Charity slams Hackney council staff: rude, lazy, unhelpful

I haven't checked out any of this but it looks pretty damning: http://piliontrust.blogspot.com/2010/08/borough-of-hackney.html

Pilion is a charity that works with Islington Council and seems to have recently won more funding from it.

The author of the Pilion charity's blog clearly hasn't had a happy time dealing with Hackney. He or she says: "Over the past two months my teams have been trying to support and advocate for a number of vulnerable people. I mean a young man with mental health and learning difficulties who is fleeing two youth gangs that want to kill him; A young 20 year old woman, fleeing domestic violence and pregnant; An old age pensioner who is illiterate and is being evicted by the Council for rent arrears, when her pension and benefits pay directly to the Council's Housing benefit department."

The author says Pilion staff had dealt with the Housing Department, Mental Health Team, East London NHS, The Homerton and Learning Disabilities saying: "All staff in all departments have similarities in so much as they are rude, abrupt, refuse to give information and are lazy unthinking, uncaring brainless fodder."

The blog posting also complains that managers were not interested in dealing with the complaints and politicians were no better: "All turn a blind eye and don't want to look at the problems being caused by the Public Servants they employ."

Hopefully this was just a bad day. If not then all Hackney residents should beware of lingering in the borough too long: "as all you will find are brain dead "Job Lotters" sucking the life blood out of those who cannot get out."

Other news - The Daily Mail reports that Hackney Council is on the verge of signing a deal with the US for use of London Fields Lido for the Olympics. The Mail said: "A source said: ‘The US team toured London and were surprised by the lack of quality pools. ‘Right away they recognised London Fields as best for training and were very keen. The British tried to get involved but it looks like they’re too late."

Hackney booze chief: Cull off licences, ban super strength

Councillor Alan Laing, Cabinet member for Neighbourhoods, architect of Hackney's alcohol-free zones, wants powers to cut down off licence 'saturation' in local areas and ban the sale of "super strength" drinks in Hackney.

Writing in Progress Cllr Laing said: "What we want from the government, however, is to be able to tackle off licences and how they interact with other alcohol outlets and, as a key way of doing this, to consider the number of outlets in totality within an area. Local authorities should be able to limit their number and declare ‘saturation' in line with their own policy without the excessive restrictions that are currently placed upon them. This is the best way of determining the supply, regardless of type of premises."

He said that he understood concerns that raising the price of alcohol would affect responsible drinkers but he said: "those concerns don't prevent the government demanding that the drinks industry define ‘super strength' products which could then be specifically prohibited from sale by local authorities."

Councillor Laing's position may sound aggressive but the view of the borough's experts is that Hackney has a problem - at least with street drinkers - because it is more tolerant than its neighbours.

In May Hackney's Drug and Alcohol Action Team said: "Street drinking is a problem and it appears that about 30% are coming from outside the borough. This is possibly due to less tolerant attitudes in neighbouring boroughs such as Islington & Camden. Many of these drinkers are housed. There is a need for a clearer message on street drinking in Hackney and a greater take up of ‘wet centre’ places such as that in Finsbury Park."

The same report (Drug and Alcohol Action Team said) said DAAT would "determine whether the £95k spent on Alcohol Review was value for money" - but I couldn't find anything to say whether or not this question had been answered.