Rosemary

Please note Voiceability no longer provide the NHS Complaints Advocacy in Sheffield. This is now provided by the Sheffield Advocacy Hub, which is a partnership between Sheffield Advice (who run the hub), Disability Sheffield, and Cloverleaf Advocacy. The service they provide is as described the Voiceability Post above, but the contact details have changed. https://sheffieldadvocacyhub.org.uk/ info@sheffieldadvocacyhub.org.uk 0800 035 0396

Oh yes, its completely unfair and not an equitable system at all. I'm not suggesting otherwise. I'm just saying (in relation to your original question) that it is not the role of the ombudsman to make a judgement on the fairness of a system, just whether the council has followed the process properly. Doesn't matter if the process sucks in the first place, that is not their concern......

The other thing to keep in mind is that the LGO will only look at whether the council have acted procedurally correctly, or whether there has been 'maladministration'. The Fairer Charging Guidance is, as you rightly say, a national framework with local discretion allowed; there is very little that's 'fair' about it, but the LGO won't comment on the 'fairness' of what the council chooses to charge people, just whether the decisions have been made within the relevant policies and procedures. Unfortunately the council can charge you a large amount for your care, while sticking within the guidelines. If you want to complain, you need to identify exactly the point on which you think they have fallen foul of what they should be doing. It won't get far if it's a general gripe about being too much. If you want to make a challenge to the LA's decisions on how to apply fairer charging generally, I'd say you'd be better lobbying your councillor and / or MP as it's a policy issue really. Not sure how much joy you would have though, social care are on their knees and really have very few options on how to keep their head above water (thanks to central government). Maximising income from care contributions is one strand of how they are trying to deal with that. It sucks for the people who are having to fork out a huge chunk of their income to pay for their care.

I'm looking for a football party for my son (will be who will be 8 on his birthday). I can see a few companies saying they do them in Sheffield, but they all seem to be big national companies, which means you get no information about the actual person who will be running your party. I'm kind of keen to find one that orginates locally, and where we know that the person running it will be good with the kids. Any recommendations?

It is a brilliant place. I've been there loads of times for the amazing cake selection, and then the other night I went with a large group of friends for an evening meal- they let us use a room upstairs, the food was lovely, cheap and the staff really friendly and helpful. Can't recommend it highly enough. And no, before you say it anyone, I don't work there.

Family Ceilidh with live music and calling by Jenny Reid. Sunday 21st September 2.30 - 5pm at St Catherine's Scout Hut, Holtwood Road, Pitsmoor. Tickets on the door £4 adults, £2 children, Under 3's free. Refreshments and raffle, all profits to Burngreave Library.

On my road, just as all the christmas lights came down, all these other lights went up. I'm loving it - as far as I'm concerned miserable January is the month which most needs fairy lights to dispel some greyness. It is true that they seem to have been up for longer than in previous years, and there have been more houses with them...is there a reason for that? Has it become more of a 'thing'??? I guess I should ask one of my neighbours...

You might want to look at personal health budgets which will apply to people receiving CHC funding from April 14. http://www.nhs.uk/choiceintheNHS/Yourchoices/personal-health-budgets/Pages/about-personal-health-budgets.aspx Basically these will give choice and control over care in the same way that self-directed support has increased choice in the services received through social care funding. Although they are not obliged to offer them until April 14 I think they do have the ability to do so now... I'd kick up a stink and say you want one. If you make enough fuss they may just decide it's easier to leave you with the agency you've got rather than have to try and get their head around a personal health budget.

Yes, well the reason we didn't pay the garage to do it is because apparently you get people to do a better job for less money elsewhere. Unfortunately the guy we had hoped we would do it hasn't got any availability to fit with when we need it, hence we are looking around elsewhere. You still haven't really explained in any way why you feel it is a waste of money. I would be genuinely interested to know the answer but you are being somewhat non-specific.

Why wouldn't you bother with the scotchguarding? Have you ever experienced the spillage and general sticky debris associated with 2 small children in your car? I would be interested to know if it is genuinely a waste of money, but if it makes a difference to the resilience of the upholstery to stains etc then seems like a good idea to me.....

I know there are some older threads on this, but I'm looking for someone to do a detailing job on our new car. To be more honest I'm more interested in the internal protection / scotchguarding for the upholstery than the outside of the car, although I would probably want the exterior done as well. Most of the websites I've looked at look as though they are aimed at either scratch repairs or just for prestige car owners who are looking for seriously shiny. I am just looking for someone to do a good job of protecting our brand new very sensible family car before it gets covered in mushed up snacks and sticky fingers. Any recommendations please.

thanks for responses, seems Forge Dam is a popular destination, we'll definitely include that on the tour. I can't picture it... is it one of those kind of built on to a slope / hill?

We have recently had our amazing / terrifying big slide removed from Pitsmoor Adventure Playground We are now in the process of consulting the kids about what should replace it, and are proposing to do a field trip to look at other slides to help them with this. So where are the best slides in Sheffield? We need the help of all you good folk to help us seek out the best, biggest, most exciting slides this city has to offer. Thank you!

We are having a 'playful protest' tomorrow afternoon (Saturday) at the adventure playground. Bring your kids, enjoy the adventure playground (while you can) and help us say 'NO' to the folks that want to take it away..... ---------- Post added 08-02-2013 at 20:20 ---------- Oh, also meant to add that the deadline for signing the e-petition is Tuesday 12th. You can sign it here.... https://sheffield.moderngov.co.uk/mgEPetitionDisplay.aspx?ID=98&RPID=324897&HPID=324897

So we met with managers from Activity Sheffield on Saturday regarding the proposals for the Adventure Playground. The meeting was well attended, and it's fair to say that local people feel very strongly indeed about this. The managers told us that the site "isn't going to close"... the proposal is that: 1. All Activity Sheffield staffing is removed. The management of the site will be handed over to the buildings team at the council. 2. The indoor building (with kitchen, toilets and activity room which currently has table tennis, pool etc) is locked and only opened when community groups hire it. 3. The outside part of the site will be 'open access', so the gates to the adventure will be open at all times. However, the play equipment doesn't meet the health and safety standards for an unstaffed site, so that will have to be ripped out. And they have the nerve to claim that this doesn't constitute closing it! They gave us some lip service about wanting to work with the local community to find if there was a way to make it sustainable - and the frustrating thing is that there are plenty of people wanting to have these discussions and find a solution, but it feels pretty hopeless when we are only given 4 weeks to do this.