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Friends and readers.Today we publish the membership of three groups which have an important bearing on the life of this Community. The one common thread running through these three groups is the total lack of Community involvement.

HEALTH INEQUALITIES STANDING GROUP.

David Jack[Chair] Corporate Services

Margaret Douglas[Chair] NHS Lothian

Paul Hambleton Corporate Services

Margaret Barbier Corporate Services

Janice Pauwels Coporate Services

Stephanie Harris Corporate Services

Jim Rafferty Capital City Partnership

Alistair Watt Health And Social Care.

Linda Cunningham Services For Communities.

Lynn Porteous Children And Families

Colin Murray EVOV

Lesley Blackmore lothian Health Forum

Lesly Boyd Edinburgh East an Midlothian CHP’s

Moyra Burns Lothain Health Promotion Service.

Harriet Eadie Edinburgh Volunteer Centre

Maggie Murray Action on Alcohol an Drugs in Edinburgh

Willie Hardie North Public Partnership Forum.

Fiona Bayne NHS Lothian

David White Edinburgh Community Health Partnership.

Membership of the Children and Young Peoples Strategic Partnership

Gillian Tee[Chair]

Nancy Henderson–Position unknown

Christina Burnett Children and Families

David Wright Children and Families

Andy Gray Children and Families

Heather Levy Voluntary Sector

John Thomas NHS Lothian

Kirsty MacDiarmid Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration.

Linda Cunningham Services for Communities

John Mckenzie Lothian and Borders Police

Marilyn Nicholl Voluntary Sector

Mike Rosendale Children and Families

Paul Hambleton Corporate Services

Michelle Miller Health and Social Care[this is the same person who is quoted as saying it is all right to abuse staff]

Sally Lee NHS Lothian

Stuart Mair Voluntary Sector

Willy Barr Voluntary Sector

Patricia Jackson NHS Lothian

Alistair Watt Health and Social Care

David White NHS Lothian

Graham MacKenzie NHS Lothian

Celine Sinclair Voluntary Sector.

Membership of the Jobs Strategy Group

Davis Metcalfe[Chair] Lloyds TSB

Patricia Thomson Skills Development Scotland

Matthew Crighton Capital City Partnership

Ken Shaw City Development

Marion Nicholson Skills Development Scotland.

Ray Harris Lothian Association of College Principles

Alistair MacInnes Jobcentre Plus

John Palmer Lothian Community Health Partnership

Jim Rafferty Capital City Partnership

Roger Horam Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce

Davis White NHS Lothian

We will let you decide if this lot have any bearing or interest in this Community,or indeed even know where it is.

Friends and readers.You will all remember the recent vocal outbursts mainly by the self interest mob who predicted hell and damnation due to the introduction of the Fairer Scotland Fund.

Well that did not happen and the scare mongering by those that wished to protect their own backsides came to nothing. 

This is what actually happened from which came no redunancies nor any volunteers to take a pay cut to save their project.

Project          Apr-Sep08         Octo8-Mar09

G Y C               £46835                £46835

W S W              £34508                £31674

NET                  £99687                £91405

B C D P             £57185                £50151

M M C               £53846               £49,039

M Y D G            £58471                £56531

N W C C            £30219                £27682

P Y C P               £70675               £66701

N E C                  £201697             £197308

N E N                 £36551                £33224

S Stones            £5722                  £5566

G I C                   £61854                £60074

P E P                   £27726                £25771

N E A                  £14847                £12322

C V F                   £12500               £10375

N E B I                £16224                £14770

N E A T              £17924                 £14429

N E E F                £2500                £0

TOTAL                882590                793857

FSF ALLOCATION                        530629

TRANSITIONAL FUNDING

REQUIRED LAST SIX MONTHS 263228.

So friends and readers the earth has not opened up and swallowed any of these projects even in severe economic times. The threats of Community disintegration came to nothing and these threats as usual came from those who wished to protect themselves and absolutely nothing to do with the service they provide.

The Forth Neighbourhood Partnership meeting which took place late last year at the West Pilton Neighbourhood Centre was filled in the main by employees of projects who used the meeting to make assumptions which were incorrect. This pre organised piece of theatre showed the Community up in a poor light when abuse from some in the audience was directed at the Panel.

Today’s economic climate suggests there are rocky waters still ahead and why the minority should think they are immune is quite ridiculous. The salaries paid out to some of these employees and something which Pilton Sucks has spoken about before leaves a lot to be desired.

The advertisement for a local project manager offering a salary of £60,000 was obscene,and sickened many in the Community. The salaries paid to the staff of the NEN which in reality is a six page information sheet is a joke,and it’s political bias is visible for all to see.

Pilton Sucks has advocated that local projects should be run and managed by local people,now that’s a real debate that won’t happen as the vested interests would run for cover and shut up shop.

The day’s of funding projects packed with the old pals brigade is thankfully over and the funding information we have provided for the Community clearly shows that it was not the hatchet job predicted by the vocal few.

Misinformation coupled with a lack of coherent facts proved to be just exactly what it set out to do,scare the Community into supporting something they had no real grounding for.

Pilton Sucks believes that a root and branch review of all the local projects is long overdue,and a change over to Community owned projects is required. Again Pilton Sucks asks the question,Exactly how many local people work in these projects and how many local people actually manage any of these projects?

We already know the answer and for our readers interest we will tell you. A tiny handful.This was a deliberate move by a Labour controlled Community who feathered the nests of their own pals and completely ignored local employment.

SIP funding was a godsend for nest feathering and grants were chucked about as if there was no tomorrow,and Pilton Sucks believes even at this stage that an investigation is warranted into who got what,how and why. 

Community involvement was kept to a minimum and only those thought to be friendly to the cause were allowed in,the rest were given ridiculous excuses,one of the classics being that you lived outside some fictitious boundary put together at some private meeting in the borders some years ago.

This consolidated power in the hands of the few and locked the rest out,that was simply hand picked Community involvement designed to head nod decisions that were at best questionable.

Pilton Sucks believes that the funding allocation is the best we can get in the current economic climate,with and we agree with the current administration a desire to get real Community involvement,not party membership involvement. Even now Gerrymandering continues to plague some projects,which is shameful and a total disgrace.

Pilton Sucks continues to watch the situation and will report to you what other publications would not touch for fear of upsetting the applecart and actually getting involved in the democratic process something which up to now has been very short on the ground.         

Friends and readers. Another of our sharp eyed readers has spotted something that will get the taste buds of the Forth Ward punters tingling.

Mathison’s the bakers or at least that’s what they call themselves,have dropped the price of a jumbo sausage roll from 95pence to 75 pence,unbelievable we know but nevertheless true.

You can visualise Dave fatboy Hewitt’s mouth dribbling at the very thought. More grease for less dosh,this has to be the bargain of bargains,certainly beats a Reed furniture sale,or A Land Of Leather clear out.

This will get the lucky punters queuing up as the calories mount up and that fur coat round your heart gets ever thicker. Fortunately the doctor’s surgery is just across the road if or when required.

We tried to picture what a jumbo sausage looks like or how much bigger it is than a normal sized one and who actually would buy a jumbo sausage roll.

We sent our devil may care associate Helen to buy one of these mysterious objects and told her we would send a search party out if she did not return.

Helen returned sausage roll in bag.It was put on a table and we took two paces back just in case. This meaty delight is difficult to describe with any degree of accuracy suffice to say it had to be seen to be believed.

Curled slightly at the end where the meat was black in colour it looked ominous as we asked for a volunteer to taste it. Much bribery and threats later Helen took the plunge and got stuck in.

Her opinion was a long time in coming suggesting this food thing was difficult to digest either that or she was lost for words.

Helens verdict,she had never tasted anything like it before ,unique was how she put it,in a class of it’s own. She was later heard to remark under her breath,I’m going to leave my body to science,they are the only lot that would know what was in that Sausage Roll that Jumbo sausage roll.        

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Friends and readers. One of our eagle eyed readers,told us that recently while sampling the rarefied atmosphere of the City Centre with all it’s various mixtures of polluting poisons surrounding you,she counted 14 buses nose to tail on South Bridge. Not one of them she added was going to the leafy suburbs of Pilton.

We think this might be a record for the amount of LRT buses in a queue at any one time and all of them were heading left into what’s left of Princess Street.

Our reader abandoned all concerns for herself taking her life in her hands tried to cross the road towards Register House.

Fool hardy you may think but she made it despite a couple of close shaves as rampaging motorists and LRT buses competed for position ignoring the green man who himself seemed to jump back to avoid the onslaught of insanity that is the City Centre.

The stench of hamburgers and crappy carry out shit filled the historic poisoned air as our reader made her way down Leith Street to the dreaded roundabout at Greenside Place.

Again she was met by enraged motorists and demented Bus drivers as they grappled for position on an ever decreasing road network. Once more no Buses were heading down Broughton Street on route to Sunny Pilton.

Onwards our intrepid reader went until she reached Cannonmills,were nobody knows which way they are going,which gives our big friends LRT the distinct advantage working on the theory that we are bigger than you so get out of the way or end up pancaked.

But yet still our reader could see no buses heading towards Pilton,so invigorated she made her way up towards Ferry Road surely she thought I’ll get a bus there.

The walk was taking it’s toll and frustration was setting in. Some ten minutes later she turn  into Ferry Road and the 14 bus as if from no-where rushed past,where did that come from she wondered,no point crying about it and headed down Granton Road. 

Some sort of sixth sense befell our reader and as she walked down Granton Road she turned around to see a fast approaching number 8 bus determined to break the land speed record. It must have been near the drivers tea time or finishing time as the flames shot out from the giant black tyres,if they had come off it would have been like a scene from Spartacus.

Our reader sprinted towards the bus stop finding energy she had thought long gone in what felt like a vain attempt to catch the drivers attention and get him to stop. For those who have at some time in their lives ran for a bus and that will be countless of us will know that LRT drivers are intensively trained in how to ignore running passengers and just when to leave a bus stop as the out of breath barely alive commuter arrives at the stop.

This takes years of experience and LRT drivers have been mentioned in dispatches for their ability to irritate their punters.

Our reader was on the point of throwing herself in front of this runaway number 8 not that our intrepid hero would have stopped just shrugged his shoulders and made a cutting remark about this City’s delightful speed bumps.

But fear not dear friends and readers our frustrated exhausted commuter won through in the end and forced this mechanical monster to grind to a halt. Having managed that amazing feat our reader tried to board the bus,but the doors were stuck so she had to push her way on catching her bag in the process causing great amusement to our LRT friend. Our reader fumbled in her purse looking for the exact money,not looking up just in case she incurred the wrath of the driver. It’s £1.20 he told our reader in a very masterful way,and of course as our more experienced LRT drivers know,and can cause the passenger even more stress,start to move off as the punter is looking for the exact fare. Now those that have been caught in that particular trap will appreciate the impossibility of staying upright as the bus moves off and you are looking for the exact fare. She eventually found the exact money as the bus reached Granton Square and she sat down a shambling wreak hands shaking knees trembling.

The moral of the story for our reader. There is someone always worse off than you.As the number eight pulled up at the next bus stop a young woman with child and buggy tried to board the bus.                       

Friends and readers. Many of you will have experienced shopping in Scot-Mids in Crewe Road North,and what an experience that is.

Recently a customer popped in to buy some bread,when asking for a French loaf he was met with the deafening shriek of one of the delightful assistants,we dinna have French bread it’s all Scottish bread.

Just one of the delightful experiences of Scot-Mid shopping. Of course many punters will have been caught in the infamous Scot-Mid queue,behind a pensioner buying lottery tickets they can’t afford.

In fact one or two relationships have been formed while standing in the Scot-mid queue. We are told that one time the queue was so long that a young man made a marriage proposal to the lady in front of him after they struck up a converation waiting and waiting and waiting in the Scot-Mid queue. One or two punters have even finished adult education courses while waiting in the queue.

And then there is the terrible experience of standing behind someone who wants to pay by card. This is almost to much to bear. As the assistant tries to work out how the card machine works,when she finds this impossible then comes the horrific sound of the buzzer air raid noise like, and assistance is sought.

This can take some time to achieve and as your arms get heavy and your knees start to buckle your mind can drift off into it’s deepest recesses and hibernate till assistance comes and then another assistant arrives to scratch her head in puzzlement.

Nothing for it but wait it out until either the customer gives up and pays cash or by some miracle a voice from the wilderness shouts across, I’ll take some-one at this till,and a new and exciting avenue of discovery is opened up for the discerning buyer.

Of course the real prize is in watching our Scot-mid assistants deep in converation with each other as the queue grows ever longer seemingly oblivious to the lengthening queues and the shortening tempers.

As you approach the two tills situated at the fags,booze lottery ticket section and past sell by date rolls at half price or less with a vague promise of fresh today you get a sense of presence,that this is the real power base of the store as this is usually were the only open tills are available.

The sheer professionalism required to gather all the punters together in one spot has to be seen to be believed,as the punters are herded like cattle similar to airport security ,passing through the sweet smell of scratch cards and lottery tickets screaming out at you– buy me and win a fortune ,and many are caught in that quicksand of something for nothing or it could be me.

But never mind once through that mine field you are free to run for the exit door careful to stop before you reach it as sometimes it can be a little difficult and the door requires a swift kick to open it,but once out ,you may be slightly older than when you first went in all that time ago but a sudden transformation sweeps across you, you feel invigorated and free as the wind whistles past you and you dodge the potholes,and as you reach the crossing that is Crewe Road North and Boswall Parkway,you get that sense of freedom that rare feeling of total harmony with the environment, but alas you awake and find you’ve just stepped in dog shit again                

Friends and readers.As you walk through the leafy hollows of Royston and Wardieburn towards the fresh air of Crammond,you will catch at the bottom of Crewe Road North the famous sight of the Edinburgh disease that is roadworks.

Where they dig why they dig how often they dig,has become a mystery to the residents of this once great City,but one thing is for certain we could win an Olympic gold medal at it.

Our little contribution to the mass of roadworks is a little ditty entitled nobody knows.

No-one ever seems to be working there and no-body seems to know why they are supposed to be working there. But fear not we are sure that our yellow coated friends are not far away but merely in disguise,ready to pounce on you and start to dig telling you it’s essential gas works,when they really mean is that we have to dig this hole to finish what we should have done the last time we dug your road up,but didn’t, we forgot.   

Friends and readers. As many of you know there has been much talk about a replacement Centre for the outdated crumbling Royston/Wardieburn Community Centre.

While it’s plainly clear that this building is well past it’s sell by date and has been for some time,there still seems to be little or no movement to upgrade the existing building,which Pilton sucks and the majority of the Community feels is the best option or spending an ever decreasing budget on a new centre.

But the constant rumour that is circulating the chattering classes of the Forth Ward,is where is the missing million pounds,that the then Pilton Partnership put into the new centre or upgrading pot.

Some well placed sources say that it was spent on the roof of Royston Primary School behind the backs of those that voted for the money to be used on a new or upgraded centre.

The facts of the matter are this,the Labour administration was all powerful at the time,so the present administration cannot be blamed for this slight of hand. Our understanding of the mechanics of the situation are that the elected members of the former Pilton Partnership would have voted for this money to be released,so there should be a minute of this decision hidden away somewhere which proves this to be the case.

So the question is what happened after that and whose mucky hands where involved in redistributing this money from it’s designated source.

If this cash was put aside for Royston/Wardieburn’s new or upgraded centre then who authorised it’s spending elsewhere and what authority did they have for doing so,that is if any authority for this slight of hand was sought.

Now it appears  due to economic circumstances that the capital budget for a new centre has been cut right back and the image of a new centre is fast fading.

An upgrade of the existing building was always the better option and sits far more easily with the voters than a shoe box size wing attached to the end of Royston School.

In fact this could be started with the missing million,although if the rumours are correct then it is not missing but shining out brightly from the roof of Royston primary school.

So this means that the present administration would have to find another million to replace the million that was spent on something it should not have been spent on as it was voted for by the former Partnership board which is now the North Edinburgh Trust,who probably bar one or two haven’t a clue what happened to the cash.

Now if you followed all that,what really happened to the million goes something like this.

The former Pilton Partnership board members voted for a £million to go towards the fund for a new or upgraded centre. This was approved and  should be in the minutes of that meeting.

What happened after that is a little hazy. But the grasping hands of the then ruling Labour Group are all over this deal. As the debate over the centre continued and various options were looked at including £8000 pounds of public money that was spent on a feasibility study that was completely ignored this after a well attended public meeting supported a plan which involved the total refurbishment of the centre on the existing site,in other words a new centre. If we look hard enough in the dingy basements of the corridors of power,you would almost certainly find two 3D scale models titled option A and option B. Option B was selected by the Community and ditched just as quick and the Community where then told at the eleventh hour,that we would not be getting what the Community voted for but a wing on the end of Royston School.

Now some several years later and a few quid of taxpayers money wasted,the Community is still no further forward in it’s quest for a long overdue up to date centre.

Now within all this the £million quid was still merrily floating around the system watched eagerly by the menacing advances of certain Councillors on the then ruling Labour Group.

And as the debate rumbled on about what should happen to the still crumbling edifice of Royston/Wardieburn Community Centre,and officials came and went with promises and ideas which came to nothing,the £million was conveniently forgotten about and disappeared out of sight, to where,we can only hazard a guess,but the shiny new tiles on the Primary School might have the answer to our missing million,if only they could talk.       

Friends and readers. Our noble son of Edinburgh and current chancellor Alistair firebrand Darling has been claiming expenses for his luxury pad in Edinburgh to the tune of £70,000 a year.

This at at a time when people are losing their jobs and homes at a furious rate,our comrade Darling helps himself to the public purse. Former hard left councillor Darling enjoys all the of trappings of cabinet life while presiding over the collapse of the British economy.

He like all of his colleagues have no idea how to solve this crisis but he and his cronies know well how to use the system to their own advantage. While Darling holes himself up in Downing Street and feeds his greed giving little thought to the many who are suffering,his only answer is to throw taxpayers money at the very same greedy bastards who got us into this mess.

Very soon we will own the banks but the Government still does not crack the whip and force the banks to start lending again. What good does it do to own these institutions if we still allow the lunatics to run the asylum.

Mr. Darling is all to aware how to screw the system for his own benefit,but cannot or will not make sure the banks do what he tells them and release money into the market.

The bankers are laughing at him and judging by their performances at the select committee last week they could not give a toss about anyone but themselves. Labour are 16 points behind in the latest opinion poll and are in danger of disappearing off the scale altogether.

Darling and Brown are just not at the races and are lurching from crisis to crisis blaming all but themselves and their pals in the city. We the people will and are the ones who always suffer and pay the price of Government failure.

So Mr. Darling as you work out how much you can earn for yourself figure this out,come the election what will you be able to say to your punters in leafy Edinburgh as you hand in your expence sheet.  

Friends and readers. As the bullying scandal which has engulfed the infamous Muirhouse Social Work Centre continues to rumble on and the guilty still go unpunished,Pilton Sucks can reveal that the amount of complaints about abusive behaviour almost caused senior management to go into melt down.

 Our associate George who broke the story was told by his source at the leaky Waverley Court that several senior managers were at breaking point unable or unwilling to do anything about the growing scandal.

The bar was raised when the Sunday Mail got wind of this scandal during their investigation across the board into Community Service. Concerns had been raised about the way this service operates and those in charge,many of whom have no Criminal justice qualifications,just like the two thugs who caused so much misery in the Muirhouse Office.

We are aware that one of these jobsworths is now working at the Dalkeith Social Work Centre hoping he has escaped Justice. The cowardice that is the trait of the workplace bully can be summed up in a few words,with inadequate right up amongst them. What happened at this centre in Muirhouse was disgraceful coupled with weak management compounded abusive behaviour putting staff at risk and allowing bad management practices to go unchecked giving the green light to bullys whose complete lack of man management abilities showed through so clearly.

Workplace bullying is totally unacceptable and must not go unpunished. Pilton Sucks once again demands an open independent inquiry into what happened at this centre in Muirhouse leaving no stone unturned with those guilty of bullying removed from post. 

Friends and readers. George our associate received a call from his reliable source at the leaky Waverley Court telling him that there were several,as she put it squeaky bums on seats now really concerned that the Muirhouse bullying scandal is getting away from their orchestrated cover up,and that another smoke screen is needed to protect the guilty.

 Pilton Sucks has been saying for some time that a cover up existed over this scandal,so this news comes as no surprise to us.Those responsible for abuse of staff will ,we are in no doubt be revealed for what they are and who they are,although that seems to be no secret.

We are now told that a new Committee has been formed called Physical Regeneration,which we are told has amongst it’s other responsibilities demolition. We wonder in the interests of regeneration of course, would it not be worth while to demolish that infamous centre and free up the land for something far more useful,just a thought.