From the Times: Boris Johnson’s voters are dying off. The stark conclusion of a report published today is that some of the key groups that swung behind the Conservatives in December are bearing the brunt of falling life expectancy.

Sir Michael Marmot, author of the study, said: “England has lost a decade . . . Health is telling us a great deal about how well society is doing. If health has stopped improving, then society has stopped improving.”

Although the life expectancy of wealthier people has increased, for the poorest citizens in the north it has stagnated or even declined. With the Tories taking seats in the north and Midlands with 47 per cent of the vote among the lowest social classes, this is not a problem they can ignore. In 2001 the richest tenth of men lived 7.4 years longer than the poorest; that has increased to 7.7 years. For women, the gap has grown from 5 years in 2011 to 6.1 in 2017.

Mr Johnson wants to boost skills, infrastructure and employment in left-behind communities. Sir Michael Marmot wants higher quality, better-paid jobs, a reduction in child poverty, improved housing and a focus on “ignored areas”. Pointing out the similarities between the two programmes is more likely to engage the government than hectoring.

The heads of 21 royal colleges and health faculties in the UK write to Boris Johnson in an unprecedented plea today urging him to focus his government’s efforts on closing the gap in life expectancy between the country’s most deprived and privileged areas.

The letter, seen by The Times, calls on Downing Street to accept and exceed the recommendations made in a damning report on the nation’s health.

www.thetimes.co.uk 

Exeter, according to a study conducted by the BBC, is one of the top ten fastest growing cities and large towns in England 2011 to 2019.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-51577853

The UK is experiencing what many describe as a housing crisis. Millions of households are living in sub-standard or overcrowded conditions. Many are on local council waiting lists. Some individuals are sleeping rough. House prices and rentals are becoming unaffordable for many. Today’s young are living at home for longer, and some are struggling to buy a home. At the same time, we are building fewer homes than in many periods in the past. What can be done to resolve Britain’s housing crisis? BBC Briefing assesses the evidence and the options based on comprehensive analysis conducted by Paul Swinney and Anthony Breach of Center for Cities.

http://news.files.bbci.co.uk/include/newsspec/pdfs/bbc-briefing-housing-newsspec-26534.pdf

Owl cannot understand why the “team of experts” thought to have been appointed by Cllr. Christine Channon (and with unknown authority) have deemed the Budleigh Care Home – Shandford to be non-viable. Where is the evidence? 

Staff and residents of Shandford care home are still waiting for Simon Jupp to report on his meeting with Abbeyfield. Can he save the day?

Kate Palmer www.thetimes.co.uk 

Abridged

The death of final salary pensions, a shortage of council funding and nursing home fees of nearly £55,000 a year could cause the care system to collapse in a decade, a report has found. Analysis by the think tank the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), shown to The Sunday Times, has revealed an “imminent crisis” in elderly care, partly due to people saving too little…..

…..Over the next decade, nursing home costs will rise to an average of £54,375 a year and care homes will cost £39,124, research by the think tank suggests.

Added to this, people are living longer, with the average man aged 65 now expected to live for another 19.7 years, and the average woman of 65 likely to live until they are 87.

“We now know the elderly care system will collapse at the end of this decade,” said Kelly Greig, head of later life planning at Irwin Mitchell. “This is a stark warning of what is to come.”

She added: “More families are taking on unpaid labour to look after their elderly loved ones, and workers need to save unsustainable levels of money into their pensions just to afford care in later life.”

Governments have failed to take action on social care in recent years, and the long-awaited green paper setting out a shake-up of the system was put on hold indefinitely last autumn.

In the Queen’s speech in December, the government promised reforms so that “no one who needs care has to sell their home to pay for it”. Since 1999, an estimated 330,000 people have sold their family homes to fund the costs of care, according to a report by the charity Independent Age.

With the government already under pressure to outline its changes, last week it whipped up more concern with its proposal for a points-based immigration system. Care providers warned that the plan, designed to stop low-skilled labour from entering the country, would push up their staff costs and leave some homes short of workers.

A report by Care England this month said that councils were short-changing private care homes, paying them £10,000 less annually per resident than state-run homes.

Last week, Sunday Times Money revealed how people who had put away the maximum £1.055m lifetime allowance for pension savings would still be unable to generate enough income to afford annual care fees, even with their state pension included.

We also showed how restrictions on the annual amount that higher earners are allowed to save into their pension mean many will never get to that lifetime allowance….

…….Josie Dent, a senior economist at the CEBR, called on the government to increase its efforts to prevent the care crisis from reaching a “tipping point”.

She said: “Many more elderly people will find themselves using up their wealth or turning to local authorities for support to pay for care in the future.”

Councils are already struggling to meet the cost of this burden, however. The Local Government Association estimates that the care funding shortfall will amount to £1.5bn for the 2020-21 financial year. Based on current spending predictions, in just five years this is expected to soar by 133% to £3.5bn.

More families are using up their savings to plug the funding gap…..

….. Family members and friends are already having to contribute towards the care of the elderly. The CEBR report says that 20% of people whose loved ones are receiving professional care are paying for some or all of it.

The average contribution is relatively modest, at about £5,900, but some people report giving more than £50,000 towards a loved one’s care. This is typically paid in monthly instalments, although some provide support once or twice a year.

“Almost no one has planned for long-term care,” said Baroness (Ros) Altmann, the former pensions minister and an expert on later-life issues.

“Despite growing numbers of frail, older people in our society, neither central nor local government has a sustainable plan to pay for care.”

She added: “The sooner we start planning for care, the better.”

The Department of Health and Social Care said: “Putting social care on a sustainable footing is one of the biggest challenges we face as a society, and we will be bringing forward a plan this year.”

No it’s not the business-led Great South West or Heart of the South West.

Home ownership could be put within the reach of thousands more people in the West Midlands thanks to a new regional approach to affordable housing.

The West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) has become the first region in the UK to introduce its own localised definition of affordable housing, linking the definition to the real world incomes of people in the area rather than to local house prices.

www.wmca.org.uk /

The new definition, which has been approved by the WMCA’s Housing and Land Board, is based on local people paying no more than 35% of their salary on mortgages or rent.

The Beechdale Estate in Walsall includes good quality, affordable housing

The WMCA believes the change will not only provide genuinely affordable homes for local people but also encourage new types of affordable housing to come onto the market, benefitting key workers including nurses, police and teachers.

The introduction of a more localised approach to investing in affordable housing comes as the authority continues to make hundreds of millions of pounds available to help developers build high-quality new homes on brownfield land across the region.

The new definition is significant because any development schemes receiving WMCA investment from its devolved housing and land funds must make a minimum of at least 20% of the homes in their scheme affordable.

Mayor of the West Midlands Andy Street, who chairs the WMCA, said: “In recent years would-be homeowners have been forced to stand by and watch as house prices outstrip wages.

“The current ‘affordability’ definition is 80% of market value, which for many people in the West Midlands still leaves homes frustratingly out of reach. 

“By linking the definition of affordability to local people’s earnings rather than property, and using this alongside our minimum 20% requirement, we can help make the prospect of homeownership a very real one for many more hard-working individuals and families.

“It also sets out a very clear ambition to developers and partners who want to work with us to deliver homes. This is the kind of inclusive growth that is key to building the future of the West Midlands.”

The new WMCA definition sets it at around 35% or less of the average gross earnings of the lowest quarter of wage earners in the local area.

This will be applied alongside a more flexible approach to the types of housing products classed as affordable in new developments.

The guidelines will be reviewed regularly to make sure prices reflect real incomes of local residents and the scheme is delivering its intention and purpose.

Cllr Mike Bird, WMCA portfolio holder for housing and land and leader of Walsall Council, said: “This is another example of how the WMCA and its partners are changing the housing market, using our funding to deliver the homes we need in the places where we need them.

“By building on brownfield land, regenerating local areas, supporting living in town centres and linking affordability to local incomes, we are leading the housing revolution.”

The West Midlands needs to build 215,000 new homes by 2031 to meet future housing and economic demand.

To help reach the target the WMCA has introduced a ‘brownfield first’ policy where new homes and commercial developments are built on former industrial land wherever possible and has secured new funding from national government to help make it happen.

With such sites being notoriously difficult to build on because of the high clean-up costs for developers, and other constraints, the WMCA has committed substantial funding for land purchases and for brownfield remediation so sites can be made viable for development.

The policy and other investment to unlock new urban sites has helped see the number of new homes built in the West Midlands more than double over the last eight years.

A total of 16,938 properties were built in 2018/19 – a 15% rise on the previous year and twice the UK average increase. That compares to just 7,500 homes built in 2011.