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It’s time to open up
• DEBORAH Fowlers of Age Concern comments that she is a representative on the Islington Strategic Partnership (ISP) board and has the interests of older people at heart and does, of course, raise issues on their behalf (Voice of the elderly, May 9). All good news so far. She, however, went on to put in a proviso: “whenever relevant.”
This does beg the question as to who decides what is relevant. She did go on to state that all ISP meetings are open to the public. Given that it spends mainly public money, can members of the public question the board or even the so- called theme panels as to what is relevant and what is not and how do they go about it?
She went on to state that the agenda can be found on Islington Council’s website. This creates a major problem for what is possibly the majority of pensioners and older people, especially those on low incomes and in the deprived areas the Strategic Partnership is supposed to benefit, who do not have access to the council’s website.
This problem has to be acknowledged and I would suggest that a newsletter is produced on a regular basis as part of the website but also delivered in paper form to all households and particularly the elderly facilities in the borough.
This could explain what Islington Strategic Partnership does and provide space for comments as to what is relevant from those who are supposed to be benefiting from the partnership. What is rather confusing is that the website gives the names but not the organisations the members represent, except that they are part of Islington Community Network which I am afraid would mean nothing to the majority of the Islington community.
Even worse from pensioners’ and the over-50s’ point of view, there is even less information about the theme group Health and Older People’s Partnership, which is supposed to look at older people’s issues, except that its members include professionals from the statutory and voluntary community sectors.
How can an organisation plead that it is transparent when it fails to give full information as to who or what organisations are represented?
It is quite clearly failing to get its message across (websites certainly do not). It holds meetings which are public but held at the rather strange time of 5pm, which is extremely awkward for the majority of the community, who even if they make the effort to attend apparently are not allowed to make comments or raise questions. Even Islington Council does better.
JOHN WORKER
Priory Green estate, N1
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