Congratulations to Dorset County Council (“£3 million bid to ease social worker crisis” - Echo, Jan 29).

The ‘penny has dropped’ at last and for the first time in years I perceive a ray of light. I feel immensely cheered.

I’ve been bleating on for ages about the idiocy of the government driving valuable nursing and social care staff into the hands of agencies through poor salaries and overwork. I quote from an article today entitled “How private equity barons turn children’s pain into profit” by Aditya Chakrabortty, “…..Liverpool council …recruited a carer from a for-profit agency which…. had charged the council £1,956.40 a week. Now she’s in-house, the fee has fallen to £758.34.” A saving of 62%.

Another article states, “Analysis of the accounts of several private equity-owned IFA’s (independent foster care agencies), which charge councils to match children with foster carers …reveals multi-million-pound dividends paid to investors and six-figure salaries for directors”.

I bet not one of them has ever changed a nappy. David Simmons, Conservative vice-chair of the LGA, said that “if councils could pay more, they would spend less overall. IFA’s offer carers 25% more and then double or triple the charge to the local authority”.

To my mind it’s far better to pay the carers 25% more and cap the rates greedy IFA’s can charge councils.

A company can usefully employ temporary employees when its need is to fill relatively mundane vacancies to even out supply and demand.

But what fool would spend a fortune training highly skilled workers only to drive them away and finish up paying three times as much for their replacements?

Almost everything we spend money on apart from our amusement is an investment for the future; housing, food, essential clothing, health, social care, education, roads, communication and gas and electricity supply networks.

Mostly, the wealthy don’t want to invest in anything but their vanity. They live in a ‘bubble’ of self-interest which distorts capitalism into an unrecognisable mess.

It’s bad enough seeing fat-cats dodging tax, decimating the economy, running off with pension funds and ripping our institutions to bits but when Theresa ‘Maydo this’ and ‘Maydo that’ endlessly repeats her mantra “We can’t spend money we don’t have”, she confirms she is also financially inept.

MIKE JOSLIN
Dorchester