Well I told the MP's that most my time was spent dealing with the increasing use of gatekeeping practices and how the LA's were not doing what they were lawfully required to do most the time.
Safe to say the MP's weren't very interested...
Ho hum. At least I told em!
About Me
- House
- I'm a bloke working in the world of Community Legal Service housing advice. This blog is just an outlet for my thoughts and experiences in field that I pretty much fell into and haven't as of yet managed to escape.
4 comments:
I suspected that they might not be very interested. What were they visiting for in the first place?
It is quite common for me to find that when someone comes to see me about a housing problem they have often tried to get help from their MP first. This usually leads to a ritual where the MP writes to the council or Housing Association to ask what can be done. The MP then gets a very polite letter back saying that they will do nothing at all. The MP completes the ritual by sending a copy of this letter to the constituent with a covering letter suggesting that they have now done all that they can do to assist.
Reading these sorts of letters has led me to believe that most MP's are a waste of space when it comes to helping constituents with problems with councils etc. The only exception was Karen Buck who actually called me and discussed a client's problem in detail with a view to taking decisive action. I was very impressed. That was only one incident in nearly 15 years though. I wondered therefore why they would be coming to visit you and hear about what you do.
Hi William nice to see you still lurking around my random musings :)
They were visiting the CAB really, getting a rough idea of what was going on and then promptly forgetting it all I imagine. I wasn't the only one speaking but as there are only like 5 paid staff in our bureau I was one of the 'chosen!'
Hehe I've had that ritual to, except once they took all the credit for something I'd done to help the client!
Still actually 1 MP gave some useful tips for getting the attention of MPs in general (ie write letters to the paper etc)
Also Mr Flack stop slacking and post some more on your blog I like reading your stuff and I'm sure many other people do to.
Thanks for the praise for my stuff. I will try and put some more up there soon. I find it really difficult to put the necessary time aside for this. My case work takes up so much time that by the end of the day I am too exhausted to be able to write anything.
I think that your blog is excellent by the way. Maybe I should try and write more like you and put in shortier punchier posts rather than thinking that I have to write something more like an essay or newspaper article.
Post a Comment