Martin Shaw writes:

The CEO and chair of the Royal Devon University Healthcare trust, which runs the RD&E, have felt it necessary to include this unprecedented statement in their latest newsletter:

“Last month saw deplorable violence and intimidation in towns and cities across the UK. We wholeheartedly condemn the deliberate acts of violence and racism that have taken place and we want to make a clear statement about our values and behaviours as an organisation.

“Inclusion is one of our core values and we take pride in having a diverse workforce and a culture that respects everybody. The values we hold, and the behaviours we expect from staff, students, patients and visitors, mean that we will not tolerate discrimination or abuse of any kind.

“Our workforce is made up of talented and committed people from all around the world. Their diversity, expertise and skill are our strength and enable us to provide truly world-class services for people in need in our local communities. 

“It has been heartening to see many thousands of people come together to join protests against the violence and racism. But we know that some of our people do not feel safe coming to work and that is unacceptable.

“Our priority is to build a culture at work where our people feel safe, healthy and supported. Whilst we have a wide range of support in place for our people we ask for your help in ensuring that all of our colleagues feel safe and welcome.

“We expect people who use our services to treat those who are caring for them with courtesy, kindness and respect and vice versa. We will take action against those who do not.

“We pride ourselves on being an inclusive and respectful community where we can all live and work safely. We believe very strongly that there is no place for hate in our homes, on our streets, in our clinics, in our hospitals, in our NHS or in our country.”

Devon will use around a quarter of its reserves to help plug the financial hole in its special educational needs and disabilities (Send) service.

Bradley Gerrard, local democracy reporter www.radioexe.co.uk 

The council struck a deal with the government for a £95 million bailout earlier this year to help it tackle the cumulative deficit of more than £160 million in the Send budget.

At the time, the council said it would use £20 million of reserves as part of a plan to “bring the budget back into line”.

But the authority will now spend nearly £29 million of its £100 million of reserves as part of a so-called safety valve agreement it has with the Department for Education, and is expected to contribute over £6 million this financial year.

This year alone, though, the Sed budget is expected to overspend by more than £38 million.

This could be problematic, as under the agreement, it is only allowed to overspend by £31 million this financial year, meaning it needs to cut £7.4 million from the service.

Angie Stewart, the council’s director of finance, said there is a cross-council effort to “drive the savings and get us to budget”.

“We are committed to that £31 million [overspend limit],” she said. “That means we need to put effort in to get there. If at the end of the financial year we’re at £33 million, then £2 million would need to be made good by Devon.

“That happened last year when we put £1 million extra into [reducing] the deficit.”

She added that some other councils “including some not too far away from us” had not been able to live within the constraints of the safety valve agreement and so had seen their government support suspended.

“We are not in that situation,” she added.

“We are working to achieve that £7.4 million we need to save; it is a big ask but should be achievable.”

Ms Stewart’s report added that the council also had a separate pot of reserves at around £16 million.

Cllr Julian Brazil (Liberal Democrat, Kingsbridge) said he was “yet to see how we are going to achieve those savings. They are massive within a budget that is under pressure.”

He acknowledged that Send overspending is a national issue, but feared that if reserves had to continue to be used at such scale, “we’re going to end up bankrupt sooner rather than later”.

Cllr Frank Biederman (Independent, Fremington Rural) is concerned about the impact on Send service users if the budget savings are achieved.

“If we hit that maximum deficit target, what will the impact be? Is there an impact assessment I can read to find out what the impact on schools and families could be?” he asked.

Cllr Caroline Leaver (Liberal Democrat, Barnstaple South) asked whether the authority was “worried about the overspend”.

And Cllr Phil Twiss (Conservative, Feniton & Honiton) said using reserves was part of a planned contribution, and the council’s plan to make the Send service more efficient should yield results soon.

The council’s chief executive, Donna Manson, said Send is “the number one issue” among her peers in other authorities.

“From the county council chief executives’ network, safety valve is a concern, Send is a concern, and transformation is a concern,” she said.
 

Devon’s councils could take more control of local bus services after the government announced measures to empower local leaders.

By Guy Henderson and Bradley Gerrard www.radioexe.co.uk

Transport secretary Louise Haigh said it was the first stop on the journey to better buses, and all local transport authorities across England can now run their own services if they want to.

Exeter City Council leader Phil Bialyk (Lab, Exwick) has called on the county council to use the new powers to transform bus services in the city.

Cllr Bialyk, a former bus driver, said he had been inundated with requests from local people for better and more reliable services.

“We have lots of problems at the moment,” he said. “Pointing fingers isn’t going to help, but it is fair to say a lot of people are pretty fed up with both the service and how changes are consulted on with things like timetables and routes.

“Having a reliable and affordable bus service really is at the heart of so many parts of improving lives for residents in Exeter.

“Now there is nothing in their way, I want Devon to be one of the first to sort this for people.

“This really is a golden opportunity. I am urging Devon to work at pace and scale to deliver this for our residents.”

But the county council says it already plays a significant role in bus services  and is spending nearly £13.5 million this financial year to subsidise routes.

“I have no spare cash in my back pocket,” said Cllr Andrea Davis (Con, Combe Martin Rural), the cabinet member who oversees transport.

“I’m very much for anything that improves bus services for Devon’s residents and visitors but what we don’t know yet is whether there would be any funding for it.”

The county council, which spent just over £12 million in the previous financial year subsidising routes where commercial servicea aren’t viable, is part of the Devon Bus Enhanced Partnership, an agreement between the local authority and bus operators to work together to improve local services.

“Any changes would need to be affordable for the people of Devon,” said Cllr Davis.

She said Devon had done very well to keep its rural network going but every month is a struggle to keep the network as it is.

Councillors in Torbay will debate a new Local Transport Plan at a meeting next week. It says the document it will discuss supports its goal of a ‘happy, healthy and prosperous’ Torbay, and includes an analysis of local bus services.

However, if the proposed Combined County Authority (CCA) devolution arrangement which pairs Torbay and Devon councils comes into being, the transport plan will no longer be solely the bay’s responsibility and a new strategy will have to be drawn up.

The CCA deal was announced earlier this year by the then-Conservative government. Exact details have yet to be finalised, but local transport services will be part of the its workload if it does go ahead.

A spokesman for Torbay Council said there are currently no plans to take more control of buses, and the council would go on working in partnership with service operators.

“Torbay Council will review the published guidance for consultation in light of the government’s announcement,” said the spokesman. “Bus franchising was included in the devolution agreement with the government but there are currently no plans to implement.”

Speaking to Radio Exe’s Devoncast podcast last month, Stagecoach South West managing director Peter Knight said: “Stagecoach nationally welcomes the opportunity for debate and discussion about the ownership or risk model for bus services going forward.

“They are currently privatised, but working with the deep partnership we have with Devon County Council and other stakeholders, there is control locally of bus services…There is the ability for local officials that where there is a need for a bus service, funding will be made available if it is available. We are very happy to run services that are specified by local authorities but it has to be backed up by relevant funding for those services.”

David Harris, Managing Director of Water Services at South West Water’s, latest entry in the “how to win friends by plain speaking” competition. No mention of “liabilities”. – Owl

Paul Atkins www.devonlive.com

It has been over nine weeks since we lifted the final customers from the boil water notice that impacted people in the Brixham area following the cryptosporidium outbreak in May, writes David Harris, Managing Director of Water Services at South West Water.

We deeply regret that this incident occurred and as part of our ongoing work in Brixham and across the wider region we are determined to understand exactly why this happened, and how we can make sure it never does again. Our top priority will always be protecting our customers and providing the best quality of water you all rightly expect.

Where does our raw water come from?

In the South West, most of the raw water we access is stored in reservoirs and released into rivers to be abstracted and treated at one of our 42 water treatment works across the region to make it safe to drink. Once fully treated, we pump that water through our network of pipes to homes and businesses. Along the network we use large tanks, known as service reservoirs, to safely store treated water so we can keep supply flowing during periods of high demand. Throughout our treatment process, our focus is to make sure that water is safe and clean.

Recognising that cryptosporidium is present in the natural environment is an important part of our treatment process. Cryptosporidium is an incredibly tiny parasite which comes from the faeces of animals. It has a tough outer shell, so it can survive outside an animal host, and for weeks in water, including chlorinated swimming pools or water supplies. It is routinely found in rivers and lakes where livestock is nearby and it is spread by swallowing untreated raw water.

In Brixham and Kingswear, water is treated at Littlehempston Water Treatment Works which takes its water from river sources near agricultural land. Because of this, we test every single day for cryptosporidium in this untreated water. We also use advanced treatment processes at that site and test the water as it leaves the treatment works and enters our water network to make sure it meets the highest quality standards.

We do further regular testing for many contaminants at service reservoirs, including the Alston, Hillhead and Boohay service reservoirs. We test for a range of contaminants, including those that would be markers for the presence of cryptosporidium. We also monitor issues across the network and have teams that look for changes in pressure, potential bursts and respond to customer contacts around how their water looks and tastes to see if there are any changes we need to be aware of.

So how did this issue occur?

In Brixham this May, unfortunately despite all the monitoring in place, cryptosporidium was able to enter our clean water network. We identified the site that caused the issue, we isolated and fixed a damaged asset, and we are continuing our investigation into the source on that site.

We were alerted to reports of illness in the area by the UK Health Security Agency and although most issues are found to be from other sources such as private supplies, direct contact with livestock, or swimming in affected swimming pools or rivers, we immediately carried out additional testing on our network.

When we received the results of those tests a day later confirming the parasite had been detected, we immediately informed the Drinking Water Inspectorate and issued a boil water notice to the areas that could be affected, together with the Alston area as a precaution.

Our teams worked around the clock for eight weeks to provide bottled water to thousands of customers, isolate the cause of the infection and thoroughly clean and protect our network.

We flushed over 34km of water pipes 27 times at high velocity to clean network pipes and remove cryptosporidium and carried out 17 phases of ice-pigging and swabbing – a more aggressive cleaning approach. We also installed ultraviolet solutions and microfilters to provide barriers to remove cryptosporidium within the network. We then lifted the boil water notice in line with the principles agreed with public health partners, including the UK Health Security Agency and the local authority’s Environmental Health department.

What have we learned?

Thankfully incidents such as this are extremely rare both in our region and across the UK as a whole but that does not take away from the impact this caused to our customers. The public water supply in the UK is among the most tightly regulated in the world and this has led to the delivery of the best quality drinking water in the world since those regulations were introduced in 1989. However, we need to continue to work hard every day to be sure we maintain those standards.

We have already learned valuable lessons from this incident and are taking action to ensure a safer and more reliable water supply for the future. We will also share these learnings with the rest of the UK water industry to help prevent similar outbreaks from happening anywhere else.

One of the key lessons we have learned is the importance of early detection. Our processes did not detect this outbreak early enough and so we need to look at improving our monitoring technologies so contaminants can be detected more quickly and accurately.

We are identifying opportunities for enhanced investment within our network to further minimise the risk of future contamination. In Brixham, Hillhead and Kingswear, a filtration system and ultraviolet treatment has been installed to provide long-term additional protection for our customers.

We have worked tirelessly to address the cryptosporidium incident and to implement measures that will prevent such incidents in the future. As well as continuing our own internal investigations we are fully co-operating and supporting the Drinking Water Inspectorate’s investigation into what happened.

We will continue to work hard to make improvements and rebuild trust within the Brixham community so that everyone can have confidence in the water we supply.