At today’s Save Our Hospital Services demo in Exeter today. East Devon Alliance and Claire Wright make their mark but not an East Devon Tory (including our two East Devon MPs) to be seen!
East Devon Alliance DCC Councillor Martin Shaw
East Devon Alliance EDDC Councillor Cathy Gardner
DCC Independent Councillor Claire Wright
East Devon Alliance Councillors Marianne Rixson with East Devon Alliance Councillor Cathy Gardner
One of the many interviews the independent councillors did on the day.
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HM Revenue & Customs
In 2001 HMRC signed a £3.3bn contract with Mapeley, a little-known private equity firm. The deal involved handing over the ownership and management of 591 tax offices, including the freehold of 132 of them, to an offshore company managed by Mapeley, then based in the Cayman Islands.
Mapeley won the contract largely because it underbid UK rivals, which had to include VAT in their calculations. The Cayman Island connection gave Mapeley a 20% advantage.
The irony of the tax authority signing a deal with an avoidance vehicle was lost on the government and the then chancellor Gordon Brown. It banked the £370m from Mapeley and pressed ahead.
Civil servants were unaware at the time that 15 years later they would be managing around 20 change programmes, several of which involve reorganising the Mapeley offices. The NAO has repeatedly criticised the deal as expensive and said it should be ditched when it runs out in 2021, despite Mapeley, which is now a major commercial landlord across Britain, shifting back to the UK.
HMRC says legal advice at the time blocked it from excluding firms based in tax havens and that this is no longer the case. From 2021 it plans to move to “direct leases for property and smaller, more flexible facilities management contracts that we can control more easily”.”
Brilliant coverage of today’s NHS demo in Exeter including interviews with EDDC East Devon Alliance councillor Cathy Gardner, DCC East Devon Alliance councillor Martin Shaw and DCC Independent Councillor Claire Wright making excellent points about the destruction of our NHS.
https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/hundreds-protest-nhs-crisis-exeter-1162119
“A Tory minister has been taken to task for juvenile political point scoring by an unlikely source – a senior Tory MP.
The incredible spat between two of the Tories’ most prolific tweeters broke out when Treasury Secretary Liz Truss took a cheap shot at a housing policy being considered by Labour.
Under the plan, which is revealed on the front page of today’s Guardian, landowners would no longer be allowed to inflate the price of land sold for property development:
[There then follows a nasty Twitter spat between Tories Liz Truss and Nick Boles where Bowles sticks up for Corbyn!!!]
Truss responded by trying to tar the attempt to get more council homes built as some kind of Stalinist land grab.
But Nick Boles, himself a former planning minister, was having none of it.
The pair continued to spar until Truss brought the embarrassing blue-on-blue battle to a curt conclusion.
The clash comes after Boles made clear his dissatisfaction with abject lack of policy ideas coming from the Government and his party. …
The Conservative family is not a happy one.
As for Truss’ objections to Labour’s policy, we were reminded of a policy included in the last budget by her boss, Chancellor Philip Hammond.
Hammond announced an anti-land banking policy which the Tories had described as “Mugabe-style expropriation” when Labour floated the idea.
Liz Truss will be defending this “sinister confiscation” before you know it…
“Health workers, activists and unions are marching in central London on Saturday to protest against government inaction over the NHS winter crisis.
Hospitals have been overwhelmed in recent weeks by a surge in admissions that has led to delays of up to 12 hours on emergency wards, patients left on trollies for hours and thousands of patients forced to wait in ambulances before receiving urgent care.
Two pressure groups, the People’s Assembly and Health Campaigns Together, have organised the rally to call on the government to plug funding and resource gaps in the health service. …”
“Operators of dozens of academy schools are having to rely on emergency handouts from the taxpayer as a result of mounting deficits that threaten to put some out of business.
In the latest sign of the financial pressures now on the nation’s schools, the auditors of one operator that oversees 21 schools raised concerns over its ability to keep operating after it posted a £2.5m loss last year.
The revelations follow an investigation in last week’s Observer that found that more than half of the biggest multi-academy chains (MATs) had issued warnings about funding, citing pay, staffing levels, building maintenance and mounting deficits. It has now emerged that some smaller trusts have had to ask for cash advances from the state to stay afloat.
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The Birmingham-based Academy Transformation Trust (ATT), which received funding from the government of £59m last year and operates 21 schools educating nearly 12,000 pupils, is one of a number of chains that appear to be relying on future government handouts to keep functioning.
In a note on its 2016-17 annual accounts, the ATT trustees admit: “While the trust’s balance sheet remains solvent, the net position of income funds shows the trust to have a deficit of £2.513m. The trust is also forecasting a further reduction in funds in 2017-18.
“The trust has been taking action to address this position and is in advanced discussion with the Education [and] Skills Funding Agency [ESFA] to provide an advance to ensure appropriate cashflow during 2017-18 and beyond.”
An auditor adds: “A material uncertainty exists that may cast significant doubt on the trust’s ability to continue as a going concern.” It states that ATT’s financial position had been “worsening throughout the year”, and that its board of trustees had not been sufficiently aware of this because of “failings in the trust’s financial reporting and forecasting procedures”.
The Rodillian Multi Academy Trust, in West Yorkshire, disclosed that it also needs a “cash advance … to be able to operate effectively”. The trust, which operates four schools, reported a deficit of £1.5m last year.
“In common with all state-funded schools the [trust] faces considerable pressures on funding,” its accounts state. “The trust took on two schools that had low pupil numbers, were not financially strong and needed a managed staff reduction to address the inherited over-staffing.
“Managing the cash flow month to month is difficult and … the level of creditors has become uncomfortably high. A business case is being prepared to request a repayable cash advance from the ESFA. The ESFA acknowledge that the trust requires a cash advance to be able to operate effectively.”
Andy Goulty, Rodillian’s chief executive, told the Observer that he had come under pressure to take on new schools and had suffered as a result. “It was missionary work really to go in to a community like my own and turn it round. It has been turned around. However, in hindsight we probably wouldn’t take it on. As things have got tighter over the years, we have not had the resource. The government keeps saying that more money is going into schools. Well, yes, it is, but we are paying out more in pensions, national insurance. What is being spent on the kids is less and less.”
London-based Chapel Street Community Schools Trust, which runs five free schools and two academies, saw it post a deficit of £1.6m and state that it is depending on the government providing cash “beyond the normal funding arrangements”.
Its accounts say: “The trust places considerable reliance on continued government funding. This is likely to remain unchanged in terms of the funding per pupil rate, despite pay, pension and general inflation pressures. This increases the risk of deficits.”
Plymouth CAST is predicting that more than 90% of its schools would be in deficit by next year. Its auditors stated: “A material uncertainty exists that may cast significant doubt on the academy trust’s ability to continue as a going concern.” The trust reported a £1.54m deficit for the year. It referred itself to the body that oversees school funding last year.
ATT said that a recovery plan has been developed “which shows the trust returning to in-year surplus in 2018-19 and overall surplus no later than 2021 … The trust [had] over £3m in the bank at 31 August 2017.” Rodillian said it had a plan to deliver a surplus in 2017-18 and a significant surplus in 2018-19.
Chapel Street trust said it had experienced some historical financial difficulties related to setting up new schools, but had good educational outcomes. It said its accounts made clear it was on “a sounder financial footing”.
The Department for Education says that school funding is rising from almost £41bn in 2017-18 to £43.5bn in 2019-20, and that every school will receive an increase in funding through the national funding formula this year.”
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/feb/03/academies-schools-deficit-bailout
“Autocratic management is a leading cause of poor NHS care, according to the compiler of a European health service league table that ranks Britain 15th.
The UK trails Slovakia and Portugal while the best performers such as the Netherlands and Switzerland pull away, according to the Euro Health Consumer Index. Treatment is Britain is mediocre and there is an “absence of real excellence” in the NHS, the report concludes. Only Ireland does worse on accessibility measures such as availability of same-day GP appointments, access to specialists and waits for routine surgery.
The findings come after a global study this week found cancer survival in Britain still lagged well behind the best in the world.
Arne Björnberg, who compiles the Euro Health Consumer Index, said: “Cancer survival rates are one of the prime examples of NHS mediocrity.”
More money is needed to improve care, according to a study that finds a strong correlation between treatment results and how much countries spend on health.
However, Professor Björnberg said that the most urgent lesson the NHS could learn from other countries was about the corrosive effects of an “autocratic top-down management culture”. He said: “As a Scandinavian what strikes you when you visit the UK is British management is extremely autocratic. Managing 1.5 million using a top-down method doesn’t work very well. If you go and ask a secretary or a receptionist anything out of the routine in Scandinavia, the most negative response would be: ‘I’ll see what I can do’. But in the UK they will say: ‘I’ll have to talk to my manager’. Subordinate staff are not allowed to use their brains in the UK and managing a professional organisation like healthcare like that is not a good idea.”
The Netherlands has consistently topped the rankings, which some have attributed to a system of competing insurance companies. However, Professor Björnberg said that the main lesson to be learnt from the Dutch was not about market forces but the need to put doctors in charge and force them to take account of patients’ views.
“If you have intelligent people and make them talk to customers frequently, that is a good idea,” he said.
“You have 1.5 million intelligent and dedicated people working for [the NHS]. Liberate the medical profession and put politicians and amateurs at arm’s length.”
[Autocratic top-down] NHS bosses dismissed the findings, preferring an index compiled by the US-based Commonwealth Fund, which ranks Britain top of 11 global health systems. The NHS scores well on measures such as equal access, but ranks tenth at keeping people alive.”
Source Times (paywall)
Virgin already run children’s services, many GO’s surgeries and other former public services in Devon. They will no doubt bid as aggressively as usual for more Devon health care services when Devon gets its (Un)Accountable (Non)Care (Non-scrutable) System which will allow wholesale privatisation of our NHS.
“Virgin Trains will be handed a lucrative new contract to run services on the west coast main line despite serious criticism of its owners’ handling of the east coast franchise.
The Department for Transport is expected on Monday to award the company a new deal to operate the line between London and Scotland for another two years. The contract will take the form of a “direct award”, when the incumbent is handed a short-term deal without other train operators being able to bid.
The announcement could prove awkward for Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, who has been criticised for his handling of Virgin’s east coast franchise. It is being scrapped in 2020, three years early, after the company overestimated passenger numbers and suffered a revenue shortfall. It is feared that the franchise could collapse even sooner, forcing the government to rewrite the contract or even renationalise the line.
The confirmation of the west coast deal could be seen as a “reward for failure” by critics of Britain’s privatised railway. The west coast is the country’s most profitable rail line, making £51 million for Virgin — a joint venture between Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and Stagecoach — in 2016-17.
It will also fuel concerns over the franchising system, which has suffered a shortage of bidders in recent years. A third of rail franchises are let on a direct award basis. However, the DfT is preparing to mount a staunch defence of the deal, insisting that it merely represents confirmation of a contract announced more than a year ago, before the east coast fiasco.
Sources said that the west coast was well run, with the franchise delivering more than £200 million a year in premium payments to the government, reversing a previous position when it made a £75 million net loss.
It was also claimed that comparisons with the east coast were unfair. The east coast is 90 per cent run by Stagecoach. However, the west is 51 per cent owned by Sir Richard’s company, with Stagecoach holding a 49 per cent stake.
Stephen Joseph, executive director of the Campaign for Better Transport, said: “There is a need for a fundamental review of franchising. We can’t keep the railway running on direct awards. We need long-term thinking.”
The existing west coast franchise had been due to end in April. The government announced more than a year ago that a direct award would be made, allowing Virgin to run the line up to April next year. At that point, a new franchise was expected to be created — “the west coast partnership” — to run both west coast trains and HS2 services when the high-speed line is built in 2026.
However, it is believed that Virgin will now continue to run the line for a further year — up to April 2020 — delaying the start of the long-term west coast partnership by 12 months.
The direct award is expected to require Virgin to improve its passenger satisfaction ratings, extend free wifi in carriages, introduce passenger compensation for trains that are at least 15 minutes late and accommodate work needed to prepare for HS2.
A DfT spokesman said: “As set out in November 2016, we intend to award a short-term contract to operate services on the west coast main line until the start of the new west coast partnership, which will run services on the west coast line and shape the future of HS2.”
Source: Times (paywall)
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