'State-sponsored bullying has to stop'

2:21pm Tuesday 29th April 2008

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CONGRATULATIONS on your Home From Home fundraising campaign for Wirral Autistic Sociey (Globe, April 16).

As you say, the people of Wirral have always been generous in supporting the vulnerable and sick on a personal basis. What a pity that this generosity is not matched by Wirral Council.

Congratulations to the local government ombudsman for exposing maladministration causing injustice' in refusing responsibility for educating the disabled child S' and to the Globe for reporting it. This case is not a fluke.

Wirral has only a rating of one on the 1 to 5 scale of the Equality Standard For Local Government. This is unacceptable since Wirral has more than its fair share of disabled, old and vulnerable people and the Globe has frequently reported shameful reductions in services for them in recent years.

At the same time, £800,000 per annum will be spent locally on an ASBO Sin Bin' for families from hell. However the Government's own analyses show that 80 per cent of these families have serious mental health and learning disability problems, including autism and ADHD.

Sixty per cent were found to be victims of ASB and disability abuse and are described as easily scapegoated' in neighbour disputes.

The lone mothers, the mentally impaired and the homeless are systematically targeted nationally by ASB teams. Even worse, the Sin Bin project evaluations show clearly that the families are not stabilised nor is there any sustained reduction in community ASB.

These projects are an expensive, politically-inspired fraud. You cannot cure mental illness or learning disability with state-sponsored bullying and parenting classes.

Dave Gregg,Poulton Green Close,Spital