Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

Posted under

EDDC, Local Enterprise Partnership

Devolution and public consultation: talk is cheap

” … MPs, who held a public evidence session in Greater Manchester as part of their inquiry, also said many people had complained about a lack of consultation.

“The vast majority of contributions, often made in angry tones, arose from the perceived lack of efforts by the combined authority to engage the public about the deal relating to their local area,” the committee said.

“For devolution to take root and fulfil its aims, it needs to involve and engage the people it is designed to benefit. There has been a consistent very significant lack of public consultation, engagement and communication at all stages of the deal-making process.”

Council leaders from other parts of the country told the committee the public had not been consulted before their deals were agreed.

‘Rapid pace’

It is particularly important to engage the public where health powers are being devolved, the MPs said, because “the public’s response is likely to be more emotional”.

The committee said the government had driven the first wave of devolution deals through “at rapid pace”, which meant “no opportunity for engagement with residents”, but said council leaders should still have communicated the deal to residents and told them how they would be affected.

The Department for Communities and Local Government said it welcomed the committee’s support for its “devolution revolution” and said there was “no one-size-fits-all approach” for different areas.

Local Government Association chairman Lord Porter said: “While it is right that devolution deals are not imposed, but negotiated and secured by local places, we recognise the need for greater public engagement throughout the deal-making process and are working with councils to support them in this.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35479059

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

Posted under

General Election

A Devon MP is too busy opening law offices in Dubai and Mumbai to remember to declare £400,000 of income

A former member of the House of Commons Standards Board, he will only have to apologise. And how the heck does he have time to be an MP. Let’s hope the people of Torridge learn in time for the next election.

“A Conservative MP who failed to declare more than £400,000 of outside earnings will only have to apologise to the Commons after Parliament’s Standards Committee decided not to formally punish him for the breach.

In a judgement that will increase criticism over the body, Geoffrey Cox QC will be asked to make an apology, but no formal action will be taken.
The Standards Committee found that Geoffrey Cox QC had committed a “serious” breach of rules, although it accepted he had not “intended to hide” the payments for hundreds of hours of legal work. …

… Earlier in 2015 it emerged that Cox declared earnings of £820,000 from outside work and second jobs — 12 times the annual MP wage.
According to the latest register of members’ financial interests, Mr Cox received £325,000 on June 15 and 16 this year for 500 hours of work carried out between June 2014 and March 2015.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/conservative-mps-expenses/12140118/Tory-MP-Geoffrey-Cox-will-only-have-to-apologise-after-failing-to-declare-hundreds-of-thousands-of-pounds.html

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

Posted under

Austerity cuts, Education (local)

What happens when you contract-out education to profit-led academies

Inspectors say that almost half of pupils at secondary schools run by the Academies Enterprise Trust (AET) are in schools that are “less than good”. Ofsted warns that poorer pupils do “particularly badly” in AET schools.

In response the trust said it was disappointed that its “significant achievements” had “not been sufficiently recognised”.

The Department for Education is threatening that unless standards are raised there will be “further action”.

AET runs 67 academies across England. Such academy chains are independent but publicly funded to run schools. AET has charitable status and a financial report up to August 2014 said there was annual expenditure of £333m.
‘Mediocre’

Inspectors say that 40% of pupils in primary schools run by AET are in “academies that do not provide a good standard of education”. “It is even worse in secondary, where 47% of pupils attend academies that are less than good,” says Ofsted.
The performance of AET’s secondary schools is described as “mediocre” and there has been a lack of progress since Ofsted highlighted weaknesses in the chain’s schools two years ago.

The report says there is a particular weakness in the progress of disadvantaged pupils.

Inspectors also warned about “unacceptably low” attendance levels.

And there was criticism of “insufficient detail” about how the trust is governed. …

Ofsted cannot give a judgement on an academy chain, but inspectors can carry out multiple inspections of individual schools it runs.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35492433

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

Posted under

Development Management Committee, EDDC, Knowle/Honiton/Exmouth relocation, PegasusLife

Comments

Current cost of new EDDC HQ at Honiton/Exmouth – nearly £10m and all meetings assuming Pegasus gets its planning permission are already scheduled

Relocation cost so far:

£9,726,455

Click to access 6-project-report-20-300915.pdf

page 5

Further on in the report:

The project has
7 “red risks”
32 “orange risks” and
8 “blue risks”

They already have a pretty good idea of when the planning meeting for Pegasus will be and have scheduled it

12 July 2016 (page 12)

and have already fixed an Extraordinary Cabinet Meeting
on 27 July 2016
and a similar Full Council meeting for
3 August 2016
with works in Exmouth to start on 4 August 2016.

Of course, all these meetings take place in the major summer holiday period.

Relocation to Exmouth Town Hall will take place on
20 June 2017
and full relocation to both sites will be achieved by
25 September 2017.

Thereafter the report consists of various cost breakdowns.

It appears that, for some reason, Appendix C is missing

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

Posted under

Asset sweating, Local Enterprise Partnership

New threat to Hinkley nuclear plant cash

Danny Fortson Published: 31 January 2016
thesundaytimes.co.uk

“BRITAIN could withdraw financial support for the controversial £18bn nuclear power station at Hinkley Point, Somerset, if a similar plant being built by France’s EDF is not running by 2020, The Sunday Times can reveal.

The condition, attached to a Treasury loan guarantee, raises fresh questions about the future of Britain’s first new atomic power plant in a generation.
Last week EDF, which is 84% owned by the French state, postponed a board meeting in Paris to approve Hinkley Point, amid concerns about the heavily indebted company’s ability to fund the project. The plant will be financed by EDF and its Chinese partner CGN, with the backing of a 35-year contract to sell power to households at above-market rates.

The arrangement hinges on a Treasury agreement to guarantee up to £17bn in loans. Mounting problems at Flamanville, where EDF is building a plant of the same reactor design, could void that commitment.

Flamanville is years behind schedule and three times over budget. Last year inspectors uncovered “very serious anomalies” in the €10.5bn (£8bn) plant’s reactor vessel. In the worst case, France’s nuclear regulator, which is carrying out a review of the project, could force EDF to break the steel vessel out of the reactor building, adding years to the timetable. Another project, in Taishan, China, has also been delayed.
m
When the European Union signed off on the Treasury’s guarantee of Hinkley Point, it insisted it be conditional on Flamanville having “completed the trial operation period” and other operational milestones by December 2020.

If Flamanville misses that deadline, EDF would be forced to immediately repay any loans that benefited from government support.

George Osborne last year announced the Treasury would guarantee £2bn in Hinkley debt, “with further amounts potentially available in the longer-term”. The National Audit Office and the EU put the potential liability at £17bn.

The Treasury said: “The initial £2bn guarantee is not contingent on the Flamanville and Taishan reactors, and will be repaid in December 2020 by EDF and CGN.”

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

Posted under

Devolution, EDDC

EDDC: where unanimous means – not at all unanimous!

“Trust” is key, suggested Deputy Leader, Andrew Moulding (quoting from a conversation between Leader, Paul Diviani, and a government Minister visiting Cranbrook). Cllr Moulding was advising Members who were about to vote at last week’s Extra Ordinary Meeting, on approving delegated powers for the Leader regarding the multimillion pound devolution bid.

Just a few hours later, we understand, EDDC issued a press release that began with an essentially misleading, statement, claiming that “. . councillors have unanimously signed off the devolution prospectus” . The vote in fact was not unanimous, with 7 against and 1 abstention.

The inaccurate press release was corrected, after immediate complaints by Independent councillors.

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

Posted under

EDDC, Independent Councillors, Local Enterprise Partnership

Independent councillor sounds alarm bells on devolution

Here’s the gist of a warning from Cllr Roger Giles (Ind, Ottery St Mary), to fellow EDDC councillors before they voted on Item 7 HEART OF SOUTH WEST DEVOLUTION, at last Thursday’s Extra Ordinary Meeting at Knowle. (28 Jan) :

‘Governments regularly tell councils that they are keen to devolve powers to local government. The reality is that there is more and more interference from Whitehall in the affairs of councils. In spite of being 200 miles away, Whitehall thinks it knows best how local councils should meet the needs of their residents.

The latest Government claim to “devolution” is no such thing. It is a cynical misuse of words.

The Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership proposal contains no additional money.

And there is a considerable democratic deficit. HoSW meetings are in private – the press and public are not entitled to attend. Neither are the press and public allowed to see agenda papers or minutes of meetings. It is a totally alien concept to councillors who rightly conduct their business in an open and transparent way.

At the moment EDDC provides services to the people of East Devon based on decisions made by 59 elected councillors. If the public does not like what its councillors have been doing it can vote for someone else.

If the HoSW proposal becomes a reality, major spending decisions will be taken by unelected and unaccountable business people. There is also the fear that most of the money available will be spent on major projects in Exeter, rather than in communities such as Ottery St. Mary.’

Without proper debate of these alarm bells clearly signalled by Cllr Giles, the devolution process was approved, though not “unanimously”, as EDDC’s initial press release said.

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

Posted under

Local Enterprise Partnership

Comments

Project Director for Hinkley Point C quits job to spend more time with his family

The flagship (vanity?) project for our Local Enterprise Partnership:

“The man in charge of Britain’s first new nuclear power plant in 20 years is to leave the project.

Chris Bakken, the project director for Hinkley Point C in Somerset, will take up a new role at US energy company Entergy in April.

EDF Energy said he had decided to return to his home country to pursue “new professional opportunities” and spend more time with his family.

He has been in charge of the £18bn Hinkley Point C project since 2011.
A final investment decision for the nuclear project was postponed by EDF Energylast month.

Hinkley is due to start generating power in 2025, and is expected to provide 7% of the UK’s electricity once it is running.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-35482001

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

Posted under

Honiton/ Gittisham, Thelma Hulbert Gallery

Comments

Thelma Hulbert Gallery – still loss-making after all these years

Somewhat hard to understand figures put to the Cabinet on this constantly loss-making gallery:

“The revenue cost of the THG to EDDC above the line of the recharges 2016/17 is £73,080 which is a figure that Cabinet might agree is continuing the trend in reducing its overall level of support and showing better value for money. The total amount saved from both 2015/16 and 2016/17 will be £20,600 on the 2014/15 budget.

Click to access combined-cabinet-agenda-100216-public-vers-sm.pdf

pages 199-211

Several pages of costs are included which show that the annual wages bill is around £80,000 plus around £1,000 of car park permits.

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

Posted under

Austerity cuts, Tax avoidance

Fat cats get fatter

“Ministers have come under fire after it emerged an Amazon boss has been appointed to the board of a key Government department.

The appointment has caused further anger over the Government’s record on collecting tax from multi-nationals after it was revealed last year that Amazon paid just £11.9 million to the UK taxman despite sales of £5.3 billion in 2014.

Doug Gurr, president of Amazon China, is expected to be announced as a new non-executive director of the department’s board next week, the latest in a growing number of business leaders appointed to the boards of government departments. …

… Other prominent business leaders on Whitehall department boards are Ian Davis, chairman of Rolls-Royce and Dalton Philips, the former boss of Morrisons and Sir Ian Cheshire, the newly-appointed chairman of Debenhams. …
… It emerged over the weekend that Facebook paid just £86million to all tax authorities outside the United States in 2014, despite declaring profits of more than £2.4billion – which suggests the firm paid a tax rate of just 4 per cent.

But its latest accounts filed to the US Treasury revealed it is reserving a $2.46billion (£1.7billion) fund for ‘uncertain tax positions’ – relating to tax investigations in a range of countries, including the US and Ireland, but not the UK, according to The Times.

The liability fund is more than double the £800million it set aside last year.

Thousands of ordinary British taxpayers, who do not have the luxury of setting aside millions of pounds to settle tax disputes, will start receiving fixed-penalty notices in the coming weeks.

The fees are expected to raise up to £90million for HMRC this year.
The penalties are issued to taxpayers who missed the deadline for submitting their self-assessment on January 31 and apply even if no tax is due.
If they are unpaid after three months, the penalty increase by £10 for every day they remain unpaid, up to a maximum of £900.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3429766/Amazon-boss-appointed-Department-Work-Pensions-board.html

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

Posted under

Exmouth, Moirai Exmouth project

Moirai … some companies being struck off

New Documents Filed:

29/01/2016 – First notification of strike-off action in London Gazette (Section 652)

Companies were:

MOIRAI CAPITAL INVESTMENTS (TORQUAY) LTD
RIVIERA LEISURE PARK LTD
RIVIERA SPORTS LTD
RIVIERA BEACH LTD

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

Posted under

EDDC

Borough vows to publish pre-application advice from planning officers routinely

Chances of this happening here? …

“The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea will – from March this year – routinely publish any advice that planning officers, or its Architectural Appraisal Panel, have given to an applicant about a development proposal before the application was made.
The council believes it will be the first authority in the country to open its files in this way.

The Royal Borough said: “The council offers a popular advice service (www.rbkc.gov.uk/advice) to those who are considering making a planning application. The advice is generally confidential between the council and the customer, but can be published following a request under the Freedom of Information Act or Environmental Information Regulations once a related planning application is made.
“The advice will now be published automatically once a planning application is made without someone having to make a request under that legislation.”

Cllr Tim Coleridge, Kensington & Chelsea’s Cabinet Member for Planning Policy, said: “The Royal Borough is already streets ahead of many other councils in the way it publishes planning application information on its website and this is another step in our commitment to being transparent.

“Everyone will be able to see the advice our officers have provided, how they have fought to get improvements to development proposals and how they have encouraged applicants to engage with those who might be affected.”

http://www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=25839%3Aborough-vows-to-publish-pre-application-advice-from-planning-officers-routinely&catid=63&Itemid=31

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

Posted under

EDDC, Local Plan, Sidmouth/ Sidford/ Sidbury

Vote-catching? You decide

Sidmouth Ward Member, Cllr Cathy Gardner (EDA Ind) made the following speech, at last Thursday’s Extra Ordinary General Meeting:
Adoption of Local Plan, Item 6:

“The responsibility for putting the Sidford site into the LP lies squarely with the leaders at EDDC and has done since 2007.
They chose to include the site, based on arguments put forward several years ago by a variety of interested parties. There was no real desire to remove this site from the LP last year, otherwise why was the Planning Officer not instructed to provide evidence for an alternative? Can the Leader explain the purpose of the vote to ‘remove’ the site if it was not purely a vote winning exercise?”
[The so-called “decision” to remove the site was made just before last year’s district council elections].

Although the question was specifically addressed to the Leader (Paul Diviani) who was in the room, it was Chief Executive(Mark Williams) who attempted an answer. He said that councillors “in their wisdom” had gone ahead with a late-in-the-day vote to delete Sidford employment land from the Local Plan, despite his own warnings that their action could derail the Inspector’s approval of the whole Plan. There was a strong hint that Councillors should have known that, as the completed Draft Local Plan was already with the Inspector, it was anyway too late for them to make changes.

Who bears the responsibility for putting the Sidford employment site into the Local Plan? Hardly the Inspector, says Councillor.

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

Posted under

EDDC, Exmouth, Regeneration

Exmouth: regeneration EDDC-style!

http://www.exeterexpressandecho.co.uk/Campaigners-battling-save-Exmouth-redevelopment/story-28656758-detail/story.html

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

Posted under

EDBF, EDDC, Local Enterprise Partnership, Local Plan

The enduring influence of the East Devon Business Forum on the Local Plan

A speech given to councillors last week by Jeremy Woodward of Save our Sidmouth is reproduced below. Owl notes that, hoping that memories are short, EDDC is already planning to discuss its replacement (see earlier post). Preliminary work on the review of the just-adopted Local Plan will take place fairly soon. Will its replacement – and the handful of people who run our Local Enterprise Partnership – be the ones to decide what goes in that one?

“Mr Chairman,

Would you not agree that the Local Plan which you and your colleagues are being asked to adopt is in fact a deeply flawed document?

As an illustration, if I might quote from the submission made by the Vision Group for Sidmouth to the Local Plan on 8th June 2012.

I begin:

“The influence of the East Devon Business Forum on proposals for employment land and housing in the draft Local Plan should be considered. In January 2007, a Sub-Committee was established by the Forum to consider ‘amending the Atkins report’:

To refer to the

“Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of the East Devon Business Forum on 25 January 2007

“Atkins Report:

“Graham Brown reported that he had attended a meeting with the Corporate Director – Environment to discuss the preliminary findings of the Atkins Report. The findings included the conclusion that East Devon did not need as much employment land as [the] East Devon Business Forum had recommended. Forum members discussed how the findings of the Atkins Report would be amended as they were not in step with East Devon’s needs.

“A Sub Committee of the Business Forum would need to investigate employment land availability, where there was potential for growth and where the business community would like to see development take place.”

End of minutes.

It appears that a group of business people comprising this Forum reviewed the publicly-funded [independent] Atkins Report and then determined that the employment land provisions were insufficient; they subsequently proceeded to derive their own projections, which the District Council then adopted as “evidence” for the increased employment land figure which ensued:

To refer to the

“Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of the East Devon Business Forum on 31 January 2008 [a year later]

“Update on Employment Land Issues:

“Members noted that the work the Business Forum had done on the Atkins Report had made an enormous difference to the final report prepared by the Employment Land Issues Task and Finish Forum. This had been accepted by the Executive Board. The report was now being used by the Development Control Committee as a base when considering planning applications for employment land.”

End of quote.

Again, Mr Chairman, would you not acknowledge that the Local Plan is a deeply flawed document?

Because, if we chose to take the Council’s own calculations of one new home to one new job, this deliberate inflation of employment land undermines fundamentally the housing figures proposed in the Local Plan.

Thank you”.

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

Posted under

Austerity cuts, Claire Wright, DCC, Economy, Hugo Swire, Tax avoidance

Claire Wright’s speech on tax avoidance yesterday

“Before I begin I have a small announcement to make.

If you have got trouble paying your tax bill, don’t worry … I’ve had a word with George and said to just give him a call and he will do a deal with you. You might even get three per cent!

So, despite the public outrage, Cameron and Osborne STILL think that a three per cent tax deal from Google after a six year investigation is a “major success!”

What do we think about that?!

And despite our government lobbying the EU to PROTECT tax havens, ministers still insist that this country is leading the way in clamping down on corporation tax avoidance!!

What do we think about that?!

And despite HMRC getting a pasting last November by the public accounts committee for its record on tax avoidance, the Conservative government STILL insists that it’s doing a great job on getting companies to pay up!

Over the weekend news broke that six large companies, including AstraZeneca and Shell, have COMPLETELY avoided paying tax in the UK!

Using tax expert, Richard Murphy’s figures we have estimated that Devon could lose around £380m every year to corporation tax avoidance.

£380m is twice the adult social care budget and 22 times the children’s care budget. Effectively, it is equivalent to around an extra £500 for every person living in the Devon County Council area.

That’s money that could be spent on our schools, our hospitals, children’s services and the elderly. All these services are horribly underfunded and horribly under pressure.

Over the past five years £174m has been shaved off Devon County Council’s budgets. We have seen the closure of care homes, youth centres, children’s homes, bus cuts, highways related cuts.

But things are about to get worse. On 10 February (we think) MPs will vote on yet more massive council funding cuts. Devon County Council is set to lose around £28m. This will mean the axing of school crossing patrols, the arts and a raft of other cuts. The social care budget is so under pressure that its scrutiny chairman said last week that the risks of the budget cuts are “massive.”

So this demonstration is aimed at both drawing Mr Swire’s attention to the modern day scourge that is tax avoidance AND also to the forthcoming vote in the House of Commons and how important it is for him speak and vote against it.

And Devon County Council has already urged Devon MPs to vote against the funding cuts.

Mr Swire is a Foreign Office minister for the Commonwealth and responsible for economic and commercial diplomacy, and so in a sound position to press for action on this issue.

I wrote to him about this a few weeks ago but the only reply I received stated that the email was being forwarded to the treasury minister, David Gauke.

This is all very well, but I think we want to know what MR SWIRE himself is doing about corporate tax avoidance – and where he stands on next week’s council funding cuts vote!

Otherwise some of us might start to wonder whether a more appropriate title for him should be Minister for Tax Havens!!

I organised this demonstration BEFORE the Google scandal kicked off, but I am absolutely delighted that it has prompted this issue to dominate the news agenda. The white light of public scrutiny is the ONLY way that we will ever see the rules change on this.

One last thing this is a protest demonstration and we need to demand action verbally as well as visually.

How about:

Hugo Swire: No ifs, no buts, vote AGAINST the council cuts!”

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

Posted under

EDDC, Voting

“Are you registered to vote?”

Press release from EDDC (though we heard of this from a newsfeed, not EDDC itself):

“Council urges East Devon residents to join the National Voter Registration Drive – February 1 to 7 – and register to vote”

East Devon District Council wants to encourage anyone not yet registered to vote, to take advantage of National Voter Registration Drive #NVRD this week and go online now to register.

On Thursday 5 May 2016 voters in East Devon will go to the polls to elect a Police and Crime Commissioner for Devon and Cornwall. Anyone who isn’t registered to vote won’t be able to take part and have their say.

The deadline to register to vote in these elections is Monday 18 April 2016. While there is still time, it’s running out quickly. The good news is that it only takes a few minutes to register online at http://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote . It’s a chance to join the thousands of people across the UK being encouraged to register this week.

Mark Williams, Electoral Registration Officer for East Devon said:

Anyone not yet registered to vote should do so as soon as possible, so they can have their say on issues that affect their day-to-day lives. I would urge people living in East Devon to use National Voter Registration Drive to spread the message among family and friends, that it only takes a few minutes to complete the form and register to vote online.

Ben Brook, Head of Performance and English Regional Teams at the Electoral Commission, said:

National Voter Registration Drive exists because it’s important that anyone who’s eligible, but has not yet registered to vote, does so. It’s easy and quick to do online at http://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote. Young people, students and people who move frequently are much less likely to be registered to vote so #NVRD is as important as ever.

Local residents can get a paper copy of the registration form by contacting the electoral registration office on 01395 517402.

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

Posted under

Austerity cuts, Claire Wright, DCC

Good turnout for tax avoidance demo outside Sidmouth Conservative Club

Organised by Independent DCC councillor, Claire Wright. More information to follow.

http://www.sidmouthherald.co.uk/news/election-2015/pictures_tax_avoidance_protest_staged_in_sidmouth_1_4402492

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

Posted under

EDBF, EDDC

Latest Cabinet agenda

Here:

Click to access combined-cabinet-agenda-100216-public-vers-sm.pdf

Analysis to follow but quick glance shows that a future item for confidential discussion is “Business Support – options for the future”.

The East Devon Business Forum is dead, long live the East Devon Business Forum?