Category Archives: Abolition Of Work

Jean-Franois Tremblay

Tuesday, July 4, 2017 22:28

UPDATE Tuesday, July 4, 2017 22:31

Look at this article

SAGUENAY | reorganization of units in mental health at the hospital of Chicoutimi is cringe unions, who complain of cuts to jobs and fear for the care of patients.

Nineteen vacant positions of nurses and auxiliaries will not be renewed. The other four positions occupied by nursing assistants are also abolished. In contrast, five part-time positions will be posted.

For the posts of assistants, the Centre intgr universitaire de sant et de services sociaux (CIUSSS) of the SaguenayLac-Saint-Jean has argued that he will attempt to retain the expertise of staff in the department by displaying other items. In the last year, 36 of the 56 mental health beds have been occupied. The directorate is preparing a medical team for 46 beds, as early as mid-September.

In the department of rehabilitation in mental health for adults, it removes the end of the week, two of the seven days work of a special education teacher who prepares patients to return home. There will only be one person full-time. However, the CIUSSS has added five days of social work.

The unions find it hard to accept that mental health is being hit again.

The respondent policy to the Alliances professional and technical staff of the health (APTS), Lynn Brie, said that this is a customer easy to touch, because it is vulnerable. Staff will make follow-up less intensive and will have to make choices about the care they receive.

The case of fugues in a hospital environment who have already made the headlines concerns the representatives of the staff.

The loss of hours in rehabilitation, to be effective on September 17. For the positions of auxiliary nurses, their abolition is expected somewhere in the fall.

Ms. Brie adds that it is no longer able to hear the speech that the cutbacks in health spending do not affect patient care.

The regional president of the Fdration interprofessionnelle de la sant du Qubec (FIQ), Martine Side, went a step further by arguing that it is necessary to take the time to work with this customer, but that it takes the world to do it.

Excerpt from:

Abolition of posts in mental health at the hospital of Chicoutimi - The Sherbrooke Times

MUMBAI: Abolition of octroi could result in saving of more than Rs 2000 crore and cut down freight time for trucks and commercial vehicles by at least 25%.

As many as 22 states have abolished their check posts since July 1 with the advent of GST. Tax rate on transport services has been increased to 5% from 4.5%, which will be borne by the buyer or seller of the goods whoever is availing the freight services; the latter can then lower final tax liability by claiming input credit. Also, a GST notification exempting registration of some of the associated entities would save transporters from a lot of paper work.

Less time, less cost "On an average we spent three hours waiting at the check posts and there was a lot of harassment. In addition, if there are any minor issues with the documents, there was delay of another 3 to 4 hours. And irrespective of whether the documents are in order or not, there was always some bribe to be paid to officials," Said Anil Vijan of G Shantilal Transport Company who operates a fleet of 80 trucks in the southern states. According to him, covering the distance from Mumbai to Bangalore, along with loading/unloading of cargo, should not take more than 18 to 20 hours, but all trucks had to wait for an extra 6 to 10 hours at the two check posts on the route.

Surjeet Singh Chawla of Chawla Road Lines who operates a fleet of 35 trucks on the Mumbai-Kolkata route had to deal with five check posts. "We expect to save one full day now," said Chawla.

According to industry circles, bribes at each check post was anything between Rs 200 and Rs 1000 per vehicle; the average time wasted was around 5 to 7 hours. Bribes added 3% to the total cost; delays stretched the travel time by 25-40%.

"Post GST, overall direct savings estimated for the operators is close to Rs 2000 crore which could lead to significant improvement in the return on assets ratio for ground transportation companies," said Sandeep Upadhyay, senior vice president, Infrastructure Solutions group, Centrum Capital. In the listed space, companies such as VRL Logistics, Gati and TCI are the major players in the segment. When contacted, VRL and Gati officials said that the development was a big positive but refrained from spelling out the gains.

Spokesperson for Bombay Goods Transport Association (BGTA), too said that the savings for the industry would be substantial and the state government too would save upto Rs 2000 crore.

Typically, a driver of a commercial vehicle putting in 12 to 13 hours a day covers at least 350-375 km. Long hours and hurdles on the way often made certain routes unviable for many fleet operators. As a result operators chose to limit services to specific routes.

More business for transporters Businessmen like Nilesh Rajpopat, owner of the Mumbai based Noble Industries which makes metal pipes, is exploring the possibility of tapping markets in other states. Thanks to discrepancy and complications related to various state taxes, till now he only dealt with buyers of a handful of states. If more like him reach out to buyers in other states, demand for transportation services is expected to rise. Rajpopat felt some of the railway freight traffic could move to roads.

Read more here:

GST Rollout: Octroi abolition may save Rs 2,000 crore, cut freight ... - Economic Times

Sir Stephen Bubb, former chief executive of the charity leaders network Acevo, has a long track record of advocacy for charities to play a bigger part in the provision of public services.

Although its never good to rush these things, its taken us almost one and a half millennia to work out exactly what charities are for. And we still arent sure.

We are a sector that delivers, campaigns, balances both, concluded Sir Stephen Bubb, who was thinking great thoughts about the future of charities after he surveyed their history in a lecture on 3 July at Oxford University. But, he conceded, their role in relation to government was still not settled.

Bubb, until recently leader of charity chief executives body Acevo, is essaying a way forward for the voluntary sector in his new capacity at the Charity Futures programme he has established. His lecture was an attempt to encapsulate the sectors story so far.

Starting in the year 597, when St Augustine founded The Kings School in Canterbury still a charity today Bubb demonstrated that charities have always delivered public services and campaigned for change.

Critics of charities latter-day engagement in the justice and penal systems should note that they were running prisons from the 12th century, he said. Critics of their political campaigning should note their decisive part in great social reform movements like the abolition of slavery.

Some of the best modern charities managed to combine both roles, he argued, citing the way the former Royal National Institute for Deaf People, now Action on Hearing Loss, had in the late 1990s campaigned forcefully and successfully for the provision of digital hearing aids on the NHS while continuing to work in partnership with state services.

While this showed it was a false dilemma to suggest that charities needed to choose between providing services and lobbying to change them, Bubb admitted that the sector had never fully recovered its sure-footedness in the former arena since the birth of the welfare state 70 years ago.

Charities have always delivered public services and campaigned for change

That singular advance of the state in service provision had given rise to the idea of subsidiarity that charities should do only those things the state did not, and where they developed innovative and proven ways of delivering services, those should become state services.

Bubb has a long track record of advocacy for charities to play a bigger part in the provision of public services. So his case against subsidiarity and for a return to what he called our good old English fashion, quoting the Duke of Wellington on the 19th century voluntary sectors clear dual role of service delivery and robust campaigning, needs to be seen in that light.

But other voices are also urging charities to make more of what they do and to be more confident of the effect they have.

In a survey by FTI Consulting for Pro Bono Economics, which enlists volunteer economists to work with charities, 81% of 1,100 members of the public said they would prioritise donations to charities that could demonstrate their economic impact.

Pro Bono said the finding showed the critical importance of being able to show and quanitify value in the post-truth era.

Julia Grant, chief executive of Pro Bono, said that by their own admission, many charities would struggle to demonstrate their impact on society in terms of hard evidence, but building the capacity to prove the importance of their work is crucial to their future stability and sustainability.

It goes almost without saying that Bubb was already on the case in his lecture. Charities spent 1,578 every second improving lives and supporting communities, he calculated. And that included animal charities rescuing 800 stray cats every week.

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Charities can deliver services and campaign robustly - The Guardian

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Happy Independence Day a holiday we owe to the visionary signers of the Declaration of Independence back in 1776. From the youngest to the oldest - Edward Rutledge was only 26 years old at the time and Ben Franklin was 70 - the signers were people who took the long view. They thought in terms of the distant future; in terms of years and generations, not news cycles. Because of their long view, their leadership was transformative.

We would do well to learn from their example.

The remarkable 18th century individuals who gave America freedom were, like other great leaders who took the long view, people who never lost sight of their primary ideals and principles. Although they were never rigid compromise is always needed for effective democratic leadership they avoided distraction and petty entanglements. There would be no American democracy without them.

Models of people with long views are found in other times and places, as well. Perhaps the best known 20th century transformative leader is South Africas Nelson Mandela. His long view sustained him through 27 years of imprisonment until his vision for the country was actualized by the abolition of apartheid, and his election as president. Mandela stepped down from the presidency after one term, an act that led to praise from Americans on both the right and left sides of the political spectrum. President Obama and Charles Krauthammer both compared Mandela to George Washington for stepping away from power. Krauthammer wrote, Thats George Washington. That does not happen often in Africa or anywhere. He never took the power to his head. He never was intoxicated by it. And the example he set is extremely unusual and probably the most lasting to his country.

People who take the long view are not distracted by ego, power, or petty conflict. We need more leaders like that.

If you want to refresh yourself about the meaning of Independence Day and the value of long-view leadership, read Natan Sharanskys Fear No Evil and The Case For Democracy: The Power of Freedom To Overcome Tyranny and Terror. The first is a memoir of oppression in the Soviet Union, where Sharansky spent 9 years in prisons and gulag. The second book explains the beliefs that sustained him then, and which have motivated him since, in his work as an Israeli political leader.

Any discussion of contemporary leaders with a long view must include Aung San Suu Kyi, who became Myanmars leader in 2015, after 15 years of house arrest under her countrys military dictatorship.

None of these people is perfect. They were and are human, flawed individuals like the rest of us. What makes them extraordinary, and defines them as models of leadership is their ability to maintain focus on their values with patience and peacefulness.

Great leaders indeed, great human beings avoid distraction and petty conflict.

On this Independence Day holiday lets be thankful for Americas founders and their long view. Let us resolve to seek and support leaders like them.

See the rest here:

Independence Day: A gift of long-view leadership - Washington Times

The African National Congress, both as a liberation project and governing party, faces daunting challenges.

Changes in the strategic environment deamand a rethinking and deliberate balancing. The strategic rebalancing needs to give way to a dialogue over ideas to manage the multiple dilemmas that blight our national life, a stagnant (now recessionary) economy dominated by racialised cartels, and emboldened reactionary forces buoyed by electoral fortunes.

However, a culture of pornographic and unproductive factionalism has become all-consuming within the ruling party, forestalling an imminently cardinal engagement within the organisation, and is devouring the body politic of the sole instrument of African peoples emancipation.

At the heart of the internecine antagonism between the myriad factions is control over state institutions. The state is seen, by the contending factions, not as a site of production of history but rather as a site of accumulation.

The abolition of the colonial-apartheid system of governance and its attended institutions did not resolve the conflict between the social democratic idea, as expressed in the National Democratic Revolution, and the reality of largely racialised social divisions. A great deal of work remains to be done. There still remains an urgent need to achieve an estate of equal citizenship for the historically marginalised black, particularly African people, not just in theory but as a matter of socio-economic fact. Today this process of social democratisation, though advanced, largely because of deliberate policies of the African National Congress, remains incomplete.

We have no need for a litany of statics for the purposes of this intervention. The plain fact is that black Africans are vastly and proportionally over-represented among those who suffer the maladies and afflictions of social marginality in South Africa, however measured. African communities are among the most miserable, violent, and despairing places in this land of fabulous wealth. The prisons are overflowing with young African black men, rates of infection with HIV and other chronic diseases are unacceptably and terrifyingly high in African poor communities, African communities experience lower life expectancies, higher infant mortality rates, lower levels of academic achievement, higher poverty rates, and greater unemployment.

Thus, it is mind-boggling that in the midst of an acute socio-economic emergency, the party of that imminent son of our revolution, OR Tambo, should be bound hand and foot by unproductive factional intrigues. The factional fractures have become unbridgeable ideological chasms.

On the one hand, a faction much maligned by the white-owned media and the chattering classes, distinguished by its callous incompetence and a lackadaisical attitude towards public finances, has sloppily and belatedly donned itself with revolutionary garments.

On the other hand, we have a faction of cynical snake-oil salesmen who are wont on insisting that the National Democratic Revolution as a governing ethos can have no other function than to serve and safeguard the interests and economic-cultural domination of white monopoly capital, which they insist, astonishingly, is a figment of our imagination.

The net effect of these factional contrivances has been the incremental socio-cultural civic ex-communication of the oldest liberation movement on the African continent. There has been a marked demoralisation on the constituent elements of the National Democratic Revolution as expressed in the worrisome results of the 2016 local government elections.

As we deliberate in the policy conference, we must reassert the ethos of service to our disinherited popular masses. We must reject cults of personalities and unproductive factionalism that are leading our revolution adrift. We must categorically and boldly assert that white monopoly capital is the enemy of a sovereign people, and adopt policies that unflinchingly challenge power of the finance-industrial-resource white complex. Equally we must send an unequivocal message to the contemptuous philistine section that we lost our best sons and daughters in the struggle for to liberate this country. We will therefore not mortgage the inheritance of our forebears for defiled pieces of silver.

The primary role of the African National Congress, as the steward of civic cohesion, insurer of geopolitical integrity, guarantor of social progress, and a depository of historic experience, is to direct societys gaze to the effective truth of national redemption, commonly known as the National Democratic Revolution. This task must be undertaken with revolutionary moral clarity and energy. DM

Andile Lungisa is former deputy president of the ANC, Eastern Cape.

Read more here:

Factions and the Crisis of Power - Daily Maverick

In hisnew biography of Piet Mondrian, Dutch art historian Hans Janssen sets out to abolish the myth of the artist as recluse, ascetic being, and mechanical/unemotional figure slaving in his studio. Instead, he reveals the true nature of [a] man who embraced life, and was completely fascinated by painting.

Though Mondrian was, no doubt, a mysterious and elusive man, Janssen endeavors to draw a portrait of the Neo-Plasticist hero as a practical man, lessinfluenced by his belief in Theosophic philosophy or Goerthes color theory than his enjoyment of the company of women, love of music and food, and above all, abilities as an amazing danceran artist with a wholesomejoie de vivre.

In what is an impressive feat of research and scholarship into the life of Mondrian, Janssen takessome liberties in recounting the painters life, retelling parts of Mondrians story in the form ofvie romance andfictionalizing segments of the famed figures life based on plausible circumstances.

The most notable example of this may be a scene in which Mondrian is described as attending Josephine Bakers first performance in Paris in 1925down to his disappointment that she didnt dance the Charleston. There is no evidence that he did attend, [but] it is highly likely, notes Janssen.It includes passages like this, an invented dialogue with Henry van Loon in the section:

And this is the thing, said Mondrian. I hear that there was a young dancer with them, and no one knew what she would be doing. Charles developed a dance sauvage for her. He wanted her to appear scantily clad, or better still, wearing almost nothing, with just some pink feathers here and there, including at her wrists and ankles. That would nicely accentuate the suppleness of her body. She is apparently called Josephine Baker, and she is barely nineteen years old.

Nevertheless, Janssens biography of the Dutch master is riveting and eloquent. Here aresome of the tidbitsabout Janssens new, earthy Mondriangiven in this 625-page tome (120 pages of which were translated from its original, and form the basis of this article).

Piet Mondrian in his studio with (top) Lozenge Composition with Four Yellow Lines (1933) and (bottom) Composition with Double Lines and Yellow (1934). Paris, October 1933. Collection RKD, Netherlands Institute for Art History. Photo credit Charles Karsten.

At the tail end of WWI, Mondrian lived in Laren, Holland, and would travel from his home to his studio near Noolsewegevery day by bicycle (thats where he made Composition With Gray Lines of 1919). The book starts out, quite emphatically, by stating that Mondrian always enjoyed the bicycle ride, even when the weather was not good.

Granted, for a Dutchman, this is perhaps not so surprising.

Piet Mondrian, Composition with Grey Lines, 1918, oil on canvas. Courtesy Gemeentemuseum Den Haag.

Janssen makes an interesting case about the origins of his path-breaking art concepts:

Mondrians literal interpretationof reality was also reflected in his interest in the literal meaning of words, which may have been prompted by a mild form of dyslexia. His peculiar use of language resulted from this interest: plastic means, bringing to determination, abolition of position and proportion. Such terms and phrases, as he used them in Dutch, were the outcome of his tendency to take words literally.

Mondrian wroteextensively for friend and fellow painter Theo von Doesburgs journalDe Stijl.Through these writings, Mondrian would then come up with theories of a new plastic, or Neo-Plasticism.

Starting in1910 (and perhaps before), Mondrian worked as an assistant to Professor Reindert Pieter van Calcar (18721957) at Leiden University in the Netherlands. As a way to make money during a time of uncertainty in his art practice, the artist would draw bacteriological specimens in the laboratory for the professor. Van Calcar specialized in cholera and performed a lot of quantitative and experimental research. Between 1901 and 1920, researchers at Leiden were awarded three Nobel Prizes. Janssen argues Mondrians experience working at Leiden University had a tremendous influence on theoretical breakthroughs in paintinga strategy of looking, measuring, and experimenting with nature.

Mondrian has grown up to become a painter, but the need to expose the essence has induced him to seriously consider becoming a church minister, or a conductor, writes Janssen, though in general, the bookmakes an effort to downplay Mondrians interests in Theosophy and mysticism. But the artist was very much into spirituality. Although Mondrian developed a scientific method or approach to art making, hewas convinced that the creative process was directed and led by the intuitive, and driven by unknown forces.

In 1918, Mondrian contracted the Spanish flu, an epidemic that took more lives than the Great War itself, with deaths ranging from 50 to 100 million. It is believed that Mondrian caught the disease from his housemate Jo Steijling (18791973), a primary school teacher who was very close to the artist. Mondrianssymptoms continued for months. By December 1918 tens of thousands of people died of the influenza alone. Throughout this time, he continued to work on his paintings in his studioand this may have helped his art.

As he wrote to a friend in 1929, While I have had the flu I have noticed how concentrated one unwillingly becomes, and that the work is the better for it.

Piet Mondrian,Victory Boogie Woogie (1944). Courtesy the Gemeentemuseum.

After WWI, Mondrian returned to Paris where the city was slowly becoming a hotbed for creativity, experimentation, and partyinghe was huge fan of the Paris nightclub scene and frequented theboteswhenever possible. However, while in Paris, his lack of success gave him severe doubts, and made him think about finding a job as a waiter or a grape picker. Janseen notes:

From January 1920 he toyed continually with idea of throwing in the towel and going to live with his friend Ritsema van Eck, who had offered him accommodation in the south of France.You understand, he [Mondrian]wrote, that once I am convinced that it will be financially viable because of N.P. [neo-plastic] work, I shall be off. I shall simply pick olives in the South. I can earn 12 fr. [francs] a day there, and people live off that.

It is probably well known that Mondrian was a great jazz fan, and was obsessed with how people danced to the music, regularly going to clubs in Paris during the 1920s. What is perhaps not common knowledge is that the artist was also a fan of noise music.

In June 1921 artist Luigi Russolo premiered his performanceBruiteurs Futuristesat the Thatre des Champs-Elyses in Paris. Russolo created instruments he calledintonarumori, apparatuses that produced acoustic noises that were reflected in their names: screechers, growlers, cracklers, bleepers, cluckers, poppers, howlers, croakers. Although we dont know for sure if Mondrian actually attended Russolo performance in Paris, Janssen notes that he wrotea lengthy article forDe Stijldetailing how theintonarumoriallowed the creation for purely abstract form of music.

During his time in Paris, Mondrian often complained about having a lack of money, since he couldnt sell his painting. This fits with his artistic rep for austere, rationalistic abstraction, but it was far from being true.

Not only did he have support from friends like Ritsema van Eck and Jo Steijling who both bought paintings from the artist, he also had fairly affordable rent. The issue was that Mondrian was not very good with money and lived a somewhat lavish lifestyle: He enjoyed the finer things in life, and most of all loved going out to best restaurants in town: Mondrian knew all the restaurants where one could eat well.

In attempt to be frugal, Mondrian started cooking from home and found that he ate much better and more cheaply, but alas, he felt that his social was in the outs, finding himself at home and in the studio at all hours of the day.

Piet Mondrian with Broadway Boogie Woogie, New York, 1943. Photo by Fritz Glarner. Courtesy the Collection RKD Netherlands Institute for Art History.

Despite the image ofMondrian as a solitary, hermit of a man, he actually did enjoy the company of women. He would take women out on walks, to restaurants, and out dancing to clubs. As Janssen puts it in his book, he had an uncomplicated interest in women, one that was unusually intense but at the same time enlightened and honourable. He was also highly attractive to women, He lived simply, but took pleasure in the finer things in life.

Just how enlightened and honourable was he? He hadan affair with the much younger Lily Bles (19091982), the daughter of Dutch poet Dop Bles (18831940). In 1929 Dop and his daughter, who was a much, much younger 19 at the time (Mondrian was 57), came to visit Paris and stayed with Mondrian. Dop and Mondrian had known each other for some time and were good friends. Mondrian and Lily continued their affair for years. Mondrian asked for Lilys hand in marriage, but in a letter she wrote to him in 1932, Lily denied his request because she was looking for someone her own age.

Maybe one Mondrians best known secrets is his passion for dance. The painter enjoyed going out dancing with friends and took dance classes all throughout his life. And, according to Janssen, the dance enthusiast was obsessed with the Charleston, a popular dance movement in the United States during 1920s, named after the city in South Carolina.

Mondrian was drawn to the dance for its connection to jazz and visual and rhythmic aspects. All over the world, however, the dance was frowned upon because it was viewed as immoral, lude, and overtly sexual. As Janssen puts it, Moondrian felt compelled, in 1926, to give an interview to the Dutch press threatening never to return to the Netherlands if the ban on the Charleston was enforced.

Piet Mondrian: A New Art for a Life Unknown (Hollands Diep, 2017) was published just before the opening of Mondrian to Dutch Design: 100 Years of De Stijl an exhibition celebrating centennial anniversary ofthe founding of the art movement. The show is on view at the Gemeentemuseum in Holland, through September 24, 2017.

Go here to see the original:

1. MONDRIAN LOVED TO BIKE - artnet News

Image: Sam Boal

ITS NOT OFTEN that you find Sinn Fin and Fianna Fil on the same side of a political argument.

But that happened this week when Fianna Fils Shane Cassels suggested bringing back town councils just three years after they were abolished.

Having made his political bones on Navan Town Council before graduating to county council and then the Dil, Cassels is adamant that what Irelands towns need is further devolution of power.

With new Minister of State with special responsibility for local government, John Paul Phelan, open to reforming the system and to re-introducing some form of local councils, the idea could become reality.

What is a town council?

Town councils were the lower tier of local government and spanned the country from Ardee to Youghal, with 744 members sitting on them.

However, the tiers of government were not necessarily hierarchical. Town councils were able to exercise some functions within their areas parallel to those performed by the county council for the balance of the county.

This, Cassells argues, meant they were able to have a real impact on their towns. Speaking of Navan as he brought forward his bill this week, he said:

I was asked today at the press conference were the Town Councils nothing more than talking shops well if in the case of my own town council if the delivery of a 13 million theatre, new swimming pool and gymnasium, 68 acre park, enterprise zone and enhanced town core is the result of talking shops well then it is pretty effective one.

However in 2014, 80 town and borough councils were abolished as part of local government reform under the Fine Gael/Labour government.

The Local Government Bill, published by the then Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan, reduced the number of councillors by more than 40%.

It saw 4.6 million handed over to town councillors who did not run for election or did not get elected.

Why were they scrapped?

In the Putting People First document, the work of town councils was acknowledged.

Town authorities are well positioned to build and maintain good connections with local communities, which is particularly relevant in the context of possible concerns regarding lack of connection between citizens and local authorities, particularly in urban areas, with the continuing trend towards urbanisation in the context of increasing population and demographic diversity.

In principle, sub-county structures should facilitate subsidiarity, accountability and democratic representation but the degree to which these objectives can be optimised through the current arrangements is affected by weaknesses.

It goes on to say that town councils were an additional overhead on government services, that some of their work was duplicated and they lacked the scale necessary to be fully efficient.

The scrapping was called the most radical reform of local government in 100 years but left local politicians fuming. In Letterkenny, one councillor called Hogan an arrogant man.

In 2013, then deputy mayor of Letterkenny Tom Crossan told TheJournal.ie that town councils were necessary.

Letterkenny is the capital of Donegal and towns like it should be supported through town councils thats the point we wanted to make to him.

We have spent the last number of years pumping 300 million of investment into the town new parks, a leisure centre, a theatre. Were also the first town in Ireland to appoint a town gardener to decorate the town.

Why should they be brought back?

Across the spectrum, there appears to be broad support for bringing back town councils, with Sinn Fins Imelda Munster calling the abolition an unmitigated disaster.

The abolition of the town councils in 2014 was an unmitigated disaster for Drogheda. For all of the 80 towns that lost their town and borough councils. Drogheda is the largest town in Ireland.

What was the benefit of the abolition of the councils? It does not appear to have made much of a saving for the exchequer. The Department claimed in a statement prior to the introduction of the Local Government Reform Act 2014 that savings of 15 million to 20 million per year would be achieved through the abolition of town councils.

I requested information in a parliamentary question on the annual savings achieved each year since the introduction of the Act. The Department refused to provide me with this information.

I think it is high time that we re-established town councils.

Cassells agrees.

Centralising power in Dublin is not the best way to run the country. The Local Government reforms of 2014 left Ireland with the weakest system of local Government in Europe. We need local solutions to local problems. A new town council system, with real powers and resources, will help us achieve that. The Bill is a step forward in realising one of the key commitments in the Fianna Fil manifesto and the current Programme for Government.

A report on the effects of the reform is due this summer.

Under Cassells plan, the town councils would be reinstated in time for the 2019 local elections.

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Why is there a row brewing about bringing back town councils? - thejournal.ie

As you approach the Scottish Parliament from the Royal Mile, a modest curve juts out from the obnoxious angles. This camber, the Canongate Wall, is studded with 26 slates of Scottish stone each bearing a quotation from the Bible and scriveners of more questionable repute. Among them is the instruction to work as if you live in the early days of a better nation, etched on Iona marble and attributed to the novelist Alasdair Gray. The words are totemic for Scottish nationalists, a rallying cry heard often during the 2014 referendum. And why not? They bear the promise of national rebirth, of hope in even the darkest days.

Inside, where the SNP can not only work but legislate for a better nation, inertia reigns. MSPs have only just returned to law-making after a year without passing any bills except the budget; Ministers were otherwise engaged, seeking to parlay Englands Leave vote into support for Scottish independence. That didnt go entirely to plan and after a punishing reversal in the General Election, Nicola Sturgeon has graciously allowed that she might wait a while longer before pushing a second referendum. On Tuesday, after ten years of SNP government, the First Minister declared: We look forward to getting on with the job in the best interests of all the people of Scotland. On Thursday, Holyrood went into recess for the summer.

It is just as well. The Presiding Officers gavel fell on a parliament at its lowest ebb since reconvening in 1999. Scottish education is in crisis, embarked on yet another bout of tinkering masquerading as reform as surveys show literacy and numeracy rates across all levels, genders, and incomes stalling or tumbling. The Scottish Government is now abolishing the surveys, the third such metric they have withdrawn from because its findings were unpalatable. Schools are now light 4000 teachers, colleges 150,000 places and youngsters from deprived backgrounds are four times less likely to reach university. Since 2010, spending on education has been cut by more than 1bn.

Cancer referral waiting times are being met by only two of 15 health boards and accident & emergency departments continue to miss the four-hour wait target. Little wonder, since the Scottish Government has U-turned on a promise to cut junior doctors hours and left 3,000 nursing posts unfilled. A usually sober think tank warns Scotland could tip into recession any day now; a troubled IT scheme has delayed CAP payments to farmers for the second year in a row; and for reasons which even SNP MSPs struggle to understand, the government reintroduced the banned practice of tail-docking puppy dogs.

This is what politics looks like when everything must revolve around the constitution or go spin. And even that they can no longer do properly, forced to publish their second referendum consultation quietly on the last day of parliament, so unhinged were the public responses. A clanjamfrie of prejudice and paranoia, demands ranged from stripping English-born voters of the franchise to safeguarding against MI5 rigging the vote again.

Scottish politics has been poisoned by nationalism but, worse, it has been enervated by it. In the early days of our better nation, cynicism abounded about devolution. Holyrood was a diddy parliament with diddy powers and diddy politicians.Eventually MSPs decided that the country would only take them seriously if they took themselves seriously, and they embarked on a restless legislative agenda of land reform, repeal of Clause 28, free personal care, a new teacher pay agreement, abolition of tuition fees, and a ban on smoking in public places. There was still cynicism and resistance, scandals and rows but Scotlands parliament had finally grown up.

What changed, and there is no way to dress this up or wish it away, was the election of an SNP government in 2007. For the first four years, their lack of a majority and Alex Salmonds political nous, saw Holyrood rumble along much as usual, if in a less radical direction, with extra police, a council tax freeze, and cuts to business rates. But the SNPs surprise majority in 2011 made independence a live issue and, as soon became clear, the only issue. Other legislation did not stop, even if it slowed, but all became secondary to preparing for, holding, and campaigning in the independence referendum. At the same time, the single-mindedness that unites the SNP made for a parliament that was boorish and Politburish. Opponents were branded anti-Scottish and routinely accused of talking down Scotland; comically unrebellious backbenchers and Nationalist-dominated committees nodded along to most of the executives wishes.

The wages of Scotlands ten-year romance with the politics of identity are all around. Holyrood is now a proper parliament with proper powers and even the odd proper politician but it has a diddy government. For a nationalist party, the SNP is remarkably unambitious for the country it professes to love. Alasdair Grays injunction actually a paraphrase of Canadian poet Dennis Lee does not require the better nation to be near or even plausible; it merely tells us to strive in pursuit of improvement. The Nationalists seem to strive only in pursuit of independence and where independence looks impossible they seem not to strive at all.

Devolution has stopped working and will not restart until the SNP settles for a better nation on the way to an ideal one.

More:

Scotland needed government. It got nationalism instead - Spectator.co.uk (blog)

University leaders in England should respond positively and imaginatively to both the character and the outcome of the June general election. Students have become seriously electorally engaged for the first time in many years, anddelivered some remarkable results.

Fuelled by a deep commitment to human rights and internationalism, dynamically disseminated by social media, this engagement could well be set to grow.

June 2017 was the general election when the student and young peoples vote came of age, with turnout compared with 2015 reportedly up by one-third to 57 per cent. Undergraduate tuition fees were made into a central issue by Labour, whose manifesto pledged to abolish them. The party went on to win 43 of the 60 constituencies in the UK where full-time students make up 15 per cent or more of the adult population.

We tried to predict how students would impact the general election, and this is how we did

How should we respond to this new situation?

In relation to fees, we should press the government to take immediate action on several fronts. This Septembers introduction of fees for undergraduate nursing and midwifery students should be cancelled, and new places created. There is a proven, growing shortage of nurses and midwives.

These students are a special case. To earn registration, they must work 2,100 hours in practice. They undertake night and weekend shifts, and work and study over a 45-week year. The midwives must successfully deliver 40 babies before qualification. They perform highly useful, yet unpaid, labour.

It is already clear that the imposition of fees is deterring excellent, motivated candidates who would make first-class nurses. This is hardly surprising; the new system will impose a 30-year pay cut on the modest, hard-earned salaries of these key graduate health professionals. The new system will mean that typical debt on graduation will be 53,000-plus, yet the very top of the NHS Band 6 pay grade for well-qualified, experienced, frontline nurses is 35,577.

At this rate, take-home pay will be cut by 4.7 per cent, yet the real-terms debt will still increase as repayments will not outweigh the 3 per cent real interest charge.

The new policy is a disastrous brew; deterring new entrants; cutting the pay of societys most trusted professionals; putting a very large occupational group in high, long-term debt while doing almost nothing for the public finances. A post-austerity approach is needed, combining the abolition of fees with increased placements in the health trusts. This would efficiently deliver what the people want more high-quality nurses and midwives.

More generally, we should press to increase the threshold from which all student loans are repaid to 25,000, to take into account inflation since the threshold was first set. In addition, we should propose the elimination of the 3 per cent interest charge above the retail price index on student debt. A 3 per cent real rate of interest is most unfair. The 6.1 per cent headline rate from September will be widely considered a real rip-off. It should be replaced by the pre-2012 scheme where debt was subject to an inflation uplift and no more.

Another general election in the near future is not out of the question. We need to start work now on designing a fresh Higher Education and Research Act if needed. This should be an act that would provide intelligent regulation and sustainable financial support for a flourishing higher education system, rather than the current one that is hopelessly flawed with its failed philosophy and impossible intention of creating perfect competition in higher education.

A new government that can command a parliamentary majority to abolish undergraduate fees will need such an act. Such a government is a real possibility. Part of our non-party political responsibility to society is to work out feasible, funded practical policies that will help universities, whose progress is so essential for society, to thrive in the event of the election of HM Loyal Opposition and the enactment of its most memorable manifesto pledge.

The nature of Britains exit from the European Union was a significant electoral issue. Those wanting to shut down migration and international student education in the UK lost seats and standing. Ukip, with policies uniquely hostile to Europe and the countrys universities, met their electoral Waterloo. The new Parliament is more internationalist and supportive of higher education than its predecessor.

This welcome situation calls for a dynamic response from universities, including pressing with renewed vigour for the retention of the Erasmus+ scheme in its entirety or equivalent, plus a big extension of funds to promote international student mobility. We need a fresh, genuinely warm welcome for international students by the government, with new opportunities for post-study work visas. Continued access for British universities to European research programmes as well as to the European Investment Bank for financing long-term investments are key priorities.

Of course there are many other matters that need tackling. These include much needed investment in science, maths and computing, including a national programme to renew university science laboratories. A schools crisis looms. Our part in avoiding one, and helping schools to thrive, is to press for increased teacher training places, made on a three-year rolling basis, to encourage serious expansion and proper investment.

The outcome of this election indicates that a new national common sense and common purpose is being created. We should seize the time and face the future.

David Green is vice-chancellor and chief executive of the University of Worcester.

Link:

In the general election students told us a lot and we must listen to them - Times Higher Education (THE) (blog)

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Town panchayat officials stage demonstration The Hindu Periodical promotion to staff at various levels in town panchayat, washing allowance to sanitary workers, counselling for transfer, formulation of new work guidelines, abolition of new pension scheme, creation of new posts and introduction of 'equal ... and more »

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Town panchayat officials stage demonstration - The Hindu