Daily Archives: 2 Mar 2017

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2 Mar 2017

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Austerity cuts, Honiton/ Gittisham, NHS (local), Seaton/ Colyford / Colyton

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Seaton and Honiton community hospitals to close

“Exeter and Seaton have been chosen as the areas in Devon which will lose their community hospitals, along with prior confirmed closures in Honiton and Okehampton.

It will see the number of community hospital beds in Eastern Devon – including Exeter, East and Mid Devon districts – reduce from 143 to 72, equating to a loss of 71 inpatient beds.

The decision was made this afternoon at a publicly held meeting of the governing body of NHS Northern, Eastern and Western Devon Clinical Commissioning Group (NEW Devon CCG) at Exeter Racecourse.

Members voted in favour of option B – 32 beds in Tiverton, 24 beds in Sidmouth and 16 beds in Exmouth. No confirmation was given over when the four community hospitals affected by the changes will lose their beds or the future of those buildings and its services. Instead reassurances were made by NEW Devon CGG that it would be doing everything it can to implement safely and effectively its decision, and it will now be working on its implementation plans.

The bed closures are expected to achieve savings of £200 to £300 per bed day, with the figure more likely to be at the lower end initially because of the reinvestment required to deliver the new model of care. …”

http://www.devonlive.com/exeter-seaton-honiton-and-okehampton-community-hospital-s-will-lose-their-beds/story-30175357-detail/story.html

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2 Mar 2017

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Accountability, Austerity cuts, Democracy, Devolution, Local Enterprise Partnership

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Will our Local Enterprise Partnerships be running our counties soon?

The unelected, unrepresentative and unaccountable small groups of business people will soon be the only groups with money to spend. Perhaps this was the plan all along.

“Town halls are facing a £4.1bn a year black hole in their budgets that not even the closure of every children’s centre, library, museum and park could fill, council leaders have warned.

George Osborne’s decision to axe the central government grant to councils over the next four years came in a comprehensive spending review that the Local Government Association (LGA) chairman, Gary Porter, a Conservative peer, described as a tragic missed opportunity to protect the services “that bind communities together, improve people’s quality of life and protect the most vulnerable”.

The chancellor had announced “a revolution in the way we govern this country” by giving town halls far greater fundraising powers, allowing them to keep 100% of business rates, rather than the current 50%, and increase council tax bills by 2% to pay for rising social care bills. But they will lose the grant worth £18bn across councils in England, according to the LGA.

Prof Tony Travers from the London School of Economics said Osborne’s changes were radical because they meant councils will only be able to increase revenues in the future by attracting more businesses to benefit from the changes to rates. He said it transformed town halls from “being a mini-welfare state into a local economic growth agency”.

But some of the most stretched councils warned that the changes would hit the poorest parts of the country hardest, where there were fewer businesses and taxpayers to make up for lost Whitehall grants.

The Labour leader of Newcastle city council, Nick Forbes, said the move would leave a £16m hole in his budget.”

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/nov/25/local-government-councils-funding-gap-critical-budget-cuts-social-care-spending-review

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2 Mar 2017

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Accountability, Police (local)

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Hernandez won’t change policing to get excellent ratings

Really, you could not make this stuff up!

“Devon and Cornwall police commissioner Alison Hernandez says the force won’t change the way it serves the community just to chase ‘excellent’ ratings. She was speaking after a report from Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary said the force must do better in key areas.

She said: “We need to make sure we don’t just chase reports, trying to get an ‘excellent’ result.

“By chasing the result you’re trying to say that you’re brilliant, but actually it doesn’t always work out that way. …”

http://www.devonlive.com/police/story-30175081-detail/story.html

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2 Mar 2017

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Accountability, Claire Wright, Democracy, EDDC, Health and Social Care (local), Independent Councillors, NHS (local), Paul Diviani, Spin

Hypocrisy of EDDC Leader and the disgrace of whipping

From the blog of Claire Wright.

The moral of this story: believe nothing a Tory councillor says, draw your views from what they do and vote Independent if you want the best for your town or village!

“Honiton councillor attempts to defend his silence over hospital bed closures

Yesterday’s front page of the Ottery/Honiton View From Series caught my eye – http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/Launch.aspx?PBID=03a901df-0b77-4e35-90e6-93ca8d117094

It features Honiton Conservative Devon County Councillor (and EDDC leader) Paul Diviani attempting to defend his silence over plans to close all Honiton Hospital’s beds.

A town campaign group – Save Hospital Services Honiton – has asked a series of questions of him, including why he voted down two of my proposals at health scrutiny, which would have helped Honiton Hospital’s case.

Unable to deny he hasn’t attended a single meeting in the town about the bed closures, spoken out against them, or voted down my two proposals at health scrutiny in November and January, Cllr Diviani cites a whipped vote at Devon County Council full council meeting, where he voted in favour of two motions that opposed health cuts, in his defence.

But this admission simply raises more questions. Why, if Cllr Diviani was concerned enough to vote in favour of a motion in December, objecting to health service cuts, did he not also vote consistently at the November and January health scrutiny meetings?

Cllr Diviani claims the committee has no power to dictate to the NHS. Of course, we do not have the power to order things to be done, but the committee is the only legal check on health services in Devon and it definitely does have the power to make recommendations which the NHS would be unwise to ignore.

Finally, Cllr Diviani says he “fully supports” the Devon County Council budget which provides more money for social care.

What he doesn’t say is that this budget has been massively cut every year for seven years due to government austerity measures and if you read the smallprint of the January joint budget scrutiny papers any increase in funding is a drop in the ocean and fewer people will be entitled to receive social care. Pretending otherwise is disingenuous.“

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2 Mar 2017

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Accountability, Police (local)

How effective are Devon and Cornwall Police?

Find out here:

“Overall, the effectiveness of Devon and Cornwall Police requires improvement. The force has clear priorities for reducing harm across the force area and protecting the most vulnerable people in the community. Its management of vulnerability and serious and organised crime is good. However, it needs to improve its approach to neighbourhood policing and aspects of crime investigation. Our overall judgment is a deterioration on last year, when we judged the force to be good in respect of effectiveness.”

Click to access peel-police-effectiveness-2016-devon-and-cornwall.pdf

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2 Mar 2017

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Accountability, Affordable and Social Housing, Bovis, Developers/ Development

“More than half of new-build homes in England ‘have major faults’ “

” … More than half of the buyers of new homes have experienced major problems with their properties, according to research, which comes after Bovis Homes agreed to pay £7m compensation to customers for poorly built houses.

A YouGov survey for the housing charity Shelter found that 51% of homeowners of recent new builds in England said they had experienced major problems including issues with construction, unfinished fittings and faults with utilities.

The survey, which polled 4,341 UK adults online, was published alongside a Shelter report that concluded that the housebuilding sector is rigged in favour of big developers and land traders rather than families looking for homes.

The current speculative system of housebuilding is failing families by producing expensive, yet poor-quality homes, according to the report, published after the government branded the housing market “broken” in its recent housing white paper.

Eight in ten working families who are renting privately cannot afford to buy a newly built home – even if they use the government’s Help to Buy scheme, Shelter said. The West Midlands ranked as the worst region, with 93% of families unable to purchase an average-priced new home.

In the report, entitled New Civic Housebuilding, the charity calls for a return to building good-quality, affordable homes like the model villages for Cadbury workers at Bournville, the red brick developments of the Peabody and Guinness estates, the Victorian and Georgian terraces in Edinburgh and Bath, and the garden cities of Letchworth and Welwyn.

The YouGov poll showed 41% of homeowners disagreed with the statement “I would prefer to live in a new home rather than an older one”; 29% agreed, and 26% neither agreed nor disagreed. And 45% disagreed with the statement “New homes are built to a higher standard than older homes”; 22% agreed and 23% were neutral.

The findings come amid rising complaints about poor building standards in new homes and the regulation of the sector. Critics claim the National House Building Council (NHBC), which checks new homes for defects and provides 10-year warranties for most new homes in Britain, is too close to the housebuilders and is failing in its duty to protect consumers.

Last week Bovis Homes’ interim boss, Earl Sibley, apologised to customers as the company set aside £7m to pay compensation and to fix shoddily built new homes, with many customers reporting hundreds of “snags” after moving in.

Shelter called for a shake-up of the housebuilding sector, with a bigger role for development corporations, which have specific powers (such as the Olympic Delivery Authority) – they can give planning permission and acquire land, if necessary compulsorily, at reasonable prices. …”

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/mar/02/over-half-of-new-build-homes-in-england-have-major-faults

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2 Mar 2017

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Affordable and Social Housing

Manchester: where affordable housing really is affordable

” … In Manchester we felt we needed our own housing affordability policy; one that would reflect the needs of the people who live in the city. We believe the most useful measure is to take the average household income across the city, and then use a standard marker of 30% of that annual income in rent or mortgage repayments to understand what most people can afford.

In Manchester that is around £8,250 – 30% of £27,500 a year. The formula is easy to apply, and could be picked up by any other local authority unconvinced by the 80% affordability measure.

Of course there will be households who earn less than this, or rely on some form of welfare support to get a decent home. There will still be housing options for those families and individuals. But by using this 30% benchmark we can be confident that this offers an affordable route on to the housing ladder for far more of our residents than would otherwise be possible.

As an example, in Harpurhey, north Manchester, we supported the refurbishment of terraced homes that have sold for £85,000 to people on modest working incomes. This proves that we are helping to develop housing that is truly affordable.

If you really want more houses built, Sajid Javid, stop strangling councils
There is still a huge challenge to be faced in making sure that there are enough homes as our population continues to grow. Losses through right to buy and demolitions represent a major obstacle; we are having to replace lost housing each year while maintaining a desirable level of social housing, in balance with private rented homes and those for purchase, across the city.

Our target is to help deliver between 1,000 and 2,000 genuinely affordable homes in the city, and to maintain that steady supply year on year. Butthis should not take place in isolation. We want all our residents to have access to different types of housing – and for them to be able to afford them.

Bernard Priest is the deputy leader of Manchester city council”

https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2017/mar/02/affordable-housing-manchester-council-average-salary