Posted by

Posted on

30 Jun 2016

Posted under

Affordable and Social Housing, Austerity cuts, Economy, Post-Brexit Adjustments

The law of unintended consequences strikes yet again

“The fallout from last week’s vote to leave the European Union is rattling business and finance, far and wide. One aftershock is being felt at the European Investment Bank.

The EIB is owned by the 28 member states of the EU. The UK, alongside Germany, France and Italy, is among its largest shareholders, with about 16%.

The bank provides finance to a wide range of projects around Europe, with a particular focus on areas like infrastructure, social housing, renewable energy and education. It invested £5.6bn (6.7bn euros) in the UK last year and has ploughed £42bn (50bn euros) into the country over the last decade.
But after the Leave vote, there may already be a freeze descending on some new investment.

The good news is that the EIB says that its recent deals in the UK should proceed as planned. Those include funding to an automotive parts business in County Durham, to Swansea University, to housing associations in Northern Ireland and to an off-shore windfarm in Scotland.

But the EIB told Newsnight that the uncertainty created by the vote to leave the EU means that some UK projects, which previously would have stood a good chance, are now less likely to be approved.

There are reasons why the EIB might be cautious. It is unclear whether the UK could or would remain a shareholder after it leaves the EU. That might depend on the form of its relationship with the remaining 27 members. The situation is unprecedented and the EIB’s statue doesn’t contain any guidance or provisions for a shareholder leaving the EU.

Where does the money go? EIB lending to UK 2011-2015:

Energy – 28%
Transport – 25%
Water, sewerage, solid waste, urban development – 25%
Industry, services, agriculture – 7%
Education, health – 11%
Small and medium-scale projects – 4%

Source: EIB”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36668129

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

28 Jun 2016

Posted under

Austerity cuts, Post-Brexit Adjustments, West Dorset

Oh Lord No: Letwin to head Brexit unit in Whitehall!

Cabinet Office minister Oliver Letwin is to lead a cross-Whitehall unit to prepare for Brexit ahead of the election of David Cameron’s replacement as prime minister.

Cameron told MPs yesterday that the EU unit would bring together officials and policy expertise from across the Cabinet Office, the Treasury, the Foreign Office and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

He said the Brexit negotiations would be the “most complex and most important task that the British civil service has undertaken in decades”, so the unit would report to the whole Cabinet on delivering the outcome of the referendum. This will include objectively exploring options for the UK’s future relationship with Europe and the rest of the world from outside the EU.

This will ensure the new prime minister, who is set to be chosen by 2 September, would have the best possible advice from the moment of their arrival, he told MPs.”

http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2016/06/letwin-helm-whitehall-brexit-team

OLIVER LETWIN

“According to official government documents from 1985, released in December 2014 under the 30 years rule, Letwin recommended the Prime Minister to “use Scotland as a trail-blazer for the pure residence charge”, i.e. the controversial Community Charge or ‘Poll tax’, having trialled it there first, and to implement it nationwide should “the exemplifications prove… it is feasible.”

Another 1985 internal memo released in December 2015 showed Letwin’s response to the Broadwater Farm riot, which blamed the violence on the “bad moral attitudes” of the predominantly Afro-Caribbean rioters, claiming that “lower-class, unemployed white people lived for years without a breakdown of public order on anything like the present scale”. It also criticised some of the schemes proposed to address inner-city problems, suggesting David Young’s proposed scheme to support black entrepreneurs would founder because the money would be spent on the “disco and drug trade”. Letwin later apologised, saying that parts of the memo had been “both badly worded and wrong.”

Letwin coauthored Britain’s biggest enterprise: ideas for radical reform of the NHS, a 1988 Centre for Policy Studies pamphlet written with John Redwood which advocated a closer relationship between the National Health Service and the private sector. This is regarded as providing a theoretical justification for NHS reforms carried out by subsequent governments, particularly the Health and Social Care Act 2012.

Letwin unsuccessfully stood against Diane Abbott at the 1987 election for Hackney North and Stoke Newington and against Glenda Jackson for the Hampstead and Highgate seat in the 1992 election.

He went on to win the historically safe Conservative seat of West Dorset at the 1997 general election, although he only achieved a majority of 1,840 votes over the next candidate. …

… May 2005, Letwin was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The Times reported that he had requested a role less onerous than his former treasury brief so that he would have time to pursue his career in the City. Until December 2009, he was a non-executive director of the merchant bank NM Rothschild Corporate Finance Ltd.

Following the decision by Michael Howard to stand down as Conservative Party leader after the 2005 election, Letwin publicly backed the youngest candidate and eventual winner David Cameron.

EXPENSES

The Daily Telegraph reported in 2009 that Letwin agreed to repay a bill for £2,145 for replacing a leaking pipe under the tennis court at his constituency home in Dorset, which he had claimed on his parliamentary expenses.

Public Sector Reform
Speaking to consultancy firm KPMG on 27 July 2011, Letwin caused controversy after stating that you cannot have “innovation and excellence” without “real discipline and some fear on the part of the providers” in the public sector. This was widely reported, with The Guardian headline stating Letwin says ‘public sector workers need “discipline and fear”‘.

Government Document Disposal
In October 2011 the Daily Mirror reported a story that Letwin had thrown away more than 100 secret government documents in public bins in St. James’s Park, with no real care to dispose of them properly.[31][32] Enquiries made by the Information Commissioner’s Office found that Letwin did not dispose of any government documents; they were in fact his constituents’ personal and confidential letters to him and did breach data protection rules.[33] Letwin later apologised for his actions.

In 2003, The Independent reported comments Letwin had made saying that he would “go out on the streets and beg” rather than send his children to the state schools in Lambeth where he and his family lived.

After two strangers on his London street had asked if they could use his lavatory in 2002, and he agreed to let them do so, they then stole his credit cards and other belongings. He retrieved his credit cards after chasing the accomplices in his dressing gown and pyjamas.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Letwin#Political_career

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

28 Jun 2016

Posted under

Accountability, Austerity cuts, Democracy, Economy, Environment (local), General Election, Hugo Swire, Neil Parish, Post-Brexit Adjustments

Claire Wright: even more important that MPs represent their constituency

“Brexit: It is now more important than ever that this country has MPs who will represent the people

Tuesday, 28 June 2016 1 Comment by Claire

Since Friday events have moved so fast I haven’t even written a blog as each time I think of an angle it gets superseded by another major news story!

The only clear thing among all the chaos and confusion, is that this country has probably never been more divided – politically and socially – and in my view, more in peril than at any other time in living memory.

The party system seems to have totally fractured. Not only has the Conservative parliamentary party become bitterly broken, the Labour party is also at war.

Last Friday morning I felt shellshocked and upset that we had left an institution I believed worked for the greater good, despite its many faults. Since then I have watched fascinated as the subsequent dramatic events unfolded.

The economic fallout came swiftly and is very worrying. The value of the pound has plummeted to a 31 year low, we are told that the UK’s credit rating has been downgraded from a triple A to a double A rating, we have dropped from being the fifth largest economy in the world to the fourth and the Bank of England is on standby to pump £250bn of public money into the markets to reduce the jitters currently reverberating across the globe from our EU exit.

More than £200bn has been wiped from the value of the UK stock market – equivalent to 24 years worth of EU contributions.

A general election is now looking possible in October, to tie in with the selection of a new prime minister.

Lies and exaggeration were undoubtedly the order of the day for both the Leave and Remain campaigns, but what is really galling to me is that the Leave movement won people over on false pretences. On the NHS and immigration in particular – two major planks of their operation, their claims have been found to be resoundingly untrue.

The Remain campaign focused too much on scaremongering and too little on how the EU helps us, which only riled people and forced them into entrenched positions , setting family member and friend against one another.

The conservative IN bandwagon, seemed to be blinkered on issues mainly linked to the economy and immigration, discounting all the positive things that the EU does for us, for example on employment, the environment and human rights for example. I believe that this was because these are the issues that are not valued by the right wing political elite that we currently have governing this country.

David Cameron’s supposedly one nation conservative cabinet, which campaigned WITH big business against a ban on bee killing pesticides, has already scrapped or weakened as many environmental protections as it can get away with. Planning regulations are now as relaxed and in favour of developers as they have been since the introduction of the Town and Country Planning Act in 1947.

With a future hardline right wing government on the cards, possibly led by the current favourite Boris Johnson, the likelihood of the current protections remaining for our seas, clean air, recycling, waste and for rare species, landscapes and plants – the Habitats Regulations – is remote.

Over the past few years the Conservative government has lobbied to scrap the EU Habitats Regulations – tough laws which protect some of our most precious landscapes here in East Devon, such as Woodbury Common, Aylesbeare Common, the Exe Estuary, as well as large swathes of Dartmoor.

However, despite the Habitats Regulations protecting our most rare and precious species such as the dartford warbler and the nightjar, our government announced the laws were “gold plated,” and lobbied the EU hard to get them scrapped.

The EU has so far held firm to these regulations, which also mean strong planning rules in these areas , as well as the surrounding countryside.

But I now can see on the horizon an inevitable and horrible ‘bonfire of red tape’ as a new right wing conservative leadership sets about dismantling anything that it views as in the way of “growth.”

So what is the future of East Devon now most of the country has voted to leave?

In my own council ward of Ottery, there must now be question marks for a controversial quarry proposed at Straitgate Farm, which was quietly looking less likely, due in part to the strict Habitats Regulations Protecting Woodbury Common, where Blackhill Quarry is based and where stone and gravel processing currently takes place. It was due to cease as of the end of this year because of these laws.

What will Brexit mean for East Devon’s two biggest industries? Agriculture and tourism? And what will it mean for education? What does it mean for our cash strapped NHS and our local very much at risk
community hospitals?

What will it mean for the most vulnerable people in the constituency and those on low incomes?

Certainly, both agriculture and education are forced to rely on EU subsidies and grants.

Prolonged economic hardship will surely mean even deeper public spending cuts, yet deeper cuts to public services, which as always, will have the biggest effect on those people who have the least.

If a general election does take place in October, the future of our district – and the rest of the country – rests with those politicians examining thousands of pages of EU law and policy with a view to changing, scrapping or tightening it.

The future of our vulnerable residents also rests with MPs who have a duty to stand up for people who need help and support.

East Devon’s MP needs speak and vote in favour or against new laws and policies based on how they affect local people. That’s voting FOR the people of East Devon, not his party.

Each MP has a duty, in my view, to be a diligent scrutineer of this process.

What laws or policies do we want in East Devon that will benefit us, our communities, our wildlife and our businesses? Now is the time to consider this very carefully.

If democracy is working effectively people in East Devon should have the opportunity to influence such discussions through our MP.

And our MP has a responsibility to stand up for the people of East Devon and what they see as their priorities, especially at this very turbulent time.

The question has to be as ever. Is Mr Swire up to the job?”

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

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

27 Jun 2016

Posted under

Accountability, Austerity cuts, DCC, Devolution, EDDC, EU Referendum, Local Enterprise Partnership

EDDC, DCC, LEP – tell us how Brexit will ( or will not ) affect us

Owl eagerly awaits the pronouncements of:

Paul Diviani – EDDC
John Hart – Devon County Council
and
Chris Garcia – Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership

on how leaving the EU will affect our locality, their plans and their budgets.

You did all have a Plan B for this eventuality didn’t you?

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

25 Jun 2016

Posted under

Affordable and Social Housing, Austerity cuts, Developers/ Development, East Devon Growth Point, EDDC, EU Referendum, Hinkley C, Housing (local), Land Supply, Local Plan, Post-Brexit Adjustments

Comments

2 Comments

Brexit, developers, local plans and devolution

So, we voted out – and suddenly housebuilders (developers) shares plunged by 40%.

There does not seem to be an immediate link with voting out, but there is. We are in for an unstable time. There will be a recession and pundits differ only on whether it will be short (around 2 years) or long (anywhere from 5-20 years depending on who you listen to). House prices will reflect this by falling and mortgage rates may well rise, pushing some into negative equity and others wary of buying in case they fall into negative equity.

Housebuilders will also need to factor in higher import costs coming in the near future when EU trade reduces and new trade agreements have not begun, along with a local skills gap as workers from the EU dry up. Plus likely (possibly temporary)increases in income tax to cover lost government income from (again possibly temporary) shrinking markets. Not to mention higher unemployment benefits to those whose jobs currently depend directly and indirectly on those employers who would normally benefit from being in the EU.

To compound this, many developers have recently taken their huge profits out of their businesses by giving their directors massive bonuses.

All these factors cause a “perfect storm” for Local Plans and the general East Devon economy. Our Local Plan is predicated on continuous growth and increasing employment, fuelling a constant demand for new housing. And, more worryingly, there are penalties if this does not happen. If we (and all other councils) do not maintain a 5-year land supply, we are penalised by having our housing numbers INCREASED by 20%.

Another complication is that, currently, our council (and others) depend for income on the government’s “New Homes Bonus” – the more new homes it gets a developer to build, the more income it gets.

All this conspires to suddenly make our local plans hardly worth the paper they were written on.

Then there is devolution – which in Devon and Somerset also highly depends on housebuilding – having “promised” an extra 176,000 houses over and above Local Plans, and also dependent on continuous growth and constantly increasing employment. It is no coincidence that the Chairman of our Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP: the lead in the devolution bid) is Chairman of big developer, Midas.

Our LEP was also promised “jam tomorrow” funds (over 30 years) from the government AND anticipated masses of EU funding, all riding on the back of a new Hinkley C nuclear power station. All other devolved areas were given similar promises.

Our new government will now have its hands full attempting to negotiate its way out of the EU, rewriting or scrapping those EU laws we have (including those on environmental protection and workers rights) and trying desperately to work out where this notional extra £350 million a week is eventually going to be spent. It has already been promised to the health service, areas currently in receipt of EU regeneration funding and academic research programmes currently supported by EU grants. That is simply an arithmetical nightmare and almost certainly an impossibility.

This leaves East Devon in a precarious position: heavily dependant on new housebuilding and continuous year on year economic growth with constant employment growth and receipt of funds from a distracted government which has also promised to stem immigration – many having voted for this as its first priority. These two priorities will mean little time for other things. Not to mention having to deal at the same time with the implications of Scotland and Northern Ireland’s differing position on their future in the UK and EU.

The Local Plan and devolution deals are now almost certainly of much lower priority to this beleaguered government and this may well lead to unintended consequences the like of which our council and our LEP can only imagine and for which they have no plan B.

Many warned that economic growth and increasing employment between now and 2030, when our local plan ends, was unattainable and that at least one event would intervene for which there was no contingency. Few expected it to happen quite so quickly.

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

24 Jun 2016

Posted under

Accountability, Austerity cuts, Democracy, Post-Brexit Adjustments, Spin, Transparency, Voting

Will the demand for ” sovreignty” mean an end to secondary legislation?

This was published by the Daily Telegraph a few days ago, and now Brexit is a reality it should be read with new eyes:

“Perhaps the most powerfully held aspiration for Brexiteers is to restore UK parliamentary sovereignty: in the words of Michael Gove, to “take back control” and, of John Redwood, for Britain to “be a democracy again .

But what would this “taking back control” mean in practice? Brexiteers imply that while EU legislation is “imposed”, Westminster parliamentarians control non-EU law-making through active debates and votes.

Except they don’t, because for voters what impacts on their lives most is not primary legislation – Bills – on which parliamentarians can vote, but the meaningful detail of the Bills, which Whitehall civil servants and ministers increasingly choose to hide in secondary legislation (sometimes called delegated legislation of Statutory Instruments – SIs).

The scale of this was estimated for the Lords by former minister Baroness Andrews:

“80 per cent of the laws as they impact on individuals are transported through statutory instruments, whether that is welfare benefits, food safety, planning requirements or competition across the NHS…”

Essentially Whitehall civil servants and ministers are defining important laws as “secondary legislation” in order to subvert the ability of parliament to choose whether to pass or not to pass laws.

Brexit is no guarantee of British control of its own destiny or of parliamentary sovereignty because our parliament is not in control.

SIs are rarely debated, and historic Westminster procedure means they cannot be amended. The idea that parliament meaningfully votes to “pass” them is no more real than the idea that the Queen gets to decide the content of the Queens Speech.

The problem is not new. An official Parliamentary report published in 2011 found that the last time the House of Commons rejected a SI was in 1979; it appears from the Hansard record that the rejection of this SI may have been a mistake.

The House of Lords, despite a 1994 resolution affirming its ‘unfettered freedom to vote on any subordinate legislation’, has voted down secondary legislation on only three occasions in the last half-century.

That one reason why the Lords’ hard line on the tax credits SIs in October 2015 caused such consternation in government and David Cameron to appoint Lord Strathclyde to review Lords powers and recommend further action.

The erosion of parliamentary sovereignty by the growing use of secondary legislation and “Henry VIII clauses” (which give ministers powers to change primary legislation through Statutory Instruments and thereby bypass the need for parliamentary votes) to reduce the parliamentary accountability of ministers and Whitehall civil servants was dubbed “The New Despotism” in a book by Lord Hewart of Bury, Lord Chief Justice of England and former Attorney General, published as long ago as 1929.

This would not change outside the EU. The problem was just as real before Britain joined the European Community.

Labour MP Willie Hamilton told parliament in the 1971 European Community accession debate:

“A great deal goes on even now under our own eyes that we do not know about… some 2,000 Statutory Instruments, which have legislative effect, go through this House every year and only a handful of them are debated. This is already government by default. In that sense this House, voluntarily and negligently, has surrendered a large part of its sovereignty to the Executive…. Much play has been made of the decision-making by the bureaucrats in Brussels. Things are not as simple as that. What about our own faceless bureaucrats in Whitehall? What part does this House play now in making policy decisions and in framing legislation? We have none at all. Everybody is consulted except us. Therefore, let us not pretend there will be any serious derogation there when we get into Europe.”

Some Brexiteers, notably Douglas Carswell, have a track-record of championing democratic accountability in Britain’s Westminster parliament. But they are the exceptions. Most are happy to indulge a Westminster parliamentary processes and rules more akin to Mornington Crescent than to cricket. Westminster “parliamentary sovereignty” would be no more certain of “returning control” to British voters, than a sovereign British space programme would be of sending a union-jack adorned rocket to Mars and getting it back in one piece.

That is nothing to do with the EU – if voters do back Brexit to “take back control” they could find themselves holding a political pudding whose democratic promise has been significantly over-egged.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/19/brexit-wont-return-power-to-mps-in-parliament-because-parliament/

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

24 Jun 2016

Posted under

Accountability, Austerity cuts, Democracy, Devolution, Local Enterprise Partnership, Post-Brexit Adjustments

Comments

1 Comment

And the first devolution worries appear …

“The devolution genie is out of the bottle. As we debate our future sovereignty there needs to be a strong role for local governance.

So now we know. Or do we? The UK faces months of uncertainty as the consequences of the Brexit vote, followed by David Cameron’s own exit, play out.

As all eyes turn to messy wrangling at Westminster, where does this leave local government? At this moment, the sector needs its voice heard, and clearly.

As a priority, local government needs a seat at the table as the financial and legal implications of Brexit are considered. The sector needs clarity over the replacement of nearly £6bn of European Structural Investment Funds invested in regional infrastructure, skills and youth unemployment schemes across the country. These funds play an important but largely hidden role in community infrastructure, with little public understanding of them. A Leave-led government will need to commit to continuing these or face huge local disruption. Beyond that, the practical implications for local government in legal and regulatory terms over huge swathes of activity – procurement, waste collection and disposal, energy efficiency – will need to be understood by those navigating the consequences of working outside EU directives.

Secondly, the future of devolution is by no means certain. George Osborne’s political future remains as bound to Cameron’s as it has ever been and so is now in serious doubt. Since devolution to date has been driven by a chancellor who invested his personal political capital in the agenda, local government now needs to make the policy resistant to personnel change at the Treasury. Whatever happens at Westminster and Whitehall, the impending invocation of Article 50 and ensuing trade negotiations will consume the energy of SW1 – so new and deeper devo deals will be much harder for the foreseeable future.

Thirdly, the repatriation of powers from Brussels to the UK will strengthen the supremacy of Parliament. It is likely that Scotland and Northern Ireland’s Remain majorities raise questions about their future within the UK. Local government in England needs to make sure any constitutional discussion does not stop at the national level and addresses how we are governed more fully. The Referendum vote lay bare the geographical divides within England and the alienation of swathes of the country from the Westminster establishment.

It is clear that representative democracy as we know it is in crisis – to ensure legitimate government in the future we need a serious discussion about where power lies and how our communities can have more influence in their own future. For those of us who are localists this is a given – but the terms of the national debate are not yet set in this way and they need to be. Local government needs to be heard.

Over the coming months there will be more opportunity for this. Continued dysfunction at Westminster, with both main parties divided from the Referendum fallout, gives an opportunity for local leadership to stand out on the national stage as never before. By the end of this year, candidates for new directly elected mayors will be in place and many of our city and county regions will have the opportunity to decide the future of their places. Will this help to shift the centre of political and constitutional gravity away from Westminster? Can we breathe new life into our struggling national democratic culture? Time will tell, but it is likely that the politics and kinetic energy generated by the referendum will continue and may influence these elections in ways we cannot yet foresee.

As we continue a national discussion over what sovereignty looks like, we need to make sure there is a strong local dimension which gives life to the rich diversity of our nation of cities and shires. The devolution genie is already out of the bottle and even as the Westminster bubble bursts, stronger local governance has the opportunity to take on a new life of its own. The future legitimacy of our democracy may well depend on it.”

http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/opinion/2016/06/brexit-raises-questions-about-osbornes-devo-push

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

20 Jun 2016

Posted under

Austerity cuts, NHS (local)

Comments

1 Comment

NHS: fewer beds per 100,000 patients than Rumania, France, Belgium, Germany, Austria and Irish Republic

“Britain has half as many hospital beds for its population as Romania, leading doctors have said, amid warnings that NHS trusts are “bulging at the seams”.

Consultants said bed shortages meant they could only do only a third of the operations they were able to carry out in the 1960s.

Doctors at British Medical Association (BMA)’s annual meeting said patients were being harmed by cuts which have left Britain with far fewer beds than almost every country in Europe.

They called for an “urgent re-evaluation” of bed numbers, amid fears that plans to tackle a spiralling deficit could endanger patients further.

Dr Mary McCarthy, a GP from Shropshire, said hospital bed numbers had been “steadily eroded” without the corresponding increase in help to support people in their own homes.

She said: “The UK has less than 300 beds per 100,000 population and in Shropshire, where I am, it’s less than 200.”

Speaking to the conference in Belfast, she said: “In the Irish Republic a few miles south of here it’s about 500, in Belgium it’s over 650, in France it’s over 700, in Germany it’s over 800, in Austria it’s over 700, in Romania it’s over 600.

“Do we really need to keep cutting beds? Are we not finding that our hospitals are bulging at the seams with people who should be there but are discharged home too early and unsafely?” she asked fellow doctors.

Dr Michael Hardingham, an ear, nose and throat surgeon, from Cheltenham, said: “I have been working long enough to remember that working in the 1960s … I did at least twice as many cases in a day’s work – possibly three times – and this is largely due to difficulties with beds.”

‘Patients are being harmed because they are being sent home as there are no beds available’

Dr Michael Hardingham, an ear, nose and throat surgeon, from Cheltenham
“The recovery wards get blocked up because they can’t move people out into the hospital beds, and so patients who have been booked just have to be sent home,” he warned.

Doctors said children and families often had to travel long distances to find a paediatric bed, while hospitals were repeatedly diverting patients, after declaring a “black alert”.

“Patients are being harmed because they are being sent home as there are no beds available,” the doctor warned.

A motion calling for the dwindling numbers of beds to be “urgently re-evaluated” was passed with an overwhelming majority.

Dr Mark Porter, BMA Council chairman, suggested the NHS was taking too many risks in paring back bed numbers, with average bed occupancy now above safe levels.

“If average bed occupancy goes up above about 85 per cent there can be a rise in the risk of cross infection between patients, and it is less likely that an appropriate bed will be available for acute patients as they come in,” he said.

“While this policy might make sense if you are looking for short term cuts, it can have serious implications for quality and cost of care in the longer term. We need to carefully monitor the number of beds available and ensure that we are putting patients first when it comes to deciding how many beds are available in the NHS.”

NHS figures show the number of beds available each day has dropped from more than 144,000 in 2010/11 to less than 132,000 in 2014/15.

Earlier, Dr Porter said that claims being made by the Vote Leave camp were “farsical and fatuous.”

Katherine Murphy, chief executive of the Patients Association said: “At the very heart of the NHS is the ability to treat patients in a professional, caring and dignified manner. We can’t do this if we are unable to provide patients with hospital beds.

“Clearly there is an urgent need to address the funding issues that plague our NHS, as it is ultimately patients who end up suffering due to lack of proper investment,” she added.

Mike Adamson, British Red Cross chief executive said: “Increasing more beds alone will not help solve this problem. This country is facing a social care crisis. Without the proper care systems in place to return people home, thousands of patients will continue to be stuck in limbo.

“No one chooses to be stuck on a hospital bed when they could be in their own homes, rebuilding their lives. The Government has already set aside funds to be invested in health and social care. However, the bulk of this money won’t be available for another two years. These funds are needed now – to support people who are currently stranded in hospital due to the gap in care provision and to help prevent thousands from being admitted to hospital in the first place.”

A spokesperson for NHS England said: “It is important that patients receive the right care, in the right place, at the right time. The hospital is not a home and we know that, when given the choice, patients often prefer to receive care as close to their home as possible.

“It is for local NHS leaders to determine the best mix of care for the populations they serve – they will rightly consider community and home care as well as hospital beds.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/20/nhs-has-fewer-beds-per-head-than-romania-doctors-warn/

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

17 Jun 2016

Posted under

Affordable and Social Housing, Austerity cuts

Comments

2 Comments

The housing crisis … a crisis of failing capitalism

” … across Britain, people are facing a crisis in housing and in basic pay. Headlines about the collapse of BHS and the horrific conditions at Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct have understandably shocked people, but these aren’t mere consequences of one or two rogue businessmen, but the symptoms of rapacious capitalism. The women in the Sports Direct warehouses who went into labour at work did so because work has become precarious, and zero-hours contracts have been allowed to bloom, because of government attacks on workers’ rights both under Labour and, to an increased degree, under the Tories.

If you’re on a zero-hours contract, you’re forced to scrabble for any work possible to pay your rent, accepting conditions most salaried people would walk out over. If you want to take your employer to court for sexual harassment, racial discrimination, or for forcing you out when you announced your pregnancy, you now have to pay to do so. The poorest have been denied justice, as well as decent pay and conditions.

Cuts to benefits, the cataclysmic farce of the universal credit rollout, and the assault on support for disabled people mean that, post-recession, people who struggle to earn a decent wage are denied basic support. The housing crisis is an affordability crisis, but not one that solely lies in the cost of London flats: people across the country simply can’t afford to live. Rents in the north west are lower, but pay is lower still. Geographic inequalities have worsened post-recession, and many areas feel as though they’ve been left behind.

The housing crisis is everywhere, because pay, benefits and working conditions have worsened or been cut. Attacks on unionisation and government defences of zero-hours contracts will do nothing but fuel an already blazing fire. This is a nationwide crisis, because it’s a crisis of capitalism: as long as we subsidise companies for paying poverty wages, whilst blaming low earners for their own poverty, nothing will change.”

http://gu.com/p/4ydh7

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

16 Jun 2016

Posted under

Accountability, Austerity cuts, Council tax

“Councils or company bosses, those in power have a duty of stewardship”

Letter in Guardian:

“Aditya Chakrabortty (Opinion, 14 June) compared my appearance before a Tottenham magistrate [for refusing to pay council tax in protest against cuts to social security] with Philip Green’s appearance before MPs. It is an apt comparison. In both cases the authorities failed to take steps to prevent the kind of disasters facing the pensioners of BHS or the benefit claimants of the London borough of Haringey.

In my case, I asked Grant Thornton, Haringey’s auditors, to take into account the damage done to the wellbeing of many benefit claimants by welfare “reform” when auditing the enforcement costs, now £115, added by the council to the council tax arrears of more than 20,000 households a year. It is a last straw that breaks many hearts already struggling with rent and utility arrears and benefit sanctions .

Grant Thornton replied: “We have no remit … to opine on the impact of this policy on the wellbeing of those required to pay council tax.” Why not? Why didn’t Haringey tell them that the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Communities and Local Government have issued guidance specifically drawing the attention of courts and councils to the vulnerable circumstances of residents. Or Lord Freud tell them that “Four principles have underpinned welfare reforms. First the welfare system should support the elderly, vulnerable and disabled people…”

Reverend Paul Nicolson
Taxpayers Against Poverty”

http://gu.com/p/4yenj

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

14 Jun 2016

Posted under

Accountability, Austerity cuts

Another fat cat getting fatter at our expense

Oh, the joys of unfettered capitalism!

“The boss of Britain’s worst rail company subjecting passengers to daily delays has been awarded a £2million pay deal.

David Brown, chief executive of Go-Ahead, saw a 10 per cent rise in his overall package for June 2014-2015, despite the poor performance of its rail franchises.

It also more than doubled from £924,000 the previous year, and £36.7 million was paid out to shareholders in dividends, up from £34.7 million the year before.

The huge payouts and increase in pay package revealed were branded ‘a national disgrace’ by a union boss.

After the figures emerged, one commuter write on Twitter: ‘Thank you for fleecing the entire commuting public.’

Mr Brown is the boss of Go-Ahead, which runs a number of companies including GTR, the operator of rail franchises Southeastern, Thameslink and Great Northern.

A survey by Which? found that passengers voted it the worst rail company in the country, with a satisfaction rating of just 46 per cent.

GTR also had the most delays and cancellations caused by a lack of train staff between April 1 2013 and December 12 last year with 62,000 incidents, according to Office of Rail and Road figures.

But last year, it warned passengers to expect three more years of misery until renovations to London Bridge station were complete.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3640455/Boss-Britain-s-worst-performing-train-company-awarded-2-1MILLION-pay-deal-branded-national-disgrace.html

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

13 Jun 2016

Posted under

Accountability, Austerity cuts, Devolution, Local Enterprise Partnership

Another devolution difficulty part 2

“MPs criticise government over flood protection plans”

Of interest to those in Sidford, who are being let down by flood protection by inappropriate development.

… “Labour MP Ms Creagh said: “We know that flooding is projected to get worse and occur more frequently because of climate change, so it just isn’t good enough for government to react to flooding events as they occur.

“Communities at risk deserve certainty from government.”
The committee found that funding for flooding fluctuates year-on-year. Funding was initially cut during the last parliament and only increased after the winter floods of 2013-14.

The government has committed to spending £2.3bn on building new defences and to protect spending on maintaining existing defences – but the EAC warned they were “sceptical” the government would reach its target of protecting 300,000 properties, saying it was based on an optimistic forecast that assumed the greatest efficiency in spending decisions.
The committee also said it was surprised to learn the extra £700m funding for flood defences announced in this year’s Budget was based on a “political calculation” and may not be allocated with the same strict economic criteria as the £2.3bn.

The report said that could lead to inefficiencies in flood investments, poor decision-making and outcomes that were potentially unfair to some regions. …

… The condition of critical flood defences is in decline, according to the committee.

Ms Creagh said: “The government needs to put money into the upkeep of existing flood defences as well as investing in new defences. Failure to do so can have terrible consequences for residents and businesses when defences fail.

“Any decline in the condition of critical flood defences represents an unacceptable risk to local communities in flood prone areas. We urge the government to go beyond its current target and aim to have virtually all its critical assets meeting the Environment Agency’s required condition by 2019.”

The committee said it was concerned the government does not know how prepared local authorities are for flooding, with Ms Creagh adding that local authorities “are not receiving the support they need to prepare for, and mitigate, the impacts of flooding”.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36480213

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

7 Jun 2016

Posted under

Austerity cuts

Royal Navy destroyers won’t work in warm water!

“The Royal Navy’s fleet of six £1bn destroyers is breaking down because the ships’ engines cannot cope with the warm waters of the Gulf, defence chiefs have admitted.

They also told the Commons defence committee on Tuesday that the Type 45 destroyers’ Rolls-Royce WR-21 gas turbines are unable to operate in extreme temperatures and will be fitted with diesel generators.

Rolls-Royce executives said engines installed in the Type 45 destroyers had been built as specified – but that the conditions in the Middle East were not “in line with these specs”. …

http://gu.com/p/4kjgz

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

4 Jun 2016

Posted under

Austerity cuts, Democracy

Quote of the day

“Unhappy events … have retaught us two simple truths about the liberty of a democratic people.

The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself.

That, in its essence, is fascism – ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any other controlling private power….

Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing.

The second truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way as to sustain an acceptable standard of living [for everyone].

Both lessons hit home.

Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing.” “

Franklin D Roosevelt, message to the US Congress 1938

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=15637

The rest of the article scarily foreshadows the exact same events today.

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

3 Jun 2016

Posted under

Accountability, Austerity cuts, Tax avoidance, Transparency

Yet another MP rebellion – this time Land Registry privatisation

” … Sixty-five cross-party MPs sign letter written by Labour’s David Lammy saying sale would enable ‘shady offshore entities to buy up property in this country’. …

… The letter, addressed to the business secretary, Sajid Javid, warns: “We need a government that is determined to take serious steps to make it harder for shady offshore entities to buy up property in this country and also make it harder for them to shield themselves from scrutiny and investigation. The privatisation of the Land Registry would achieve the opposite.” …

…mA report by the Times linked all the prospective buyers of the Land Registry with offshore firms, a matter also addressed in the letter. The privatisation plans have been opposed by a wide range of organisations and individuals. A petition run by 38 Degrees has almost reached its target of 300,000 signatures, and organisations speaking out against the plans include the Competition and Markets Authority, solicitors and media firms.”

http://gu.com/p/4k6v9

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

2 Jun 2016

Posted under

Austerity cuts, Brownfield sites, Developers/ Development

Government cuts funds for remediation of brownfield sites

“The government has drastically cut funds needed to encourage new building on “brownfield” sites, despite claiming that such sites would be key to solving the housing crisis.

Many sites that have previously held buildings or other developments need remediation – a process to remove potentially dangerous toxins from the soil – in order to be considered for new houses, of which the government plans to build hundreds of thousands a year to ease the pressure on the UK’s over-stretched stock.

At least 300,000 hectares (741,000 acres) of contaminated land have been identified, according to a report from an influential committee of MPs. Many of these sites could be used for housing, farmland, industry or other developments, which could both ease the housing crisis and reduce the need to claim more of the UK’s diminishing stock of “green belt” or agricultural land for building.

Doing so would require work to remove remaining toxins from the soil, which is technically feasible but carries a cost. To date, that cost has often been borne by the government and local authorities, but the MPs on the environmental audit committee found that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs had drastically cut its funding for remediation, and is planning to phase it out in 2017.

This would discourage developers from planning new building in areas of housing shortage, particularly those in poor areas, the committee heard from experts. In richer areas, hopeful developers frequently pay for decontamination themselves, but in poor districts they rely on the council or central government to do so in order to render the site suitable. …”

http://gu.com/p/4k3c3

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

1 Jun 2016

Posted under

Austerity cuts

Comments

2 Comments

86% of council CEOs fear coming serious financial trouble

“Some 86% of council chief executives fear that some local authorities will get into serious financial trouble over the next three years, while 56% expect that to happen within one year, research has suggested.

The Local State We’re In 2016, business advisory group PwC’s sixth such survey, asked nearly 100 chief executives and local authority leaders about the challenges facing them.

It found 81% expected some local authorities would fail to deliver essential services over the next three years.
Only 64% of chief executives were confident of making necessary financial savings over the next year without seriously affecting the quality of service delivery – and just 13% thought this performance could be sustained over the next five years.

Fewer than half of councils were prepared for the shift to full business rates retention, though council leaders were slightly more confident about this than chief executives.

PwC’s local government leader Chris Buttress said: “There is real shift in emphasis this year – a focus away from delivering ‘cuts’ towards making interventions that underpin regional economic ‘growth’ and public sector reform. However, leaders and chief executives also recognise the magnitude of the financial struggle and the necessity to find solutions, as the shift continues from grant reliance to self-sufficiency.”

Despite the Government heralding a ‘devolution revolution’, the survey found optimism about progress on this had waned, with only 20% confident of gaining more powers by 2020 against 33% a year earlier.

Although 69% of respondents expected to be part of a combined authority by 2020, only 36% believed this would be overseen by an elected mayor, despite the Government’s enthusiasm for this model. …”

http://localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=27148%3Achief-execs-fear-councils-heading-into-serious-financial-trouble-within-one-year&catid=59&Itemid=27

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: