Category Archives: Austerity cuts

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17 Jun 2017

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Accountability, Austerity cuts, Claire Wright, East Devon economy, General Election, Hugo Swire

Claire Wright on May’s austerity U-turn

Owl says: what an opportunity East Devon missed not electing this bright, sensible, compassionate, grounded woman – but you WILL get at least one more chance East Devonians – choose wisely next time.

“This makes me feel happy and furious all at once.

As a councillor who has seen firsthand the suffering caused by austerity, this statement simply proves it was a fat lie all along.

A big fat lie perpetuated by a bunch of wealthy ruthless people determined to shrink the state and demonise people who have the least.

An obsession by the power hungry elite who have never known a day’s financial hardship in their lives, to reform this country into a tax haven for wealthy businesses, while hollowly claiming that this country must have a “buoyant economy” to fund public services.

Of course, many of us knew we had been lied to but this really takes it to a new level.

It has taken the shock of an uncertain future to get them to admit it.

So are they going to reinstate the billions they have slashed from public services?

Are they going to scrap the despicable sanctions system which penalises the disabled, the unwell, those people who have the least ability to stand up for themselves?

Are they now going to do a major about turn and actually look after the poorest and most unwell people in society?

And what about the NHS, which has seen 15,000 bed cuts in seven years, as well as looming major service cuts centralisation through the sustainability and transformation plans.

If there is any justice they will put right what they got so wrong in the last seven years.

But to do that they must go into a deal with the odious Democratic Unionist Party, whose views are in line with the most hardline right wing party most people could imagine.

The climate change denying DUP is anti LGBT rights and abortion and they’re in favour of the death penalty.

Oh and they have links to loyalist paramiltary groups … didn’t one leader get pilloried in the right wing press recently for claims of similar such links? #DeepHypocrisy

Any such deal could undermine the rather shaky peace in Northern Ireland.

But such is the desperation to cling onto power that all these things are to be swept aside, as a deal is expected to be agreed today.

On the upside the Queen’s Speech is expected to be cleared of any policy that the Tories don’t feel they can get absolute support for in parliament.

This is a new era in British politics. And while there are some despicable deals afoot, I am optimistic that the voters in this country are finally waking up to the lies we have been told for seven years.

Let’s see what happens in the next election, which may not be too far away….”

http://www.claire-wright.org/index.php/post/austerity_is_over_says_pm_who_last_week_said_it_was_vital

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17 Jun 2017

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Accountability, Austerity cuts, Inequality

Britain lags behind the rest of Europe with fire regulation

“Thousands of buildings across Britain have been fitted with external cladding similar to the kind implicated in the unprecedented spread of the Grenfell Tower fire.

The public sector alone has spent £553 million on contracts to wrap such insulation round the outside of buildings including homes, schools, hospitals and leisure centres.

In the absence of any central record of which buildings have been fitted with cladding, or which type of insulation materials have been used, the government yesterday launched an emergency review of 4,000 tower blocks owned by councils and housing associations in England.

European safety campaigners said that despite repeated lobbying Britain lagged behind many other countries in allowing potentially combustible materials to be used on building façades.

As EU officials discussed the repercussions of the blaze, Fire Safe Europe, which lobbies to raise the profile of fire safety, said Britain was among a number of countries that needed to improve building regulations and testing regimes in relation to cladding materials.”

Source: Times ( firewall)

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17 Jun 2017

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Accountability, Austerity cuts, Inequality

Woman of the people?

Credit: Ragged trousered philanderer Facebook page

and:

“... Asked if she had misread the public anger, she replied: “What I have done since this incident took place is, first of all, ensure that the public services had the support they need in order to be able to do the job they were doing in the immediate aftermath.

Pressed again on whether she had failed to understand the public’s anger, May said: “This was a terrible tragedy that took place. People have lost their lives and others have lost everything, all their possessions, their home and everything. What we are doing is putting in place the support that will help them.

“But it is a terrible tragedy. I have heard horrifying stories from the fire brigade, from police and from victims themselves who were in that tower but also from other local residents, some of whom of course have not been able to go back to their homes either.

“What I’m now absolutely focused on is ensuring that we get that support on the ground.

“Government is making money available, we are ensuring we are going to get to the bottom of what happened, we will ensure that people are rehoused, but we need to make sure that that actually happens. …

Asked how residents in other high rise blocks would be able to sleep at night, May said: “The government is doing everything in its power to ensure that people are safe. We have identified those buildings and now and over the weekend people are going in and inspecting those buildings.”

The prime minister’s performance prompted scorn on social media – including from once-friendly media outlets such as the Daily Mail, which panned her interview online under the headline “Maybot malfunction”. …”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/17/theresa-may-avoids-questions-on-personal-response-to-grenfell-disaster

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16 Jun 2017

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Accountability, Affordable and Social Housing, Austerity cuts, Inequality

One law for the rich, no laws for the poor

“… In February this year, ministers posted on a government website details of their ‘anti-red tape’ agenda on new-build properties.

In a separate report fire safety inspections, the Conservatives said, had been reduced for some companies from six hours to just 45 minutes.

The move, titled Cutting Red Tape, was part of the Tory plans to abolish a ‘health and safety’ culture that they claimed was hurting money-making businesses. …

Former Prime Minister David Cameron promised to abolish the ‘albatross’ of ‘over regulation’.

… Businesses with good records have had fire safety inspections reduced from six hours to 45 minutes, allowing managers to quickly get back to their day job.’

… The group describe their purpose as working ‘with business, for business’.

The reference to the 2013 slashing of fire regulation for new-builds had previously been ‘welcomed‘ by the Chief Fire Officers Association.

However, a cabinet committee was still in operation before the General Election, called the Economy And Industry Strategy (Reducing Regulation).”

Government ministers ‘congratulated themselves’ for cutting fire regulations

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16 Jun 2017

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Accountability, Austerity cuts, Economy

Another privatisation obscenity

“The boss of one of the UK’s biggest energy companies has been given a 72% pay rise, just weeks after arguing against consumers having their bills capped to save them £100 a year.

Alistair Phillips-Davies, the chief executive of SSE, will be paid £2.92m in 2017 after receiving the maximum possible bonuses for leading a “robust performance” by the supplier last year.

The pay rise is even bigger than the 40% rise awarded to the chief executive of the British Gas owner, Centrica.

Phillips-Davies was paid £844,000 in base salary, largely unchanged from last year, but topped up by £25,000 in benefits, a £910,000 annual bonus – more than double the year before – and a long-term incentive payout of £644,000. He was also handed £502,000 for his pension.

The retail arm of SSE increased the profit margin it makes on householders from 6.2% to 6.9% in the financial year 2016-17.

Among the big six suppliers, SSE has the highest proportion of customers (91%) on standard variable tariffs, the default energy deals that the Conservatives have promised to cap. The government has said householders are paying a total of £1.4bn over the odds for energy as a result of such tariffs. It claims a cap would save customers up to £100 a year. …”

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jun/16/sse-boss-gets-72-pay-rise-weeks-after-arguing-against-energy-bill-cap-alistair-phillips-davies-big-six

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16 Jun 2017

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Accountability, Affordable and Social Housing, Austerity cuts, Inequality

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Austerity, inequality and deaths: Robert Peston tells it as it is

“… there is horror that the government never made it obligatory for the fire safety standards that apply to new buildings to be enforced at older blocks – that such improvements are only recommended, not obligatory.

But such lax or light touch regulation only becomes fatal in a system – such as we have – designed to drive down costs and save money, not to put the safety of people first.

It is a system in which those working for all the interconnected bodies that made the refurbishment decisions and gave the wrong safety advice to tenants are able to say – as if that makes it alright – “we followed the rules”.
It is a system in which identifying anyone who can be proved to be ultimately responsible for what happened may be impossible.

And as we saw in the banks before the financial crisis, when people can take reckless decisions safe in the knowledge they can’t be held to account, reckless decisions get taken.

The horrific corollary of a faceless, irresponsible system of public-housing governance is that many of the poor and vulnerable people who died in the fire are not even being given the respect of formal identification as victims – because they live on the fringes of the state, and the authorities seem unable to be confident they even existed, let alone that they have died.

There is a social contract between those of us lucky enough to have voices that are heard and those who don’t that we should not put them in harms way. Grenfell seems the most grotesque breach of that contract in my lifetime. It shames us all.”

Robert Peston, Facebook page

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15 Jun 2017

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Accountability, Austerity cuts

“With Grenfell Tower, we’ve seen what ‘ripping up red tape’ really looks like”

George Monbiot:

“But both Conservative and New Labour governments have been highly reluctant to introduce new public protections, even when the need is pressing. They have been highly amenable to tearing down existing protections at the behest of trade associations and corporate lobbyists. Deregulation of this kind is a central theme of the neoliberal ideology to which both the Conservatives and Labour under Tony Blair succumbed.

In 2014, the then housing minister (who is now the immigration minister), Brandon Lewis, rejected calls to force construction companies to fit sprinklers in the homes they built on the following grounds:

“In our commitment to be the first Government to reduce regulation, we have introduced the one in, two out rule for regulation … Under that rule, when the Government introduce a regulation, we will identify two existing ones to be removed. The Department for Communities and Local Government has gone further and removed an even higher proportion of regulations. In that context, Members will understand why we want to exhaust all non-regulatory options before we introduce any new regulations.”

In other words, though he accepted that sprinklers “are an effective way of controlling fires and of protecting lives and property”, to oblige builders to introduce them would conflict with the government’s deregulatory agenda. Instead, it would be left to the owners of buildings to decide how best to address the fire risk: “Those with responsibility for ensuring fire safety in their businesses, in their homes or as landlords, should and must make informed decisions on how best to manage the risks in their own properties,” Lewis said.

This calls to mind the Financial Times journalist Willem Buiter’s famous remark that “self-regulation stands in relation to regulation the way self-importance stands in relation to importance”. Case after case, across all sectors, demonstrates that self-regulation is no substitute for consistent rules laid down, monitored and enforced by government.

Crucial public protections have long been derided in the billionaire press as “elf ’n’ safety gone mad”. It’s not hard to see how ruthless businesses can cut costs by cutting corners, and how this gives them an advantage over their more scrupulous competitors. …

Conservative MPs see Brexit as an excellent opportunity to strip back regulations. The speed with which the “great repeal bill” will have to pass through parliament (assuming that any of Theresa May’s programme can now be implemented) provides unprecedented scope to destroy the protections guaranteed by European regulations. The bill will rely heavily on statutory instruments, which permit far less parliamentary scrutiny than primary legislation. Unnoticed and undebated, crucial elements of public health and safety, workers’ rights and environmental protection could be made to disappear.

Too many times we have seen what the bonfire of regulations, which might sound like common sense when issuing from the mouths of ministers, looks like in the real world. The public protections that governments describe as red tape are what make the difference between a good society and barbarism. It is time to bring the disastrous deregulatory agenda to an end, and put public safety and other basic decencies ahead of corner-cutting and greed.”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/15/grenfell-tower-red-tape-safety-deregulation

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15 Jun 2017

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Accountability, Affordable and Social Housing, Austerity cuts, Developers/ Development

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Privatisation and austerity: the dreadful human cost

“The company responsible for managing Grenfell Tower had been reviewing fire safety procedures after previous incidents, it has emerged.

Kensington & Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) was paid £11m by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to manage social housing in 2016.

KCTMO’s Adair Tower, also in north Kensington, had previously suffered a fire – the result of arson – and some residents suffered from smoke inhalation and had to be rehoused.

The London fire brigade issued an “enforcement notice” telling KCTMO to install “self-closing devices” on the front doors of flats in Adair Tower and the nearby Hazlewood Tower, built to the same design.

KCTMO, named this year among the top 100 not-for-profit firms to work for by the Sunday Times, has offered its “sincere and heartfelt condolences” to anyone affected by the fire. “It is too early to speculate what caused the fire and contributed to its spread,” the company added. “We will cooperate fully with all the relevant authorities in order to ascertain the cause of this tragedy.”

KCTMO contracted the £10m refurbishment of Grenfell to a private construction firm, Rydon, which in turn subcontracted some of the work, in an illustration of the rewards on offer to private firms from social housing projects.

One of the other firms in the chain of companies involved in the refurbishment appears to have removed a description of the project from its website.

Rydon landed an £8.6m contract to “upgrade” the Grenfell Tower, including adding the external cladding that is being investigated as a potential factor in the fire’s rapid spread.

It boasts a string of contracts for the NHS, local councils and the Ministry of Defence, while its maintenance division, which led the refurbishment of the Grenfell Tower, maintains 22,000 properties and has nearly £450m of contracts on its order book.

The company made a pre-tax profit of £14.3m last year on revenues of £271m and paid investors a dividend of £2m, the largest slice of which went to Rydon’s chief executive and largest shareholder, Robert Bond, 61.

The company’s highest paid director, usually the chief executive, also earned a salary of £424,000 in 2016, a pay rise from £392,000 the year before.

“We are shocked to hear of the devastating fire at Grenfell Tower and our immediate thoughts are with those that have been affected by the incident, their families, relatives and friends,” the company said.

It insisted its work “met all required building control, fire regulation and health and safety standards”.

“We will cooperate with the relevant authorities and emergency services and fully support their inquiries into the causes of this fire at the appropriate time.

“Given the ongoing nature of the incident and the tragic events overnight, it would be inappropriate for us to speculate or comment further at this stage.”

After Rydon won the contract to refurbish Grenfell, it commissioned the ventilation specialist Witt UK to work on the project, it emerged on Wednesday.

Witt UK, based in Halifax, West Yorkshire, previously had a page on its website that boasted of work by one of its subsidiaries, PSB UK, on Grenfell Tower.

A version of the page was still available in Google’s historic “cached” data, in which the company explained that ventilation systems would protect residents from smoke in the event of a fire.

A description of the project read: “The lobby smoke ventilation system has been designed to provide the existing stairwell with protection from the ingress of smoke from a fire within a dwelling by means of a mechanical extract system.”

Witt UK is owned by the German family business Witt & Sohn, run by Dr Henrik Witt, 62, and Karsten Witt, 58.

A person who answered the UK company’s telephone said it had been advised not to comment.

According to the removed page of the Witt website, it handed over the “prestigious project” to a Birmingham-based building service engineering company called JS Wright & Co.

A spokesperson for JS Wright & Co said: “We are shocked by the catastrophic fire at Grenfell Tower in London and our thoughts are with the families, relatives and friends of all those affected by this tragic incident.

“JS Wright carried out a contract with Rydon Maintenance last year to provide Grenfell Tower with improved building services.

“Rydon Maintenance was in the process of refurbishing the building for Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation on behalf of the council.

“Like everyone else at this stage, we are unaware of the causes of this fire but we will co-operate fully with all inquiries and investigations into this incident.”

Rydon also contracted another firm, Harley Facades, to provide the cladding that is being examined as a possible factor in the blaze.

Harley’s website reveals it was paid £2.6m for the Grenfell Tower work.

Grenfell Tower has been managed by KCTMO since 1996, when it took over responsibility from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

KCTMO documents reveal it put its fire safety policy under review last year, ordering changes including speeding up the installation of self-closing doors, tackling hoarding and dealing with clutter in communal areas.

According to board minutes for November 2016, KCTMO admitted it needed to adopt “a more proactive approach to the installation of self-closing devices to flat entrance doors across the stock”.

The company said it would increase the frequency of fire risk assessment reviews, install fire action notices in the entrance lobbies of all blocks and undertake “further work to address the issue of storage and charging of mobility scooters within communal areas”.

The latest accounts filed by KCTMO with Companies House show that “key management personnel”, led by the chief executive, Robert Black, shared £760,000 in salaries for managing properties in the borough.

The accounts did not reveal the names of the recipients, but the company lists four people under “senior management”.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/14/towers-managers-were-reviewing-safety-after-fire-at-another-block

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5 Jun 2017

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Accountability, Austerity cuts, Police (local)

Devon and Cornwall Police chief calls for more resources

“The chief constable of Devon and Cornwall Police has called for more resources following the London terror attack.

On Twitter, Shaun Sawyer said there should be increased spending on areas from counter-terrorism to community policing.

Mr Sawyer also thanked the public for its support for the police’s work. As a precaution, there are extra patrols across the region.”

Source: BBC Devon website today

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19 May 2017

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Austerity cuts, General Election

A song for our times

From a correspondent”

“Maggie May”

​The Tory slogan or cliché
​Is “Strong and Stable Mrs May”.
​“Strong”? Just on the weak, I’d say.
​“Why take disableds’ pay away?”
​Said Kathy*. May had nought to say.
​TV debate? Too “frit” to play.
​And what, last April*, did she say? –
​She argued not to “leave” but “stay”:
​Irish and Scots could break away;​
​The bankers could all go away;
​Trade deals? Could be worse, O.K?
​In single market? Costs to pay.
​
​On Brexit it is all hearsay:
​Why put your trust in Mrs May?
​Do YOU know what she’ll give away?
​Tories are split, in disarray.
​And what if she’d just “run away”
​ ​And Far Right/Daily Mail hold sway?

​What does her manifesto say?
​For social care you’ll have to pay;
​More cuts for schools are on the way;
​Retireds face a cut in pay*;
​Few immigrants? The figures say
​A record under Mrs May*.

​What will we get “post-Brexit day”?
​The NHS will fade away
​And if you’re ill you’ll have to pay*;
​More zero hours and more low pay;
​Meanwhile the richest will make hay;
​More cuts – for that’s the Tory way.
​Why WOULD YOU vote for Mrs May?
​
​
*Disabled Kathy in Abingdon recently wanted Mrs May not to cut disabled living allowance and care. (Kathy has £100 a month to live on.) * 25 April 2016
*No triple lock on state pensions
*A record 650,000 immigrants entered UK in May’s last year as Home Secretary.
*Boris Johnson wants us to pay for NHS treatment, Michael Gove to privatise it, Iain Duncan Smith to replace it with an insurance system – John Major said the NHS was as safe in their hands as a pet hamster would be with a hungry python.”

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19 May 2017

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Accountability, Austerity cuts, General Election, Health and Social Care (local), NHS (local)

Osborne unwittingly reveals a coalition dirty secret on health and schools

George Osborne in the Evening Standard unwittingly revealing TRUE coalition policies in an article meant to diss Jeremy Corbyn:

“The Coalition government enacted a programme of austerity but claimed that key services such as the NHS and schools would be ‘ring-fenced’ — true in the strict sense that their budgets were not cut, but in practice they faced a prolonged freeze that meant they couldn’t do everything asked of them.”

https://www.thecanary.co/2017/05/17/george-osborne-tries-to-smear-jeremy-corbyn-but-reveals-an-embarrassing-tory-secret-instead-video/

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9 May 2017

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Accountability, Austerity cuts, DCC, Democracy, Devolution, EDDC, General Election

“Austerity has made local government financially unviable. Radical reorganisation may be the only answer”

Owl says: But alas not before EDDC has spent £10 million plus of our money on a new HQ which may be redundant before they move into it!

“Tory councillors popping celebratory corks after last week’s haul of seats should bear in mind the old adage: be careful what you wish for. Now they occupy council leadership positions from Maidstone to Morpeth, it is they alone who must now carry the can for sorting out local government’s two Rs, revenue and reorganisation. The latter is going to haunt county halls for the next political cycle.

The blue tide isn’t going to wash away any of local government’s fundamental problem of a lack of money. Jonathan Carr-West, chief executive of the Local Government Information Unit, has said he hopes “emboldened county leadership” could campaign for sustainable funding for social care and children’s services; he’s an optimist.

Residents may be willing to pay more for looking after older people. But how? Council tax won’t provide enough, so it will be down to central grants. Whoever is communities secretary after June 9 (and Theresa May looks unlikely to keep Sajid Javid) must now devise a distribution and needs formula for England that will protect Tories in the north as well as those in the heartlands of the south.

Short of May tearing up the spending plans set out by Philip Hammond barely a couple of months ago, financial pressure isn’t going to ease. So, come June 9 we’re back to the Christchurch question. A month ago, councillors in the solidly Tory Dorset district decided to defer a referendum on an outline plan to reorganise local government in that county, getting rid of two tiers and replacing the county council, districts and existing Poole and Bournemouth unitary councils with two new, big unitaries. Without reorganisation, the story goes, austerity has made local government financially unviable.

Reorganisation details are different in the various, but the same kinds of argument have been playing in Lincolnshire, Oxfordshire, Kent, Bucks, Essex, Hampshire and the other shires. If you notice something similar about those names, gold star: they are all Tory. What’s in prospect is largely an intra-Tory party argument which, in Kent, for example, is already pitting Tory MPs against councillors, as well as setting up massive squabbles between councillors themselves.

We’ve been here before, several times. Those with long memories will recall the long hours and bitter debate within the John Major government in the 1990s over reorganisation. The fruits of that included the demise of Avon county council in 1996, which the West of England combined authority is a bodged attempt at recreating.

Reorganisation is back because consultants’ reports say it should in principle be cheaper to run services over bigger areas with a single tier council and county executives usually agree. But those reports perennially underestimate transitional costs and rarely factor in the hard-to-quantify but vital element of the identification of residents and staff with particular places and local history.

Besides, most reorganisations turn into messy compromises. Take Christchurch. A “rational” reorganisation based on economic geography would align it with Southampton and the Solent, with the New Forest a sort of park in between urban areas. But few Tories are willing to abandon entirely the historic boundaries of Dorset even if the county council goes, just as few Tories want to see the (non-Tory) urban areas of Oxford and Cambridge being allowed to swallow the districts around them.

And all that is just local government. Summing up the costly and largely ineffective debates of the 1990s, Michael Chisholm, chair of the Local Government Boundary Commission, complained of the folly of reorganising without simultaneously considering council powers and finance – which these days has to include the interrelationship of councils and the NHS as well as the fraught consequences of councils’ keeping the proceeds of business rates and the end of central grants.

There’s trouble ahead but at least reorganisation would weaken the political hegemony the Tories have now established across a wide swath of English local government.”

https://www.theguardian.com/public-leaders-network/2017/may/09/english-local-government-tory-revenue-reorganisation

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2 May 2017

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Accountability, Austerity cuts, Developers/ Development, Health and Social Care (local), NHS (local)

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NHS Property is planning to sell hospital sites to private sector health firms

Noted by Claire Wright via Twitter:

“Plans to release NHS-owned land and buildings for commercial use could be further delayed, after the future of a report into the UK’s health system was thrown into doubt.

The Department of Health was due to report its findings into public health in July, but there are now concerns it could be delayed amid wrangling around the June’s General Election.

The project, known internally as Phoenix, is set to overhaul the way in which healthcare services are procured and run.

The new report was set to review the system, and a proposal to split the country into six regions so that buildings could be run more centrally. The Government wants to raise £5bn from the sale of public land by 2020.

This was expected to result in an acceleration of the release of land and buildings to the open market as more surplus stock was identified across the estate. This could have been snapped up by developers wanting to build much-needed homes, or bought by the private sector to be improved and then leased to local health services.

At present, buildings are run and leased to service providers by LIFT Partnerships, which bring together local public health bodies and private sector providers, working with NHS Property Services.

But property professionals have warned that the election could cause further delays to the implementation of the new system.

One developer, who did not wish to be named, said the report was also supposed to clarify the way the estate would be managed in the future.

“This could have also paved the way for private healthcare companies to acquire property to provide better local services,” he said. “These things take long enough as they are without further delays.”

Another warned that any new administration could seek to slow the sale of land or property under pressure from local opposition.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/05/01/nhs-property-strategy-could-delayed-election-developers-warn/amp/

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29 Apr 2017

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Accountability, AONB, Austerity cuts, Claire Wright, DCC, East Devon Alliance, East Devon Tories, Electoral Commission, Environment (local), Health and Social Care (local), NHS (local)

Election irony

Does anyone else find it ironic that Tory candidates are saying that they will “fight for” local hospitals, fairer funding for schools and our precious environment when it is THEIR party that brought the CCG’s that are already cutting beds by stealth, the unfair school funding and which wants to loosen environmental regulations as soon as possible to enable more building on green fields and who are trying to stop frightening air pollution figures being published?

The Tory battle cry seems to be:

“What do we want?”
“No bed cuts, fairer funding for schools and a healthy environment!”
“When do we want it?”
“Er, whenever Mrs May says we can have it, pretty please?”
“When will it be?
“Brexit means Brexit!”

Have fun with that one – and if you vote for the Tories in Devon just hope you, your children and grandchildren can afford a private education and health care and never need to go to an NHS A and E or GP – or breathe the air in our towns, cities and countryside – tall order!

We need a credible opposition at DCC to fight for us. Claire Wright has done a magnificent job fighting for our schools, our hospitals and our environment at DCC – but could do even more with an army of like-minded councillors alongside her whose battle cry would be:

“What do we want?”
“Our fair share in a clean, green Devon”
“When do we want it?”
“When our voters empower us to get it”
“When will it be”?
“When you vote Independent on 4 May!”

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26 Apr 2017

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Accountability, Austerity cuts, Police (local), Scrutiny

PCC Hernandez can’t cope and says she needs a deputy and the deputy might want an assistant!

She already has a Chief Executive Officer (salary £103,602 who seems to spend more time on TV than she does), a treasurer (salary £92,697), more than 20 full-time equivalent staff ten of whom earn more than £33,000 each and three community support workers.

“The embattled Devon and Cornwall Police and Crime Commissioner is considering appointing a deputy.

Ms Hernandez, who is under investigation over 2015 election expenses when she was the agent for Torbay MP Kevin Foster, said: “This is normal practice.”

She would not say how much the deputy would be paid, but a source said it could be in the region of £50,000.

It is not the first time she has mentioned the possibility of a second-in-command – during her campaign she briefly considered recruiting a running mate.

According to sources, the post will attract a salary of £50,000 a year.

Ms Hernandez, who was elected to the position only last year, denied the appointment would be connected to an investigation of her role in an election expenses scandal in Torbay.

Devon county councillor Brian Greenslade said: “It suggests she is preparing the ground in case she is charged with election offences.”

“A deputy would presumably come at a cost so if this happened and she suspended herself while any charges were dealt with would she be suspending receiving her salary?”

However, Ms Hernandez said: “Any decision I make on a deputy will have nothing to do with the ongoing investigation. My intention is to stay in post as being under investigation does not affect me in being able to carry out my duties.”

Tony Hogg, Ms Hernandez’s predecessor, did not appoint a deputy but did receive strategic support from a special adviser.

Ms Hernandez told the WMN: “Half of all police and crime commissioners, of all political colours, have appointed deputies – some also have assistant PCCs as well.”

http://www.devonlive.com/crime-czar-considers-appointing-50k-deputy-but-not-as-placeholder-is-she-is-charged/story-30296747-detail/story.html

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26 Apr 2017

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Accountability, Austerity cuts, Education (local)

Schools funding crisis? Buy cheaper photocopiers says Minister

Who put this lunatic in charge of the asylum? Mrs May.

“Labour MPs have criticised a Department for Education letter that suggests schools could make up their budget shortfalls by purchasing cheaper photocopiers or switching energy suppliers.

In a letter to the Labour MP John Cryer who wrote to raise concerns about the funding shortfall for schools in his constituency, the schools minister Nick Gibb said the government recognised schools “are facing increasing cost pressures” and was providing advice to schools about how to save money.

MPs condemn free schools policy as incoherent and wasteful
“Schools could save, on average, up to 10% by making use of our national energy deal and over 40% by using the national deal for printers and photocopiers,” the minister wrote. Other suggestions included following advice on better staff deployment from the Education Endowment Fund and the government’s school buying strategy.

Cryer said the comments showed the department was “living in a fantasy world, utterly divorced from the reality in our schools” and said one school in his constituency was set to lose £960,055 in real terms over the next four years.

Schools in Waltham Forest, part of Cryer’s east London constituency, face real-terms budget cuts of £21m between 2016 and 2020 – based on increased costs of £17m from unfunded new cost pressures such as the government’s apprenticeship levy in addition to around £4.3m from changes to the national funding formula for schools, according to the local authority’s calculation.

“The government is clearly in complete denial about the impact its policies are having on schools,” Cryer said. …

On Wednesday, the public accounts committee accused the DfE of an “incoherent and too often poor value for money” free schools programme while the existing school estate – much of which is more than 40 years old – is falling into disrepair. The report found that an estimated £7bn was needed to restore it to a satisfactory condition.

During its inquiry, the committee heard evidence from headteachers about the state of their buildings, with one describing how on windy days, dust from asbestos ceiling tiles would fall and students had to go to an emergency van to be decontaminated. The school has since moved into a new building.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/26/cash-strapped-schools-could-switch-energy-suppliers-minister-nick-gibb

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25 Apr 2017

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Accountability, Austerity cuts, Business Rates, Economy, EDDC, Knowle/Honiton/Exmouth relocation

Some councils on verge of bankruptcy ?

And still our council wants £10 million from us for a new HQ …

” … Nothing can disguise the real crisis in local government. With councils facing a £5.8bn funding gap by 2020 – when, ominously, they are all supposed to move towards self-financing, without direct government grants – the Local Government Association has warned that even if councils abandoned road repairs, stopped maintaining parks and open spaces, closed all libraries, museums and children’s centres, and stopped funding bus services, they might still not plug the hole.

Recently, the National Audit Office warned that the government was not on track to make councils self-sufficient, with the “financial sustainability” of English local government at risk through poor (central) planning. With councils due to retain income generated from all business rates – currently raised locally and redistributed nationally – there’s little forthcoming from ministers on how the councils with low tax bases can be expected to survive. …”

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/apr/25/metro-mayors-local-government-cuts

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Austerity cuts, Coastal communities, EDDC, Exmouth

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Exmouth band forced from bandstand charity concerts due to EDDC price hike

” … this year the band has been forced to find a new venue following East Devon District Council’s decision to raise the charge from around £45 for the season to £189.60.

It comes at the same time as a new stipulation in East Devon District Council’s terms of use states that 30 per cent of all admission revenue for all events on council property must be given to the council.”

http://www.devonlive.com/new-rules-grossly-unfair-as-exmouth-town-band-forced-to-find-new-home/story-30292007-detail/story.html

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Accountability, Austerity cuts, Inequality

Council neighbourhood services – a thing of the past

“English councils’ spending on neighbourhood services, such as bins, planning, potholes and leisure, has fallen by more than £3bn in the past five years, research has found.

A report, published by the benchmarking group, the Association for Public Service Excellence (Apse), says the huge cuts to funding and the wide variations between authorities in funding services were “changing the very nature of local government.”

The reductions amount to a dismantling of universal services that are the most high-profile, core functions of local government, the report says. “These services need defending in their own right as part of wider defence of local government as a whole.”

The most deprived council areas have seen the biggest falls in spending in these services – up to 22% on average over five years among the most deprived fifth of authorities, compared with just 5% among the wealthiest, research shows.

Hundreds of children’s playgrounds in England close due to cuts
The poorest areas had an especially sharp spending fall in, for example, food and water safety inspection, road safety and school crossings, community centres and services aimed at cutting crime – such as CCTV – and support for local bus services.

There were wide variations across the country, with some councils cutting neighbourhood services by 40% while others have increased these budgets by 20%.

The cuts to neighbourhood services have taken place against a backdrop of unprecedented cuts in local government spending as a share of the economy. In 2010-11, it accounted for 8.4% of the economy, falling to 6.7% by 2015-16. By 2020-21, it will be down to 5.7%, a 60-year low, the report says.

Although much of the political focus of local government cuts has been on social care services, the impact on neighbourhood services, which include highways and transport, cultural services, environmental services and planning, has been far greater, the report says.

Spending on neighbourhood services in England fell £3.1bn, or 13%, between 2010-11 and 2015-16 at a time when social care spending increased by £2.3bn.

“Neighbourhood services should be on an equal footing to other public services and not viewed as a painless option for more cuts in local spending,” the report says. …”

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/apr/25/spending-on-council-services-in-england-fell-3bn-in-past-five-years-study-bin-collections-local-government