Source: Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2017/jul/07/world-leaders-meet-and-greet-at-g20-summit-in-pictures
Daily Archives: 7 Jul 2017
Tuition fees benefit University Vice-Chancellors not students
Owl says: two university vice-chancellor (Plymouth: £310,149 gross in 2015/16; Exeter: £400,000 (including £58,000 performance-related remuneration) and a college principal of a college (South Devon College) offering university-level courses (salary not found) are all amongst the 21 board members of our Local Enterprise Partnership.
“Tuition fees in England should be scrapped after becoming a “Frankenstein’s monster” that loads £50,000 or more in debt on to the backs of graduates, according to the architect of the last Labour government’s education reforms.
Andrew Adonis, the former adviser to Tony Blair who also served as an education minister, has used a column for the Guardian to attack the system of student finances, accusing the government of running a Ponzi scheme that leaves students in England with crippling debts.
“In my view, fees have now become so politically diseased, they should be abolished entirely,” Adonis writes in the Guardian.
Admitting that he was “largely responsible” for the structure of fees and loans, with repayments pegged to graduate incomes, Adonis complains that greedy university leaders have failed to improve teaching quality but still rewarded themselves handsomely.
“[Vice-chancellors] increased their own pay and perks as fast as they increased tuition fees, and are now ‘earning’ salaries of £275,000 on average and in some cases over £400,000.
“Debt levels for new graduates are now so high that the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that three-quarters of graduates will never pay it all back. The Treasury will soon realise it is sitting on a Ponzi scheme,” Adonis writes. …”
Hernandez survives – for now
Owl can find no reference to this other than BBC News. Might her survival owe itself to a majority of Conservative councillors on the Police and Crime Panel?
“A police chief who suggested gun owners might be able to act as armed civilians in a terror attack, has survived a vote of no confidence.
Devon and Cornwall Police warned armed civilians should not tackle terrorists after the comments made by Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Alison Hernandez on a BBC phone-in in June.
The vote, held by the Police and Crime Panel, the body which scrutinises her, was defeated by eight to two.”
What next for Hernandez and her pal?
“The Police and Crime Panel for Devon and Cornwall has just recommended refusal to the proposal to appoint the Police and Crime Commissioner’s favoured candidate for the post of deputy. The rules surrounding appointment panels are relatively new and untested, so what happens now?
The good news for Ms Hernandez is that the panel did not choose to, or did not have the grounds, to veto the appointment of Mark Kingscote to the post of Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner for Devon & Cornwall, which it can do under certain circumstances. The guidance for panels is only to refuse rarely. There are now four working days for all parties to consider their next moves.
According to the Local Government Association’s guidance on confirmation hearings the PCC and her candidate then have three options:
She can continue with the appointment, but such a move would put her at loggerheads with the panel and possibly lead to public criticism when the recommendation to refuse was officially made public. In this case PCCs are advised to issue a statement focussing on why they thought the candidate did in fact meet the minimum standards for the post.
The candidate decides to withdraw. If this happens the formal recommendation to refuse is published but no further information is given.
The PCC decides not to appoint. The recommendation to refuse is published alongside a statement by the PCC setting out a timetable and process to make a new appointment.
Seaton County Councillor organises another demo on community hospital bed losses
PRESS RELEASE:
“Campaigners in the Seaton and Honiton areas are preparing for a crucial meeting of Devon County Council’s Health Scrutiny Committee on
Tuesday 25th July
Following a meeting in June when they postponed a decision, this committee will now decide whether to use its power to refer the decision of the NEW Devon Clinical Commission Group (CCG) to close all in-patient beds in Seaton, Honiton and Okehampton hospitals to the Secretary of State for Health.
In March, the Committee sent 14 questions, from a resolution proposed by County Councillor Claire Wright, about the proposals to replace 72 of East Devon’s 144 community hospital beds by care at home. The questions included the justification for the surprise last-minute switch of beds from Seaton to Sidmouth, which left no beds at all in the Axe Valley, since Axminster has already lost its beds. Cllr Wright and other committee members are expected to examine the 14 points in detail to see which of them the CCG has answered satisfactorily.
Among those who will be speaking against the plans are Seaton and Colyton County Councillor, Martin Shaw, Seaton Mayor, Jack Rowland, and the Chair of EDDC’s Scrutiny Committee, Councillor Roger Giles, with others from Axminster and Honiton. Cllr Shaw says, ”This is a crucial decision not only for the beds but also for the future of the hospitals. The CCG’s next step is its local estate strategy, which is likely to involve partial or even complete closures of hospitals. Seaton is more remote from acute hospitals than any other East Devon town and it is vital that we retain our hospital, which was built by the local community.’
As in June, protestors will gather outside County Hall from 1 pm, and will then observe the meeting which starts at 2.15. A bus is being organised to take people from Seaton to County Hall:
anyone who would like to book a seat should contact Cllr Shaw (cllrmartinshaw@gmail.com or 07972 760254).”
Full audio and video of Police and Crime Panel meeting that refused Hernandez deputy
The full audio and video of the webcast where Hernandez is told that they don’t want her deputy is here but – unfortunately they can inly RECOMMEND that she does not appoint her pal but there is NOTHING they can do to stop her doing so:
A few highlights with approximate timings (have to refer to some councillors by first names as this is what is used in video and labels not readable)
First – awful chairing! Meandering and did not keep councillors to agenda – at the middle point two rural councillors used the opportunity to talk about their wishes for rural policing, which had nothing at all to do with the agenda item – some 10 minutes wasted there with no intervention from chair.
Second: At around 46 minutes, the panel went into closed session and 10 minutes later reconvened to say they were not recommending her pal’s appointment and would send a letter to her on the next working day explaining why. This is totally undemocratic and non-transparent and to be deplored. She and they will almost certainly hide behind “personal information” not to reveal the contents of the letter.
Other highlights:
Hernandez wants a deputy because other areas, particularly Dorset has one and she needs to be at Westminster a lot.
9 min 50
Kingscote’s personal speech was embarrassing – any junior PR person could have written it and he stumbled over many parts of it. Hernandez takes good care of him, pouring him water and being very solicitous of him. Used the word “passion” an awful lot!
Tom Wright (East Devon) brings up am embarrassing tweet that Kingscote is said to have made on Twitter which, according to Express and Echo report, was about lesbians. Kingscote says it was wrong, apologises and says he will use “appropriate grammar” in future.
14mins approx
Cornwall councillor Chris ?Batters finally deals with the elephant in the room: says the appointment smacks of nepotism – power concentrated in one small corner of Torbay. Says Hernandez is there to “sell” Kingscote to them. Commissioner responds that they are not related, taking the word ‘nepotism’ literally.
Hernandez says she considered 2 other people, both councillors, one Tory, one Lib Dem but Kingscote was best.
Approx 38 min 20
After the break for private session, Croad (Chairman) says panel does not accept he is qualified for the job.
Next move: Hernandez – over to you – accept PCP recommendation or employ your pal.
No deputy for Police and Crime Commissioner
Owl says: now all we need now is no Police and Crime Commissioner Hernandez – her total incompetence coupled with her self-serving attitude to the job should mean that she no longer enjoys the confidence of the Police and Crime Panel.
But, hey, Theresa May is in the same position and she’s still around – though Hernandez doesn’t have £1.5 billion available to buy her way out of the mess she has got herself, and us, into!
Come on Police and Crime Panel – do the right thing and let her go. It’s kinder for us all – particularly the police.
“The Police and Crime Panel has refused to appoint a deputy police and crime commissioner for Devon, Cornwall and Isles of Scilly.
The panel said Mark Kingscote “does not meet minimum requirements of the post”.
No other reasons were given but the decision is a blow to Alison Hernandez, the PCC who proposed Mr Kingscote.”
Source: BBC Devon website
English devolved areas “too small” – wheel to be reinvented!
After the abolition of the South West Regional Development Agency which was considered too big, we got a Devon and Somerset Local Enterprise Partnership which is now considered too small!!!!! The solution: a South West regional development area!
And if our current LEP area is considered too small, imagine the even smaller mooted “Golden Triangle LEP” (Plymouth, Exeter Torbay)!
So many heads, so much banging together needed.
“… A simple comparison with other similar developed nations suggests that the average size of subnational regional government stands at around 5 million people. The average size of a German länder, for example, is 5.2 million; for French conseil regions it is 5.3 million; and for US states it is 6.1 million. Greater Manchester stands at little over 2.5 million. And are we seriously suggesting that English regional governance should be sub-divided into 39 or 40 separate units?
While clearly there is no right answer to the question of the optimal scale of a functional economic area within a competitive global economy, let alone the right-size for more functional democracy, in the case of the English LEP areas, it is clear that in global terms they are very much at the smaller end of the scale. With Brexit on the horizon and the challenges that might bring in terms of global connectivity, the case for a larger-scale approach to economic strategy and democratic decision-making could not be more clear.
Any new form of subnational governance needs to be developed at scale. While England is too big, our current city-regions and combined authorities are too small. This may well be the reason that ideas such as the Northern Powerhouse or Midlands Engine have in recent times gathered so much momentum. We are still a long way from such ideas taking more political or democratic forms, but to claim they lack public support would be to misread the signs of the times. …”
“Warning issued on rural services and housing”
“A 12-strong coalition of organisations concerned with rural areas has warned these face becoming “enclaves of the affluent” unless the government acts on the lack of affordable housing and high costs of local service delivery.
The Rural Coalition, which includes the National Housing Federation, the National Association of Local Councils, and the Town and Country Planning Association, said policy makers should not regard rural England issues as only those of farming and the environment.
It called for a planning system and funding regime that would deliver “a meaningful increase in the number of affordable homes outside of towns and cities, fair distribution of funding between urban and rural areas for all services including healthcare and transport, and an industrial strategy that realises the potential of rural areas”.
Service delivery in rural areas incurs extra costs compared with those of towns because of population sparsity and the coalition said these must be properly reflected in funding formulae, such as those for local government, education and the NHS.
Rural areas would also be vitally affected by Brexit negotiations on issues raging from trade regulations to migrant labour to the future of EU funding programmes, the coalition said, urging ministers to ‘rural proof’ the results of Brexit talks.
Coalition chair Margaret Clark said: “For too long, rural people and businesses have been left behind and sidelined in the national political debate.
“From now on, all policies and their implementation must be properly assessed to ensure they meet the needs of the millions of people who call the countryside home.”
http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2017/07/warning-issued-rural-services-and-housing
Man with tiny fingers on nuclear button forgets to book hotel
“President Donald Trump apparently forgot to book a hotel room in Hamburg, Germany, for the annual Group of 20 summit of key global leaders, and was stuck scrambling to find somewhere to stay, BuzzFeed reported Thursday.
Oops.
The White House apparently waited too long before making a reservation for Trump and his traveling staff for the summit, which begins on Friday. All the luxury hotels in the city were completely booked by other world leaders, leaving the US president — who made his name in business building, uh, luxury hotels — without a place to stay.
A local German news outlet, Hamburger Abendblatt, reported on Wednesday that the US government wanted to stay at the Four Seasons, but they were turned away because it was already booked.
The delegation from Saudi Arabia had actually already claimed the Four Seasons, as well as rooms in several other nearby hotels. Saudi King Salman won’t be at the summit — a former finance minister is representing the country instead, according to Financial Times. But the king usually travels with a huge entourage, camels for fresh camel milk, and a golden escalator, according to Stern, a Hamburg-based weekly news magazine.
Weeks before the summit, there were reports that Trump and his team would have to stay in Berlin and fly to Hamburg by helicopter, according to BuzzFeed.
It’s unclear where Trump will be sleeping, but the Associated Press is reporting that he’ll be staying at the official Senate guest house in Hamburg. His staff will stay at the US Consulate General in the city.
This isn’t the first time that the Trump administration has run into problems finding accommodation. When Secretary of State Rex Tillerson attended a G20 meeting in Germany earlier this year, he had to stay at a sanitarium in a small village known for its hot springs, according to Bloomberg.
All the hotels in Bonn, the city hosting the conference, were booked by the time Tillerson confirmed he would be attending.
So why does this keep happening? It might have to do with the fact that the State Department is currently understaffed and unorganized. Only nine key positions out of 124 have been confirmed at the State Department.
No one has even been nominated as the director in the Office of Foreign Missions, which is responsible for planning and providing security for US missions when diplomats and other top officials travel abroad.
As the G20 summit ramps up on Friday and into the weekend, there’s a good chance that Trump will continue to face potentially embarrassing situations as he comes face to face with world leaders who have mocked him in the past.”
Nuclear plants – becoming old-fashioned in USA
RENEWABLE SOURCES OF ELECTRICITY OUTPACE NUCLEAR PLANTS
“WASHINGTON (AP) — Nuclear power has taken a back seat to renewable sources of electricity for the first time in decades.
Electricity production from utility-scale renewable sources exceeded nuclear generation in March and April. That’s the first time renewable sources have outpaced nuclear since 1984.
The growth in renewables has been fueled by scores of new wind turbines and solar farms. Recent increases in hydroelectric power as a result of heavy snow and rain in Western states last winter also provided a boost.
Experts predict output from the nation’s nuclear plants will still outpace renewables for the full year. One reason is seasonal variation. Less water flows through dams in the drier summer months. Also, nuclear plants tend to undergo maintenance during spring and fall months, when overall electricity demand is lower.”
East Devon Watch 