You’ll be pleased to know that I have not much to say in this post.  It seems that a lot of my fellow bloggers have done a runner leaving Ross and I to entertain you and to be honest, I’m not quite sure where to find much entertainment at work.  Don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of amusing stuff happening, just not a lot that I can reveal in public

Those of you who have been keeping up to date with ScotsCare’s news will know that we have formed an alliance with Borderline and our remit now includes helping homeless Scots in London.  This has resulted in myself and colleagues attending specialised homelessness courses designed by Shelter; who ever said you can’t teach an old dogs new tricks hasn’t witnessed the sight of me getting all my answers right in a multiple choice test

I had the chance to catch up with a friend this week and as is always the way, we soon ended up chatting about our respective jobs.  My friend is a barber so you would expect him to have a wealth of tales to tell about the many varied people who sit in his chair for 15 minutes or so and reveal all manner of tidbits of their life as he snips away and bemoans Arsenal’s many missed chances to score a goal of late. (more…)

The government has launched a new Health in Pregnancy grant which is available for anyone with a due date of 6 April 2009 onwards. The grant is not means-tested and is a one off payment of £190. You need to be at least 25 weeks pregnant at the time of application and you must have received health advice from a midwife or doctor.

To get it you need to ask your midwife or doctor for the Health in Pregnancy Grant form, or phone the HipG Helpline on 0292 050 1178.

The mum-to-be must be the one who fills the form in and then it must be signed by your midwife. The application needs to have been received within 31 days of them signing the form so don’t ask them to sign it until you’re ready to send it.

If you are on a low income you maybe also entitled to a Sure Start Maternity grant which is a one off payment of £500. Please check the link below for more information.

http://www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk/JCP/Customers/WorkingAgeBenefits/Dev_013950.xml.html

Also remember to apply for tax credits and child benefit when the baby arrives.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/childbenefit/

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/taxcredits/index.htm

If you are reading this in the UK then you probably know that we had a flurry of snow that caused a little disruption to the usually smooth running public transport system here in London.  OK, that’s not exactly correct, if you’re lucky it might be running but seldom is it ever smooth! 

Unlike a lot of people who found themselves stranded at home I was able to work thanks to the wonders of remote access. It’s interesting how things have progressed, I remember in 1989 when I worked for British Telecom and the notion of being able to log onto your corporate desktop from your home PC was getting bandied about.  No one quite believed it would ever catch on and even to this day there are a great many sceptical people, managers included, who raise an eyebrow when someone says they are working from home, the belief is often that without someone there to watch over them the at home worker will spend all day watching daytime TV in between visits to the fridge. (more…)

I can’t be credited with creating the heading, as it belongs to the newly merged charity Gingerbread it was no doubt devised by a media consultancy in exchange for a five figured sum but it was probably worth whatever they paid for it, don’t you think?

We’ve all seen the headlines in which some politician or another denounces a single parent for being a burden on society, usually the tirade is directed towards a young woman who has just had a child.  What people often forget is that men can be and are single parents.  Funnily enough a lot of people mistakenly think that Fathers 4 Justice, who they recall from the photos of fathers dressed as Batman and Robin outfits from the news, are single fathers, they’re not, simply fathers trying to get more contact with their children.  Strangely I can never look at those photos without thinking of Rodney and Del Boy! (more…)