Guardian letters:
“The £350m for the NHS now and £1.6bn next year is dwarfed by the extra £10bn Philip Hammond recently found to shovel to development-sector shareholders through “help to buy”. And now we have the removal of stamp duty on houses up to £300,000, which will also push up prices, with the difference again going to developers or other vendors, instead of the exchequer. Another outrage.
John Worrall
Cromer, Norfolk”
Local media knew about this for YEARS but refused to take it up or investigate, leaving a lone Grenfell Tower blogger to document the unfolding disaster. One so-called “local” journalist was actually filing copy from Dorset!
“[Edward] Daffarn [a social worker who had lived in Grenfell Tower for 15 years] is understandably emotional when reflecting on the last few months, but more than that he is angry. Angry with the way he feels Grenfell residents were treated by the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation – the people who were entrusted to maintain the estate and keep its residents safe. Angry with the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council, which was meant to scrutinise the KCTMO. Angry with a society which didn’t seem to care about people like him – people who live on housing estates – until it was too late.
“The reality is if you’re on a housing estate it’s indifference and neglect, two words that sum up everything about the way we were treated,” he says. “They weren’t interested in providing housing services, keeping us safe, maintaining the estate. They were just interested in themselves.”
It wasn’t for us to tell the council what they should be doing we were just trying to raise an alarm.
Edward Daffarn, Grenfell Action Group blog
Daffarn and fellow Grenfell resident Francis O’Connor had been blogging on behalf of the Grenfell Action Group since 2012. They wrote about issues that concerned their tight-knit community – air pollution, the closure of the local public library, and their fears that corners were being cut during the refurbishment of the tower.
“We wanted to record for history how a community on a housing estate in the fifth richest country in the world could be ignored, neglected, treated with indifference. We never thought we could make change. We just wanted to record what was happening,” he says.
Daffarn and O’Connor shared a theory that Kensington and Chelsea – a London borough more widely known for its museums, designer shops and flower shows – actually wanted its council estates to go into decline, so that the residents would leave and expensive flats could be built in this sought-after location. For this they were described as fantasists.
“We weren’t fantasists,” he says, visibly hurt. “We were trying to raise genuine concerns about how our community was being run down.”
The natural consequence, he concluded, would be loss of life. Which is why on 20 November 2016, frustrated and desperate, Edward wrote the blog post KCTMO – Playing with fire!
“It is a truly terrifying thought but the Grenfell Action Group firmly believe that only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord.”
A few months earlier a fire had ripped through five floors of a tower block in Shepherd’s Bush, just down the road. Edward was worried that if a fire broke out in his tower block residents wouldn’t know what to do. They had been given no proper fire safety instructions from the KCTMO. There were no instructions on individual floors on how residents should act in the event of a fire, there was only a recent newsletter saying residents should remain in their flats – advice which in the case of the Shepherd’s Bush fire would have led to fatalities.
There’s a lot of abusive behaviour evidenced forensically about what was happening to our community, but it wasn’t sexy so it never got picked up.
In March 2017 the KCTMO installed fire safety instruction notices in the entrance hallway to Grenfell Tower and outside the lifts on every floor of the building, again urging residents to “stay put” unless the fire was “in or affecting your flat”.
It wasn’t the first time the Grenfell blog’s authors had raised concerns about fire safety.
Before the blog began, when a school was built on the only green space the residents had, they wrote to the borough pointing out that access for fire and emergency vehicles had been compromised.
Later they blogged about the blocking of a fire exit with mattresses during the refurbishment and the power surges in 2013 that manifested in flickering lights, computers and stereos blowing up, and entire rooms filling with smoke. These continued for three weeks, Daffarn says.
“We were tenants we weren’t fire safety specialists but we were switched on enough to feel this was important and it was not being dealt with on our estate and that’s why we were blogging. It wasn’t for us to tell the council what they should be doing., We were just trying to raise an alarm.”
An alarm that went unanswered. The November 2016 blog post represented the last moment at which something might have been done to avert the disaster which followed six months later. But why didn’t anyone heed or investigate Daffarn’s claims?
Hidden within the story of the Grenfell blog is another story of the decline of local media. There simply was no local press on the ground in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea scrutinising the authorities and helping to amplify the voice of people like Edward Daffarn.
The last time he had the attention of a local journalist was in 2014 when Camilla Horrox, the reporter for the Kensington and Chelsea Chronicle ran front page stories about Grenfell residents’ concerns regarding the possible presence of asbestos on the site of the new school and about the power surges.
She had met Daffarn several times, and had been concerned about KCTMO’s dealings with the residents of the properties it managed.
But when the newspaper was closed down later that year Horrox was made redundant and all her Grenfell articles disappeared from the web. The Kensington and Chelsea Chronicle was incorporated into a website that reports on 29 west London districts.
Horrox’s replacement was expected to report on three boroughs – Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster and Hammersmith and Fulham – while based in Surrey, an hour’s drive away.
Some residents of the borough might have been under the mistaken impression that they did have a local newspaper. In 2015 a free paper, The Kensington and Chelsea News, was established to fill the gap left by the closing of the Chronicle.
But when I tracked down its reporter he explained that he was the sole reporter working on the paper, and on two other local newspapers – his salary was £500 a week and he did almost all his reporting from home in Dorset, 150 miles away. He made it to the borough only twice in two-and-a-half years, and the one story he ever published about Grenfell was from a council press release about the installation of the new cladding.
Though he always searched for a “good front page splash” for each of the three editions, he also made sure to find two pages of royal stories and two pages of entertainment stories.
Edward Daffarn didn’t take his concerns to the media in November 2016 because he no longer thought anyone would listen. But the blog was out there for everyone to see, he points out, if only they had been looking.
“We’d been blogging for three or four years and you go back over that time there’s a lot of abusive behaviour evidenced forensically about what was happening to our community, but it wasn’t sexy so it never got picked up.”
For Edward, what was going on at Grenfell wasn’t just a local story, but a national one. A story about invisible people in a society that cared more about celebrity and wealth than its most vulnerable residents.
Close to tears, he admonishes the nation’s journalists.
“If you look back now our whole community of North Kensington, the policy that the local authority was taking every public space and privatising it, that that could be missed by the BBC, by Channel Four, by these wider news agencies… The question should be for you, why did you miss it?
“Why aren’t our lives important enough for you?”
“Councils received mixed messages on housing in the 2017 budget – with borrowing freedoms to help build more homes accompanied by a renewed threat of forced sales.
There was a cautious welcome for the chancellor Philip Hammond’s announcement that the government will increase the Housing Revenue Account borrowing cap for a limited number of councils.
However, there was concern that the government is pushing ahead with a pilot to test the idea of forcing councils to sell high value homes to fund an extension of Right to Buy (RTB) to housing association tenants….
… Paul Dossett, head of local government at accountancy firm Grant Thornton, said: “It looks like a very small pot in total when compared to other housing initiatives announced in the budget and in other recent government announcements.”
He also called on the government to clarify what the government meant by areas of high affordability pressure.
“In our view the cap should be lifted for all housing authorities so they can plan holistically across the country to build the social housing that we need,” he said. …
… The chancellor also announced plans to press ahead with a £200m pilot extending the Right to Buy for housing association tenants in the Midlands.
Councils had hoped that the idea, along with many housing policy initiatives from former chancellor George Osborne, had been shelved after a scheduled pilot scheme failed to materialise.
But documents released alongside the budget by the Office for Budget Responsibility, said: “A small pilot scheme was due to run from January to May 2016 but was delayed to July due to the process of applications taking longer than expected and there being a longer lag between issuing instructions to solicitors and completions being achieved.
“A larger pilot was announced in Autumn Statement 2016 and was due to begin in April 2017. This did not take place. It has instead been replaced by a new pilot announced at this budget, due to run for one year from July 2018.”
“… Because this is a permanent reduction in stamp duty for first-time buyers, it will actually increase the price of properties by twice the size of the tax cut,” the think tank said. “As such prospective first-time buyers’ net costs will actually increase not decrease.
“In reality, a first-time buyer purchasing an average priced property would experience a £3,200 price increase to offset the £1,600 tax cut.”
Those buying cheaper properties, however, are likely to save more in stamp duty than the extra they have to pay in inflated house prices, it added. The stamp duty cut also means that more of a buyer’s savings can go towards a deposit, enabling more to afford a home.” …
“The publication of Northern Irish political donors’ identities has been postponed to the new year because of a delay by the government in putting the necessary legislation before parliament.
The Electoral Commission had planned to publish information on donors who had given money to parties registered in Northern Ireland for the first time on Thursday.
Ann Watt, the head of the commission in Northern Ireland, said it was “extremely disappointed that we are unable to provide the public with the information they expected on how political parties in Northern Ireland are funded”.
“The continuing secrecy only serves to undermine trust and confidence among the public in the democratic process,” she said. “We were consulted by the Northern Ireland Office several months ago on draft legislation and provided detailed comments.”
The non-disclosure of information on donors to political parties in Northern Ireland dates back to the Troubles. It means that while Northern Irish political parties have to divulge donor information to the Electoral Commission, it cannot publish information identifying those donors.
The provision came under intense scrutiny when it emerged earlier this year that the Democratic Unionist party had spent £425,000 in the run-up to the 2016 EU referendum campaigning for Brexit.
Following questions from the media, the DUP MP Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said the cash had come from the pro-union Constitutional Research Council, chaired by the former Scottish Conservative party vice-chairman Richard Cook. The CRC’s donors are unknown.
The majority of the money was used to pay for a wraparound advert in the Metro newspaper, which is not published in Northern Ireland, while £32,750 was paid to AggregateIQ, a social media political consultancy based in Canada, also heavily used by Vote Leave, the official leave campaign.
Earlier this week, the Electoral Commission announced an investigation into Vote Leave over whether it breached the £7m EU referendum spending limit. The official leave campaign spent £6.8m itself and donated £625,000 to a fashion student’s campaign called BeLeave. At issue is whether BeLeave was genuinely independent of Vote Leave: the money it received was sent directly to be spent on social media marketing for AggregateIQ.
A government spokesperson said: “There remains widespread support for full transparency among the people of Northern Ireland.
“In line with that aim, we have brought secondary legislation before parliament that would provide for the publication of all donations and loans received by Northern Ireland parties.”
The Electoral Commission then updated its position in a second statement from Watt: “We are pleased that the UK government has acted to make this important change a reality. Transparency in how our political parties are funded is key to ensuring public trust and confidence in the democratic process.”
Claire Wright’s blog:
“Devon County Council’s solicitor, Jan Shadbolt, reminded the Health and Adult Care Scrutiny Committee of its legal responsibilities at Tuesday’s (21 November) meeting.
I had asked for this agenda item following a disastrous meeting in July where a referral to the Secretary of State for Health on the closure of 72 community hospital beds in Eastern Devon was thwarted by the Conservative members of the committee, resulting in over 20 complaints from members of the public.
Mrs Shadbolt read out a paragraph from the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry, led by Sir Robert Francis in 2013. Many people had tragically died there as a result of poor care.
The local council’s scrutiny committee was deemed to have failed in its duty to effectively scrutinise the local health trust and identify problems.
Mrs Shadbolt said it was the first time that non-executive members of a local authority were held to account because they were deemed to have failed in their duty.
New regulations were brought in afterwards to beef up the legal powers of health scrutiny committees. These were that health scrutiny committees can:
– Require a local officer to attend to answer questions
– Expect to be consulted by an NHS body or service provider on substantial developments (although there is no definition of substantial developments)
– Refer to the Secretary of State for Health (subject to a series of constraints)
The county solicitor told the committee that we had a “very powerful role to play within the community” and that we were “unique in scrutiny committees” on that basis.
Conservative, Phil Twiss wanted to know who “scrutinises the scrutineers.” The county solicitor replied that the ultimate scrutiny was being called to account over the failure of a service provider, but that generally speaking councillors were answerable to the community.
Cllr Twiss then wanted to know how the committee knew it was performing properly. Mrs Shadbolt said that the committee’s role was to ask pertinent questions, call any officer to present. She added that there are all sorts of bodies who can give information to help with this, such as Healthwatch.
Conservative councillor, Paul Crabbe, wanted to remind the committee that this agenda item had been added because “some members felt we failed to scrutinise correctly…” He went on to say that a “chap from south Devon was fizzing with excitement over the success and how about how wonderful his new system was” then they were later asked to vote that it was “rubbish.”
Cllr Crabbe said that this struck him as a nonsense then and still struck him as a nonsense and just because the committee voted against “someone’s particular view” it didn’t necessarily mean that the committee was not fulfilling its role.
Liberal Democrat, Cllr Brian Greenslade asked the county solicitor to remind councillors that scrutiny is not a normal committee of the council in that it is not supposed to be political. He said that he thought it was worth underlining this point…”
Here’s the webcast – https://devoncc.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/302658
Paul Diviani has helped at least one “hard working person” to beat the trend – Chris Garcia, CEO of our Local Enterprise Partnership who got a whacking 26% increase in his salary last year as reportd here:
https://eastdevonwatch.org/2017/01/17/17562/
and here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-38648435
and here:
Nice work if you can get it (unless of course you happen to have a university vice-chancellorship in your back pocket!).
“… It follows a council document from 2015 about the Queen’s Drive development that says: “The people of Exmouth are being offered a gift of a new Watersports Centre that will operate as a community interest company (not a private facility) whereby a philanthropist is investing up to £4m of his own money in this national venue.”
But a council spokesman said that the debate is about what constituents a gift and that once the original investment without interest is recovered all income generated will be reinvested in Exmouth.
Save Exmouth Seafront spokesman Nick Hookway said: “We have a number of concerns about the arrangements that East Devon District Council has made with Grenadier.
“Grenadier is not gifting the Water Sports centre site to the people of Exmouth. Information supplied by both the developer and the Council shows that the cost of the project will initially be paid for by Grenadier. The whole cost of this development will then be paid back to Grenadier over a number of years with no interest except for the cost of inflation. Inflation is running at 3.9% as measured by the Retail Price Index. Wouldn’t it be nice if residents could get 3.9% on their savings accounts?
“In most people’s minds Grenadier is a making a loan not a gift. Why are Councillors unable to see this?”
But a council spokesman said: “Grenadier is investing £3m to £4m upfront in providing a water sports centre and we have seen the attractive plans that will enhance Exmouth’s seafront and attraction to visitors and residents.
“The developer is involved on a not for profit basis with a business model that involves recovery of their original investment (without interest). The water sports centre and associated facilities will then be operated by a non-profit making Community Interest Company. Income generated from that point on will be used to reinvest in Exmouth by the Community Interest Company.
“There seems to be some debate about what constitutes a ‘gift’. To be clear, the cost of building the asset will be paid upfront by Grenadier and this will be paid back to Grenadier by the CIC without interest using income derived from the operation of the facility.
“The specifics and priorities of that re-investment will be something that the Community Interest Company will decide and it will have local representation on the board. This varies considerably from the standard investment model that commercial developers would usually follow and, in fact, Grenadier has chosen not to make a profit on this project when they could have directed their funds elsewhere into a profit making venture as would normally be the case for a private developer.”
Questions were also raised by SES as to who exactly is behind the realignment of Queen’s Drive that will see the road move from its current position on the seafront to behind the proposed new watersports centre.
Mr Hookway said: “Why is the road being moved and who suggested this realignment? Grenadier has stated the realignment of the road was not something that they asked for. East Devon District Council will say that it was included in the Exmouth Masterplan which was adopted in 2011.
“However there was no explanation in the Masterplan for the proposed realignment, indeed recent changes to the design of the road are different from those proposed in the Masterplan. Save Exmouth Seafront wants to know why the road is being moved and who proposed these changes.”
But in response, the council spokesman said: “The road and car park move was recommended in the original masterplan and made a lot of sense in creating a new, accessible and safer space connected directly to the beach.
“There is no confusion here since the council marketed the site on that basis and Grenadier bid on the clear understanding that the road and car park were being moved. This was a council decision following the recommendation of the masterplan.”
Save Exmouth Seafront in response to the plans say that they would like the main buildings to be moved back eight metres from the current proposed location, is it necessary for it to be two storeys, and will there be a clearly displayed safety plan for kite surfers, but did say the consultation process funded by Grenadier was a most welcome change from the usual process of planning consultations.
A spokesman for Grenadier added: “We are currently reviewing all feedback received during the community consultation process. All comments are receiving our full attention and we will provide an update once we have completed our review. In the meantime we encourage the community to check back regularly at http://watersportscentreexmouth.co.uk/ for any updates.”
http://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/public-havent-been-misled-over-822186
A correspondent in Cranbrook writes:
“I went to park at the train station this morning and a car had got stuck trying to gain access to the parking area … Most of the cars were parked OUTSIDE the designated area due to the fact that the entry with those barriers is TOOOO narrow ..What a waste of money ..
A bit like many Cranbrook garages, where the passenger has to get out before the driver goes in as they are so narrow, or those roads that are too narrow so cars park half-on the pavement – a problem for years as this article from 2013 illustrates:
“… Kelly Curran lives in Mead Cross. She’s also witnessed poor parking.
“It’s a sore subject with a lot of people,” she says. “The builders park everywhere, taking up a lot of parking spaces. They park in front of people’s drives, sometimes they just park their vehicles right on the pavement, so you’re forced out into the road.”
Local residents have also started parking on the pavement, because the roads – especially the side streets, such as Mayfield Way, Henry’s Run and Mead Cross – are narrow. …
The police are concerned about poor car parking in Cranbrook.
“Some of the parking is fairly bad,” says Cranbrook’s Police Community Support Officer Jack Stannard. “If it’s horrendous, then I go and speak to the owner of the vehicle.”
The local police has also posted a Think Before You Park flier on a Cranbrook Facebook page, flagging up that ‘sensible parking could save a life’.
The fire service is also concerned.
“We have been visiting the area and working with the community to ensure there is adequate access for all emergency service vehicles,” says a spokesman. “When we see a vehicle that might cause an obstruction, we are either speaking to the driver direct or leaving a polite notice.
“It is everyone’s responsibility to ensure that emergency vehicles are not delayed getting to incidents.”
http://www.midweekherald.co.uk/news/practical-advice-issued-for-sensible-parking-in-cranbrook-1-3999229
Penny pinching gone mad.
Never mind OUR Local Enterprise Partnership appears to think that Devon and Cornwall (in spite of getting no budget goodies) will RACE ahead and do FAR better than any other area, not only in England, not only in the UK, not only in Europe but in the WHOLE world!
What busy bees we are in the south-west – or maybe just at Hinkley C!
“… Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, added that the economic forecasts published in the Budget made for “pretty grim reading”.
He highlighted that since 2014 growth in earnings has been “choked off”.
“We are in danger of losing not just one but getting on for two decades of earnings growth,” he said.
“Let’s hope this forecast turns out to be too pessimistic.”
… “At the end of 2015, the ERS conducted an audit of the House of Lords, Fact vs Fiction. It challenged claims that the Lords is a beacon of independence and professional diversity and demonstrated the huge democratic and financial cost.
Indeed, in the 2010-2015 parliament, £360,000 was claimed by peers in years they failed to vote once. On independence, over a third of Lords (34%) previously worked in politics.
The research also found that the Lords represents only a small section of society: 44 percent of Lords listed their main address in London and the South East, while 54 percent were 70 or older. More members have worked in the Royal Household than in manual jobs.
But the problems of an unrepresentative, inefficient and growing house have not improved since those revelations. The ERS’ new report, The High Cost of Small Change: The House of Lords Audit, shows that 109 peers failed to speak at all in the 2016/17 session. Sixty-three of those claimed expenses – claiming a total of £1,095,701.
More shockingly, 33 peers have claimed nearly half a million pounds between them while failing to speak, table a written question or serve on a committee in the past year. Particularly at a time when Parliament is dealing with major legislative upheaval, this kind of behaviour is unacceptable.
We know the upper house is grossly oversized. But we also know that the bulk of the work of the Lords is carried out by a smaller number of peers. The top 300 voting peers account for over 64% of all votes in divisions during the 2016/17 session – suggesting much of the work of the Lords is done by a minority of peers.
Indeed, nearly 1 in 10 of the peers eligible to vote throughout 2016/17 (9.2% – 72 of the 779) are inactive when it comes to scrutinising the government’s work on committees, in the chamber, or through written questions – vital roles for the revising chamber.
This is something that is finally being recognised by the upper house. The Lord Speaker’s Committee on the size of the House was set up to discuss how to shrink the supersized second chamber. In October 2017, they released their plans to reduce the size of the Lords to 600 in 11 years and move to 15 year terms by 2042. But by that time NASA plans to have landed humans on Mars.
Calls for reform are often dismissed on the basis that the Lords is a bastion of independence. We can reveal the truth is far from it. Our analysis shows that nearly 80 percent of Conservative peers didn’t once vote against the government last year.
Of the Labour peers who voted, 50 percent voted against the government more than 90 percent of the time. And non-partisan crossbenchers often don’t turn up – over 40 percent voted fewer than 10 times last year: leaving decisions in the hands of the party whips.
Finally, the House hosts 184 ex-MPs, 26 ex-MEPs, 11 ex-MSPs, 8 ex-Welsh AMs, 6 ex-London AMs, 11 ex-MLAs and 39 current or ex-council leaders, as of April 2017. Rather than an independent chamber, the Lords is increasingly being used as a retirement home or a gift to those no longer wanted by parties.
The ERS are calling for a much smaller, fairly-elected upper house the public can have faith in. Around two thirds of voters agree in both the need for a drastic cut in its size, and for it to be largely elected.
This report lays out the state of Britain’s second chamber today. It’s now up to politicians to meet the challenge – before trust in our democracy falls even further.”
https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/money-for-nothing-weve-audited-the-house-of-lords/
The full reportis here:
“No new homes guaranteed either despite £44bn claim.
Philip Hammond’s Budget bid to woo younger voters with stamp duty cuts unravelled within minutes after the UK’s economic watchdog warned the move would push up house prices.
The Chancellor was cheered by Tory MPs as he unveiled a surprise move to scrap stamp duty for first time buyers of homes worth less than £300,000 and Treasury officials claimed it would save a million people an average of £1,600.
But the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) demolished the policy, declaring it would lead to a spike in house prices – and may only result in just 3,500 more people buying a home than otherwise.
Hammond’s wider claim to be spending £44bn on housing also came under fire as it emerged the actual new money was £15bn and not a single new home would be built as a direct result of the measures unveiled on Wednesday.
After the summer’s snap election disaster and weeks of Cabinet resignations and Brexit rows, Hammond tried to reconnect with voters with a £25bn spending package aimed at the cost of living, NHS underfunding and the housing crisis.
But his hopes of a political recovery were knocked back as:
* A new pledge of £3.7bn for Brexit preparations outstripped the £2.8bn promised in day-to-day spending for the NHS
* Growth forecasts were slashed, with claims that weaker pay will lower household income by £540 by 2023 and the national minimum wage going up slower than planned
* A promised pay rise for nurses was unspecific and delayed, with no other public sector workers given an penny extra
* Universal Credit wait times were cut by a week but not down to the month demanded by critics, with no halt in its roll-out nationwide
* Fast-tracked plans to sell off state shares in RBS bank to raise £15bn were described as “desperate”
Jeremy Corbyn attacked the Budget’s failure to provide the radical policies Britain needs and seized on the housing measures as more spin than substance.
“The government promised 200,000 starter homes three years ago and not a single one has been built. We need a large-scale public housebuilding programme, not this government’s accounting tricks and empty promises.”
The stamp duty change – which kicks in from midnight on Tuesday – won cheers from Tory MPs as it was the “rabbit in the hat” plucked out by Hammond to end his Budget speech with a final flourish.
Yet the OBR was swift with a savage take-down of the plan and the Resolution Foundation claimed that “it would be literally cheaper” to buy the tiny number of winners a house each.
In a withering verdict, the OBR said: “The main gainers from the policy are people who already own property, not the first time buyers themselves… It is also possible that non-first time buyers will abuse the relief.”
The stamp duty cut only applies to house sales over £120,000 and as a result won’t help many people outside the south east and in poorer parts of the country.
A Treasury spokesman insisted the stamp duty cut would make a difference to many. “We don’t think that £1,600 on average for a million people over the next five years is a small move at all,” he said.
The Treasury repeatedly refused to say if a single new home would be guaranteed as a result of the wider housing package, which includes loans and funds and incentives for developers rather than concrete spending for things like council homes.”
Lord Porter, Chairman, Local Government Association:
“… It is hugely disappointing that the Budget offered nothing to ease the financial crisis facing local services. Funding gaps and rising demand for our adult social care and children’s services are threatening the vital services which care for our elderly and disabled, protect children and support families. This is also having a huge knock-on effect on other services our communities rely on. Almost 60p in every £1 that people pay in council tax could have to be spent caring for children and adults by 2020, leaving increasingly less to fund other services, like fixing potholes, cleaning streets and running leisure centres and libraries.
“Adult social care services are essential to keeping people out of hospital and living independent, dignified lives at home and in the community and alleviating the pressure on the NHS. Simply investing more money into the NHS while not addressing the funding crisis in adult social care is not going to help our joint efforts to prevent people having to go into hospital in the first place.
“The money local government has to run services is running out fast and councils face an overall £5.8 billion funding gap in just two years. The Government needs to use the upcoming Local Government Finance Settlement to set out its plan for how it will fund local services both now and in the future. We remain clear that local government as a whole must be able to keep every penny of business rates collected to plug funding gaps while a fairer system of distributing funding between councils is needed.
“Only with fairer funding and greater freedom from central government to take decisions over vital services in their area can local government generate economic growth, build homes, strengthen communities, and protect vulnerable people in all parts of the country. … ”
Cllr Izzi Seccombe, Chairman of the Local Government Association’s Community Wellbeing Board:
“It is a completely false economy to put money into the NHS while not addressing the funding crisis in adult social care. This sends a message that if you need social care, you should go to hospital.
“If government wants to reduce the pressures on the health service and keep people out of hospital in the first place, then it needs to tackle the chronic underfunding of care and support services in the community, which are at a tipping point.
“In addition, central government’s cuts to councils’ public health budgets, which fund vital prevention work that improves the health of children, young people and adults, reducing the need for treatment later down the line and also easing the pressure on the NHS, need to be reversed.
“Adult social care needs to be placed on an equal footing to the NHS. It is clear that the public understands this, as adult social care was a central talking point in the recent general election. It is therefore deeply disappointing that government has today chosen not to capitalise on this momentum.
“While the announcement of a green paper next summer shows government recognises the need for long-term reform, this does nothing to address the immediate pressures older and disabled people are facing. Those who desperately rely on care and support on a daily basis cannot be left to make do while waiting for yet another review. They want action now.
“The £2 billion over three years announced in the Spring Budget was a step in the right direction, and councils have been effectively using this money, for example to reduce delayed transfers of care. However this was one-off funding and is not a long-term solution.
“Adult social care still faces an annual funding gap of £2.3 billion by the end of the decade. As a minimum government needs to plug this gap urgently to ensure services can keep on running and stop providers going bust, while we have the bigger conversation around how we secure a long-term sustainable future for social care.”
Grant Thornton (auditors)
““Continued investment into the NHS is necessary but the announcement today didn’t even cover the current deficit forecast until 2020.
Social care continues to be the main driver on demand in council spending and yet received no mention; a very obvious omission.
In 2011/12, social care accounted for around 28.9% of total service expenditure and rose to 30.16% in 2015/16, indicative of the growing demand that is not being met.
In particular, children’s services have faced challenging savings targets and very difficult decisions over a number of years and in 2015/16 73% of all councils overspent against their children’s social care services budget as they struggled to produce more with less.
By avoiding addressing this issue directly and continuing to invest elsewhere in the health and social care system the Chancellor is missing a valuable opportunity by choosing to invest in only the roof while the house around it is crumbling. …”
“ … Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, said: “It is disappointing that the government has not been able to give the NHS all that it needed to deal with rising demand.”
He said the NHS was “trying to live hand to mouth” and Hammond had directed extra revenue to acute hospital performance when “the pressures across the rest of the health service – community, mental health and ambulance services – are just as great”.
The funding in the Budget was “less than the NHS needed” but Hopson conceded was “more than was expected.” The Office of Budget Responsibility had warned the NHS faced a £20bn funding gap by the end of this parliament and a recent joint-report from the Kind’s Fund, Nuffield Trust and Health Foundation said the health service needed at least £4bn over the next year.
Niall Dickson, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, also said: “This is another missed opportunity and falls well short of what is needed to relieve the massive pressures facing the NHS today”.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, in his response to the Budget statement, said that the chancellor’s commitments did not do enough for “under-paid, over-stressed, under-appreciated” NHS staff.”
http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2017/11/nhs-disappointed-limited-budget-funding-boost
A recent comment got Owl digging into donations to out two MPs. Direct personal donations rather than those to the Conservative Party. All donations over £7,500 have to be registered here:
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmregmem/171113/contents.htm#P
This register was last updated on 13 November 2017 and covers only this current Parliament 2017-2019.
In the most recent list of donors to individual MPs, the largest donation to East Devon MP Hugo Swire is of £10,000 from a Mrs Rosemary Said.
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmregmem/171113/swire_hugo.htm
Might this be the wife of arms dealer Wafic Said?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wafic_Saïd
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/nov/29/business.politics
“Syrian-born Wafic Said is reported to be a ‘former operator of a kebab restaurant who made millions in commissions on a 1985 British Aerospace arms deal to sell Tornado fighters to the Saudi royal family’.[1] Said’s chief Saudi patron is reported to be Prince Bandar.[1]
Rosemary Said has given the Conservative Party almost £580,000 and is reportedly a member of David Cameron’s Leaders’ Group of elite donors that enjoy direct access to the UK prime minister by virtue of donating more than £50,000 a year.”
and here:
http://powerbase.info/index.php/Rosemary_Said
and good to see a billionaire member of Swire’s family ( Sir Adrian Swire)
chipping in £5,000:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Swire
By contrast, Tiverton and Honiton MP Neil Parish declares zero donations:
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmregmem/171113/parish_neil.htm
Thank goodness for (truly) independent councillors!
“PRESS RELEASE
Devon County Council’s Health and Adult Care Scrutiny Committee will ask both the NEW Devon and South Devon & Torbay Clinical Commissioning Groups, which commission services in community hospitals, and NHS Property Services, which now owns the hospitals, to its next meeting on 25 January to report on the future of the hospitals now that most of them have lost their in-patient beds.
The Scrutiny Committee decided to request the discussion at its meeting yesterday (21st) after concerns were raised by Cllr Martin Shaw, who represents Seaton and areas close to Honiton, both places where hospital beds closed this summer. Cllr Shaw is pressing for the contributions to community hospitals made by local communities and Leagues of Friends to be taken into account in planning their futures, and had presented a paper on the subject to the Committee’s September meeting.
Cllr Shaw raised particular concerns over the high rents to be charged by NHS Property Services, the fact that the CCG is committed to paying for space only until the end of the current financial year, and that the CCG has specifically said that existing outpatient services are not guaranteed to continue.
‘Many services can be delivered in community hospitals’, Cllr Shaw emphasised after the meeting. “We should be talking about increasing not reducing the provision close to where patients live. If most services are concentrated in the RD&E, patients will continue to face long journeys into Exeter. With deteriorating public transport many will have to drive in and contribute to the city’s ever-growing congestion. We need joined-up planning at Devon and local levels to make the best use of the hospitals, which are community assets whoever is the legal owner.’
The motion to invite the NHS organisations was proposed by Cllr Claire Wright (Independent) and seconded by Cllr Nick Way (Liberal Democrat).
Martin Shaw
Independent East Devon Alliance County Councillor for Seaton & Colyton”
And always seems to ask incredibly supportive questions for Boris to answer incredibly supportively!
“… [Johnson said] “There must be free and fair elections next year, it then falls to Zimbabwe to apply to the Commonwealth Secretariat. which are necessary for membership.”
Mr Johnson was responding to a question from the Conservative MP Sir Hugo Swire who asked if it was possible to rehabilitate Zimbabwe following Mugabe back into the Commonwealth and the wider international community along a path to new membership. …”
Lots of “talking up” by LEP members tonight – but nothing to talk up except competitive access to general “funds” that rarely seem to materialise.
Not the brightest buttons in the budget box then …!
“The Westcountry has been snubbed in major funding pledges for the UK regions.
In his budget statement yesterday, Chancellor Philip Hammond gave special mention to the Northern Power House, Midlands Engine, and high speed rail HS2 with half of a £1.7bn transforming cities pots pledged to six elected metro mayor regions.
Tim Jones, chairman of the Devon and Cornwall Business Council, said: “We have been snubbed and I’m afraid to say it, but it’s the Cinderella South West yet again.” …
… Chris Garcia, Chief Executive of the HoSW LEP said that region is primed with potential to help create the “global Britain” that the Chancellor referred to in his speech.
“However, we were disappointed not to be name checked in the speech or the budget, and that the focus is very much on specific cities with particular emphasis on those that have opted for an elected Mayor.
“It’s our aim, along with our partners in business, the local authorities and the other south west LEPs, to demonstrate the immense contribution that can be delivered from our potentially thriving region: The Great South West – which can rival the economies of the Northern Powerhouse and Midlands Engine. We need to drive this message home to the front benches of Westminster and show the country what we’re worth.”
http://www.devonlive.com/news/business/how-westcountry-been-left-hanging-818747
First, it should be noted that MANY of the Daily Telegraph’s readers are sitting in undeveloped housing plots!
and
Second, they don’t mention the company’s financial interest in nursing homes.
It’s a story they are pushing to attempt to get him out as he seems to be perceived as much too wimpy for the Telegraph on Brexit, but nevertheless it is a topical story, and throws up some interesting issues.
Naturally, Hammond says it is a blind trust so he’s not responsible for its decisions. However, companies have the option of behaving morally and responsibly, particularly if they are aware that their ultimate beneficial owner occupies a high-profile position where a possible potential conflict of interest will be magnified by the public gaze.
“A housebuilding business founded by Philip Hammond has been accused of sitting on an undeveloped plot of land which has been granted planning permission for four new homes.
Castlemead Limited, which was co-founded by the Chancellor in 1984, builds new homes and doctor’s surgeries.
It has been reported that Castlemead Group, which is majority-owned by the company, was granted permission to build four homes in north Wales in June 2010 on the condition work on the site would begin within five years.
However, The Times report that the site still remains undeveloped.
Mr Hammond resigned as a director of the company in 2010, but his sole entry in the most recent House of Commons’ MPs’ register makes reference to the fact that he is “a beneficiary of a trust which owns a controlling interest in Castlemead Ltd, a company engaged in construction, house building and property development”.
The revelation comes after Mr Hammond gave an interview with The Sunday Times this week, in which he hit out at house builders who are sitting on hundreds of thousands of undeveloped plots of land which have planning permission for new homes.
He said: “We are generating planning permissions at a record rate.“It’s builders banking land, it’s speculators hoarding land, it’s local authorities blocking development.”
Mr Hammond resigned as a director in 2010 and does not have any direct influence over the company’s activities.
A spokeswoman for Mr Hammond said: “Any shares in Castlemead are held in a trust. The chancellor has no direct influence or involvement and so is unable to comment.”
Castlemead did not respond to The Telegraph’s request for comment.”
East Devon Watch 