A couple of the rooms at the current EDDC HQ.
Wonder how many things have already been auctioned off to councillors and staff?
Category Archives: Conflict of interest
Plundering of Knowle assets by councillors? Best value?
It appears that councillors and officers have been given first dibs of Knowle assets, in advance of the move to Honiton and one of them has rather jumped the gun on claiming his prize.
Is this best value or equitable, Owl ponders? As does at least one independent councillor.
Note: Neither of these emails were marked private and/or confidential when acquired by Owl.
From a well-known Conservative councillor:
Subject: Re; Large Table In Members Area
“Dear Members and SMT,
Subject: Re; Large Table In Members Area
You will all be aware there has been an auction of council furniture, chattels etc of which I bid for a few bits and pieces.
I bid on behalf of my partner for the very large table in the members area along with the 20 green chairs that we all sit around.
I have been told that I have been successful in my bid so the table along with the 8’ extension is heading back to Exmouth to sit in (address of councillor), Exmouth in its rightful Town (some may say).
The relevance of my informing yourselves is that the rightful date of removal is end of January/ beginning of February when we finally ‘pull out of the Knowle.
I would apologise for the short notice but we have 22 family members to Christmas dinner and would like to pick the table up tomorrow as it appears it is the last day of our offices being open, which of course would mean I couldn’t collect it on Monday, 24th, as we will be closed.
We do have one or two meetings between the New Year and our final pull out but I feel it only right to ask members if indeed anybody felt offended if it was collected tomorrow on our last day.
I will fully respect any position any member may feel regarding it being removed earlier and would kindly request your thoughts.
If indeed it were removed earlier I have spoken to Simon Allchurch who feels we could put a few of the red tables on wheels in the place of the table and there is an array of chairs to use for members in the interim so it doesn’t look bare.
I must again apologise for the short notice but with the closing date being the 19th and all that goes with it at this time of year I would like to think you may grant me a little latitude (or not).
Best wishes and a Happy Xmas to one and all.”
And here is the response from an Independent councillor
“I feel I must reiterate my comment from when this started. Who authorised the ‘private sale’ of Council property to staff and members? Why are we not duty-bound to seek the best price at public auction? No-one answered my questions.
Will we ever know the proceeds of this internal sale for the public record?”
I strongly suspect that members of the public would be shocked to know that councillors have been able to buy items in this way. It is somehow appropriate that 22 family members will sit down to feast at this table, assuming the removal goes ahead.”
Auditing watchdog to be axed – not fit for purpose
“The watchdog which oversees Britain’s tainted auditors will be scrapped after it was branded a ‘ramshackle house’ in a report.
The Financial Reporting Council will be shut down and replaced with a new organisation under different leadership, after former civil servant Sir John Kingman uncovered a litany of problems.
Kingman’s findings – in a study commissioned by the Business Secretary Greg Clark – are a vindication for campaigners who have spent years warning the FRC is not up to the job.
Kingman, an ex-Treasury mandarin who is chairman of Legal & General, said the FRC lacks transparency, is too dependent on the goodwill of big auditors for funding and has been damaged by constant leaks of information.
In his report he calls for:
■ A new regulator with a beefed-up regime to take action against failing bean counters and much shorter investigations to minimise delay;
■ Blanket bans on accountants who join the watchdog from overseeing their former employers;
■ A requirement for auditors to report any serious financial problems at companies they oversee;
■ Powers for the regulator to boot out a firm’s auditor if they have concerns it is not doing a proper job.
The FRC has been slammed for repeatedly letting auditors off the hook over accounting scandals, from Tesco to failed bank HBOS.
It came in for criticism earlier this year after the collapse of outsourcer Carillion was missed by accountants.
Kingman said: ‘What this spotlight has revealed is an institution constructed in a different era – a rather ramshackle house, cobbled together with all sorts of extensions over time. The house is – just – serviceable, up to a point, but it leaks and creaks, sometimes badly.
‘The inhabitants of the house have sought to patch and mend. But in the end, the house is built on weak foundations. It is time to build a new house.’ “
“Berkeley Group [housing developer] bosses were accused of engaging in years of bribery”
Owl says: cannot recall using the category “Sleaze” so often as in the last few weeks.
“Bosses at the housebuilding firm Berkeley Group were accused of engaging in years of bribery with a partner at a major estate agent, according to papers filed in a pair of lawsuits brought against Berkeley by a former finance director in 2014 and 2015.
The claim was among numerous “whistleblowing” allegations by Nicolas Simpkin, 49, who served on the board of the £2.7bn turnover company from 2009 until he was fired in 2014.
Berkeley paid £9.5m to Simpkin in an out-of-court settlement, according to the company’s annual report published in August. It also stated that the allegations had been withdrawn as part of the deal. On Wednesday, Berkeley said the settlement had been reached after it had “thoroughly” investigated the allegations and found them to be “unfounded”.
After an acrimonious dismissal in September 2014, Simpkin filed an unfair dismissal case the following December and then a 2015 breach of contract case in the high court.
According to court documents in the second case, Simpkin had made a series of whistleblowing allegations in his 2014 case, all of which were denied by Berkeley. The company argued that Simpkin had failed to raise and act on his claims. As the cases were settled, none of the allegations were ever tested and they remain unproven.
High court papers obtained by the Guardian and the investigative website Finance Uncovered show that Simpkin accused Berkeley’s chairman, Tony Pidgley, who earned £174m from the company over the previous decade, of being “consistently engaged in bribing one of the partners in a major estate agency with whom Berkeley Group regularly dealt in relation to land acquisitions” between 2005 and 2010.
The documents further detail how Simpkin claimed that “this bribery included” Pidgley “making expensive gifts” to the estate agency partner; extending a Berkeley loan to the same partner, which the housebuilder’s “managing director [Rob Perrins] later … instructed the then financial controller to write off”; and allowing Berkeley to carry out work at the estate agency partner’s property “without the partner being properly charged”.
According to the court papers Simpkin said he had been “staggered” when he was told in 2011 that the loan had been written off four years earlier.
While Simpkin withdrew his legal cases as part of the out-of-court settlement, the substance of the allegations remains in court filings because Berkeley Group used a 113-page high court defence document to dismiss its former director’s claims.
In those papers, Berkeley said the facts underpinning many of his allegations were wrong, as it also denied his claims that between 2005 and 2014:
• Pidgley benefitted from “around” £660,000 of Berkeley Group’s money that had been “intended to be used on fitting out” one of the chairman’s luxury London flats “on the pretence the flat was to be used as a show home”.
• Berkeley’s staff were “pressurised to make false claims to recover VAT in relation to [Pidgley’s] property”.
• There had been “inappropriate payments by the Berkeley Group” to Pidgley’s son.
• Perrins had “deliberately and unlawfully provided quantities of non-public and price sensitive information to a shareholder in May 2014”.
In its annual report published in August, Berkeley Group said: “During the period the company settled the proceedings brought by Mr Nicolas Simpkin, its former finance director, in the employment tribunal and high court. Under the settlement Berkeley made a payment of £4.95m to Mr Simpkin and a further payment of £4.55m towards his legal fees and disbursements.”
Simpkin, who was earning a base salary of £330,000 a year but who had pocketed a £1.2m package in the previous 12 months, was sacked in September 2014.
The court filings show that Berkeley’s board claimed he had been performing poorly in his role and had lost the confidence of senior colleagues.
If Simpkin had succeeded in his legal claims he would have been entitled to his share in a bonus scheme set up for Berkeley executives, which would have been worth many millions of pounds to him.
As well as denying all the whistleblowing claims, Berkeley said Simpkin had failed to raise any of the allegations with the group solicitor, the board or independent directors of the company.
The company added that if any of the allegations were true, Simpkin should and could have taken action, adding he would have been complicit in any criminal activity if his claims were accurate.
A Berkeley spokeswoman said the settlement dated back 18 months, adding: “There was a thorough and extensive investigation by a QC and a senior lawyer from a major law firm which concluded these allegations were unfounded, following which Mr Simpkin withdrew his allegations and settled all his claims.”
Simpkin said: “The counter-allegations made by Berkeley against me in the high court documents are unfounded, untested, plainly vexatious and risible … Following the payment of damages the court proceedings were withdrawn.
“I am bound by confidentiality terms which prevent me from making any comment on the other issues you raise.”
“Former academy head given £850,000 payoff” (and other sleazy details)
“The former head of a controversial academy is being paid an £850,000 severance package out of proceeds from a private leisure centre run on the school grounds, MPs have heard.
Details of the payment to Sir Greg Martin, the former head of the Durand Academy in Stockwell, south London, emerged on Monday during a hearing of the Commons public accounts committee, which is investigating academy accounts and performance.
It is the latest development in a long-running saga involving Martin, who was knighted for services to education and was once a favourite of Tory ministers, before falling out of favour as concerns grew about financial management and governance at the school.
Durand Academy has since been transferred to a new sponsor and has been renamed the Van Gogh primary school, but the Durand Education Trust (DET) retained ownership of the private leisure centre developed on the site, as well as two accommodation blocks, which originally generated additional income for the school.
John Wentworth, a DET trustee, told MPs the assets – the leisure centre and accommodation – were still generating £400,000 a year but “most” of the money was going towards Martin’s severance pay rather than going towards’ children’s education.
“At the moment, we have a considerable liability to the previous executive headteacher of Durand Academy,” Wentworth told MPs, adding that the severance figure had been “considerably higher” but had been reduced after negotiations between Martin and the Charity Commission.
Wentworth told MPs there were ongoing discussions between the DET and the Education and Skills Funding Agency about what would happen to the leisure centre and accommodation blocks. He said if the DET retained control they would be used in line with its charitable objectives “to support the wider education objectives of children in Lambeth and to support the children at the Van Gogh primary school”.
The hearing offered some fascinating insights into the complexities of transferring schools from one trust to another. The Dunraven Educational Trust, which finally took over Durand, was given just 48 hours to make a decision after the Harris Federation pulled out, though Harris helpfully shared all the information gathered during its investigations. Nevertheless, committee chair Meg Hillier described it as “a 48-hour fire sale”.
The hearing was also told about troubles at Bright Tribe, which ran 10 schools in the north and east of England which are now being rebrokered. The academies troubleshooter, Angela Barry, who was brought as interim chief executive, refused to give details about ongoing investigations but apologised for past failings.”
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/nov/19/former-academy-head-given-850000-payoff
“Huge amount of taxpayers’ money’ used for gagging orders at East Devon council”
Owl says: 10 people with some very interesting stories we will never know ….. and which will never be scrutinised.
“Figures obtained using a Freedom of Information request show that East Devon District Council has spent more than £200,000 on gagging orders over the past four years.
A total of £205,074 has been spent by East Devon District Council on gagging orders for former members of staff since 2014, according to figures obtained by the Journal.
The information, obtained through a Freedom of Information request, reveals 10 settlement agreements, or gagging orders, were agreed by EDDC between 2014 and October 31, 2018.
Gagging orders are often referred to as confidentiality clauses and are usually agreed when an employee leaves an employer due to redundancy, a work place problem or a disagreement.
A number of opposition councillors have said they are shocked by the amount of money spent on gagging orders.
Independent group leader at EDDC, Ben Ingham, said: “When any one of us is thinking about how we can afford to pay our latest council tax bill, I do not believe we expect one penny to be spent on gagging orders.
“If we did, non payment may become a real expectancy. As Leader of EDDC Opposition, I can tell you at no time has the current leadership contacted me to discuss this issue at all.
“This is not acceptable, but to me not surprising. Merely another piece of evidence against an exhausted regime.”
A spokeswoman for EDDC said: “Settlement agreements are legally binding contracts that waive an individual’s rights to make a claim covered by the agreement to an employment tribunal or court.
“The agreement must be in writing. They usually include some form of payment to the employee and may often include a reference. They are voluntary and have therefore been entered into on that basis by the individuals.
“Part of the agreement is that they must seek independent advice from an employment lawyer.”
Exmouth district councillor Megan Armstrong said: “I am extremely concerned at the huge amount of taxpayers’ money, which should have been used to provide services for the people of East Devon, which has been spent on gagging orders.
“The council has a duty to be open and transparent; yet over £200,000 – a vast sum – has been spent on suppressing information. Exactly what is the Conservative administration trying to hide?”
http://www.exmouthjournal.co.uk/news/gagging-orders-at-east-devon-district-council-1-5785868
“How the Big Four accountancy firms have become guardians of greed”
“Accountancy is by reputation a boring profession. We imagine a middle-aged man in a dusty office totting up figures.
This image is just how the Big Four accountancy firms like it, not least because it hides what they really are – the handmaidens of greed, graft and crony capitalism.
Deloitte, KPMG, Ernst & Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers are supposed to be the guardians of good business but have become the pin-striped promoters of the worst corporate practices.
They signed off the accounts of the banks which collapsed, failed to raise the alarm over BHS and Carillion and helped firms avoid tax on an industrial scale.
If you want to know why capitalism has such a bad reputation you need to look at the very people supposedly responsible for policing it.
It was not always like this. When the big four started, they were simply auditors.
But the deregulation after Thatcher’s “big bang” in the 1980s saw banks turn to ever more inventive ways of making money.
They could bundle up debts and sell them on, and bet against how much money that would make.
Instead of loaning money to firms, the banks started buying them. Instead of investing, they speculated. And the accountancy firms wanted a slice of this action.
In addition to auditing, they started offering consultancy – often to the firms whose books they were meant to be checking.
Nobody seemed to care about this blatant conflict of interest… until things went wrong.
Take the collapse of Carillion, which went bust with debts of £7billion.
Ten months earlier, KPMG had given its financial statements its seal of approval.
Since 2008, KPMG had received £20.2million in fees from Carillion.
In the same period, Deloitte netted £12million and Ernst & Young £18.3million.
The real winner, though, was PwC – which banked £21.1million from Carillion and is expected to make £50million overseeing its liquidation.
MP Frank Field accused the accountancy firms of “feasting on the carcass” of the firm.
Defenders of capitalism like to claim it encourages competition but this does not appear to be the case when just four firms have a near monopoly of the market.
In the UK, they audit 341 of the 350 biggest listed companies. And why go elsewhere when you can hire firms apparently willing to sign off accounts at the stroke of a pen and bag a lucrative consultancy contract at the same time?
A PwC auditor signed off BHS’s accounts days before it was sold by Sir Philip Green after spending just two hours looking at files. An internal note suggests the worker backdated his audit and failed to gather evidence on “whether BHS was a going concern”.
Then there is Lehman Brothers, Northern Rock, HBOS – all deemed going concerns by auditors shortly before their collapse.
In 2007, PwC’s audit of Northern Rock concluded “that in our opinion there were no matters relating to the going concern … that were required to be reported to shareholders”.
The bank’s collapse a few months later cost the taxpayer £2billion.
PwC later said it was not the “job of the auditor to look at the business model of a business”.
The Big Four also stand accused of advising big firms and high net worth individuals on how to stash cash away in tax havens.
The Paradise Papers showed Ernst & Young helped F1 champ Lewis Ham-ilton set up an offshore structure to avoid paying tax on his private jet.
Members of the Big Four have also faced accusations of misselling, turning a blind eye to bribery and collusion in corporate fraud.
Instead of questioning such behaviour, the Government rewards them with lucrative deals. Since 2015, the four firms have bagged Government contracts worth £1billion.
The Commons Business select committee has now launched an investigation into the Big Four and whether they should be broken up.
Chair Rachel Reeves said: “The audit market is broken. The Big Four’s overwhelming market domination has failed to deliver audits which are fit for purpose.”
Regulation is so lax we have no idea how much an auditor charges or how long they spend looking at the books.
Prem Sikka, emeritus professor of accounting at the University of Essex, says reforms are needed.
“The quality is low, competition is non-existent and the regulation is poor. It is almost impossible to sue negligent regulators in this country. To this date not a single accountancy firm has been investigated, prosecuted, fined or disciplined for selling tax avoidance schemes even though some of those schemes are unlawful.”
Will the accountancy firms finally be held to account?”
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/how-big-four-accountancy-firms-13581124
“UK nuclear power station plans scrapped as Toshiba pulls out”
Makes you wonder what’s going to happen at our LEP’s favourite (highly vested interest for many board members) project – Hinkley C.
“Plans for a new nuclear power station in Cumbria have been scrapped after the Japanese conglomerate Toshiba announced it was winding up the UK unit behind the project.
Toshiba said it would take a 18.8bn Japanese yen (£125m) hit from closing its NuGeneration subsidiary, which had already been cut to a skeleton staff, after it failed to find a buyer for the scheme. …
The only new nuclear power station to get the go-ahead so far is EDF Energy’s Hinkley Point C in Somerset, which started construction in 2016 and is expected to be operational between 2025 and 2027. As well as EDF, Chinese and Japanese firms hope to build further nuclear plants in the UK. …”
(Another) self-serving own goal for our Local Enterprise Partnership?
Our LEP is padded with business people who have heavy direst, indirect and subtle links to the nuclear industries and housing development around Hinkley C, so the longer they can keep this white elephant limping along the better. Eggs … basket …. though if the eggs fall out of the basket WE will be clearing up the financial mess, of course.
“France has postponed a decision on whether to order more nuclear reactors in an indication that it may be losing faith in the technology it has sold to Britain.
François de Rugy, the ecology minister, rejected calls for the swift launch of the construction of new French-designed European pressurised reactors (EPRs).
He said no decision would be taken before 2021 and hinted that the authorities might rule out more EPRs altogether. “That is a question which remains open,” he said.
His comments were a blow for EDF, the mostly state-owned French electric group that is building two EPRs at Hinkley Point in Somerset at a cost of £19.5 billion.
Hinkley has faced continued criticism and calls have been made for the project to be halted because of its spiralling costs as well as fears over the technology.
EDF, which is struggling to build France’s first EPR at Flamanville, Normandy, hoped to have a second one up and running by 2030. That is now highly unlikely, given the reluctance of President Macron’s government to place an order. An internal French government document leaked to Agence France-Presse said ministers had told EDF to show that it could limit construction costs before a new order would be considered.
Doubts about the EPR programme have grown amid a series of setbacks at the five sites where they are under construction.
EDF says the one at Flamanville will not be operational before the end of next year.”
Source: The Times
“Optum CEO resigns from top NHS Job, Optum partner replaces him”
“This is an everyday story of the sordid revolving door between US Health insurance company United Health and the NHS.
In the UK, United Health’s subsidiary Optum sells the NHS what it needs in order to morph into a version of United Health – the previous employer of NHS England’s boss Simon Stevens.
With NHS England’s blessing, Optum is all over the NHS, installing their technology & redesigning the NHS through its use.
Optum sells the NHS:
Commissioning support services
Scriptswitch decision support for GP prescribing (which United Health UK acquired in 2009) is in most GP surgeries.
Referral management services
GP Empower (accelerating large scale GP practices
Integrated Care Systems support: “Optum® brings practical hands-on experience having delivered integrated care for over 20 years in the US. Our tried and tested approach has helped systems deliver proven results.” This updates an earlier brochure on accountable care systems/organisations which is no longer available. However NHS For Sale quotes Optum’s now defunct webpage: “We currently operate 26 accountable care organisations in the U.S., and are supporting sustainability and transformation partnerships in the U.K. to manage population health risk and deliver care as an integrated group of providers.”
The overall aim is to control, sideline and override doctors’ treatment decisions – as we can see through NHS England’s consultation on stopping funding numerous elective care treatments and its mandatory Integrated Urgent Care Services specification. This removes patients’ direct access to clinicians and redirects them through NHS 111 to a clinical advisory service that works off the algorithms in a clinical decision support tool.
And now it has its finger firmly in the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence pie – the organisation responsible for providing evidence-based guidance and advice to the NHS.
The revolving door that connnects United Health, Optum and the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence
This concerns:
former United Health Director Andrew Witty
Lord Darzi (head of the Imperial College department which is partnered with OptumLabs, a United Health business); and
a new public-private partnership in the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence called the “Accelerated Access Collaborative“, that’s about pushing new technology and drugs through the NHS.
It puts Optum centre stage in the Accelerated Access Collaborative. Now there’s a surprise. Or not. If you have been following United Health’s relatively rapid takeover of the NHS.
As a result of these shenanigans, we would treat any new recommendation from NICE with a pinch of salt.
Here is a short Witty timeline:
March 2017 – Andrew Witty leaves CEO position at Glaxo Smith Kline
August 2017 – Witty joins UnitedHealth’s Board of Directors
November 2017 – Following the Accelerated Access Review, the Department of Health appoints Witty as head of the Accelerated Access Collaborative. The job is to fast track drugs & technology into the NHS, to start April 2018
March 2018 – United Health announces Witty to be new Optum CEO, to start July 2018
Andrew Witty must have been rumbled somewhere along the line as he graciously resigned from the Government position in March 2018, due to the enormous conflict of interest of him starting as Optum CEO in July 2018. Ignored of course was the huge conflict of interest in hiring Witty in the first place while he was a Director of UnitedHealth.
And who replaced him? Lord Darzi.
Who is Lord Darzi
I am tired of writing about Lord Darzi. He stalks the NHS like a zombie. He was behind the New Labour government’s massive, failed and costly privatisation of elective NHS services in the horrible Independent Sector Treatment Centres – one of which totally messed up my son’s broken wrist – twice, before an NHS hospital fixed it for him.
This is what his nasty scheme has come to now. Regardless, he has returned to push his idea a second time as Accountable Care – with the apparent support of the Labour Shadow Health Secretary Jon Ashworth. This time from his perch in the Institute of Global Health Innovation (IGHI) at Imperial College, London.
Which, surprise surprise, is an OptumLabs partner.
What is OptumLabs
OptumLabs (launched in 2013) is all about United Health number crunching and framing raw patient data for academics to play with to derive the “best treatments” for patients.
OptumLabs is desperate to pass itself off as pioneering and respectable in the academic research field. But reality of the profit motive and UnitedHealth’s track record of
“deception, manipulation of data and outright fraud”
(see the Ingenix case ) means their number crunching will most likely point to treatments that United Health finds most profitable, not what’s best for patients. And OptumLabs is useful cover to collect patient data.
We pointed out some time ago Optum’s invidious position as a provider of commissioning support services, able to direct Clinical Commissioning Groups to commission Optum products. Now they have their fingers in the NICE pie too.”
Optum CEO resigns from top NHS Job, Optum partner replaces him
Labour MP who voted NOT to investigate bullying to chair Commons Standards Committee because no-one else wanted the job
“A Labour MP who voted against a probe into allegations of bullying by Speaker John Bercow has been elected as chair of the Commons standards committee.
Kate Green was one of three MPs to oppose an inquiry by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards into claims against Mr Bercow, which he denies.
She was elected unopposed to the body after no other candidate came forward.” …
Second judicial review as a Development Management Committee defies first one!
Owl says: another “follow the money” situation?
“Folkestone & Hythe District Council faces its second judicial review in a year over a dispute concerning a proposed holiday park.
Local businessman Tim Steer was granted an application for the latest judicial review by Deputy High Court judge John Howell QC.
The case concerns an application to develop a 5.5 hectares site at Little Densole Farm, which is within the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and locally designated as a special landscape area.
Planning and licensing committee members rejected officers’ advice and allowed the application last year, leading to Mr Steer successfully taking the council to judicial review.
When the application came before them again in July councillors again went against the officers’ recommendation and gave planing permission.
Judge Howell: “It is at least arguable that [the committee] failed to give any reasons for rejecting their officer’s appraisal that the development and associated landscaping proposed would not conserve the existing character of this part of the AONB…and that it would introduce alien and incongruous features that would permanently change the existing character of the landscape in that area.”
Mr Steer said: “Not for the first time the council will waste taxpayers’ money defending the blatantly questionable decisions of its planning and licensing committee, a committee which in my view is not fit for purpose and is unable to grasp or follow policy and legislation.
“It might appear to some that this particular committee simply follows its own agenda.”
He said the project would cause “permanent destruction” of the AONB.
Clive Goddard, chair of the planning and licensing committee, said: “Leave has been granted by the court to apply for judicial review in respect of Little Densole Farm. The council has nothing further to add and will be seeking legal advice.”
Folkestone & Hythe was known until last April as Shepway District Council.”
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/
“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)
“Universal Credit Charities ‘Banned From Criticising Esther McVey’ “
“Charities working with Universal Credit claimants have been “banned” from criticising Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey, the Times claims.
According to the newspaper, at least 22 organisations – covering contracts worth £1.8 billion – have been required to sign clauses pledging not to damage the reputation of Work and Pensions Secretary and to instead “pay the utmost regard to [her] standing and reputation”.
They must “not do anything which may attract adverse publicity” to her, damage her reputation, or harm the public’s confidence in her, the paper said.
Officials at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) denied they were “gagging clauses” intended to prevent criticism of ministers or their policies, insisting they were just “standard procedure”.
However a spokesperson confirmed that the contracts did include references to ensure both parties “understand how to interact with each other and protect their best interests”.
A DWP spokesperson said: “It’s completely untrue to suggest that organisations are banned from criticising Universal Credit.
“As with all arrangements like this, they include a reference which enables both parties to understand how to interact with each other and protect their best interests.
“This is in place to safeguard any commercial sensitive information for both government and the organisation involved.”
The news comes one day after HuffPost UK reported 580,000 benefits claimants could lose out on payments in the next phase of the Universal Credit rollout.
The figures led to urgent demands for the government to halt Universal Credit, which has been besieged by criticism from both the Labour Party and disability and welfare charities.
So far this week, Universal Credit has also been criticised by Iain Duncan Smith, who said the benefits reform needs an additional £2bn to operate as planned, and former prime minister Sir John Major.
“If you have people who face that degree of loss, that is not something the majority of the British population would think of as fair, and if people think you have removed yourself from fairness then you are in deep political trouble,” he said.”
“Judge who jailed fracking protesters with ‘excessive’ sentence has family links to oil and gas firm”
“A judge criticised for handing prison sentences to three fracking protesters has family links to the oil and gas industry.
Judge Robert Altham jailed Simon Blevins, 26, Richard Roberts, 36, and Richard Loizou, 31, over their demonstration at a Cuadrilla site.
The trio, known as the “Fracking Three”, are believed to be the first environmental activists to be imprisoned for public nuisance since 1932.
Critics have claimed the punishment was “manifestly excessive”. Now the Daily Mirror can reveal the Altham family business supplies the Irish Sea oil and gas industry.
J.C. Altham and Sons is believed to be part of the supply chain for energy giant Centrica, which has invested tens of millions of pounds in fracking.
Judge Altham’s sister, Jane Watson, put her name to an open letter in favour of fracking, which said, “It’s time to give shale a chance” and claimed it would create jobs.
The judicial code of conduct states a judge’s impartiality may be questioned if family members are “politically active” or have “financial interest” in the outcome of a case.
Lawyers for the protesters are trying to overturn their sentences. Loizou’s mum Sharron, 62, told the Mirror: “I was completely shocked when he was jailed, the sentence is incredibly harsh. We were expecting community service or a suspended sentence.
“It’s quite scary that in this country you can be jailed for a peaceful protest.” …
Soil scientist Blevins and piano restorer Roberts were given 16-month jail terms while teacher Loizou got 15 months last month.
Sentencing at Preston crown court, Judge Altham said: “Only immediate custody can achieve sufficient punishment.”
The judge’s parents John and Linda, 86 and 84, are directors of J.C. Altham & Sons.
His sister Jane, 54, is managing director of the firm, which supplies ships’ stores, including food, tools, rigging equipment and clothes. The firm’s website says it is a “specialist supplier to offshore gas and oil platforms”.
Three oil rigs in the East Irish Sea – near Altham’s base at Heysham, Lancs – belong to British Gas owner Centrica, which has ploughed tens of millions of pounds into fracking firm Cuadrilla.
In 2015 Jane’s name and that of her firm appeared on an open letter backed by 119 businesses.
It urged Lancashire County Council to permit fracking and create a “£33billion supply chain”.
The campaign was led by North West Energy Task Force, which allegedly received financial support from Cuadrilla and Centrica. The NWETF was later rebranded as lobbying group Lancashire For Shale.
LFS has praised Judge Altham’s decision saying: “Justice was served effectively.”
But more than 200 academics signed an open letter calling for a judicial review of the “absurdly harsh” sentence. About 200 supporters of the trio marched outside HMP Preston, where they are being held, at the weekend. The trio’s lawyers have approached the Court of Appeal and asked for an expedited hearing.
It means they could be freed within weeks if Judge Altham’s sentencing decision is ruled unsafe. Kirsty Brimelow QC, of Doughty Street Chambers, has taken their cases pro-bono. She said: “These men should not be in prison at all, the sentence is manifestly excessive.”
Judges are expected to tell defence and prosecution lawyers if they feel their impartiality in a case may be called into question.
A spokesman for the Judges’ Council said: “There are longstanding principles, set out in case law, which guide how judges approach possible conflicts of interest. They ensure that when hearing a case, a judge will be mindful of possible conflicts of interest and can draw relevant matters to the attention of parties in the case.”
Judge Altham did not wish to add anything to the Judges’ Council’s statement.
Sister Jane, a former police officer whose husband Stephen is the Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police, declined to comment today. …”
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/judge-criticised-jailing-fracking-protesters-13396324
893 gifts or hospitality from developers in 6 years did not influence councillor’s decisions says Monitoring Officer [insert hollow laugh here]
On average accepted gifts or hospitality 3 times a week, every week for 6 years! But he resigned anyway ….. deja vu, deja vu says Owl!
“The Deputy Leader of Westminster Council has resigned following an internal investigation into his conduct.
Deputy Leader Robert Davis announced today he is to resign “with immediate effect” after 36 years of service.
Mr Davis’s resignation comes after he reportedly accepted hospitality or gifts 893 times over six years. These gifts frequently came from property developers who were seeking planning permission, according to the Guardian.
In a statement, Mr Davis said: “I am very proud of my 36 years’ service in local government during which I made a major contribution to the wellbeing of the City and its people.
“Earlier this year there was some press coverage concerning the hospitality I received during the course of my duties. To avoid this becoming an issue in this year’s elections, I agreed to refer myself to the Monitoring Officer, and stand aside as Deputy Leader while an investigation was carried out.”
Mr Davis, who chaired the Conservative borough’s planning committee for 17 years, continued: “My approach to declarations has always been to be honest, open and transparent. I have nothing to hide.
“I registered all my hospitality and it was posted by officers on the Council’s website. I have been making such declarations since 2007 when the requirement was first introduced.
“I also declared any relevant interests at the beginning of every planning committee I chaired during this time. I have acted with the utmost transparency and probity at all times and have only ever taken decisions on the basis of what I thought was best for Westminster.
“An inquiry has been completed by the Council. They have confirmed that none of the declarations I made or hospitality I received influenced decisions I took as a councillor and that nothing I did was unlawful.”
He said his actions “created a perception that was negative to the Council.
“While I dispute this, I wish to draw a line under the matter. It is now time for me to move on to the next stage in my life, and for the next generation of councillors to lead Westminster.”
“Audit watchdog vows to restore public trust in sector”
Owl says: too late for us. EDDC’s then (and now) external auditor was given a consultancy contract to investigate the ramifications of the Graham Brown scandal:
https://eastdevonwatch.org/2016/03/06/external-auditors-watchdogs-or-bloodhounds/
https://eastdevonwatch.org/2017/11/08/so-guess-who-eddcs-new-external-auditors-will-be/
Maybe the Financial Reporting Council would be interested in this seeming conflict of interest?
“The UK’s audit watchdog has announced a reform programme to restore the public’s “falling trust in business and the effectiveness of audit” after its work showed that high-quality auditing was not being “delivered consistently”.
The Financial Reporting Council will implement a series of measures including increased monitoring and assessment of risks, and scrutiny of the future needs of investors and audit quality.
It will also address auditor independence, including banning accounting firms from providing consultancy work to companies they already audit.
The watchdog plans to work closely with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) on this issue.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/10/08/audit-watchdog-vows-restore-public-trust-sector/
“
“Secretive councils shut out reporters with ‘elaborate ruse’ ” [one our council is fond of]
And EDDC with its “working groups” (eg Knowle sale and relocation, regeneration groups, the notorious East Devon Business forum, etc). Here is a list of its “other panels and forums” most of which meet behind closed doors with no public minutes:
http://eastdevon.gov.uk/council-and-democracy/committees-and-meetings/other-panels-and-forums/
“Councils across the country are trying to evade scrutiny by restricting media access to meetings.
One authority has ordered that sensitive information be shared only on an overhead screen to prevent leaks, while Nottinghamshire county council used an “elaborate” ruse to bar journalists from a crucial meeting to discuss plans to dissolve district and borough councils and create a new super-council.
Rather than debate the proposals in public, the council established a “working group” to discuss the plans behind closed doors. The council’s constitution requires committee meetings to be accessible to the press, but working groups operate outside the transparency rules.
“It’s a political sleight of hand,” Mike Sassi, editor of the Nottingham Post, said. “They are behaving in a high-handed fashion, which just reinforces every reservation people have about modern-day politicians. It was an elaborate, detailed and thought-out attempt to circumvent transparency.”
The council’s secrecy drive failed after the working group’s discussion documents and minutes were leaked to Kit Sandeman, a reporter for the Post and the BBC. The Post has complained to the local government ombudsman.
Lucy Ashton, a reporter for the BBC, The Star and Sheffield Telegraph, was challenged at a consultation at a pub to canvass residents’ views on a redevelopment. Two city council officers were “very unhappy”, she said.
“The director said, ‘We weren’t aware you were coming. Have you informed the press office?’ I said ‘No, I don’t need to, it’s a public meeting.’ ” Ms Ashton said that it was the first time in 25 years of reporting that she had faced such hostility at a council meeting. She said: “Nowadays everything needs to go through the press office. A few years ago I would have rung a planning officer directly. All that’s gone now.” The council press office apologised to Ms Ashton and pledged to ensure that reporters felt welcome at future events.
Nottinghamshire council said that the reorganisation had already been debated three times at public meetings and that the working group had no decision-making powers. Kay Cutts, council leader, said: “There was no requirement on the council to set up a working group — it was set up solely in the interests of transparency. The working group is intended as a way of engaging members from all political groups on progress of the work.”
South Ayrshire council in Scotland has sent members on mandatory confidentiality training and restricted sending out written reports to prevent leaks.
Instead, documents containing confidential information will only be displayed on an overhead screen during council meetings. The measures were required to protect commercially sensitive and personal information, the council said.
Rules for open government:
• Journalists are allowed to report from all council meetings and given “reasonable facilities”. Guidelines state: “Councils should support freedom of the press within the law and not seek to restrict those who may write critical comments.”
• Councils must give at least five days’ notice of their meetings and publish an agenda in advance.
• Press and public can be excluded if the council decides that confidential or “exempt” information is likely to be disclosed. Members of the public can be expelled to maintain orderly conduct.
• Councils can get round the transparency rules by classifying specific meetings as “working groups”, rather than committees.
Source:The Times (pay wall)
Telegraph pays Boris Johnson £275,000 a year for 10 hours work per month
“Boris Johnson was re-employed by the Daily Telegraph on a salary of £275,000 a year for his weekly column, it has been revealed.
“The Conservative MP and potential leadership candidate had to give up his newspaper job when he became foreign secretary in 2016, forfeiting the substantial second income.
However, the parliamentary register of members’ interests shows he was immediately rehired on the same rate after resigning this summer, with no attempt made by the Daily Telegraph – which has experienced years of job cuts and falling profits – to push down his salary.
The former foreign secretary said he spends 10 hours a month writing his 1,100 word column, equivalent to a pay rate of £2,291/hour – or around £4.80 a word.”
East Devon Watch 