Penguin68

JAGS senior school fees (from September) are £24,543 a year; to pay for 3 children would thus cost £73,629. Half of that is £36,814 - which for a 40 hour week and 4 weeks holiday would equate to £19 an hour. The London living wage is £13.15. However 3 is nowadays quite a large family size, 2 I would think is more common for the JAGS parents' demographic. I very much doubt whether JAGS cleaners are getting offered a 40 hour week, or working 48 weeks a year - certainly whilst working in JAGS. And I'm sure they are not being paid 46% over the London living wage hourly amount. Whilst you should expect companies (and that includes private schools) to exercise some social responsibility, that cannot be (I would guess) across all areas they operate, nor would you expect them to jeopardise their core business mission on the altar of general social responsibility. You may argue that, through outsourcing, they have also outsourced that element of their social responsibility to an external contractor, and that they could have made that also a part of their contract, but I suspect that it too sophisticated for what are actually still quite naive business practitioners. And probably that would not be an enticing contract to even bid for.

It is quite unlikely that JAGS is able to alter the fee scales or terms of employment paid to employees of a different company. They could reduce the amount of work required so as to reduce costs, as they cold require cheaper materials to be used - but in each case the outsourcer would then wish to alter the performance metrics of the contract. Cleaning staff formerly employed by JAGS who then moved to the new contractor would be covered by TUPE terms, giving them some protections. Over time the effect of that protection will clearly dissipate. It is not directly in the power of one employer to alter the terms and condition of employment of another. Indeed they have in general no say as to which employees of the contractor work on their contract (there may be specific exceptions to this - for instance excluding a contractor who they believe is dishonest or disruptive). Their only real power would be to dismiss the contractor for non performance of contract on the basis that the staff are on strike, but that would not, in and of itself, change the position of the staff contracted. Breaking the contract terms in this way might have legal (and hence cost) implications.

Outsourcing is always a legitimate option when sourcing skills outside your core competences/ core business. JAGS is in the education, not the cleaning, business and might assume a specialist cleaning company might be better at cleaning, and managing cleaners, than they are. They may also benefit from economies of scale not available to JAGS. As their chosen supplier is unable to provide continuous cleaning services (because their workers are unhappy with their working conditions, obviously including pay) then JAGS should outsource elsewhere - clearly they will not be paying their outsourcer, I assume, for services they are not receiving. You choose outsourcers where they have competitive edge over insourced services, be that cost, quality or innovation. Those costs would include the outsourced costs of management and not (just, or indeed even) staff wages. For schools, cleaning needs fall away significantly during holidays - outsourcers may be able to re-allocate staff away from schools to other paid for work during holidays in a way that schools cannot. But, as others have noted, if JAGS is not the direct employer of those striking then it can hardly be held directly responsible for the strike.

Not now it isn't considering the poor public transport and enmity towards car drivers. Unless it's another 'just for cyclists' perk of course. Which I'm guessing it is. Cyclists who are fit enough to negotiate the hills which hem us in, of course. And are averse to sitting in leafy and verdant parks.

Well...It means that Veolia will now have to make 3 collections a week ((1) food, (2) garden waste, and (3) dry recycling/ non recyclables - alternate weeks) - but they don't have an anaerobic digester facility in London to process garden and kitchen waste separately. They are not being allowed to collect kitchen and garden waste together as now. So that's an extra lorry run every week on every street in Southwark. They have to collect kitchen waste every week, and if they only collect garden waste every other week that just makes 26 additional journeys past your front door every year, rather than 52. We are paying (where we are) the council for 52 weeks garden waste collection a year; if they reduce that they would be hard pressed now to make a case not to reduce the fee, I believe. I, of course, think it's right that flat dwellers should have kitchen waste collected properly and together, but I suggest this new ruling, which requires separate collection, may not be as environmentally beneficial as seems at first sight.

Does anyone know why traffic is being diverted down the south end of Underhill Road to the South Circular? We already get more traffic as a function of the closure of other east west routes through the Village.

Well, that would be a good way to have this site closed down - is that your intention? To publish a photograph of someone who is claimed ('attempted abduction' ) to be a criminal is a libel (as would publishing their name); should that person at any stage come to court the publication would be seen as jeopardising the case (once a charge is made such things become sub-judice) and could be deemed in contempt of court. Only when the police officially publish a photograph or photo-fit as part of their attempts to catch an alleged criminal can such things be allowed. Unless you are a High Court judge, and then only in the context of a case being held, can you determine the public good 'on balance'. I suspect, as you are 'not sure about the legalities' you may not be a High Court Judge.

I know nothing of this at all, but I am aware that attempted or actual child abduction can sometimes be the result of psychological trauma (for instance losing a child) causing a woman to act in ways which do not actually sit in the 'evil' box. But whose consequences, of course, can be just as awful as if the motivation was evil. Taking care however is still excellent advice.

I would hate to de-rail such a well intentioned thread (!) - but what I have observed is an increase of dangerous road users (and I include pedestrians) everywhere. Pedestrians for instance who cross roads well supplied with crossings (i.e. Lordship Lane) away from the crossing and diagonally with their backs to oncoming traffic - cyclists who shoot out of side roads without stopping or signalling - people on scooters and e-bikes ditto - but normally without helmets - people on push bikes at dusk or in the evenings without lights or reflective clothing and so so - they are being dangerous mainly to themselves, of course, but still dangerous. The lack of any road sense, particularly (but not of course exclusively) of those who may well not have had any motorised vehicle training or testing designed to make them hazard aware is increasingly noticeable (or at least, I've increasingly noticed it). Motorists too clearly 'break the law' - particularly as regards speeds higher than 20mph - although many roads other than side and purely residential roads were designed, and used, at 30mph limits relatively safely until very recently. But clearly, there are dangerous people in motorised vehicles, and they risk less, as regards survival or serious injury, than others. But it is people who mainly put themselves at risk who are worrying me. 'He was right, dead right, as he passed along, but he was just as dead as if he'd been dead wrong' was drummed into me early (before I was 10) by my parents to alert me to hazards - as a young pedestrian - it is learning that seems to be lost to current generations. And in many cases, such as those I cite above, these road users are not even 'dead right' as regards their use of public highways.

Surely the simple issue here is (1) Is this just a box ticking exercise - 'we said we'd consult, we have consulted'? or (2) is there any genuine attempt to gain insight so that they could present a 'better' proposal for next year? I'm a cynic, but I'm guessing that (1) is an odds-on favourite here. In which case the choice of venue, and indeed the proposed process, is all about ensuring there will be little embarrassment (and nothing to record on surreptitious smartphones) which could be held against them. The fact that, apparently, they've invited stakeholders to meet quite far away from the site of the action - which is clearly a disincentive to participate, comes as no surprise. Yes, it's only a few bus stops away but...

There are pluses and minus's here. The major minus is that any general disquiet is somewhat diminished by there being no 'open' session - and no one to keep tabs on what is being said to individuals or groups. In a Southwark session on CPZs for instance my partner was told that the probable time for being active would be weekdays from 12.00 to 2.00 - which wasn't even on offer when the questionnaire was finally published. This isn't by the way a CPZ issue, so don't rise to it, but an example about the way this sort of consultation in general can be manipulated. On the plus side it can involve more people - which is clearly a good thing.

Entirely true, of course, although apart from the Tudor break from Rome (rather pre general democracy) all the others formed part of a party electoral platform, I believe. The LTN introduction, on the back of general enabling legislation, never however formed part of any local party manifesto, and indeed had been roundly rejected previously by those most impacted in Dulwich, though through 'consultation' and not through any voting process.

I have just come back (10:15) - card payments are working normally.

And its bona fides have been immediately challenged by other pollsters. The BPC seems mainly for political polling organisations, and not those market and social researchers who belong to the Market Research Society (as I did, when working) - it is the MRS which sets industry standards of Market Research and which offers professional qualifications in it. And to make it clear, once again, the 300 who voted for a no-hope candidate standing on a local issue in a national election are remarkable only in that they felt so strongly about the issue that they were prepared to waste their votes in this way. In London, certainly, electors in local elections were not going to vote out Labour administrations in their hatred of Tories, so suggesting that voting Labour in London was an endorsement of every council's LTN etc. policies is clearly daft.

Perhaps try googling 'problems with peer review' - and see how many papers are cited - (you can ignore the citations from news outlets of course) - but just look at the ones from 'respectable' sources. Peer Review should be the gold standard of course, but in many instances it clearly isn't, and that's hardly surprising considering the huge number of papers, both scientific (really) and covering social and other studies (any study which seeks the opinions of others is a social study, effectively). If you believe that all published research now which is peer reviewed is thus cast iron you are very naive for a scientist. The problem is, you (and I) don't know which is which. There are a huge number of scholars and commercial researchers working, and almost exactly the same number reviewing other's works (indeed they're the same people!) - if you consider that each paper probably should be reviewed by 3 reviewers as a minimum there are perhaps, in any one field, 'experts' who might be doing far more reviewing than their own research. Of course there will be slipshod and slapdash work in review - which is why so many attempts to 'test' the system end in failure, with accepted papers being resubmitted and failing (and vice versa) - sometimes by the same journals, who, remember, are all commercial enterprises publishing for profit. Let alone the successful attempts to get 'rubbish' papers published which are entire fictions as a test of the system. It is very rare, I believe, for peer reviewers actually to run the numbers - if they are even properly available in the submitted papers - reviewing for face validity and commenting on published methodology ('if you did it this way, that would work') is about the best you will get. And sometimes not even that. The MMR 'research' (word used quite wrongly) was based on a tiny and self selecting sample for instance, which no reviewer should have accepted - and the published results are still causing death and disability amongst the large population, particularly in London, who chose not to vaccinate. Oh, and I have never watched GB News.

Peer reviewed academic research has been shown, time and time again, not to be worth the paper its published on. Terrible cases of log-rolling and academic jealousies, and a number of (intentionally) fake papers submitted and positively peer reviewed. Journals of record publish rubbish, the MMR 'Research' (and I use that word quite wrongly, being prime example. I would, in general, trust market research from an independent polling company far more.

70,099 in detail. And the labour victor only got 39.1% of these. Once again, this was a hopeless (literally) candidate for a national election only interested in a single local topic, and yet 300 people were prepared, in a low turnout, to bother to vote for him. He wasn't even a funny candidate, where voting for him could be seen as a general satirical protest. Of course there weren't more - it was a mad and wasted vote. I was just amazed that as many as 300 stood there to be counted.

The key issue with the change-over (when it's all working it works just like the PSTN as regards the user experience) is that the PSTN was exchange powered, and exchanges had battery racks and even generators to ensure continuity of service (and that's also why people could get significant shocks from PSTN wiring). The VOIP system relies on (and needs) on-site mains power (although you can get back-up battery packs in case of power outages). That means that at times of civil emergency, such as power cuts, just when you might most need a phone, there isn't one to hand! Until you are provided only with a fibre connection (which does not support PSTN connectivity) you can continue to use your existing copper landline, if you have one, in the same old way (and might as well, as you will be charged for that). You could even, by paying more, be both fully fibred and run your PSTN phones. But when the copper network is pulled from your road (as it eventually will be) you will be fibre or nothing for 'wired' services. Wireless connectivity - which always relies on local power - stays the same. Assuming you are fully fibred now (no copper lines coming into the house) and have IP connectivity (you can access the internet) then the problem most likely lies at the 'exchange end' - which may be because a computer is failing to recognise your number as being valid, which means packets being sent to or from it aren't able to go anywhere. With a lot of activity in the system it may just mean that new ID data is being input but old ID data not properly refreshed.

Where you have a community which has become accustomed to unexpected and arbitrary demands for payment for infringing some rule which was not always apparent or clear - and consider the high levels of fines levied by Southwark when they first introduced road restrictions relatively recently, together with many aware of planned intentions to introduce wide-scale additional parking restrictions (without necessary being fully aware of the current status of these) then you create a climate where another unexpected demand may be assumed to be 'official'. If you wanted to try out such a scam, as a criminal, why wouldn't you first chose such harrassed communities to ply your trade in? And Southwark is outstanding in this area. I wouldn't say complicit, but 'responsible for an unintended consequence' - well, jury's out on that one.

The road is still up but there is no work going on. Best case scenario is that they are awaiting the 'making good' squad and that the actual pipe repair is complete.

It would be Thames Water which would need to give any time estimates, tfl would merely source their reports from Thames. And Thames would not be my go-to source for anything much nowadays. Thieving incompetents focussed on feathering the nests of their corporate owners at the expense of their customers whilst failing to meet the standards set them by their weak-willed regulator. Or words to that effect!

That would be a poll with a sample size, and universe, of 1 then?

The payment problem impacted both Barclaycard and Mastercard and appeared quite wide-spread across the country and was quite quickly resolved.

After the age of 50 or so I would strongly advise visiting 'proper' opticians at least every couple of years, particularly if your sight is changing. They can check for e.g. glaucoma (internal eye pressure) - which is symptomless initially but if left untreated can lead to blindness (but which is readily treatable). But no reason otherwise why simple magnifying lenses to aid reading shouldn't be bought at very much cheaper prices.

It may be worthwhile asking attendants for recommendations - for instance which (of many) tomatoes are right for what uses. Which are the hottest, or not, of the chile peppers. Good greengrocers (like butchers and wet fish merchants) should know their stock and be able to recommend. What's 'good' or best (for what uses) may change from day to day.