“A broadband upgrade for 1.4 million rural homes is expected to be delayed by as much as three years with talks on a deal between the Government and BT’s network subsidiary Openreach close to collapse. …
… the Government will be forced to impose new regulations to give broadband customers a right to an upgrade. It means the work is likely to take much longer and that a Tory manifesto pledge to deliver the minimum standard to everyone by 2020 is under threat. …”
Source: Sunday Telegraph
The Department for Communities and Local Government Parliamentary Committee asked for evidence on local authority scrutiny.
This interesting evidence was provided by BR4DS – a campaign group which is attempting to ensure that all parts of Devon and Somerset get fast broadband provision:
“Written evidence submitted by B4RDS Broadband for Rural Devon and Somerset [OSG 006]
1. Executive summary:
1.1 At the first public meeting of a newly appointed Devon County Council (DCC) Scrutiny Committee in June 2017, the newly appointed Chairman delegated scrutiny of the Connecting Devon & Somerset (CDS) superfast broadband programme to an ongoing/standing task group of four Councillors who take evidence from Council Officers, suppliers and others in private, behind closed doors, with press and public excluded and with no formal minutes taken. This follows two years during which the previous committee required CDS to provide a quarterly written report on progress and answer questions in public, in front of the Committee.
The Terms of Reference for the ongoing/standing Task Group allow for it to continue in operation for seven years and the only information that will be put in the public domain will be reports by the four Councillors on their scrutiny of this subject. This is a major reduction in openness and transparency for the taxpayers of Devon and is contrary to the Council’s own constitution, the Nolan Principles and the expectations of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government as expressed at the 2017 Local Government Association Conference:
“If people are going to trust their elected representatives, they have to see them working in the harsh light of the public eye, not in comforting shadows behind closed doors. Not only must democracy exist; it must be seen to exist. It can’t be about decisions made in private meeting rooms.” – Rt Hon. Sajid Javid MP.”
The East Devon Alliance also provided information to this committee which can be found here:
Its executive summary states:
Written evidence submitted by East Devon Alliance [OSG 040]
Executive Summary
East Devon Alliance understands that encouraging economic development is a crucial task in local government. However, we are concerned that the increasing influence of unaccountable business interests on council decisions damages the health of local democracy, and can threaten the wider interests of local communities. The climate of unhealthy cynicism about politics, and a failure to engage in the democratic process, is reinforced whenever there is an apparent failure of scrutiny to make councils transparent and accountable.
Overview and Scrutiny (O&S) can too easily be rendered ineffectual by a dominant majority party in a cabinet-led-executive.
Government advice that members of a majority party should not chair O&S committees must be made mandatory.
Chief Executives must not be able to have inappropriate influence on O&S committees.
Scrutiny Officers need to be independent of influence and interference from senior officers or members of cabinet.
The scrutiny role needs to be strengthened to be able to call witnesses. It should be a legal requirement for officers and members of Council and associated bodies to cooperate.
With increasing privatisation, commercial confidentiality must not be used to shield public expenditure from scrutiny.
Scrutiny should “reflect the voice and concerns of the public” by giving local people more say in what issues are chosen for scrutiny.
There is no scrutiny mechanism of the new tier of local government created by the unelected and self-selecting Local Enterprise Partnerships who now control over £2 billion a year in England. Proposals made in 2013 by the Centre for Public Scrutiny could form the basis for scrutiny of such devolved bodies.”
“In Britain we put our elderly into living graveyards, put them in a home, arrange the chairs in a half circle, turn on the heating and leave them to watch tv.
We should be copying what is happening in Amsterdam, where they have care homes with extra accommodation for students. The students get a free place to live in return for 30 hours a month assisting around the home.
For elderly people, the best medicine is youth. It energises them – ask any grandparent, We could kill two birds with one stone here, easing student debt and massive social care costs”.
Source: Sunday Times, pay wall
“Philip Hammond has claimed “there are no unemployed people” in the UK in a major slip-up as the chancellor prepares to fight for his political life in this week’s budget.
Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Hammond made the gaffe as he argued there had been no need to worry about jobs disappearing due to technological advances such as computers in the past.
Downplaying worries about automation technologies including driverless cars, he said: “It’s a simple choice: either we embrace change or we try to hide from change and we allow ourselves to slip behind … I remember 20 years ago we were worried about what would happen to a million shorthand typists in Britain as the personal computer took over. Nobody has a shorthand typist these days. Where are all these unemployed people? There are no unemployed people. We have created 3.5m jobs since 2010. This economy has become a jobs factory.”
In fact, there are about 1.42 million unemployed people in the UK and many more who are underemployed and would like more hours. .. “
So, the Conservatives get in because, although not enough people voted for them, they could bribe the DUP with £1 billion to prop them up.
They leave it to developers to decide housing policy and the developers get mega-rich while saying they are too poor to build affordable homes and even renting a home is now beyond many (working) people.
They cut public services such as the NHS, education – to the bone.
They privatise anything that can be privatised – including the NHS and education.
What they can’t privatise, they put under the control of unaccountable quangos such as “business led” Local Enterprise Partnerships, which make Walter Mitty claims that they will get “productivity” soaring (by making sure that government money gets funnelled into THEIR companies) and councils roll over for them (they are given no choice).
Public utilities – water, gas, electricity, railways – are now all mostly owned by foreign companies which repatriate profits to their own countries.
They cut benefits whilst allowing tax dodging by rich individuals and powerful companies on a truly breathtaking scale.
They get most of their funds from donors who benefit from privatisation and austerity and tax dodging.
They say they are returning “sovereignty” to the UK but strip MPs of their voting powers.
They refuse to accept that “green energy” is now cheaper than nuclear power and fossil fuels and instead commit to a nuclear white elephant that belongs to the French and Chinese (who are ceasing building massive nuclear power stations at home and investing instead in renewables)
We won’t mention the Brexit omni-omni-mega-no-words-good-enough-for-it shambles. Except that we can, they say, rely on the United States to see us right.
Yet, come the time when it looks like their “leader” is on her last legs and a snap election may be on the horizon they tell people they are going to do “something” about housing and the NHS – as if the mess they are in is not their fault. Perhaps a commission, perhaps a policy paper, perhaps a “consultation” … perhaps.
A little money will be shaken from the magic money tree (soon to be swallowed up by not-so-magic higher prices).
And thousands of people will say “Good enough for me – I’ll vote for them again”.
Truly we live in strange and frightening times.
East Devon Watch 