Why county chiefs are paying a council 200 miles away to answer the phone
Bracknell Forest council is now looking to pay a Welsh speaker to man the hotline, which it gets paid £80,000 to run.
A council in the south-west England is on the look out for a Welsh speaker ... to answer the phone to elderly people 200 miles away in Flintshire.
The local authority in Bracknell has been paid £80,000 by the North Wales council, to run an out-of-hours emergency helpline.
But as the emergency response officers are likely to end up receiving calls from people who want to Speak welsh, it is now on the look-out for a Welsh speaker to man its phones.
The officer will be working for the council's 'Forestcare' service, which is an out of hours provision that supports distressed residents across the country.
Law requires the council to meet Welsh speaking standards but prior to the job application being listed, the authority had been using a translation service to deal with calls from Welsh speakers.
The arrangement caught the eye of satirical magazine Private Eye in summer 2018. A column in the magazine reported on how "in the wonderful world of outsourcing, BFC has won a contract to monitor out of hours the lifeline alarms of elderly and vulnerable residents for 25 local authorities and housing associations, one of which is Flintshire County Council in North Wales."
The Flintshire job alone is worth £80,000 to BFC. So when Doris in Mold takes a fall and presses her buzzer, someone in faraway Bracknell will contact her neighbour, next of kin or emergency services."
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/county-chiefs-paying-council-200-15775082