It’s that time of year again, when Olton based amateur dramatic company, The Friary Players perform their annual community pantomime. Oh yes it is!

The Friary Players are an amateur dramatic group based in Olton, Solihull who perform an annual pantomime for the community. The cast consists of all ages of people from many different walks of life.

The performances are free to attend and money raised from donations, raffles and refreshments at the performances are donated to charity.

Many charities over the years have benefitted including Birmingham Children’s Hospital, Brain Tumour UK and Prostrate Cancer. This year the chosen charity is SoLO (Solihull Life Opportunities) who add value to the lives of children and adults with learning disabilities across the Borough.

This year the pantomime is Robinson Crusoe and will be performed at

Our Lady Of Compassion School Hall, Kineton Green Road, Olton, Solihull.

Performances are:

• Thursday 16 February 2012 at 7.30pm
• Friday 17 February 2012 at 7.30pm
• Saturday 18 February 2012 at 1.30pm and 7pm

This is a great opportunity to enjoy the spirit and fun of pantomime. Oh yes you will!

For more details, contact Ann Atkins on 07818 417 601 or email annandstuartatkins@blueyonder.co.uk

Download the Parents’ Network Newsletter- Jan 2012

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The report about the council as an employer shows the make up of the workforce and the things being done to support its diverse workforce and the second report looks at the council as a service provider and covers the things being done to make sure services are provided fairly.

Best Value Guidance

In 2011, new Best Value Guidance was introduced by the Department for Communities and Local Government. It has statutory force, which means that the guidance must be taken into account by local authorities when they are making funding decisions. It applies to all local authorities.

What You Need to Know

• At least three months’ notice needs to be given to an organisation and service users when funding is to be withdrawn or reduced
• A local authority should actively engage the organisation and service users as early as possible before making a decision on the future of the service
• Authorities should seek to avoid passing on disproportionate reductions – i.e. they should not make larger reductions to the voluntary and community sector than they take on themselves
• Authorities should be responsive to the benefits and needs of voluntary and community sector organisations of all sizes (honouring the commitments set out in Local Compacts)

The Compact

The Compact is an agreement aiming to ensure that the Government and civil society organisations can work most effectively in partnership. Clear expectations and undertakings of what each partner will do are set out and committed to.

What You Need to Know

• The Compact is a national agreement, renewed by the coalition government in December 2010 and covers central government departments
• Nearly all local areas have their own Compact agreed between the local authority and voluntary and community sector – often using the national Compact as their basis, they are shaped to reflect the particular needs of the local area
• Key undertakings common to nearly all Compacts are a recognition of the need to give at least three months’ notice of funding cuts; conduct consultations for a 12 week period; and respect for the independence of voluntary sector organisations

Public Law

Public bodies, including local authorities and central government departments have to abide by a set of legal rules which regulate their public functions.

What You Need to Know

• A public body must ask itself the right questions and take into account relevant information when making a decision – when considering whether to make a funding cut, this means that they must have consulted groups that will be affected
• The Public Sector Equality Duty requires public bodies to have due regard to the need to
  eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity, and foster good relations between different people when carrying out their activities.
• When deciding whether to reduce or cut funding the public body must show how they have understand how different people will be affected by their decision – this is often done through an Equality Impact Assessment

An unfair decision by a public body can be challenged through a judicial review process in the courts, although there are strict guidelines and timescales that must be followed.

Overall

When talking about ‘unfair’ funding cuts remember the focus is on how the decision has been made, not what the decision is – you may be unhappy about a decision that has been made, but it is only ‘unfair’ if it has not been made in the right way.

Make sure you’ve looked at your local Compact and understand the Best Value Guidance – if a decision is made to reduce or withdraw your funding then it’s best to know in advance what will make a decision unfair so you are prepared

If you think a decision is unfair then act quickly – write to the public body setting out your concerns with the decision and asked for it to be looked at again

If you are unsure whether a decision is unfair or would like some further advice contact the Compact Advocacy programme on 020 7520 2460 or daniel.fluskey@ncvo-vol.org.uk or download a printable version of the NCVO cuts guide

Solihull Life Opportunities (SoLO) is currently recruiting a Personal Assistant to work with a young gentleman (22 years old and a wheelchair user) who would like to access the Daylight Programme once a week on a Wednesday.

Hours of work – 8 hours on a Wednesday – Rate of pay £8.75 per hour.

Experience of a similar position and a relevant qualification is desirable.  We offer comprehensive training and support to enhance your professional development.

SoLO is committed to Safeguarding Children and Vulnerable Adults and will carry out CRB checks before appointing staff.

If you are interested in this position please contact Paula Burnham on 0121 788 3469

Closing date 12 February

From 6 April, it will no longer be possible for employees with certain types of pension to be “contracted out” of additional state pension. Learn more

Changes in state pension age. Learn more

In November 2012 elected Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) will replace police authorities in England and Wales. The PCCs’ responsibilities will include setting local community safety priorities and funding community safety activity to meet those priorities. There will be changes to existing funding and commissioning structures such that funding avenues for Voluntary, Community and Safety Enterprise organisations working in community safety will change significantly.

If you work in this area you may need to know how these changes will affect you and be well prepared to influence PCCs’ local community safety priorities and to access funding, service delivery and partnership opportunities.

Regional briefing events, including a session in Birmingham on 8 February, for  organisations working on community safety are being run and will explore the opportunities and challenges presented by this new landscape and provide further information about the support available through the Safer Future Communities project.

For more details see The Safer Future Communities overview at CLINKS.

The programme is on too early to watch live so I have watched each series using iPlayer. This week I have followed Michael  through East Anglia where he has expounded the massive explosion of the Norfolk turkey industry when the railway brought it a route to wider markets, the way that the arrival of the railway created the largest freight gateway to our islands on the estuary of the Orwell and Stour rivers at Felixstowe and Harwich and how Southend boomed by attracting daytrippers by rail after it built a pier so long it carried it own railway, still operating today, to take folk out to its end.

With the railway, came prosperity. Towns and villages not on the rail network shrank. Which brings us to the Government’s approval of HS2 and the battle lines drawn around it. Each week seemingly sees new missives in our local newspaper fired off from H T Harvey representing the pro lobby and Richard Lloyd for the campaign against the project. Is it the expensive project we cannot afford or the project investment we cannot afford not to make?

Personally, I come unequivocally into the latter camp. This project is vital, essential to the economic health of both the West Midlands region and the UK. We cannot afford to fall behind the rest of world in our ability to move people and goods about. Before the present Government scrapped the Regions, the West Midlands was eighth of the nine English regions in the economic league table, despite our location at the central hob of the national infrastructure. The connections that HS2 would bring could make a significant transformation to that position, generating employment and bringing inward investment.

It is argued that that there is no demand for HS2. I am old enough to recall when there was no demand for the M1 and the M5. I remember being driven from Worcester to Ross on the M5 and M50 in the mid sixties, before the M5 extended north of Longbridge or south of Tewkesbury. We pretty much had the two lanes to ourselves all the way. Look at them now. As ‘Great Railway Journeys’ shows, infrastructure creates its own demand.

Now, we need to get people and goods back onto the railways. Rail is comfortably the most fuel efficient means of travel and in the era of climate change and global warming, we need to improve fuel efficiency. The Birmingham to Euston line is relatively saturated. It could take longer trains but few more trains and will not take freight slowing up the works. The Snow Hill to Marylebone has seen massive growth in passenger numbers since in reopened in 1993. It has always struggled to compete with the Euston line for speed but has won favour through reliability, which would be affected significantly by a growth in freight. A new, faster line would generate capacity for freight on these older tracks.

Given that most of the Euston line opened in 1838 when it was served by the Curzon Street terminus of the London and Birmingham Railway Company, now planned for re-use by HS2, and Snow Hill was connected to London by the Great Western Railway in 1852, it is perhaps no shock that these are routes that have exhausted their limitations. Like a tired early central heating system in a home, you can only keep it going for so many decades before you need a more modern solution.

However, to come back to where we started, and take a local perspective, the nearest station to my home is Dorridge. Around 1850, the Great Western Railway wanted to build the line across the Umberslade estate, but there was local resistance. George Fredrick Muntz of Umberslade Hall, MP for Birmingham, finally agreed to the railway, provided a station was provided on the estate for his convenience. The station was built, in the middle of nowhere, down the hill from Knowle, and called Knowle Station.

The railway offered the opportunity for homes to be built by those eager to commute into Birmingham’s commercial district and Dorridge came into being, setting the foundations for what is a relatively prosperous part of our borough today.

If the Solihull of the second quarter of this century has an economic heartbeat that radiates from Bickenhill with a rejuvenated NEC, an expanded international airport, a high speed rail connection to the north and to the south and vibrant surrounding business parks then our town will be competitive. And on that competitiveness the long term wellbeing of our community and its people will depend.

As in 1850, local resistance is understandable, but must be overcome for the greater good.

Where: Solihull SUSTAiN, The Priory, Church Hill Road, Solihull, B91 3LF – Ground floor meeting room

Course Aims:

To develop awareness of, and the ability to act on, concerns about the safety and welfare of children and young people and to  provide an overview

of the key policies and best practices around child safeguarding and help them to see how they can be used or are used within  their own organisation.

The course is free for voluntary and community sector groups and provides the Solihull Local Children Safeguarding Board Level 1 Certificate.  Solihull Local Safeguarding Board advise that voluntary organisations attend a level 1 course every three years.

For further details contact Andrea Davis – Children Services Development Officer  at  SUSTAiN    andread@solihull-sustain.org.uk