Frank Thoughts #2: Why Social Workers are Bad

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"We'll never solve society's problems so long as there are social workers in the way. Why should they sort people's lives out? They'd all be out of a job!"

Editors note: These Frank thoughts are all comments and observations made by my father, Frank Cooke, over the years.

Getting paid more than Gordon - as if!

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The PM gets paid £197,000 (I hesitate to use the term “earn” in this case) and various pundits are frothing about the fact that some people in the public sector get paid more than this. Like so what?

Leaving aside the fact that my cat could do a better job of PM than Gordon for the cost of a bowl of IAMS and a soft bed, we shouldn’t be comparing the pay of politicians with the pay of officials. Moreover Gordon gets two free houses, fed and watered, ferried around everywhere – I doubt that beyond indulgences, Gordon has any of the outgoings you and I have.

So lets assume that we spend a third or our income of housing and 25% on essential spending (food, drink, travel, etc) – for ease of estimation we’ll call that 60%. Since Gordon doesn’t have this expenditure his real salary is somewhere in excess of £300,000.

That’s more than the head of the civil service, any local council chief executive and most of the quangocrats. After all from their bloated salaries they have large houses, foreign holidays and school fees to pay – without the access MPs have to an expenses free-for-all.

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Bradford Hospitals spend £2 million on corporate affairs - scope for savings in the NHS?

A few weeks back I received an e-mail from the Corporate Affairs Department of the Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust inviting me to join the Chair and others in celebrating 60 years of the NHS in Bradford. Now in times past I would have cheerfully sent my apologies and said nothing else. But this time I felt that this was a waste of money - certainly it would contribute nothing to improving health care or treatment for Bradfordians. Now as it happens the celebration in question was not put on at great expense but the response from the Trust Chair (£55,000 for a part-time job), former top copper David Richardson expressed surprise that I hadn't simply gone along with the planned jolly Indeed I had the gall to question its value and purpose!

Slightly irritated by this response I asked a few questions about the "Corporate Affairs" function at the Trust and about the remuneration of the Board (as a Foundation Trust there are in fact two boards - the expensive real one and a playtime Board of Governors for members of the foundation). The most significant fact is that all this bureaucracy costs the taxpayer over £2 million each year plus a Board of Directors costing nearly £800,000! It does seem to me that if the NHS is looking to make some savings, the operation and management of NHS Trusts - "corporate affairs" - might prove a fruitful area.

In Bradford simply reducing the number of non-executive directors from eight to four would save around £50,000 each year - cash that could go on paying nurses, providing treatments and contributing to the welfare of Bradford people. But here's a better idea - use councillors for the non-executives. Cheaper and, if we don't like the decisions there a democratic process for accountability - now that would be a radical step!