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Letter to Education Secretary from Ewan Smith, Muirfield Action Group

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SUBJECT: PROPOSED CLOSURE OF MUIRFIELD AND TIMMERGREENS. RESPONSE TO ANGUS COUNCIL DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION NEIL LOGUE’S LETTER OF JANUARY 13

Dear Mr Russell,

I would like to officially respond to Angus Council’s Director of Education Mr Neil Logue’s letter to Jonathan Moore, Head of the School Infrastructure Unit on January 13th.

Given that this letter was in response to observations I had made regarding surveyor reports of Muirfield and Timmergreens I feel it is entirely valid for my rebuttal to be considered before a final decision on the proposed closure of Muirfield and Timmergreens Primary schools is reached by you as the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning.

Firstly, I feel it is crucial to underline that my ‘observations’ were first cited in my call-in request that was submitted within the three week period for representation. I wrote of concerns over the discrepancies in the gradings of certain aspects of Timmergreens between the two different surveyor spreadsheets in my call-in request, I also raised doubts over the claims that Muirfield’s heating system was faulty and explained how information relevant to this was now subject to a Scottish Freedom of Information request. I’m pleased to note that the Scottish Government took my concerns seriously enough to raise these points with Angus Council, however, I believe there is nothing in the Schools Consultation (Scotland) Act 2010 (“the Act”) which prevents the you from exploring and investigating evidence out with the original scope of call-in. That in turn, should dispel the argument that Mr Logue suggests in stating that the observations are ‘not relevant to the reasons cited by the Ministers for issuing the call in notice.’

I also do not regard the time being taken to consider this extremely complex and highly controversial proposal to be ‘needless’. Indeed, those 50 people who took the time to compile detailed ‘call-in’ requests, some of which ran beyond 40 pages, merit a full, in-depth and transparent investigation into this proposal.

In his letter, Mr Logue has included a series of statements and appendix items which I feel are entirely irrelevant to the questions he was asked in Mr Moore’s letter on December 22nd. I wish to make no response to his attempts to discredit me personally or to raise doubts over the actions of the other parents/members of Muirfield Action Group. Failed previous attempts to do so led to the aforementioned Director enduring the threat of being removed from the Council chamber on the very day this proposal was voted in by Angus Council, June 22, 2011. However, I feel the only consideration of this matter should be factual, physical evidence not the personal feelings of the Director or anyone else.

In response to Mr Logue’s comments, therefore:

(a) THE SCHOOL SHOULD NOT BE CLOSED WHEN THERE IS NO PHYSICAL RECORD OF INSPECTION (MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL SERVICES)

In his response, Mr Logue states that there is an established database of knowledge on Muirfield. I do not doubt this statement, I do however wish to point out that an in-depth School Estate Management Plan must be carried out every five years, with update submitted to the Scottish Government when requested. This inspection must contain ‘auditable’ records.

Pages 1 to 10 of Mr Ed Thomson’s surveyor report on Muirfield can be clearly validated as it contains handwritten notes and photographs taken on the date of inspection (3/3/09).

However, by Mr Logue’s admission there are no handwritten notes, files or photographs in existence to provide evidence of Property Advisor Mike Whyte’s visit to Muirfield on 18/3/09 or of any SEMP specific assessment of the Mechanical Services/ Electrical Services that was ‘validated’ by Mr Whyte.

As such there is no legally required audit trail to explain the significant downgrading of the school’s Condition/Suitability rating from B/B to C/C. The only document is a computer based Suitability Assessment dated 18/3/09.

As stated by Mr Logue, there are no handwritten notes, no photographs of this visit. As such there are no auditable records to prove that a  on-site inspection of the heating etc was carried out at Muirfield, with specific regard to the School Estate Management Plan of 2009, before the Mechanical Services and Electrical Services were recorded as D and B respectively.

Without these records this inspection could have, technically, been carried out remotely as a computer desk exercise.

Mr Logue also states that ‘The fact that handwritten notes of a specific mechanical/electrical services assessment of Muirfield Primary School were not retained should not lead one to conclude that the electronic version of the handwritten notes is not accurate.’ This does not explain how the records are ‘auditable’ and, therefore, fails to satisfactorily respond to this question.

Fears over the authenticity of a heating survey are genuine, given, that there have been no reported closures of Muirfield Primary School in the four-year period dated 2007-2011 due to a broken heating system, which is seemingly regarded as the worst in Arbroath. During the same period, Warddykes Primary School – which scored a rating of C for Mechanical Services – £12,110 was spent in comparison to £2,683 on Muirfield. That’s a difference of £9,427 on a heating system that was graded better than the one at Muirfield. Physical proof of these figures have already previously been sent to you.

It should also be noted that an e-mail string between Property Advisor Mike Whyte and surveyor Ed Thomson, which was previously forwarded to you, exists showing that Mr Whyte has no idea who was responsible for a physical inspection of the Mechanical/Electrical Services element of Muirfield.

This string ends on March 17, 2009 with Mr  Whyte – ONE DAY BEFORE MR WHYTE’S ASSESSMENT – asking his colleague Robert McLachlan: “Robert, I need your help, I’m bamboozled. Who is dealing with the services side? Should I be assessing it myself?

“If the services are incomplete, effectively the information is useless to me as this forms part of the overall condition calculation. Without it I am unable to arrive at a condition rating  (this being the whole point of assessment).”

No response was ever released under FOI to that e-mail, however, subsequent e-mails dated after March 18, 2009 show that Mechanical Services/ Electrical Services had not been completed for some Arbroath schools and that the gradings would be entered on a ‘superficial’ basis.

On May 1, 2009, a full SIX WEEKS ON  from the date of Mr Whyte’s assessment of Muirfield, an e-mail from Angus Council’s Head of Property Services John Pearson to Mr Whyte (Property Advisor) and cc Craig Clement (Senior Education Officer) and Neil Anderson (MAINTENANCE MANAGER) was sent.

Entitled ‘Services Contributions to Arbroath SEMPS’ it stated:

“I have discussed your needs and the resources available with Neil and he has explained to me the heavy workload that he is trying to progress including the capital maintenance and Education revenue projects which he has been asked to progress for the summer recess.
He has agreed to provide information for your exercise but this will be on a somewhat superficial basis allocating A-D scores for the main services elements and any relevant subcategories where the information can be found and used very quickly.
I regret that we do not currently have the resources to take this matter any further.”

Given the dubiety over the heating assessment for the SEMPS, Angus Council should provide documentation to prove that this email does not relate to Muirfield/Timmergreens.

(b) THE SCHOOL SHOULD NOT BE CLOSED WHEN THERE ARE ALTERED GRADINGS WITH NO SUPPORTING EVIDENCE AS TO WHY SURVEYOR REPORTS WERE CHANGED BY EDUCATION DEPARTMENT.

Mr Logue admits that gradings were altered, without physical reference as to why. This is not ‘auditable’. He also admits that the alterations caused the grading of the External Walls, Windows And Doors section to be downgraded from B to C but states ‘this amendment made no change to the overall Condition rating of Timmergreens which remained as a B ratings.’

Whilst the rating of the school did not alter, according to Mr Logue, the statement that accompanied one of the changes from a grading of B to C in the surveyor reports – on Timmergreens windows: ‘Areas of excessive condensation problems’ was later used as evidence by both Angus Council in their Proposal Document and the HMIE inspector in her summary as major problems at this school. They, therefore, impacted on the decision making process of the councillors who voted in the school closures. Without validation that these changes were signed off by the original surveyor Mr Ed Thomson I feel these changes are not ‘auditable’.

Mr Logue then states: ‘I can confirm Warddykes, Ladyloan and Muirfield Primary School all contain similar window curtain walling style construction.’ They have all received a condition rating of C for the External Walls, Windows and Doors element.

If the surveyor records of Muirfield released to me under FOI and subsequently verified by the Freedom of Information officer, are the only in existence then this statement is entirely inaccurate as the grading of the External Walls, Windows and Doors on the handwritten surveyor sheets for Muirfield produces a score of 73% (B) in accordance with the weighting system used for Condition scoring by Angus Council.

This was later recorded in the Muirfield School Estate Management Plan as a C, without reference to the change in grading. According to the Freedom of Information officer who visited Angus Council, Alison Davies, only ‘annotated surveyor notes’ exist for both Muirfield and Inverbrothock Primary Schools. This can easily be checked out by the Scottish Government with the impartial officer concerned.

Crucially, the only available surveyor spreadsheets for Muirfield grade the Overall Condition for the school as a B (65%), not a C as has been communicated in the Proposal Document and Consultation Report. Again, this assessment could easily be validated by the Scottish Government using the Angus Council-based weighting formula, given that these sheets were sent in with my original call in request.

The ‘inaccurate’ grading of the school would be a clear Material Consideration under the Act, as it significantly influenced not only the consultees in their decision making but, crucially the councillors who voted in the proposal. I would therefore, ask that this grading is looked at in detail by the Scottish Government and the outcome of the assessment is made publicly available before any decision over closure is reached.

(c) THE SCHOOL SHOULD NOT BE CLOSED WHEN ALL HANDWRITTEN NOTES TO THESE SURVEYS IS DESTROYED BY ANGUS COUNCIL

Mr Logue makes no attempt to suggest an existence of ‘auditable’ records preferring to state that the Suitability Rating of both Muirfield and Timmergreens is C. It again should be pointed out that these schools both carried a grading of ‘B’ for this Suitability in 2008 but, along with six out of seven other schools in the town in 2009, this was altered to C.

The Mechanical Services element of Muirfield, which includes a reputedly ‘faulty heating system’ greatly impacts on the Suitability scoring of that school with temperature control in the section that accounts for 50% of the weighting used to determine the Suitability grading. It appears that all Suitability assessments for Muirfield and Timmergreens were, in part, based on the surveyor reports for these schools.

It is therefore paramount that the following are considered before the Cabinet Secretary reaches his conclusion:

(a) The lack of evidence to show that a physical on-site inspection of the Mechanical Services/Electrical Services was carried out and not done remotely as a computer desktop exercise.

(b) The impact of the changed gradings at Timmergreens on the Proposal Document, Consultation Report and HMIE inspector’s report and the lack of citable evidence to explain these alterations.

(c) The apparent mis-calculations of both the External Doors and Windows element of Muirfield’s grading and, more crucially the overall scoring of this school as a C when surveyor reports suggest the school is a B.

As an extremely concerned parent, I feel that the Scottish Government should validate our claims over section (c), using the material previously provided to you in my call-in request and should contact the Scottish Freedom of Information Commissioner, as an independent party, to ask what information is held by Angus Council in regard to surveyor reports.

If Muirfield is graded as a B according to all surveyor records in existence at Angus Council this proposal should be deemed entirely flawed and should be rejected. If records, subsequently exist to deem otherwise then legal questions must be asked of the Council as to why these were not previously produced in my original FOISA request in April 2011 or subsequently to the investigation FOISA officer.

Even allowing for rejection of this proposal, I believe significant enough doubt exists over the altered gradings in the surveyor reports of  Muirfield, Timmergreens and Warddykes, to merit an independent inspection and record of Condition and Suitability ratings for using Scottish Government guidance to prevent a future proposal based on what I regard to be insufficient evidence.

Addressing, Mr Logue’s statement about my reluctance to meet with them and be provided with documents which I believe ‘may not have been provided in response to FOI requests’,  would ask why – if documents do exist – they have not already been released within the scope of my FOI requests? Any such meeting would not be recorded and any statements made during it would not be admissible as evidence. I believe, as with previous attempts to cancel the public meeting we organised at Muirfield in May – where 200 people attended – in favour of a one-to-one talk with Mr Craig Clement this is not an ‘open and transparent’ gesture in the spirit of the Act.

Finally, can I welcome you decision to make this particular aspect of the school closure proposal publicly viewable in the interests of openness and transparency. I am happy for my letter to be freely available and, whilst I believe you already have all the evidence I refer to in this response, I’m happy to provide it again.

I would also ask that all other aspects of this proposal are now made publicly available, including Angus Council’s response to the perceived failure to consult all relevant consultees, concerns over road safety issues and the investigation into the multiple responding computers in one of their public consultations over the school closures. In releasing all relevant documents to this proposal, the principles of openness and transparency of the Act will be met.

Yours sincerely,
Ewan Smith

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Own goal: Angus Council response to Education Secretary on Muirfield

Own goal: Angus Council response to Education Secretary on Muirfield

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Angus Council has submitted its response to the December 2011 request from the Scottish Government Continue reading →

Twisted saga of Angus Council’s ‘managed’ production of condition scores

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There are three primary schools in Arbroath relevant to this situation. Warddykes School is in the worst condition of any of the Arbroath schools; Timmergreens school is joined with Muirfied in the closure proposal which would see a new school built to accommodate the pupils of both schools – with no room for expansion. Muirfield School. is in the best condition of the three, good for more than another decade and recognised as unusually well suited to deliver the Curriculum for Excellence.

Angus Council managed to produce a condition score for Muirfield School that allowed it to claim that Muirfield was ‘the worst school in Arbroath’. The condition score for Muirfield was then used to persuade councillors to support the council’s proposal to close the school. On the basis of the alleged score, the mantra of ‘the worst school in Arbroath’ was repeated so often by the council that it was accepted virtually without question by councillors who did  not trouble to visit the school.

The integrity of the supposedly survey-based condition ratings that produced the overall score awarded to Muirfield has come under sustained and damaging challenge from the Muirfield Action Group. A report to the group from the Information Commission, which conducted its own investigation, confirmed the Muirfield group’s discovery that the audit trail for the surveys that the council is required to maintain, did not exist.

More than that, their scrutiny of the Angus Council response to the Education Secretary’s request for information on this matter has led Muirfield Action Group and SRSN to discover that condition scores for Muirfield have never been entered into the council’s database. This has been, on 16th January, confirmed to SRSN by the Information Commissioner.

This means that the Education Secretary has no evidence of any kind to support the validity of the scores awarded Muirfield by the Council. They have themselves admitted in their response that the process by which they created the scores had been subjective and impressionistic, rather than based on objective survey inspection.

The fact is that the council has no record of any kind to account for its final classification of Muirfield as a C.

What they do have – as do the Muirfield Action Group – are the hand-written, annotated  notes of the surveyor who carried out the physical survey of Muirfield. The council have not used these. They enumerate a picture in diametric opposition to that of the final score the council awarded the school and for which they cannot account other than by verbal  assertions and vague generalisations.

This is where the integrity of the Education Secretary himself is under threat. Were Michael Russell to permit the closing of a demonstrably viable school on a condition score which is supported only by verbal assertions  by Angus Council, it is hard to see how trust in his probity of process, his judgment – and indeed in his common sense – could be restored.

This is why there is no alternative to the implementation of a new, fully independent survey of all three schools relevant to this issue. The fate of the school has to rest upon a full, competent and fully independent survey showing and grading the conditions of the three schools.

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Detailed evidence of Angus Council ‘process’ in Muirfield condition score production

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Ed Thomson, a qualified working surveyor,  surveyed Muirfield school in its 5 year cycle of inspection, on the 3rd March 2009.  He diligently recorded every facet of the building, giving each a score of A,B,C or D.  A is good, B is satisfactory C is Poor and D is Bad.  There are 12 categories required in this survey, but Mr Thomson surveyed only 10, because, unusually, he was instructed to exclude Mechanical Services (mainly heating and hot water supply) and Electrical Services.

His condition scores  – with annotations – for each element in one of the two key weighted categories (External Walls, windows and doors) were as follows:

  • B: External walls – brick rendered
  • B: External walls – curtain wall
  • C: External doors – hard wood, fully glazed
  • B: External doors – aluminium framed
  • B: External windows – aluminium casement
  • B: Stair steps and ramps – concrete
  • B: Access rampB: Outbuildings – roof (average from roofs on new bike shed (A); and  old bike shed (C)
  • B: Outbuildings – walls

It is important to note that these scored items – all Bs, with a single C – have been arbitrarily rendered by the council as an average C (poor) for the umbrella category they represent – External walls, windows and doors. This is said to be in the interests of harmonisation of scores across several schools. This means that the actual physical condition, as surveyed, is of no account and that a decent physical envelope at one school  – Muirfield, in this instance, is rendered equal to one recognised to be beyond repair – Warddykes, simply because they are of the same age and type.

This is the equivalent of giving all 60 year olds heart transplants as a matter of course, No examination needed.

In the response, Mr Logue says: ‘Angus Council is ‘committed to ensuring that a consistent approach is adopted and applied’.

This is a thin cover for the clearly deliberate reduction of Muirfield’s actual condition in order to provide support for the will to close it in favour of what is a singularly ill-found vanity new build, in a dangerous place, less well resourced than is Muirfield and with no capacity to handle the rolls in the pipeline.

This excuse offered by the council to the government for the unevidenced and arbitrary changes to physical survey scores and the rendering of others from the thin air of a desk bound officer in another place, who somehow – just knows – is not defensible.

It is is nothing other than a patently expedient bureaucratic swerve and the Minister would have no credibility if he were to prefer the substance of this virtual world to that of the real one.

Scores for the  Mechanical Services & Electrical Services categories which Mr Thomson was asked not to survey, later appeared. There is no evidence that they are based on any physical survey at all.

In his response to the government, Mr Logue declares that: ‘A specific mechanical/electrical services assessment of Muirfield Primary School was undertaken by the Senior Maintenance Officer and validated by the Property Adviser who visited the school on 18 March 2009. In the view of the Head of Property and the Director of  Education, the Condition rating of the mechanical/electrical services is accurately recorded in the SEMP (Ed: School Estate Management Plan) as D and B respectively’.

This is a good example of the superficial manufactured plausibility in parts of the council response. The reality is succinctly put by Ewan Smith of Muirfield Action Group in a letter of rebuttal of the council response which he has submitted to the Education Secretary.

Referring to the existence of the item scores and notes of the qualified surveyor, Ed Thomson, for his evaluation of Muirfield, Mr Smith notes: ‘However, by Mr Logue’s admission there are no handwritten notes, files or photographs in existence to provide evidence of Property Advisor Mike Whyte’s visit to Muirfield on 18/3/09 or of any SEMP specific assessment of the Mechanical Services/ Electrical Services that was ‘validated’ by Mr Whyte.’

Unsurprisingly, Mr Thomson’s survey is substantiated by the handwritten notes, files and photographs wholly  absent from  ‘the assessment’ which Mr Whyte ‘validated’ in a ‘visit’ to the school.

The Information Commissioner undertook an independent investigation into Angus Council’s records, in upholding a complaint from Mr Smith. Her report to Mr Smith (the focus for this article published on 16th December 2011) confirmed the results of his own research – described dismissively by Mr Logue in his response as ‘observations’ in an attempt to diminish its impact.

As this independent and authoritative report confirms,  Angus Council has failed to comply with the requirement of the Government Guidelines in maintaining records to show the reasons for condition scores awarded and, equally importantly, the reasons for changing those submitted by a qualified working surveyor.

Ironically, during the 38% wafflathon in his response, Mr Logue makes much pious claim of the fidelity of Angus Council to these same Government Guidelines. The evidence suggests differently. There is no audit trail. The Education Secretary has nothing evidential to go on in respect of the overall condition scores awarded to Muirfield.

He will have to set the actual evidence given above of the surveyor’s item scores for Muirfield’s external walls, windows and doors against the final score awarded for that element ‘produced’ by the council.

He will have to ask how he could justify preferring the council’s final score, for which there is no evidence at all.

He will have to examine the relative weight of the verbal ‘explanations’  for this that he has now been given by the council – and set this against the detailed and recorded scoring of the working surveyor in his visit to Muirfield on 3rd march 2009.

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Strategic importance of the council’s unevidenced condition scores for Muirfield

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All items in a condition survey cannot carry equal weight. Poor decoration cannot stand against a leaking roof as an impediment to the delivery of education. This is dealt with by the application of weightings to the original survey scores, in order to arrive at an overall score reflecting the physical capability of the school to support the learning experience.

In the weighting system, two umbrella categories together account for 39% of the total score. They are:

  • External walls, windows and doors
  • Mechanical  Services  (mainly consists of heating and hot water)

One does not have to be a conspiracy theorist to raise an eyebrow at the coincidence that these are the very two places where altered, arbitrary and unevidenced scores have been ‘produced’ by the council in their downgrading of Muirfield.

Remember that Angus Council’s database contains nothing for Muirfield other than the overall scores for  Mechanical Services and Electrical Services. When the Information Commissioner inquired why only these 2 sections had been recorded and why they were not accompanied by sections 1 – 10,  she was told only that these items had been ‘done by someone else’ and given no explanation as to why sections 1 through 10 were missing.

In the first key category noted above,  External Walls, Windows and Doors, the council response admits for the first time that the physical survey results for the component items – 8 Bs (satisfactory) and a single C in the physical survey report – have been collectively rendered by an average C (poor) – although there is no record of any score whatsoever for this category on the database.

The massive swerve from a very strong B to a C is defended on the grounds of the need to harmonise the authority’s school condition scores (satisfactory = poor, in this case of harmonisation); and of the primacy of the generally impressionistic – ‘Property Division and Education Department officers know the existing Muirfield building extremely well.’ – over a first hand physical survey by a qualified working surveyor.

In the second, Mechanical Services and Electrical Services, were given respective condition scores of D and B , with no record of any kind and no evidence to show how they were arrived at. In his rebuttal to Mr Moore of the council response to the government, Ewan Smith of the Muirfield Action Group, acquired  an email chain released under FOISA, showing that there was considerable concern amongst senior internal staff involved  at the absence of due process that was operating in the council in this specific matter.

Up to 17th March 2009 staff were asking each other ‘Who’s doing the services?. Yet Mr Logue tells the Education Secretary that on the very next day, 18th March, these scores, apparently arrived at without the inconvenience of the inspection staff were inquiring about, were ‘validated’ by the Property Adviser who ‘visited the school’ on that day.

In the third case, Muirfield’s heating was given a D  (beyond repair) when, as Mr Smith and SRSN have shown,  over the four year period from 2007-2011, there are no reported closures of Muirfield because of  a broken heating system. Moreover, as Ewan Smith says in his letter to the Education Secretary, over this same four year period: ‘£12,110 was spent (Ed: on the heating system at Warddykes) in comparison to £2,683 on Muirfield. That’s a difference of £9,427 on a heating system that was graded better than the one at Muirfield. Physical proof of these figures can be sent to you if required.’

These facts hardly present a convincing demonstration of the consistency of scoring across schools of which Mr Logue boasts in his response to Mr Moore. But it is certainly harmonisation of a kind.

Mr Logue boasts that his staff know Muirfield so well they can evaluate its physical; condition without inspection – in a situation where such action carries the responsibility of closing a school.

We ask, if they knew Muirfield so well, why were they  not in possession of the operational performance and the repair cost records which Mr Smith cites in his letter to the Education Secretary? And we ask, if they were comfortable about assessing; Muirfield without the inconvenience of an inspection, did they not even see fit to check these records – to which one assumes they had easy access from their remote office?

A ‘D’ (beyond repair) for Muirfield’s heating? On this evidence? On this comparative evidence – grading Warddykes Heating better?

Let’s hear the substantiation of this – and let’s get the popcorn in first.

The impact of the mysterious ‘production’ of these scores for these key weighted elements drove down Muirfield’s overall condition score.

Funny that.

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Ten Tested Steps to Un-Throttled CPUs

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Warning for the general reader: this is a semi-technical article for WPMU admins and WordPress users hosting their own sites on services such as Bluehost.

We’ve just run into this problem, and we’ve solved it. Completely. The site which was running slowly is now bouncing along at an unflappable rate, and we still have a strategy or two to implement. Such a relief.

So here’s a bullet-proof list to go from choked to blazingly quick:

 

  1. Don’t panic. There will be a really simple reason for it. And unless you have big traffic, it is unlikely to be WordPress or WPMU
  2. Check the tmp file of your server — looking for mysql_slow_queries particularly. This will give you an indication of where things are going awry.
  3. Look at your plugins, and turn all non-essentials off.
  4. Look at your widgets Get rid of anything that looks like it might be cpu intensive. Like what? Tag clouds, related post lists, most commented lists. Anything that is dealing with big numbers of entries in the db on a constant basis.
  5. Look at your overheads. We installed WP Optimize for our emergency, and it helped, cleaning out all those overheads. We’ll continue running it.
  6. Look at your tables. If you have any tables in your db with big numbers of rows, here’s the likely cause of your problem. We had over 30,000 tags, 26,ooo or which had been used once or twice. Bin em, you won’t notice they have gone and suddenly your concorde rather than a puttering old cessna.
  7. Look at your visitors. How many log in? How many just read and bounce out? Mostly the latter — so install Supercache and let the bouncers see cached pages rather than use precious db and php resources to serve them something that could be achieved in two or three calls to the server.
  8. Optimize your theme.
    • replace anything starting with bloginfo() with the real deal eg. bloginfo(‘name’) becomes (in our case) ‘ForArgyll’. 
      • consolidate your css into one file
        • push your javascript into the footer, not the header
          • optimize and minimize all your images
            • forget having abstracted themes if you have huge amounts of traffic. It’s why the default theme is genius.
              • Don’t use widgets, or if you do test them.
              • Turn off Revisions. Do it. There’s a line in your wp-config file. The more posts WP has to cycle through the slower will the CPU go.
              • Test your plugins as you turn them on. They’ll tell you if things are awry. Just keep an eye on the cpu throttling app in the cpanel.

              That’s all you need to know. Guaranteed. And if you’re still having problems, it may just be that someone is spamming you or your db.

              e-borders brings more UK state surveillance – an unpaid fine could prevent you going on holiday – and has implications for independence

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              The UK Government plans to introduce an e-borders scheme, costing £1.2billion and linking government agencies, travel industry systems and transport hubs like ports, airports, major railway stations

              Thousands of people booked to travel in and out of Scotland from Spring 2009 will be electronically screened and their details checked against the Government’s databases. Permission to enter or leave the UK will be granted or denied before the start of their journey.

              The e-borders system also prepares security ground for Scottish and Northern Irish independence as screened main exit and entry points in these countries could easily be used to treat them as separate nations.

              This has implications for Ireland as a whole. There is no possible logic to exclude Northern Irish ports and airports from the planned UK-wide e-borders system. What will the inclusion of Northern Ireland in this dubious surveillance do to relations in the island of Ireland? Has the UK Government thought about any of these consequences?

              There will be an impact on the business of travelling as people will be required to book their passages earlier to allow time for their details to be transferred and checked.

              Spokesman on aviation and maritime issues for the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, Deputy Chief Constable Bill Skelly, has told The Herald: ‘It is about advance notification. Airlines will have to notify e-borders with the details of passengers. That information then goes into a central database where it will be checked against the police national computer and those on the wanted index.

              ‘If someone is flagged, then before they arrive in the UK an alert will go out. We have to consider how to respond. As the numbers go up we will have to look at prioritising them. We may not be able to chase every fine defaulter but if someone is wanted for murder or there is a European arrest warrant for them we can ensure we are there waiting for them when they land. The database also analyses information about patterns of travel behaviour. Until we know which routes are involved we cannot predict exact numbers but there will be thousands checked coming in and out of Scotland’.

              This neatly places the emphasis on the system checking incomers – but it is equally designed to check and impound outgoing travellers. So if you are in dispute over a parking fine or if you’re late with your road tax or your television licence, you would be naive to imagine that you will travel out of Scotland without embarrassment and delay at the least.

              The UK Government’s track record is to use inappropriate but applicable legislation to do what it wants. Hence the recent use of David Blunkett’s handy anti-terrorist legislation against Iceland to impound UK assets of failing Icelandic banks. Hence too the use of the same loosely-written law to arrest and charge protesters against the war in Iraq, including a young woman, Maya Evans, simply and quietly reading aloud in London’s Westminster area the names of servicemen killed in that conflict.

              We associate the word ‘fascist’ with Nazi Germany, tin hats and shouts of ‘Heil HItler’. We think that what we feel that word means could never happen here. It is actually happening and it has been happening for some time. It just doesn’t feel like our comic-book inspired imaginations said it would.

              We also associate ‘fascism’ with things like the former East German state’s secret police – Stasi – and the detailed files it kept on all state citizens.

              The UK’s multi-million pound e-borders Semaphore pilot project, which began in 2004, covered 10 international routes, screened 29 million passengers and led to 1000 arrests. The new and extended system proposed will cost £1.2billion and screen 120 million people. Add in the planned national ID database – which is already in stealth introduction, carrying biometric data and Stasi will look like very small beer indeed.

              What sort of society do we want to live in? Is this really it? June 2009 is likely to be make-our-mind-up time.