Michael RC school 13 March 2012

St.Paul Primary School 3 July 2012

Tuke School, Daniel Garden? SE15 6ER 13 November 2010

Notre Dame RC girls school 118 St Georges Road SE1 6EX 11 December 2013

Haymerle School 17 May 2011

Highshore School 19 July 2012

Allen’s School 5 July 2012

Oliver Goldsmith Primary School, 83 Peckham Road, SE5 8UH 29 March 2012

St James the Great School 1 November 2011

Dog Kennel Hill School 26 January 2011

Boucher CofE school 26 November 2010

JAGS, 144 East Dulwich Grove 17 December 2010

JAGS, 2 Dulwich Village 23 January 2013

London Southbank University 23 November 2010

Newlines Schools, 14 March 2013

St.Francesca Cabrini school 15 February 2011

St.Georges CE school 27 November 2013

Snowfields Primary School 19 July 2012

Townsend Primary School 28 November 2012

Young Parents Education centre 17 September 2012

 

 

London Bridge Station – missed opportunity

I can’t express how disappointed I am that the new London Bridge station re built platforms are just as low as the previous ones. The very large gap between platforms and trains still remains on terminating platforms that are straight. Network Rail don’t even have the excuse of curved platforms on the terminating platforms.

This is so weird. It costs almost exactly the same whatever the platform height.

Campaigners have been told by Network Rail that they couldn’t get a straight answer from the Dept. of Transport to make a decision to have level platform. So they erred on caution in their opinion and replaced like with like platforms of the same low height.

Why is this so important?

Level access to trains means people in wheelchairs, with pushchairs or just a bit less able can easily use our local train services. It means staff don’t have to be assigned to placing mobile ramps and helping people get on and off trains. It also means the speed at which trains can be turned around is greater. Able bodied people can get on and off of trains much more quickly.

 

Haberdasher’s Comes to Southwark

I am delighted that Haberdasher’s Aske’s have applied to open a new co-ed secondary school in Southwark SE1.

When their application to open a school fell through in East Dulwich I helped introduce Haberdasher’s to the parents in SE1. They’d approached me for advice about making a secondary level free school happen. So I’ve now been involved in making five free schools happen.

Haberdasher’s have the highest ambitions for our Southwark children. Exactly the type of school provider we wish to add to all our other excellent school providers in Southwark.

 

Selling School Land

Southwark Council is twisting the arms of Albion Primary School to sell a significant part of its site. With that money the school will be rebuilt. The rebuild will I’m sure be lovely. But the principle is alarming. At the same time Southwark Council is spending millions on expanding schools that could be fully funded via the free school route.

The school governors and management appear positive and happy about these plans. And I wholly agree with single form entry schools becoming two form entry schools. Two form entry schools are more viable. Although already an Ofsted outstanding school with it’s extra size it will have the ability for more teacher specialisation.

But if this school was any where but inner London and Southwark the idea of halving the site would be ridiculous. The idea that a Southwark Council primary school would need to sell so much land to have decent new buildings would be anathema to the school and parents.

Which state school will be next for this treatment?

 

School Food Hygiene – Still A Problem

sfhrsweb5I’m really chuffed that my expose of shockingly low school food hygiene standards two years ago has crystallised into massive improvements. But their is still more that needs to be done.

Southwark’s 118 school, nurseries and colleges now have 95 x 5 stars, 18 x 4 stars, 4 x 3 stars and 1 x 2 stars – and that school has asked for a re-inspection and talking to them I think will do much better.

Lambeth is now trailing behind Southwark on this with of its 99 schools 85 x 5 stars, 9 x 4 stars, 2 x 3 stars but 2 x 1 stars Major Improvement Necessary. This is still shocking and I’m sure The London Nautical School and Wyvil Infants primary School must be planning to sort this out. They are imperilling children’s health.

1 star

 

If you’d like to see your child, grandchild, niece, nephew school food hygiene rating search here for Southwark and here for Lambeth.

North Cross Road Improvements

So works are finally underway to improve the junction of North Cross Road with Lordship Lane.

NCR_LL Junction Improvement Scheme Proposals

It should dramatically improve the entrance to NCR, slow traffic and improve the look and feel of this gateway into our local street market. It will also reclaim some dead space from Lordship Lane from cars that don’t use it to pedestrians who will use it. Lastly, the bus stop currently doesn’t work – with parked cars blocking buses getting to the kerb. The two car parking space are being relocated and buses will be able to pull in properly.

Do you know any other spots where we could reclaim road space that isn’t used for pedestrians?

New East dulwich Primary School – Planning Permission

Next Tuesday 14 July the Planning Committee will decide whether to grant planning permission for a new Harris East Dulwich Primary School.

I hope they do. The council planning officers recommendation is to grant permission. You can see the full report here.

I have written in support of the scheme. But I have asked for the Planning Committee to leave the proposed kerb buildout on Handcraft Road for the Dulwich Community Council to decide. Council officers have asked for the kerb to be increased from 2.1m wide to 3.5m and for 55m. This is clearly ridiculous and no other local school has such a vast area outside one of its entrances.

A separate application to demolish the current structure has also been submitted. They plan to start demolition on Wednesday 5 August.

Fingers crossed for next Tuesday.

The Future of Democracy

The recent UK general election was the most unproportional UK election of all time. When only 66% of the electorate bothered to vote and just 36% of the people who voted, voted for the winning party. It is hard to stomach radical changes from a political party with only 24% of the total electorate voting for them.

In fact just 16% of UK voters say they trust us politicians. I’m pretty tired of hearing “you politicians are all in it for yourselves”, “you’re all the same”, etc. For the record we’re not. Most politicians I’ve met are really decent public spirited local residents who want to improve things.

Clearly we need electoral reform to start changing these perceptions but winning parties in the UK are unlikely to allow this unless they feel it’s in their interests. A real Catch-22.

In the short-term a Lib Dem Lord Jeremy Purvis is proposing a new Constitutional Convention Bill about how we thoughtfully consider how we run our country – the system we vote under, House of Lords, etc. Fab. Long overdue. I suspect tories will sink it at the first opportunity but you can but hope.

Longer-term how do we make voting easier and the number of issues voters can influence far higher. In Scotland we’ve seen how passionate the referendum became and how high the turnout resulting. Locally we’ve seen huge interest generated by a junction being changed – Townley Road/East Dulwich Grove.

The flip side to this is the huge increase in support for campaigning groups, online petitions. 38 degrees is a great example of harnessing people power.

It was one of the reasons I signed-up to MyMP2015. It feels a logical extension to making myself so available on the EastDulwichForum and trying to get a step increase in how people can participate in decisions.

But with the internet how much more participatory could we be?

One successful mode is Podemos the Spanish political party. They use a mix of offline citizen assemblies and online forums so all members can get to shape party policy. Expanding this to a council or parliament would give everyone a say in how our country in run.

What do you think? How would you shape our

GP Services

NHS Southwark Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) makes all the decisions about GP services. The CCG is a club of all Gp practices across the borough – replacing what was previously called the PCT.

They’re investing £2M in GP services but are they doing it in the right way?

They’ve created two hubs for overflow GP appointments. One in Bermondsey Spa to cover the north of Southwark and one in the middle at the Lister Primary Care Centre covering the south of Southwark.

The assumption is patients don’t care where they can be seen by a GP. That GP practices will never have sufficient appointment slots so sending patients elsewhere means GP practices don’t have to plan so thoroughly.

if you think this doesn’t make sense please email your thoughts to the CCG consultatoon manager – l.ing@nhs.net

you our can also tell her what services you think should be on the new Dulwich Hospital replacement facilities.