112. Evidence submitted by Susan Booth
(PPI 94)
LOCAL INVOLVEMENT
NETWORKS
1. The name means nothing. For the past
ten years I have received two newsletters from local organisations
called LINK. Away for Christmas I found a weekly one.
2. The Community Health Councils and the
PPI Forums both drew people from local organisations. The North
Staffs PPI Forum now includes two previous forums each with different
branches of the "local" organisations. Are all branches
to be included/recognised?
3. How is this unwieldy body of people to
be organised to work? Some of the PPI Forums now are too big to
organise their work properly. Talking to members of other PPIFs
it would appear their ability to work often depends on the quality
of the Administrative Support they are (or are not) given by the
FSOs. Can Local Authorities give this support? Para 1.27 of "Government
Response to "A Stronger Local Voice" (Gateway Reference
7283) hardly seems workable when there is more than one local
authority involved. And a county authority may have to work with
more than one LINk.
4. Since I understand there are some Councillors
who have no idea what they should be doing at the moment, it is
going to take some really good communication to explain LINk to
everyone who is going to be involved, much less to the general
public.
5. As they stand the PPI Forums could work
(should be working) with other organisationsthe simple
way to involve them would be to co-opt one representative to the
PPIF. They need not be CRB passed. They would bring their situation
and requirements to the Forum and help on working groups (as I
understand some Fora do already).
I am 75 years old and I have lost count of the
times where Senior "Management" have brought in changes
which look good from the top but as they haven't looked thoroughly
at what happens at the bottom before bringing in the changes,
work has stalled while people learn how to work in the new (and
often not better, easier or more effective) way.
Susan N Booth
North Staffordshire PPI Forum (comments are made
as an Individual)
10 January 2007
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