As imagined by Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry:
Category Archives: Austerity cuts
Clinical Commissioning Group merger for Devon – good or bad?
Owl says: a bigger group fo DCC NOT to scrutinise – right….
“There are claims a planned merger between two NHS bodies in Devon will result in a less accountable system with no guarantee of improved healthcare for patients.
At present, there are two clinical commissioning groups – or CCGs – which plan and buy healthcare for local people. There’s one covering the North, West and the East of the county – NHS NEW Devon CCG – and the other covering Torbay and the South – NHS South Devon & Torbay CCG. Health bosses want them to merge into one big organisation, claiming this will save money and result in a stronger service. They say there’s already been benefits from the two organisations working more closely together.
But GPs in Torbay have voted against the move and local councillor in the Bay, Swithin Long, is also worried…”
Coastal communities at high risk within a generation
“Rising sea levels will claim homes, roads and fields around the coast of England, the government’s official advisers have warned, and many people are unaware of the risks they face.
The new report from the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) said existing government plans to “hold the line” in many places – building defences to keep shores in their current position – were unaffordable for a third of the country’s coast. Instead, the CCC said, discussions about the “hard choices” needed must be started with communities that will have to move inland.
“There genuinely will be homes that it will not be possible to save,” said Baroness Brown, chair of the CCC’s adaptation committee. “The current approach is not fit for purpose. This report is really a wake-up call to the fact that we can’t protect the whole English coast to today’s standard.”
She added: “We could see as much as a metre of sea level rise before the end of the century, so within the lifetime of today’s children, and that has a major impact on coastal flooding and erosion.” Prof Jim Hall, another member of the committee, said: “We are not prepared.”
The regions affected include areas with soft, eroding shores in the south and east, as well as low-lying areas in East Anglia, Lincolnshire, parts of the south-west such as the Somerset Levels, and the coast between Liverpool and Blackpool in the north-west.
The entire coast of England is already covered by shoreline management plans, developed by the Environment Agency and local councils. These would cost £18-30bn to implement, but have no funding and no legal force. The CCC analysis found that, for more than 150km of coast, the plans to hold the line would cost more than the property and land that would be protected.
For another 1,460km of coast, the benefit of holding the line was twice the cost, but the government only currently funds defences with at least a sixfold cost-benefit ratio. “Funding for these locations is unlikely and realistic plans to adapt to the inevitability of change are needed now,” said the report.
The report also found that 520,000 properties are already in areas with significant coastal flood risk. However, this may treble to 1.5m by the 2080s without action.
Currently, 8,900 properties are at risk from coastal erosion and in 2014 the Environment Agency calculated that 7,000 homes, worth more than £1bn, would fall into the sea this century. But the CCC report found that in the 2080s another 100,000 properties would be at risk of sliding into the sea.
As well as properties, key infrastructure is also at risk from the sea level rise and bigger storms being driven by climate change. In the 2080s, 1,600km of major roads, 650km of railway line and 92 stations will be at risk, the CCC found. Ports, power stations and gas terminals are also in danger. A further risk is toxic waste from old landfill sites falling into the sea as the coast is eroded; a 2016 study found 1,000 such sites at risk.
Pollution risk from over 1,000 old UK landfill sites due to coastal erosion.
Brown said people living in coastal areas do not have access to good information about the risks they face. “A retired couple could buy, with cash, a house with a fabulous sea view without being given any information about whether it was at risk of erosion,” she said.
Making better information easily available would alarm people but was vital, said Hall. It would also affect property values, he said: “If it was better communicated, as we think it should be, then that would have a [negative] impact on house prices.”
The government must work with local councils on long-term, funded programmes that engage people and help them move if necessary, the CCC said. “Those are very difficult decisions,” said Brown. “Local councils are in a very tough situation having to raise those kind of issues with their communities. There may be a bit of denial going on in local authorities.” …”
Newham latest wobbly council
“Newham financial health check identifies control weaknesses
A financial health check carried out by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) has recommended that London Borough of Newham addresses weaknesses in its financial control.
CIPFA was appointed by the borough’s mayor Rokhsana Fiaz to examine the council’s finances after she was elected earlier this year.
According to a council report this week, the initial findings of the review recommend that the council carries out a fundamental budget review with external challenge and new corporate standards.
It also says the council needs, as a matter of urgency, to assess the extent to which reserves might be needed to support this year’s revenue budget.
In addition, it recommends the adoption of outcomes-based budgeting, the consideration of council tax increases, and that the council “review the use of its assets, dispose of assets no longer required and how it finances investment in those assets”.
The final report is set to be presented to the council in the next three months.”
http://www.room151.co.uk/brief/#newham-financial-healthcheck-identifies-control-weaknesses
Government not sure PFI/privatisation was such a good thing ….duh!
The article blames Labour but it was Sir John Major who introduced it in 1992 and later Labour, Coalition and Tory governments continued with them. Many dirty hands made nowt work!
“Sources claim that in the wake of the collapse of outsourcing giant Carillion earlier this year, the Treasury wants to see whether PFI schemes represent “real value for money”.
Under PFI, the state hires contractors such as Carillion to build and deliver projects – then lease it back for a set annual fee.
But under Labour [and later Coalition and Tory governments], more than 500 schemes ended up costing taxpayers five times the original building cost. In 2011 one hospital was being charged £333 by the PFI provider to change a lightbulb.
Industry insiders claim that while the Chancellor’s review won’t “re-write” previous PFI deals, it could kill off PFI “for good”. …”
EDDC cannot protect heritage assets due to its “limited resources” leaving them at the mercy of developers
Owl says: no surprises there …..
“Hundreds of hours have been ‘wasted’ trying to protect important historical buildings after a council delayed a formal review for the third time, say a campaign group
The criticism was levelled at East Devon District Council (EDDC) by the Otter Valley Association (OVA) after a formal review into heritage assets in the area was postponed for a third time.
OVA campaigners are worried without a review planning decisions may be made which compromise important historical buildings and structures.
An OVA spokesman said: “For the third time since 2016, EDDC has postponed the long promised formal review of the local heritage assets list by the strategic planning committee.
“So, 100 hours of work wasted as the list is not legally accepted for planning purposes, as demonstrated by an inspector’s decision on a recent planning application which dismissed any idea of the ‘specialness’ to the community of a beautiful Hatchard Smith house in Budleigh Salterton.”
A spokeswoman for EDDC responded to the association’s criticisms, she said: “We very much value the hard work that the OVA has put into their list of nominations for the local list of heritage assets and are sorry that we have not been able to progress this work more quickly.
“Unfortunately, we have limited resources and, first and foremost, we have to prioritise undertaking our statutory duties in relation to listed buildings, conservation areas and other heritage assets to ensure that the nationally important heritage assets in the district are conserved.”
According to EDDC there are more than 3,000 entries on the national list in East Devon and the work involved in conserving the structures ‘leaves little time to commit to compiling a list of locally important heritage assets’.
However, work is being done on the council’s heritage strategy which will clarify the council’s position on the local list as well as provide a timeline for production of the list.
The spokeswoman added: “The heritage strategy has been delayed to enable wider engagement with the membership of the council, however this additional work will lead to a better strategy and a wider understanding of the issues among council members before it is presented to the Council’s strategic planning committee on November 27.”
http://www.exmouthjournal.co.uk/news/heritage-asset-review-east-devon-1-5751668
EDDC says it can’t afford to part-fund a community worker for Cranbrook
Yet it can spend £10 million-plus on a new HQ and says section 106 funding is running out despite continued building-out of the town. Developers seem to be getting a really easy ride in Cranbrook.
“Working people going hungry and can’t get help, MPs told”
“A growing number of people with “good” jobs cannot afford to feed their families and are unable to get help from food banks, MPs have been told.
Charity boss Adam Smith said people on benefits were able to get emergency food parcels and did not go hungry.
But a “hidden bracket” of working people were not entitled to do so or were ashamed to ask for help, he told the environmental audit committee.
The Trussell Trust, the main food bank charity in the UK, says delays in benefit payments, debt and insecure employment are among the reasons that people have to turn to them for help.
People who use food banks are normally referred to them by social workers, job centres, care workers or other officials.
Mr Smith said enough was being done to support people on benefits who were in food poverty, but “the problem in this county is there is a hidden bracket of people who are suffering”.
He read out an emotional testimony from an anonymous teacher, who had sought help at his organisation’s “social supermarket” in Wakefield, West Yorkshire.
The woman said she had a “good job” but her wages had not gone up in a decade and the rising cost of living meant she was being forced to choose between “shopping and getting myself and my son to school”.
She said she felt “so embarrassed” that she had been struggling to feed her children.
Mr Smith’s charity the Real Junk Food project, runs “pay-as-you-feel” cafes and a new “social supermarket”, which sell, or give away, food that had been destined for waste and has been made fit for human consumption.
Unlike food banks, anyone can use the cafes and a growing number of working people were turning to them for help, Mr Smith said.
“If we want to end hunger we need to stop feeding the poor, we need to start feeding everybody and making sure everyone has the human right to access food,” he told the committee.
Anna Taylor, from the Food Foundation think tank, told the committee the government did not collect data on families who were in food poverty and had not taken the issue seriously.
According to Endhunger, a church campaign to end food poverty in the UK, as many as 8.4 million people “are living in households that struggle to put enough food on the table”.
The charity is backing a bid by Labour MP Emma Lewell-Buck to force the government to monitor and annually report on food insecurity across the UK.
Her Food Insecurity Bill is supported by 150 MPs across different parties but is unlikely to become law without government backing. …”
“Fresh cuts will leave largest forces in England and Wales with [police] officer numbers last seen in the 1970s
“Three of Britain’s most senior chief constables have warned of a fresh crisis in policing after the government squeezed budgets even further, which they say will leave no alternative but to cut the number of officers.
In an unprecedented public warning, the chief constables of the West Midlands, Greater Manchester and Merseyside forces told the Guardian the fresh cuts would leave them with officer numbers last seen in the 1970s.
Since 2010 the government has cut police funding by 19%. Police in England and Wales have now been told that a £420m pensions shortfall must be met from their already reduced budgets.
After recalculating officers’ pension liabilities, the Treasury decided forces needed to contribute more. Forces are now coming to terms with the impact of the further budget squeeze and anger is mounting.
Ian Hopkins, the chief constable of Greater Manchester, the third biggest force, said he had hoped to have 6,300 officers by the end of March 2021; instead he is likely to have 5,709 – fewer than the force’s 1975 total.
Hopkins told the Guardian: “Clearly we would always look to save money without job cuts, but the reality is 83% of our budget is people and after eight years of efficiencies across all parts of the organisation – which has seen us make reductions of £183m – there would be little alternative but to cut posts, both officers and staff.”
He said he feared the new funding squeeze would reduce his force. “This would just get worse as we would have to further prioritise against threat, harm and risk, screen out more and more crime. Essentially we would just have to focus on providing a response function, a serious and organised crime capability and a custody function as the core capabilities of policing.”…
Labour Wirral council latest to admit to problems
THE state of Wirral Council’s finances has been revealed after staff were asked for expressions of interest to leave their jobs in a desperate bid to save cash. …
… It is a period of transition for Wirral Council at the moment, with leader Cllr Phil Davies having this week announced his intention to step down in May, environment cabinet member Cllr Matthew Patrick having left his role and politics with immediate effect, and Cllr Mike Sullivan having quit the Labour party to become an independent.
West Country Tory MP feels completely out of place in his party
“A Tory backbencher has criticised the government and said he would not have stood as an MP “if the situation was like it is now”.
Johnny Mercer told The House magazine he was no longer sure that his “set of values and ethos” were still “aligned with the Conservative Party”.
The party had “lost focus” on fighting for what it believed in and instead was focused on “technocrats and managers”.
Mr Mercer, an ex-Army officer, has said he never voted until he became an MP
The MP for Plymouth Moor View has been critical of the party before, telling the Telegraph in 2017 it was “in danger of losing credibility”.
In his interview with The House, Mr Mercer – who was first elected in 2015 – was critical of Prime Minister Theresa May’s response to a questions about investigations into Northern Ireland veterans, saying “she did not answer in a way that made me proud to be a member of the governing party”.
And, of her Chequers blueprint for post-Brexit relations with the EU, he said: “That is your classic professional politicians’ answer because it’s right down the middle. It doesn’t make anybody happy. It’s the ultimate in not making a decision.”
He said, “under this chief whip, under this prime minister, there is no role for people like me” but added: “That’s fine because nothing lasts forever.” He admitted he would like to be defence secretary – Mr Mercer has campaigned for veterans, including those with mental health problems.
Mr Mercer said that while his “set of values and ethos” had been aligned with the Conservative Party, “I’m not as comfortable that that’s the case anymore.”
And he added: “If the situation was like it is now, I can safely say there would be absolutely no chance that I would try and be a member of Parliament.“
“CIPFA warns councils over serious commercial activity concerns”
“CIPFA is to work on fresh guidance over concerns councils in England are putting public funds at “unnecessary or unquantified risk” when borrowing to invest in commercial property.
In a statement released today, the insitute suggested local authorities were investing in commercial properties disproportionately to their resources.
This would be against the requirements of the CIPFA’s Prudential Code and Treasury Management code, the joint statement from CIPFA chief executive Rob Whiteman and chair of CIPFA’s treasury and capital management panel Richard Paver, said.
Whiteman and Paver said that “in some cases these investments have been financed by borrowing” and CIPFA shared concerns there had been an “acceleration of the practice of borrowing to invest in commercial property”.
They warned councils the “prime policy objective of a local authority’s treasury management investment activities is the security of funds, and that a local authority should avoid exposing public funds to unnecessary or unquantified risks”.
CIPFA’s code and the government’s Statutory Guidance on Local Government Investments were “very clear that local authorities must not borrow more than or in advance of their needs purely in order to profit from the investment of the extra sums borrowed”.
The institute will “issue more guidance and will make it clear that these investment approaches are not consistent with the requirements of fiscal sustainability, prudence and affordability,” the statement said.
Government figures released last week showed an increase in local authorities’ commercial activities.
English councils’ acquisition of land and buildings rose by £1.2bn (43.1%) to £4bn in 2017-18 from £2.8bn in 2016-17, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government data revealed.
Total borrowing by councils in England had risen from £4.4bn in 2013-14 to £10bn in 2017-18.
The guidance is expected to be published before the end of the year.
Until it is released, CIPFA advised local authorities to refer to the government guidance, which cautions local authorities against:
– Becoming dependent on commercial income;
– Taking out too much debt relative to net service expenditure; and
– Taking on debt to finance commercial investments.
The MHCLG figures out last week showed the largest investors in commercial property were Spelthorne Borough Council at £270m and Warrington Borough Council with £220m. Eastleigh Borough Council also spent £194m.
In 2016, Spelthorne took out 50 separate Public Works Loan Board loans to fund the purchase of a £360m business park in Sunbury-on-Thames.
PF understands that MHCLG and the Treasury have expressed concern about the scale of commercial property investment.
MHCLG has been contacted for comment.”
Crime up 17% in Devon and Cornwall police area
Owl says: one way to get more officers on the beat is to abolish the post of Police and Crime Commissioner and the 20+ staff that work for her. But would you believe (you would) that it is impossible to find out exactly how much she and her staff cost? Accounts are (designed to be?) impenetrable. AND there is no central register of the overall cost of the 40+ Police and Crime Commissioners in post!
“Devon and Cornwall’s Police and Crime Commissioner has said she is committed to “securing more funding for front-line officers” – as new figures show a rise in recorded crime.
Between July 2017 and June 2018, recorded crime was up 17% in the Devon and Cornwall force area, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.
Nationally there was an increase of 10%.
Alison Hernandez said she was “concerned” about a rise in violent offences, although she said serious violent offences “are still very unusual in the peninsula”.
“It’s clear to me that more money is needed to support greater officer numbers,” she said.
She added she was working with her office to help tackle the increases.”
What can WE do to save our NHS?
“Greetings, KONP supporters in the South West!
Important information from Keep Our NHS Public on…
Integrated Care Providers
The Government likes to bury its plans to defund, break-up and privatise the NHS in jargon. KONP are producing a series of videos to help you understand what’s going on…
NHS England is consulting on the contract for a new model of health and social care provision that threatens the break-up of the NHS into units run by less accountable ‘Integrated Care Providers’ – or ‘ICPs’. Each of these ‘business units’ would control spend and rationing of healthcare for populations of up to 500,000. These huge contracts will be eminently open to the private sector to compete for.
The ICPs will deliver the dangerous new restructuring plans of government which could see fragments of the NHS managed by non-NHS, non-statutory and therefore less accountable bodies. They are the embodiment of government plans to disperse the NHS and its staff, drive down public funding, promote private contracts and put cost limits and profit before patient safety.
Integrated Care Provider contracts:
Dis-integrate the NHS;
Give control to non-NHS bodies potentially beyond scrutiny;
Threaten public accountability;
Hand over control to these non-NHS bodies for 10-15 years;
Manage multi-billion-pound contracts for blocks of 500,000 population;
Open the door to private companies winning these contracts.
Please watch the video above and share on social media to help spread the word about the Government’s deliberate and insidious privatisation plans.
You can also visit our website:
https://keepournhspublic.com/privatisation/icps-what-are-they/
and our Facebook Page:
for more information, videos and links.
For a written explanation of ICPs and what the represent for the NHS please read and share this briefing (broken link) by HCT co-chair and KONP campaigner Louise Irvine.
How can you help?
1. Along with our friends at We Own It
and Health Campaigns Together
https://www.healthcampaignstogether.com
we have created a petition
https://weownit.org.uk/ICP-petition-NHS
calling on the Government to;
a) Abandon the Integrated Care Provider contract model:
b) Guarantee that any Integrated Care Provider organisations will be statutory organisations i.e. NHS bodies, not private providers.
c) Focus health improvement efforts on pressing the government for:
o Sufficient funding and staffing for health and social care.
o Social care to be brought into public provision, free at point of use
o Legislation to end the failed NHS contracting system and to renationalise the NHS: the only sound basis for service integration.
SIGN THE PETITION
https://weownit.org.uk/ICP-petition-NHS
2. NHS England have launched a 12 week consultation on contracting arrangements for Integrated Care Providers. You can read the full consultation document here
Click to access integrated_care_providers_consultation_document.pdf
Please let them know what you think by submitting a response before the consultation closes on the 26 October. You can do this online. HCT have created a document of a sample response
in case you wish to take some guidance from KONP and HCTs position.
You can also see a comprehensive written response:
Click to access Consultation_response_PeterRoderick_FINAL_01Oct18_1_.pdf
to the proposed changes from the JR4NHS team who, along with the late Stephen Hawking, took Jeremy Hunt and ACOs to Judicial Review this year.
3. Share the KONP video, HCT and KONP briefing and the JR4NHS response to the NHSE consulation around your networks and on social media.
West Midlands mayor must travel in luxury to help the homeless
“A Tory mayor has sparked outrage after spending £500 of taxpayers’ cash on a chauffeur to drive him to a meeting on homelessness.
West Midlands mayor Andy Street splashed the “obscene” sum on the “exclusive” service to take him and an aide to Heathrow Airport and back home again.
In his manifesto when he ran to become mayor, Mr Street insisted: “I want to keep the costs of the mayor’s office as low as possible.”
The lavish spending by the former John Lewis boss can be exposed by The Mirror after his travel costs were revealed under freedom of information laws.
Birmingham Labour MP Steve McCabe branded the chauffeur-driven journey “obscene”, adding: “The money would have been better spent on night shelters and soup kitchens here in the West Midlands.”
The number of people forced to sleep rough in the West Midlands has shot up since 2010.
In November 2017, Mr Street visited Helsinki, Finland, in November 2017 to see an approach to tackling homelessness called Housing First.
Invoices obtained under freedom of information laws show the one-day trip cost £2,216.88.
The cost included a bill for £530.40 to transport an aide from Birmingham and Mr Street from Westminster to Terminal 3 at Heathrow Airport.
The chauffeur then drove the pair back from London to Birmingham at the end of the day.
The website of the chauffeur company, Chauffeured By Car, says it operates a “discreet, professional service” offering “first class luxury travel”.
It adds: “You can simply relax, leave all the worry about directions and traffic to us, and enjoy the journey. To Chauffeured By Car your journey is our passion and we are committed to providing you with a world-class service.”
Detailing the one-day Helsinki trip, documents from West Midlands Combined Authority say: “Housing and land use is a key priority for the West Midlands Combined Authority.
“As part of this one of the key areas the mayor is focusing on is homelessness and rough sleeping. This visit represented a fact finding and lessons learnt exercise on homelessness issues.”
Housing First is credited with making Finland the only European country to see a fall in long-term homelessness in recent years.
It has been successful at ending homelessness for at least eight out of 10 people in the scheme.
This is compared to hostel-based accommodation which has resulted in between 40% and 60% of users with complex needs leaving, or ejected, before their homelessness is resolved.
Mr Street claims the Helsinki trip helped him secure £9.6million in funding in May this year for the West Midlands to try to end the scandal of rough sleeping in the region.”
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tory-mayor-splashes-500-taxpayers-13421748
“Near miss outside Cranbrook Education Campus prompts new road safety measures”
Owl says: the area around the campus looks an overgrown, desolate space and the campus itself does not seem to be wearing well; and one wonders how long the two cones will last:
“Dangerous parking on pavements outside Cranbrook Education Campus and a near-accident involving a child have prompted new safety measures.
Stone boulders are being put in place to stop vehicles driving on to the pavements.
The problems had been caused by parents parking on the pavements when picking up or dropping off their children.
The head teacher had written to parents asking them not to do it, but it was an incident at the end of a school day in mid-September that led to action being taken.
A car reversed off the pavement and narrowly missed a child.
No-one was hurt, but it led to the town council arranging a meeting with representatives of the school, the developers’ consortium, and a senior county highways officer.
It was agreed that the consortium would initially cone off the pavements, and then pay for the stone blocks to be installed in two places.
One is directly outside the driveway leading up to the campus building, the other alongside the entrance to the parking area behind the houses in Tillhouse Road, where cars have been driving up onto the pavement. It will not affect access to the parking area.
The two pedestrian crossings near the campus, both of which have worn-out road markings, will be repainted, and construction workers on the nearby development sites have been asked not to drive their vehicles near the campus at the start and end of the school day.
County Councillor Ray Bloxham said he was pleased to see the safety measures being put in place, but he thought they should not have been necessary.
“I’ve looked at what goes on there, and the people who’re complaining about the problem are the problem themselves,” he said. “They could at least stop 400 yards before they get to the school and let the children out there and walk. I actually saw people pulling up right outside the school, which is right on a road junction, on a bend, and stopping there and dropping their children off. Kids can walk 100 or 200 yards.
“I know people are rushed, they’ve got to get to work and all the rest of it, but if they just gave it a little bit more thought they’d solve their own problems really.”
http://www.midweekherald.co.uk/news/new-road-safety-measures-at-cranbrook-education-campus-1-5734784
Virgin and Stagecoach: more pigs, more snouts, more troughs
“Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin and Sir Brian Souter’s Stagecoach shared a payout of over £52m just months before the companies pulled out of the East Coast line, forcing a £2bn government bail out, it has emerged.
Virgin and Stagecoach received the pay out for the West Coast mainline which runs the route connecting London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, and Glasgow.
Virgin Rail owns 51 per cent of the West Coast mainline, with the remainder held by Stagecoach.
‘No surprise’
Shadow Transport Secretary Andy McDonald said Virgin Rail’s dividend increases came as “no surprise”.
“This is yet more evidence of a failing rail system which is costing taxpayers a fortune, lining the pockets of billionaires and making passengers feel like they’ve been mugged whenever they buy a ticket,” Mr McDonald told the Sunday Times.
“These vast payouts show exactly why we need to bring our railways back into public ownership.”
Virgin-Stagecoach bail out
The figures have come to light just four months after Virgin, run by Richard Branson and Stagecoach, run by Brian Souter, walked away from the East Coast main line franchise in June, three years into an eight-year deal.
The firms had agreed to pay the Government £3.3bn for the right to run the line, with the sum to be paid in instalments up until 2023.
Stagecoach had controlled 90 per cent of the franchise, compared to Virgin’s 10 per cent. Pulling out of the franchise early will allow Stagecoach and Virgin to avoid making Government payments of up to £2bn.
‘Virgin on the ridiculous’
One online critic described the situation as an “absolute laugh”, while another said: “They don’t even pretend not to be screwing over the taxpayers and the commuters anymore.
“Branson and chums make extortionate profits again while delivering nothing to rail users. It’s all Virgin on the ridiculous.”
Virgin Rail insisted its “industry-leading levels of customer satisfaction” warranted the dividends, with a spokeswoman pointing to company “innovations” such as automatic refunds for delays, free films and TV on board trains and mtickets (tickets you can buy and keep on your mobile phone).
“This drove a strong business performance which helped deliver a record payment to taxpayers,” the spokeswoman said.”
https://inews.co.uk/news/richard-branson-52m-virgin-rail-stagecoach-payout/
“‘I’m afraid a child will die’: life at the sharp end of council cuts”
…. A recent analysis by the charity Action for Children concluded that spending on early intervention services for children in England has dropped by 26% over the last four years. The number of children’s centres lost since 2010 is estimated to be as high as 1,000. As the prime minister promises “the end of austerity”, many of these changes look irreversible, not least because increasing numbers of councils are facing dire financial problems.
Precisely tracking what is happening across the country is all but impossible, but freedom of information requests lodged by Labour’s shadow minister for early years, the Yorkshire MP Tracy Brabin, give a strong sense of what is going on. In Reading, the last eight years have seen the number of people employed in SureStart work drop from 95 to 53. In Wirral, the number has dropped from 219 to 63; in Southampton, from 1,189 to 583.
The vast majority of Somerset’s GetSet workers are women. Many of them do not just provide direct family support, but also organise the open playgroups that often provide a first point of contact for troubled families. “My worst fear is that a child’s going to die,” says one worker. “
“Failure to halt rip-off drug deals costs the NHS £200m”
Owl says: Follow the (MPs involved in the pharmaceutical industry and Tory donors) money …
“The NHS is still overpaying for price-hiked drugs by hundreds of millions of pounds a year because the government has failed to use powers brought in to combat profiteering, The Times can reveal.
A Times investigation in 2016 exposed how several manufacturers had taken advantage of a loophole in NHS pricing rules to significantly increase the price of dozens of commonly prescribed drugs by up to 12,500 per cent. The government passed legislation in April last year to end the practice by giving the health secretary powers to impose a lower price for these generic drugs if taxpayers were being ripped off.
However, the government has failed to use these, with a Times analysis revealing that the NHS is continuing to spend more than £200 million a year on the extra costs created by the hikes.
Just 19 of the 70 drugs identified by this newspaper two years ago have undergone significant price reductions, amounting to about £150 million a year in savings to the NHS. The total extra cost of the price hikes across all 70 medicines was £370 million a year in 2016, meaning that at least £200 million is still being overspent annually. The figures are approximate because prescription data is not yet available for the second half of 2018.
The government has referred a number of cases to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which has opened at least nine investigations. These cases have been stalled after Pfizer and another drug company won an appeal against a record fine for increasing the price of an epilepsy treatment. The CMA is seeking permission to appeal against that verdict.
One company previously exposed by The Times, Atnahs, increased the price of seven medicines for which it was the sole UK manufacturer by up to 2,600 per cent. These included 50mg capsules of doxepin, an antidepressant, which rose from £5.71 and now costs £154 a packet. Atnahs was able to increase prices by dropping the brand name of the products, which were all out of patent, and relaunching them under generic names. Branded generics are subject to a profit cap but the NHS does not limit the price of unbranded generics. More than two years later, all seven medicines are at the same inflated prices.
Another firm, Concordia International, increased the cost of eye drops from £2.09 to £29.06 and has kept them at this level since 2016. An antidepressant which increased from £9.57 to £353.06 after being acquired by the company has risen further still in the past two years and now costs £386.53.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokeswoman said that the overall spend on generic medicines went down compared to last year.”
A spokesman for Atnahs said the company’s pricing was “competitively benchmarked” and that it would adhere to any government guidance. Concordia International said it believed the generics system was working well and “the government may not see a need to use these prices controls”.
Case study
Melanie Woodcock, 47, credits the thyroid medication liothyronine with giving her a life. She used to take an alternative that left her “feeling sluggish, constant headaches, dizziness, nausea feeling all day, it even affected my vision, just a constant brain fog”.
“I wasn’t going out anywhere, I wasn’t living a life, I wasn’t going on holiday, I wasn’t doing anything because I didn’t have the energy,” she said.
When she first took liothyronine, a synthetic hormone known as T3, she said it “changed my whole outlook on life”. “I could think clearly I’d got a memory, my vision was better, I lost the achy joints,” she said. “No more living on Neurofen because I had headaches all the time and joint pain.”
Now doctors have stopped prescribing the drug after the price rose from 16p to £9.22 per tablet. The medicine only had one supplier for many years, but even though two companies have recently begun supplying it, the cost to the NHS has barely fallen.
Liothyronine is cheaply available in many European countries and after her prescription was stopped in July 2018, Ms Woodcock, a mother-of-two who lives in Banbury, Oxfordshire, turned to a “website that is aimed at bodybuilders for bulking up” which sells the drug at £31 a packet.
She said when she tried to go back to the alternative treatment, levothyroxine, she was hospitalised with violent illness and a headache so powerful she was unable to see.
Even the liothyronine she buys online has not solved the problem. “It’s not the same [as the NHS-prescribed version], I still feel sluggish, I still have a lack of energy. I’ve had to take several days off work.”
Ms Woodcock, who works in the security industry, said she couldn’t understand “how the government have allowed this to happen”.
Concordia International, which was previously the sole supplier of the medicine, said a high price was justified in order to guarantee a steady supply beause it was a niche product and difficult to manufacture.”
Source: The Times (pay wall)
“Call for a £60,000 pay rise for high court judges sparks anger”
“Senior judges could be awarded an annual pay rise of almost £60,000, a proposal which has sparked anger among other public sector workers.
A government-commissioned review has reportedly recommended that high court judges should receive a 32% salary hike due to claims of low morale within the judiciary.
The rise would see their pay jump from £181,500 a year to £240,000 – an increase of more than £1,100 a week – if the findings of the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB) are accepted.
A combination of long hours and tax changes to pension schemes for high earners was said to have led to a recruitment crisis in the judiciary.
The Ministry of Justice confirmed Theresa May and the justice secretary, David Gauke, had received the SSRB’s report at the end of September. But officials said no decisions had been taken as to whether to accept its recommendations.
A ministry spokesman said: “The government values the work of our world-renowned judiciary, which is why we commissioned this review and are considering its recommendations. We will respond in due course. …”
East Devon Watch 