Saturday 18 July 2009

Scottish Enlightenment: RIP

Here's another one of those "political correctness gone mad" stories:
A PRIMARY school has been told it has to pay for a professional joiner to hang children's artwork on the wall – because of health and safety fears.

Pirniehall Primary in Pilton has been landed with the £350 bill after parents were warned it was against the rules to put up the pictures themselves

What's particularly amusing is the response of a local Green Party councillor:
She said: "Nobody wants to expose children to unnecessary risks but this is taking things too far."
Unnecessary risks! This is the same "Green" party that's so irresolutely opposed to clean nuclear energy and that wants to cover the country with spinning death traps.

1 comment:

David Farrer said...

Comments made on previous template:

Neil Craig
When you have excess people in any organisation you have to find something for them to do. Health & safety employs 200,000 in various capacities. The cost to the regulated averages 20 times what it costs government. Therefore having these parasites able to insist on expenses like this costs the economy the equivalent of 4 million workers. Since accidental death/injury rates correlate with per capita GNP the H&S Executive clearly kills hundreds of times more people than it "saves".

27 July 2009, 13:54:05 GMT+01:00
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Andrew Duffin
Absolutely a commonplace attitude for an education authority to take. 
 
When I was on various School Boards (back in the day when they could actually do something - do they even exist any more?) I got tired of pointing out all the things we parents could do to help the schools - you know the sort of thing, painting, cleaning, very minor projects of various sorts - only to be told, every time, that either "insurance" or "Health and Safety" would not permit it. Naturally the budget did not cover the stupendous cost of getting the Direct Labour skivers in to do the work, so the work stayed un-done. One broken window remained untouched (and open to the weather) for more than a year. Bastiat, eat your heart out! 
 
And why couldn't we simply summon our local friendly shop-window repairer, who would come day or night any day of the year, and fix it much more cheaply? Yup, "insurance". 
 
Get the State out of Schools, now!

22 July 2009, 13:15:12 GMT+01:00
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Colin Finlay
I'd pay the joiner to hang the future Marxist children of the Leftist local authority's education committee, then provide him with their parents' address and an overtime chit.

19 July 2009, 09:26:28 GMT+01:00
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David Farrer
John, 
 
We had to pay the media suppliers on time or we wouldn't have retained the necessary recognitions. 
 
On the other hand, the poor old production and overhead suppliers sometimes had to be kept waiting. We were turning over around £30 million a year with share capital of £40,000!

19 July 2009, 09:01:18 GMT+01:00
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john b
Delightful. Remind me to go back to the Highlands before too long (last time was winter 2007/08, when it snowed at ground level - put me off for a bit, sadly). 
 
& yup, serious corporates pay up rapidly. But based on my London-media-working experience (on both sides of the fence), I'm assuming accounts payable weren't quite so rapidly dealt with...

19 July 2009, 01:15:03 GMT+01:00
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David Farrer
Subrosa, 
 
I now work part-time for several organisations. The City Council is invariably the last supplier to cash the cheques that I send out. In my London advertising days, cheques sent to us were always in the bank by 10 AM.

18 July 2009, 18:43:39 GMT+01:00
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David Farrer
John, 
 
Here are some sheep of colour: 
 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/56701337@N00/3718260636/in/set-72157621398993386/

18 July 2009, 18:38:27 GMT+01:00
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subrosa
What a complete waste of money. As I said on your later post school staff have no influence over these councils who behave without an ounce of common sense. 
 
I'm off shopping to cool off.

18 July 2009, 18:28:05 GMT+01:00
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john b
Surely this is elf 'n' safety - political correctness would be banning the kids from singing Baa Baa Black Sheep, etc...?

18 July 2009, 18:05:59 GMT+01:00