It is interesting that all scenarios put to the Scrutiny, Audit and Governance and Overview Committee take no account of depreciation on the Honiton HQ.
The committees might want to request the attendance of internal and current external auditors KPMG at their joint meeting, as the relocation finance paper was, for some reason, compiled by former external auditors Grant Thornton.
Click to access 180417-a-and-g-and-s-and-overview-agenda-combined.pdf
page 10
“George Osborne is close to earning £1m for making speeches since being sacked as chancellor. His latest entry on the MPs’ register of interests shows he is set to be paid more than £150,000 for talks delivered last month.
He had already declared expected earnings of £786,450 for a series of speeches since losing his cabinet job when Theresa May took office.
The latest update shows he is set to receive a payment of £51,842 for a speech to the New York University in Abu Dhabi on 4 March. A further £51,754 is expected from the Hungarian central bank for two speeches, on 1 and 2 March, while £51,540 is expected from asset management firm Insight Investment for a speech on 17 March. These sums take his earnings from speeches up to £941,586.
As well as the speech income, Osborne is set to earn £650,000 a year working as an adviser to the US asset management fund, the BlackRock Investment Institute.
The register shows Osborne expects to be paid £162,500 a quarter for 12 days working as an “adviser on the global economy” and £120,000 this year to be a Kissinger fellow at the McCain Institute in Washington DC.
Osborne is yet to take up his most eye-catching appointment, as editor of the London Evening Standard, so details of his earnings from the role have not been entered in the register.
Despite his other interests, he has vowed to continue as MP for Tatton – a job which pays £74,000.”
Swire much admires his pal having so many irons in the fire. Here are a few comments on George’s jobs from his recent blog post:
“The reality is that in all George’s Osborne’s positions he is being employed as a figure head rather than the man that gets his hands dirty. …
Sometimes we just can’t win! I remember the days when George Osborne (who had never had a job outside politics) was accused of being a member of the political class, a ‘professional politician’ who had no understanding of the real world because he only operated in the Westminster bubble. Ironically now he is a mere backbencher he is being criticized for going out to work! …
If an MP uses his time efficiently he has plenty of room for other interests. I, for example, have some paid outside interests but I’m also Chairman of the Conservative Middle East Council (CMEC) and Deputy Chairman of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council (CWEIC); both these posts keep my interest in foreign affairs active and enable me to ask informed questions to the executive on foreign matters. …
I fear much of the uproar surrounding Mr Osborne’s new jobs tells us more about salary envy than anything else, and that is not a good basis for an argument. …”
While this article concentrates on coastal towns in the north of England, the research findings are applicable to many other coastal towns, more than one of which could be said to be in East Devon.
“Doctors in deprived coastal towns in the north and east of England are prescribing almost twice as many antidepressants as those in the rest of the country, analysis of prescription data shows.
Blackpool, Sunderland and East Lindsey, in Skegness, fill the top three spots for the most prescriptions out of England’s 326 districts.
Psychologists said the findings were consistent with links between deprivation and depression, anxiety and other mental health problems. But they added that seaside towns faced a particular set of difficulties that could give rise to mental health issues. …
Dr Jay Watts, a consultant clinical psychologist, said there were established problems with seaside towns that could affect the mental health of their residents. Blackpool, for example, has the lowest life expectancy for men in the country, and last year topped the list for alcohol-related hospital admissions, she said.
“You’ve got high deprivation, high crime, low life expectancy, loads of alcohol problems,” she said. “Also all of these places tend to be, to a certain extent, ghost towns.
“Because of the destruction of local economies by the cheapening of foreign travel, that we’ve known has been happening since the 1960s onwards, one tends to be environmentally surrounded with the ghosts of a better time.”
Peter Kinderman, president of the British Psychological Society and professor of clinical psychology at the University of Liverpool, said the findings were consistent with established theories on what causes depression, anxiety and other mental health problems.
“You’ve got lack of opportunity, lack of a sense of meaning and purpose in life,” he said. “You’ve got the financial consequences on families, consequent pressure on relationships; a toxic mix of how social and economic factors can put pressure on our mental health and psychological wellbeing.”
Pressure on local authorities and civic organisations trying to operate without a well-functioning economy meant there was a lack of services that could help people with mental health problems, he said.
“Incidentally, I don’t blame the GPs or the psychiatrists. What the hell else have they got to offer people?”
” … Parishes collect just 1.7% of the £26bn raised through council tax overall, so even eye-watering percentages are peanuts compared with the budgets of bigger councils. The average precept in 2016/17 was £54.15 (just over £1 a week), the average rise 6%.
I was part of a group that set up a parish council in Queen’s Park, north-west London, a few years ago, and for the past year have chaired our council. Our neighbourhood of 12,000 people is still the only civil parish in the capital. Residents will see their precept rise by 4.5% this month – under 20p a month on the average bill – but this increase has enabled the community council to provide a grant to our youth centre, which lost all its Westminster City council funding last year.
Did we set up a parish council to plug such gaps? No. Youth services ought to be statutory, and council tax bills for Queen’s Park residents in band E properties are now £46 higher than elsewhere in our borough. The fact that cuts are forcing parish councils to step into shoes vacated by bigger councils is cause for regret, even rage.
But there is an upside. Precept income has also provided additional funds for our neighbourhood park, where a wildlife area locked for years is now open. We have held on to our summer festival and November fireworks, and are working with partners on a jobs advice project. Our parish council can’t fill all the holes created by cuts to frontline services since 2010. But it is better than nothing.
There is another role for parish councils. The world is widely acknowledged to be in a phase of “democratic recession” – a phrase coined by political scientist Larry Diamond – with the hopes of the Arab spring a distant memory and authoritarians on the rise from Turkey to the US. But at the grassroots level, in much of Britain, there is little to retreat from. Most people find the idea of putting themselves up for election to anything utterly foreign. Even the school curriculum is largely empty of politics. However, parishes – if promoted in imaginative ways, as they have been in places such as Frome, Somerset – can provide new ways into local democracy for people who might never get involved in party politics. Indeed, about half of England’s 10,000 parish councils are not party political.
I am not proposing parish councils as a cure-all. There are issues with any form of voluntarism: time is money, and only some people can afford to give it away (parish councillors’ allowances are tiny, and many are retired). But in our divided and individualistic society, the pooling of resources by people who want to do things together should be supported. Civil parishes offer a model of local organisation that is progressive because it is democratic. And if you believe in public spaces such as playgrounds, libraries and sports pitches, there is no better place to make the argument for them than on the ground.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/13/parish-councils-unlikely-urban-safety-net
“The roots of Toshiba’s admission this week that it has serious doubts over its “ability to continue as a going concern” can be found near two small US towns.
It is the four reactors being built for nuclear power stations outside Waynesboro, in Georgia, and Jenkinsville, South Carolina, by the company’s US subsidiary Westinghouse that have left the Japanese corporation facing an annual loss of £7.37bn.
Construction work on the units has run hugely over budget and over schedule, casting a shadow over two of the biggest new nuclear power station projects in the US for years.
Events came to a head last month when Westinghouse was forced to file for bankruptcy protection to limit Toshiba’s losses.
Experts said the delays and cost problems were due to America’s lack of recent experience in building atomic power plants.
“I don’t think it is necessarily because of an inherent issue of US skills but rather the lack of practice,” said Richard Nephew, a professor at the Centre on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University. “There simply have not been as many new reactor builds in the US and this has reduced the overall pool of skilled labor, no question.”
The absence of a mass production supply chain, due to the small number of the Westinghouse-designed reactors being built, played a part too, he added. Regulatory issues had also delayed construction. …
Richard Morningstar, chairman of the Global Energy Centre at the international affairs thinktank Atlantic Council, said: “What is happening to Westinghouse and Toshiba only emphasises the need to double down on research on new, safe, nuclear technologies, such as small modular reactors. If we do not do so in the US, leadership will be ceded to other countries.” …
One such aspiring atomic leader is the UK, where the government wants to build a new generation of nuclear power stations to help satisfy the country’s power needs for decades to come.
But there are obvious parallels between the two countries on the issues of recent experience and supply chains. The UK has not completed a new nuclear power station since Sizewell B on the Suffolk coast started generating power in 1995.
EDF, the French state-owned company which has started pouring concrete at Hinkley Point in Somerset, where it plans to have two reactors operational by 2025, maintains it has had plenty of recent practice.
The EPR reactor design for Hinkley is the same as that for the reactors it is building in Finland, and at Flamanville, in France, though both of those are running late and over budget.
The other new nuclear projects proposed around the UK, all by foreign companies, look less certain and all are still years from construction starting in earnest.
Toshiba said this week it would consider selling its shares in the consortium behind another plant planned at Moorside, in Cumbria, which would utilise three of the same AP1000 Westinghouse reactors being built for the two crisis-hit US plants.
The South Korean power company Kepco last month expressed an interest in buying into the project, and the business secretary , Greg Clark, went to South Korea last week for talks on collaboration on nuclear power. …
Justin Bowden, GMB national secretary, said: “The big moral of the story is what on earth we are doing as a country, leaving our fundamental energy requirements to foreign companies or foreign governments?”
While the government has argued that it has plans in place to keep the lights on if new nuclear projects do not materialise, others said the deepening crisis at Toshiba this week showed the need for ministers to consider a new energy policy.
“It’s time to come up with a new plan A,” said Paul Dorfman, of the Energy Institute, at University College London, who believes the Moorside project is dead. “It’s time for a viable strategy that talks about grid upgrades, solar, energy efficiency, and energy management.”
A report published on Thursday highlighted another alternative: a U-turn on the Conservative party’s manifesto commitment to block new onshore windfarms. Analysis for the trade body Scottish Renewables suggested wind turbines on land had become so cheap they could be built for little or no subsidy, compared to the lucrative contract awarded to EDF for Hinkley.
But the prospect of a rethink by the government on wind power looks about as likely as new nuclear power stations being built on time.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/apr/14/toshiba-us-nuclear-problems-uk-cautionary-tale
A pessimistic but hard-to-argue-with view of “democracy” as it stands. Note this is NOT about the Conservative Party, it embraces every government – New Labour, Coalition, Conservative – since 1997.
“Since 1997, simple parliamentary majorities have been used to radically alter the constitutional make-up of the UK. Devolution and the creation of the Supreme Court have transformed the country’s institutions. Nat le Roux argues that this is evidence of a growing imbalance of power. The executive can change the institutions of state at will – often for politically-motivated, short-term gain. The extent of the democratic mandate has been exaggerated, as the Coalition government shows.
There is a very widespread view in Britain that our political culture is dysfunctional. According to the survey carried out for the Hansard Society’s 2013 Audit of Political Engagement, two out of three citizens believe that the present system of governing Britain is in need of significant improvement. When asked how this might best be achieved, a large majority of respondents favoured action to increase the transparency of politics and the popular accountability of elected representatives.
It is easy to see why many people believe that a disjunction between citizens and elected politicians is the primary problem in an increasingly dysfunctional, and disrespected, political system. However this is at best a partial diagnosis. In reality, British politics are considerably more transparent than a generation ago: proceedings in parliament are televised, it is much easier to access many types of government information, and the public and private activities of the political elite are subject to relentless media scrutiny. From the perspective of the ordinary citizen, Westminster culture may appear introverted and opaque, but this is an inadequate explanation for the current malaise felt towards British politics and government.
Less evident to outsiders, but equally debilitating, is the growing and dangerous imbalance of power between the institutions of the state itself. Lord Hailsham coined the term elective dictatorship in 1976, and it is a more accurate description of the political landscape today than was the case forty years ago.
Two developments have taken us further down that road. The first is the increasing unwillingness of the executive to respect the independent authority of the judiciary, the civil service, local government and parliament itself. The second is the willingness of governments, especially after 1997, to introduce fundamental constitutional changes, many of them effectively irreversible. Perversely, it is the over-representation of democratic legitimacy as the dominant contemporary political virtue which arguably bears a large measure of responsibility for our current predicament. …
The reality of the democratic mandate
It is often argued by the proponents of executive supremacy that a government effectively enjoys a direct democratic mandate because most voters in general elections believe they are voting for a party manifesto and a prime minister at the same time as selecting a constituency MP. Political history suggests that this argument is a very weak one. Two of the last four prime ministers were installed by their parties between general elections, and this has always been an entirely normal route to No 10. Voters in 2010 did not choose to have a Conservative/Lib Dem coalition government (under the current electoral system there is no mechanism which would have allowed them to express such a preference). Many of the policies of that government were foreshadowed in the election manifesto of only one of the coalition partners, and some policies were in neither. The coalition’s policy platform was the coalition agreement, negotiated by the party leaders after the 2010 election and never endorsed by the electorate.
If democratic legitimacy implies substantial popular endorsement, then the democratic mandate of recent British governments rests on weak foundations. In the 2005 general election, Labour secured an absolute majority of parliamentary seats but only 35.2 per cent of the national vote. The turnout was 61.4 per cent of registered electors. Thus the Labour government which was in power between 2005 and 2010 enjoyed the active endorsement of less than one in four potential electors. …
The sovereignty of Parliament
The reality of party politics, in Britain as in other mature democracies, is that a government’s ability to sustain a majority is not based on an ability to convince legislators by reasoned argument of the merits of particular proposals.
Although backbench revolts are more frequent than a generation ago, nearly all divisions are along party lines. Bills are introduced and passed into law irrespective of their objective merit because, tout court, the government commands a majority in the House. Most MPs, most of the time, support their own party leadership for a combination of principled and self-interested reasons.
Despite the Wright reforms of 2010, it is government rather than the Commons itself which largely determines the Parliamentary timetable and enjoys a near-monopolistic control of legislative processes. At best, party loyalty severely muffles effective legislative constraint on executive action, except in those rare cases where a backbench rebellion is large enough to overturn the government’s majority. None of this is especially surprising or – arguably – objectionable in itself: that is how parliamentary democracies work. However, given the realities of parliamentary behaviour, government claims to an untrammelled and generalised authority may ring rather hollow.
…
Drifting towards instability?
A pessimist could easily believe that we are drifting towards institutional instability. Governments have become increasingly willing to alter very long-standing constitutional settlements for reasons which often appear short-term and politically self- interested. It seems likely that, even if the Scots vote No, the independence referendum will accelerate the breakup of the United Kingdom. A serious clash between government and the senior judges over the extent of the courts’ powers of judicial review seems increasingly likely. The constitutional position of the civil service is being challenged by the current government in a way which would have been unthinkable a generation ago. Government ministers are increasingly bold in asserting their democratic mandate – or rather an over-representation of it – to trump all opposition. All of this is taking place against a background of the general breakdown of public confidence in the political elite. Not so long ago, Britain was widely admired across much of the world as a model of strong constitutional democracy. It is hard to believe that is the case today.”
“Most coverage of local government finances falls into two categories of story. The first concerns the egregious rewards paid to “town hall fat cats” for often mediocre performance. The other concerns “savage cuts” being made to this or that service due to a reduction in central government grants.
There is truth in both of these. What has not gone reported so much is that a genuine revolution in local government finance is under way.
The traditional model of financing, in which grants are doled out by central government, is gradually being replaced by a system in which councils, collectively, are self-funding and individual councils bear more risk as a result of their own spending and revenue-raising decisions.
Some of these reforms have already attracted attention, chiefly the changes to business rates, over which individual councils will have greater, but still limited, autonomy in future.
Another big change coming has attracted surprisingly little attention. The UK Municipal Bonds Agency (UKMBA) was launched in 2014 with the aim of helping councils to finance their spending. The agency, a public limited company owned by 57 local authorities and the Local Government Association, aims to issue bonds with maturities of between ten and twenty years. Because it is backed by a number of councils who have pooled their borrowing requirements, the theory is that it should be able to create “benchmark” size issues for which there should be greater demand from institutional investors. And because more than one party is responsible for repayment of the bond and servicing the interest payable on it, a “joint and several guarantee” in the jargon, in theory the bonds should be less risky to investors. That should also, in theory, lower borrowing costs for councils.
The idea is common elsewhere. Kommune Kredit has been operating in Denmark for more than a century, while BNG in the Netherlands has been going since 1914. Kommunalbanken has been funding local authorities in Norway for 90 years; other such funding agencies exist in Canada, New Zealand and Switzerland, among others.
One of the key aims of UKMBA is to allow local authorities to borrow more cheaply than the existing lender of choice, the Public Works Loan Board (PWLB), a 224-year-old body that currently accounts for about three quarters of local authority borrowing. Traditionally, the board has charged 20 basis points above the prevailing gilt rate but in October 2010, in an attempt to discourage borrowing by local authorities, the coalition government raised this to a 100 basis points premium.
The board now, in most cases, lends to local authorities at 80 basis points over the gilt rate. It was when the cost of borrowing from the board was increased that leading figures in the local government world began to talk about an alternative finance provider.
Aidan Brady, the former Deutsche Bank chief operating officer who is chief executive of the UKMBA, is on record as saying: “Clearly, we have to beat the Public Works Loan Board [in terms of offering a cheaper rate], that’s as simple as it gets.”
The irony is that just as the new agency is about to offer some proper competition to the board disquiet is growing about the extent to which local authorities have been borrowing from the latter.
The Sunday Times reported last weekend that a number of local authorities had gone on a “£1.3 billion binge” of buying commercial property with the aim of using rental incomes from those assets to supplement spending or reduce the extent of budget cuts they would otherwise be making. The danger is that these authorities have exposed themselves and future generations of council tax payers to swings in the commercial property market. Traditional property market buyers have been astonished at the prices paid for assets such as some sub-prime shopping centres, grumbling that local authorities are distorting the market.
This has been made possible over recent years because by linking the PWLB loan rate to the gilt rate and allowing the latter to be depressed by the Bank of England’s asset purchase scheme the government has created a “carry trade” opportunity for local authorities in which they can borrow at about 2 per cent and invest the proceeds in an asset yielding between 6 per cent and 8 per cent.
None of this has made the job of the fledgling UKMBA any easier. The agency was reported as long ago as June last year to have signed up nine local authorities to participate in the first debt issue, which was expected by the end of 2016, with a panel of eight banks, including three to act as “lead runners”, in place to run it. But no issues have yet taken place. Market sources suggest that this is because the agency is still waiting on one more council to sign off on its participation.
This ramp-up in local authority activity could be because the PWLB, which is currently an arm of the Debt Management Office — the Treasury agency that issues gilts and manages the national debt, is about to be absorbed into the Treasury, which may lead to more control being exerted on its future lending. That was certainly suggested in a government statement last year noting that transferring the PWLB back into the Treasury would “secure greater accountability to ministers and enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of central government lending to local authorities”.
In other words, local authorities are borrowing now, while they can. The sooner they are subjected to either greater Treasury scrutiny on the one hand or the superior credit checks being promised by the UKMBA on the other, the better.“
The Times Comment (paywall)
“Mandy Greeves, 50, found three bottles of ‘urine’ stashed behind a bath panel at her house in Cranbrook, Exeter.
A resident of a new build home was horrified to discover bottles of suspected urine hidden behind a bath panel – nearly two years after she moved in.
Mandy Greeves, 50, says she is grateful now that the containers of yellow liquid have been removed by Bovis Homes , which built her property.
The ‘disgusting’ discovery came to light when Mandy called a plumber friend in to repair a tap at her house in Cranbrook new town near Exeter, Devon.
When the plumber removed the bath panel to fix the problem he discovered three plastic bottles full of a yellow liquid underneath the bath.
The bottles had been covered up by the panel.
Mandy was baffled. “I looked at them, and I thought, ‘Oh my god’. First of all I thought was it milk that had been left there? But it wasn’t.
“You could see that it was urine. I was disgusted. It was just horrible. I couldn’t believe that someone could leave something like that behind.
“I thought, do I throw it away or do I keep it? Then I thought, if I throw it away, I’ve got no evidence.”
Mandy told her friend to put the bath panel back on so that there was evidence to show Sovereign Housing which co-owns the house, and Bovis Homes.
Mandy is the house’s first occupant, and moved in to the property in July 2015.
One of the bottles is dated March 15, which, says Mandy, would tally with the house’s interior being fitted.
“I can’t understand a human being being like that,” said Mandy.
“If they want to go to the toilet, why can’t they do it in the garden? The lawn wasn’t down by then it would have just been mud.
“Why did they have to do it in a bottle and leave it and then put the bath panel back on? It might have been the builders. The guy that put the panel on. Why did he not notice it? It’s not nice.”
A Bovis Homes spokesperson said: “Our regional customer care team were not aware of this matter but now it has been brought to their attention they will contact Sovereign Housing immediately and investigate this situation further.”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/homeowner-makes-disgusting-discovery-bathroom-10220768
Mrs Parr, the Colyton Tory candidate, was a passive presence at recent protests about the closure of beds at Seaton Hospital. On the other hand, EDA candidates Martin Shaw (Seaton and Colyton) and Paul Hayward (Axminster) were then and are now vocal opponents of the plan.
“In her election leaflet, the official Conservative candidate for Seaton and Colyton, Helen Parr, confirms her support for the East Devon Tory policy of accepting ‘bed-less hospitals’. Mrs Parr acknowledges that the decision to close in-patient services at Seaton Hospital is ‘a huge blow for the town and wider area’. But her leaflet adds, ‘Helen will do everything possible to get the best role for Seaton hospital for the future’, and will insist that the CCG are ‘delivering the services they are promising before any beds are closed’. So NOT supporting the Town Council’s fight to STOP the bed closures. You have been warned.
Conservative candidate confirms her support for ‘bed-less’ hospital
Having their hands tied on many matters
Inability to influence matters affecting Cranbrook residents
Frustration that information was not shared with all councillors
Not open, transparent or inclusive
The page detailing the current council’s response to these allegations is in the current e-edition of the Cranbrook Herald on page 4 here:
… stay on guard! It probably simply mean that they are formulating a new planning application to overcome objections. And they have very, very influential backers and allies.
And DO remember that it has been DCC candidate Marianne Rixson (Independent East Devon Alliance) that saw off this application – not ex-Monster Raving Loony Party member and current Conservative candidate for DCC Sturat Hughes.
“East Devon District Council (EDDC) said it is now up to the landowner to consider future options for the site off Two Bridges Road.
However, the wider 12-acre plot has a strategic allocation as employment land in the authority’s Local Plan, so EDDC expects the site will be developed by 2031, according to a spokeswoman.
EDDC refused plans for the major development in September.
Councillors said the proposed development would harm the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, depend on ‘unsuitable’ roads and impact on neighbours without adequate mitigation.
A petition to ‘say no’ to the business park attracted more than 1,100 signatures and 384 objections were lodged with EDDC.
The applicants had until last Monday, March 27, to appeal the refusal.
The Sid Vale Association was among the opponents.
Richard Thurlow, its conservation and planning committee chairman, said: “We were all delighted when the application was refused in September last year, but there was always the chance that the decision might be appealed.
“We can now feel relieved that this ‘Sword of Damocles’ has been lifted.
“However, the site still exists in the Local Plan as an ‘employment site’ and we must still be aware that other proposals might come forward – and we must be prepared to fight them if they do.”
The landowner and applicant were approached for comment.”
“Thatcher, Major and Blair all bent in the face of NHS crisis – yet through lack of opposition, May and Hammond remain iron-clad adamant: no more money.
There is an ebb and flow in reporting on the NHS as Trump, Syria and Brexit dominate front pages. But the pressure-cooker state of the entire service still worsens. This morning’s latest figures are just a snapshot of deterioration – but every target is missed: for A&E, ambulance response times, for treating psychosis within a week, for cancer waiting times, blocked beds and diagnostic tests.
“Demand” is rising, the government says, as if serious illness were a choice, though the pressure comes from well-predicted, rapidly increasing numbers of old, sick people: this February’s A&E figures are, as ever, better than deepest winter January, but worse than February last year, as this crisis ratchets up.
Major A&E centres are treating 81.2% of patients within four hours, against a target of 95%, which used to be hit before 2010. The government likes to blame frivolous users of A&E, but those are easily triaged to on-site GPs. Serious delays are because of very ill people needing to be admitted with no empty beds: bed occupancy is at dangerous levels, as Chris Hopson of NHS providers warns, where doctors often have to decide “one in, one out”, discharging those who still need more care too early.
Take the temperature in virtually every part of the NHS and the wonder is how the heroically overstretched staff keep the wheels on the trolley. Take this week alone: the Royal College of Physicians says 84% of doctors have to cope with staff shortages and gaps in rotas.
GPs? Two years after a government promise of 5,000 more GPs, numbers are still falling. They dropped by 400 just in the last three months of last year: as doctors find the workload unmanageable some escape abroad, take earlier retirement or become locums. Too few new doctors want the burden of running a GP partnership, so 92 practices closed last year, tipping hundreds of thousands more patients on to already overloaded neighbouring GP lists.
Today the Royal College of Nursing, traditionally most reluctant of unions to take action, starts consulting its members on whether to hold a strike ballot. But with public sector pay frozen yet again at 1%, when inflation will shortly hit 3%, nurses are departing – as are doctors – for less stressful, better-paid work. Recruitment from the EU is plummeting, as predicted.
As everyone firefights, hand to mouth, all the preventative services are being cut that might help keep patients from needing a crisis bed. The government has lines to take but no answers, and some of those “lines” are fictions. No, the NHS has not had £10bn, as Theresa May keeps claiming: it’s more like £4.5bn over four years, says the Kings Fund.
No, the £2bn given to social care will not ease the beds crisis, for all the exhortations to councils to use every penny of it in releasing bed-blocking patients with new care packages at home. NHS Providers, representing NHS hospitals, mental and community trusts, says councils are using that money to stem the collapse of existing care services and care homes, as the higher minimum wage and rising costs cause multiple closures. Cuts leave at least half a million old people getting no care, who would have done – and that risks falls, neglect and extra hospital visits. The care crisis is seeing 900 care workers a day leaving underpaid and overworked jobs.
Money, you might think, comes last in hospital managers’ priorities. But they are being severely harried and punished by NHS England to rein in ballooning debt by plundering capital funds and selling bits of land to cover running costs, in one-off moves that many say they can’t repeat this year. An NHS England-commissioned report says £10bn is needed to cover this depleted capital: that’s not for grand new projects, but for basics such as worn-out dialysis machines.
A chair of a leading teaching hospital tells me “heroic assumptions” are being made by most trusts agreeing their “control totals”, their spending limits for this year. Debts will swell again. This year the NHS gets just a 1% increase, next year an unprecedented zero.
One of Labour’s NHS triumphs was to cut waiting times for operations from 18 months to 18 weeks – but now that totemic 18-week limit has been abandoned. However, that only adds to hospitals’ financial woes as they rely on income from elective surgery, while every extra emergency costs them money.
Two in five GPs in south-west of England plan to quit, survey finds
This is the dismal background to the reorganisation that the head of NHS England, Simon Stevens, is attempting, almost undercover. His state-of-play review of his five-year forward plan passed hardly noticed, announcing a first tranche of England’s 44 STPs, (sustainability and transformation plans) to reconnect local services fragmented by the Lansley 2012 act.
Most observers think it the right way to go, putting the NHS and social care under a united structure with one finance hub, ending destructive and expensive competition and tendering of services. But hardly anyone thinks this can be done with no new money: every STP calls for capital for new beds and units. Virtually all involve closures and mergers stirring a local political outcry.
Jeremy Hunt, who always presented himself as the patient’s ally, rooting out poor quality, wallowing in the Labour disaster at Mid-Staffs, has fallen uncharacteristically quiet. He has nothing much to say about patient safety in A&Es or elderly patients turned out of beds too soon. Not even deaths on trolleys in A&E corridors in Worcester roused his usual righteous ire.
Concern about the NHS has risen high in recent polling: what no one knows is when public anger will reach a political tipping point. Theresa May and Philip Hammond stay iron-clad adamant: all this is NHS shroud-waving and there will be no more money. Lack of any opposition helps, but can they really tough it out where Margaret Thatcher, John Major and Tony Blair all bent in the face of NHS crises?”
Verbatim from his official website:
“You can read about Hugo’s activities in Parliament, including his most recent speeches and appearances below (provided by they workforyou):
Motorcycles: Noise | Department for Transport | Written Answers
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the penalty is for motorcycles exceeding permissible noise levels on roads.
Motorcycles: Noise | Department for Transport | Written Answers
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he plans to reduce the level of acceptable noise from motorcycles in the next 12 mon
Motorcycles: Noise | Department for Transport | Written Answers
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions he has had with industry to better regulate noise emissions from motorcycle
Motorcycles: Noise | Department for Transport | Written Answers
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of legislation governing noise from motor
Motorcycles: Noise | Department for Transport | Written Answers
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many prosecutions there have been for motorcycles exceeding acceptable noise levels in e
Venezuela: Politics and Government | Foreign and Commonwealth Office | Written Answers
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, whether he has discussed the political and economic situation in Vene
Venezuela: Politics and Government | Foreign and Commonwealth Office | Written Answers
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions he has had with his counterparts in Latin America on
Venezuela: Politics and Government | Foreign and Commonwealth Office | Written Answers
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions he has had with his counterpart in Venezuela on the
Venezuela: Politics and Government | Foreign and Commonwealth Office | Written Answers
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions he has had with his EU counterparts on the political
Venezuela: Politics and Government | Foreign and Commonwealth Office | Written Answers
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the political and economic situ
Sovereignty: Scotland | Scotland Office | Written Answers
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, what the cost to the public purse was of the 2014 Scottish referendum.
Aviation Security | Commons debates
I have just returned from a Conservative Middle East Council trip to Egypt, where we were able to see the devastating effect to the local
Aviation Security | Commons debates
I have just returned from a Conservative Middle East Council trip to Egypt, where we were able to see the devastating effect to the local” [it goes on to request resumption of flights to Sharn el Sheikh …
“Investigators examining whether a police and crime commissioner failed to properly declare expenses during the last general election have referred the matter to the Crown Prosecution Service.
The Independent Police Complaints Commissionhas sent the CPS a file on the allegations against Alison Hernandez, the Devon and Cornwall police and crime commissioner.
Hernandez was an election agent for Conservative MP for Kevin Foster’s successful candidacy for the Torbay seat at the 2015 general election. Last year she was elected as the PCC for Devon and Cornwall after standing as the Tory candidate.
The IPCC revealed on Wednesday that the matter had been referred to the CPS.
A spokesperson said: “The managed investigation into allegations that Alison Hernandez failed to properly declare election expenses during the 2015 general election is complete and the matter has been referred to the CPS.
“Ms Hernandez was employed as an election agent for the Conservative candidate in the parliamentary constituency of Torbay. A referral to the CPS is made when the IPCC investigation indicates that a criminal offence may have been committed. It does not mean that criminal charges will necessarily follow. The CPS will decide whether any charges should be brought.
Q&A: what is the Conservative election expenses row about?
“The managed investigation was undertaken by West Mercia police under the direction and control of the Independent Police Complaints Commission, and overseen by IPCC deputy chair Sarah Green.”
Devon and Cornwall is among a dozen police forces to have passed files to the CPS over allegations that up to 20 Conservative MPs broke local spending limits at the last general election.
Prosecutors have to decide whether to charge the MPs or their agents, after a 10-month investigation into whether party spending on an election battlebus that brought activists to marginal seats was wrongly recorded as national spending.
Andrew White, chief executive for the office of the PCC for Devon and Cornwall, said Hernandez would continue in her role while the CPS considered the case.
He added: “Although the case is being referred to the CPS, at this time, no decision has been made about whether charges will be laid against Ms Hernandez. There is no presumption that their consideration will lead to a charge and even if the CPS decide to charge it may be many months before any case comes to court.
“This referral does not prevent the commissioner from holding the position of PCC. If a charge is brought this remains the case – it would not prevent her from remaining in office,.
“I am certain that some will see this as a significant stage in the investigation but in British justice an individual is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
“There is no charge, no trial and no verdict, and neither is there any impediment to the commissioner carrying out her duties as an elected representative of the people of Devon and Cornwall.”
Hernandez recently published her first police and crime plan and budget after Devon and Cornwall’s biggest ever public consultation on policing.
White said: “She has made additional funds available to the chief constable to allow him to recruit an additional 100 front line police officers and recently announced a new initiative that will change the way first time offenders are treated by the criminal justice system.
“If you consider her achievements since being elected to office I believe it confirms my view that the commissioner is fully meeting her obligations to the people of Devon and Cornwall.”
Hernandez is paid a salary of £85,000 a year, a figure is set by the home secretary. She has previously worked as a councillor.
She was on the Isles of Scilly on Tuesday speaking to police and members of the public and was understood to be working in Penzance on Wednesday.
Hernandez was not available for comment.”
This is what a think tank believes Mayors (and by extension Local Enterprise Partnerships) SHOULD be tackling.
Can anyone see any of these issues being given attention in our Devon and Somerset super-mayoral area?
“… Mayors are due to be elected in May in Greater Manchester, the West Midlands, Tees Valley, Liverpool City Region, Cambridgeshire/ Peterborough and West of England, the latter an area based around Bristol.
The IPPR said its evidence base showed mayors should deliver inclusive growth by using their transport policy to prioritise poor neighbourhoods, establishing development corporations and championing the living wage and higher employment standards.
They could improve infrastructure by integrating land use planning and working with central government on housing investment and seek to embed health in all public policy.
The IPPR also urged mayors to set up companies to pilot ‘invest-to-save’ models in employment support, and to collaborate with councils to tackle homelessness….”
“The investigation into Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Alison Hernandez and election spending will be referred to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has confirmed it intends to pass the file to the CPS after an investigation by West Mercia Police.
The CPS will consider whether any charges should be brought along with the cases of other MPs connected to spending on an election “battle bus” said to have exceeded the limit.
Andrew White, chief executive for the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Devon & Cornwall, said the commissioner would not step down even if charges follow.
“This referral does not prevent the commissioner from holding the position of PCC,” he added. “If a charge is brought this remains the case – it would not prevent her from remaining in office.” To ensure absolute independence, in circumstances such as these, there is a clear legal process to be followed,” he said.
West Mercia police carried out the investigation into Ms Hernandez in her position as election agent to Torbay MP Kevin Foster in 2015, rather than Devon and Cornwall, to avoid any suggestion of bias.
The force is also considering whether to refer a second, linked investigation into spending locally to the CPS. A decision on this is expected soon and could see the commissioner face two charges in court.
“Although the case is being referred to the CPS, at this time, no decision has been made about whether charges will be laid against Ms Hernandez,” Mr White added. “There is no presumption that their consideration will lead to a charge and even if the CPS decide to charge it may be many months before any case comes to court.”
Mr White also clarified how the development affects Ms Hernandez’ position as PCC. “I am certain that some will see this as a significant stage in the investigation but in British justice an individual is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. “There is no charge, no trial and no verdict, and neither is there any impediment to the commissioner carrying out her duties as an elected representative of the people of Devon and Cornwall.”
The proof? This wonderful picture of him, Stuart Hughes and A.N. Other – under another wonderful picture of an egg laid by one of the hens at his MID-DEVON home recently posted to his Twitter account:
Perhaps the photographer thought calves, ankles and feet were their best features to woo voters with.
Mrs Swire, who is employed at around £35,000/year in his office, is said to “help” with his publicity – perhaps she was the person taking the photo or putting it on to Twitter? Though never having seen her in the flesh locally (has anyone not in the higher echelons of the local Tory party EVER seen her?) Owl wouldn’t be able to identify her.
Perhaps she’s home in MID-DEVON looking after the hens. Important job if you want fresh breakfast eggs.
Just another reminder about Mr Swire’s view of his “non-job” in EAST Devon:
https://www.hugoswire.org.uk/news/blog-greed-george-osborne
About two in five GPs in the south-west of England are planning to quit, exposing a potential doctors’ crisis in the NHS. A survey of more than 2,000 GPs in the region revealed the impending healthcare problems.
Figures published last month showed there had been a drop in the number of GPs working in the NHS despite the government aim of recruiting 5,000 more by 2020.
The survey, carried out by the University of Exeter, also found that seven in 10 GPs intended to change their working patterns in a way that would mean less contact with patients. This included leaving patient care, taking a career break or reducing their hours.
The researchers said the data provided a snapshot of low morale which, if echoed in other regions, could point to a deeper and more imminent crisis than previously anticipated in relation to the worsening shortage of GPs nationwide.
John Campbell, a professor who led the research, which is published in BMJ Open, has called for a move away from “sticking plaster solutions” towards robust, joined-up, action to avert the crisis nationwide.
Campbell, a practising GP, said: “We carried out this survey because of a nationally recognised crisis in the shortage of GPs across the country, and our findings show an even bleaker outlook than expected for GP cover, even in an area which is often considered desirable, and which has many rural communities.
“If GPs have similar intentions to leave or reduce their hours in other regions, as many are reporting, the country needs to take robust action more swiftly and urgently than previously thought.”
The research team sent surveys to 3,370 GPs across the region and received responses from 2,248, with 54% reporting low morale.
Campbell said: “We know that there’s an ageing workforce in general practice, with 30% of GPs being over 50 years old. Previous research has found that GP morale is low because of workload pressures, and many younger GPs do not want the financial risk and responsibilities of taking on a practice.
“Yet if the GPs we surveyed fulfil their intentions to leave or to cut back their patient contact, and no action is taken to address the issue, the south-west of England will experience a severe shortfall of GPs in the next five years.
“Whilst numerous government-led initiatives are under way to address recruitment, there is a need to address the underlying serious malaise which is behind this data.
“We are in a perilous situation in England, with poor morale of the current GP workforce, and major difficulties with recruitment and retention of GPs reflected in the stark overall reduction in the GP workforce. Reactive, sticking-plaster, approaches are not the answer.”
Campbell said GPs and their teams delivered nine in every 10 patient contacts with the NHS but attracted just seven pence in every pound of NHS spending.
“The government needs to work with the Royal College of General Practitioners, the British Medical Association and universities to obtain evidence on the causes of the problem, to develop and implement relevant strategy, and to effect fundamental change in healthcare resourcing and planning nationwide,” he said.”
How were BBC Devon and Westcountry News able to get to Knowle so quickly when the Exmouth “regeneration” Development Management Committee didn’t start its meeting till 10 am yet Mark Williams was able to give an interview for the 1.30 pm edition of Spotlight and one that appeared on West Country News at 6 pm? And TV cameras were inside the meeting too.
Somehow they never seemed to be interested in the public’s protests about the same issues ….. though West Country News did at least balance the news today with local campaigners who were in disagreement with the decision.
And should Mark Williams have said he favours Grenadier’s watersports centre – after specifically naming them in his interview – isn’t he supposed to be neutral?
Farewell lovely, unique Exmouth, hello clone seaside town that will put off many tourists.
East Devon Watch 