“Berlin’s left-wing government has approved a plan to freeze rents in the German capital for the next five years.
Rents have risen sharply in the city and there have been rallies urging the authorities to keep housing affordable.
The plan is expected to become law in January. It could apply to 1.4 million properties, but not to social housing – regulated separately – or new builds.
The average monthly rent for a furnished Berlin flat is about €1,100 (£983; $1,232). …”
Book review shows how posh boys rule … and rule … and rule.
Posh Boys: How the English Public Schools Ruin Britain, Robert Verkaik
“… Posh Boys is foregrounded by an appreciation of the statistical evidence on the current state of public-school privilege today.
Approximately 7% of children are privately educated, but more than 40% of the 500 most powerful people in the UK were privately educated (289), including 74% of UK senior judges, 74% of senior officers in the British Armed Forces, 55% of permanent secretaries in Whitehall, 50% of government Cabinet ministers and members of the House of Lords and a third of Russell Group university vice-chancellors (4).
Thus, power is concentrated disproportionately amongst and in favour of those from a privately educated background. …”
Book Review | Posh Boys: How the English Public Schools Ruin Britain by Robert Verkaik
“An estimated 2.4m working people were in poverty in 2017, of which 31% also experienced in-work poverty in 2016, new data has shown.
Figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) also revealed that a third of people cannot face unexpected expenses, while 23.7% cannot afford a one-week annual holiday.
However, persistent poverty rates in the UK in 2017 are comparable to levels in 2008, equivalent to roughly 4.7 million people, or 7.8% of the population.
Peter Briffett, co-founder and CEO of the income streaming app, Wagestream, which campaigns against payday poverty, said: “For nearly five million people in the UK to be living in persistent poverty is a damning indictment of the state we’re in.
“It’s the 21st Century and yet for far too many households life is borderline Dickensian.
“High inflation and negligible wage growth will have accentuated persistent poverty in recent years, although some will invariably point the finger at austerity measures.
“Hopefully strengthening wage growth and inflation returning to target will be helping more people out of persistent poverty.
“For many people, the knock-on effect of persistent poverty is recourse to high cost credit simply to keep their heads above water and this only makes matters worse. The result is a cycle of debt from which it is near impossible to break free …”
“Nearly 4 million women who lost up to £47,000 each when their retirement age was increased from 60 to 66 have no right to expect fairness from the government, according to a lawyer representing the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
On the second day of a judicial review at the high court brought by the campaign group Back to 60, many of whose members received little or no notice that their pension age had been changed, Sir James Eadie QC also argued that the group had no right to expect either notification of the changes or legal remedy to soften its impact.
“Parliament has no substantive, freestanding obligation of fairness,” Eadie told a courtroom so packed that many supporters of the action had to wait outside. “It’s clear from case law that the enactment of primary legislation carries with it no duty of fairness to the public.”
But Michael Mansfield QC, representing the protest group, argued that a “subclass – of women, not men – has been created by this discriminatory legislation.”
Citing the case of a woman known only as PS, who after a lifetime of working and never drawing benefits was now reduced to what she described as a “degrading and humiliating life” visiting food banks and subsisting on tinned food and biscuits, Mansfield said: “They have pushed women who were already disadvantaged into the lowest class you can imagine.
“They’re on the brink of survival, and I’m not overstating that. This group – especially the percentage of the group affected born in 1953 onwards – are increasingly having taken away from them four to six years’ worth of state pension. We’re dealing with very serious sums: £37,000 to £47,000. I think any citizen would be concerned by that withdrawal.”
Eadie said there was no onus on the government to advertise changes to primary legislation or to individually inform the 3.8 million women affected by any changes.
“There is precisely no obligation on parliament to notify those affected by its judgments,” he said. “Indeed, any such suggestion that a duty of that kind exists would be contrary to established principles. There is no basis in principle for the creation of any such duty.”
Pressed by Lord Justice Irwin on whether there could be legal remedy for the women for the lack of notice of the changes, Eadie said there were no principles of natural justice or principles of fairness in play. “There can be no legal remedy,” he said. …”
So, what happens when the towns and villages you do come from are just as expensive as Bristol (with wages in Exeter lower than those in Exeter)?
Well, in East Devon, you are mostly funnelled into Cranbrook – as that is where most so-called “Help to Buy” new homes are being built.
The national article uses an example of someone moving from East Devon to Bristol.
“More young people are getting stuck where they grew up or went to university because they cannot afford rents in places where they can earn more money, according to the Resolution Foundation thinktank. It found the number of people aged 25 to 34 starting a new job and moving home in the last year had fallen 40% over the last two decades. …
In 1997, moving from east Devon to Bristol increased median incomes by 19%, but rising rents cut that increase to 1% in 2018. …
Landlords blamed the government for failing to sufficiently increase the supply of new homes. The Residential Landlords Association (RLA) also criticised measures which appear to be encouraging landlords to sell up, including reduction in mortgage interest relief for landlords and an increase in stamp duty.
“The biggest threat to rent levels are the policies being pursued by the government which are choking off the supply of homes for private rent as demand is increasing,” said the RLA policy director, David Smith.
The findings came as the affordable housing commission released research found 43% of all renters were now facing affordability problems and that 5.5 million renters were unable to buy a home of their own.
The commission, which was established by the Smith Institute thinktank and chaired by the crossbench peer Richard Best, said that when rents or purchase costs exceeded a third of household income for those in work, it could lead to financial difficulties and these problems became critical where housing costs were 40% or more of household income.”
“More than 130,000 deaths in the UK since 2012 could have been prevented if improvements in public health policy had not stalled as a direct result of austerity cuts, according to a hard-hitting analysis to be published this week.
The study by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) thinktank finds that, after two decades in which preventable diseases were reduced as a result of spending on better education and prevention, there has been a seven-year “perfect storm” in which state provision has been pared back because of budget cuts, while harmful behaviours among people of all ages have increased.
Had progress been maintained at pre-2013 rates, around 131,000 lives could have been saved, the IPPR concludes. Despite promises made during the NHS’s 100th birthday celebrations last year to prioritise prevention, the UK is now only halfway up a table of OECD countries on its record for tackling preventable diseases.
The report is concerned with preventable diseases or disorders such as heart disease, lung cancer or liver problems, which can be caused by unhealthy lifestyles and habits, formed often at a young age. It finds evidence of disturbing reductions in physical activity in schools and chronic underfunding of health visitors.
The lead researcher and author, Dean Hochlaf, said: “We have seen progress in reducing preventable disease flatline since 2012. At the same time, local authorities have seen significant cuts to their public health budgets, which has severely impacted the capacity of preventative services.
“Social conditions for many have failed to improve since the economic crisis, creating a perfect storm that encourages harmful health behaviours. This health challenge will only continue to worsen.”
The IPPR calls for a “radical new prevention strategy” involving a renewed and increased commitment to the state’s role in preventing disease.
“No longer can we place the burden of responsibility exclusively upon the individual, while turning a blind eye to a social environment which makes healthy lifestyles difficult to achieve. This means investing in public health and ensuring the government takes a greater responsibility to create a healthy environment.”
On cuts to physical education in school, it says: “PE has been reduced in schools across England, with a 5% reduction at key stage 3 and a 21% reduction across key stage 4 reported between 2011 and 2017. This is despite the noted benefits of physical education – not simply on physical development, but also through promoting healthier lifestyles and helping to enhance people’s cognitive and social skills.”
The report adds: “Funding for physical education – supposedly coming from the sugar tax revenues – was reduced in 2017 from £415m to £100m, to part fund an increase in the core school budget. The lost funding should be replenished, potentially funded by an expansion of the sugar levy to other drinks and confectionery with high sugar content.”
Five compulsory health visits should be made to every child during their early life, with an additional visit six months before a child starts nursery school, the IPPR says. “These should be carried out by a trained professional. Health visitors should be provided with additional training to collect vital information on key health indicators and be prepared to offer support and guidance to encourage breastfeeding based on clinical evidence and ensuring that parents are vaccinating their children.”
Researchers found the system of health visits creaking under the strain.
“An estimated two in five (44%) of health visitors reported caseloads in excess of 400 children, well above the recommended level of 250 per visitor needed to deliver a safe service.” The report recommends another 5,100 training places for health visitors.
In a statement, the Local Government Association said the government urgently needed to reverse the £700m reduction in public health funding since 2015 and plug a £3.6bn gap in funding for adult social care by 2025.”
Owl cannot believe this was accidental.
“Regulators have allowed water, energy, broadband and telephone networks to overcharge customers by £24.1 billion over the past fifteen years, according to stark new figures from Citizens Advice.
The news comes after research found an initial investigation that unearthed £7.5bn of overcharging for connection to key services was just ‘the tip of the iceberg’.
In 2017 Citizens Advice found Ofgem made errors in setting price controls for energy networks, resulting in energy customers being overcharged £7.5 billion over an 8-year period. After the charity highlighted these concerns, three energy network companies returned a total of £287m to consumers.
But now the charity has found the same errors have been made by Ofgem over a much longer period and by regulators in other markets including water, broadband and phone networks.
This research shows misjudgements by the regulators Ofgem, Ofwat and Ofcom on key decisions have meant customers have been paying far too much for the pipes and wires that connect their homes to essential services over the last 15 years.
These sectors include companies that face little, or no, competition to drive down the price they can charge their customers. Instead, regulators tell the network companies how much they can charge by setting a price control. Customers then pay the charges for these networks as part of their water, energy, broadband and phone bills.
These overpayments partly occurred because regulators made forecasting errors. They predicted that costs, such as debt, would be higher than they became. Regulators also over-estimated how risky these businesses were for investors.
Citizens Advice is now calling for both widespread compensation and a fundamental change in the way these calculations are made.
Instead of forecasting costs, regulators should use available market data to calculate costs and adjust their estimates of investment risk, it argues. This would avoid consumers paying too much in future.
While several energy and water companies have taken steps to return some money to customers, Citizens Advice is calling for all firms to provide a voluntary rebate to their customers. If they don’t, the government should step in.
“Regulator error has meant customers have been charged too much by energy, broadband and phone networks for far too long,” says Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice.
“At a time when so many people are struggling to pay their essential bills, regulators need to do more to protect customers from unfair prices. They have started to take steps in the right direction but it is vital they continue to learn from their past mistakes when finalising their next price controls.
“Companies need to play their part in putting this multi-billion pound blunder right. They must compensate customers where they have been paying over the odds. If they don’t government needs to intervene.”
In a statement responding to the research, the energy regulator Ofgem said: “Ofgem remains determined to drive the best deal possible for consumers. Overall, energy network regulation has delivered for consumers, with £100 billion invested, power cuts halved, record customer satisfaction and reduced costs.
“While we do not agree with Citizens Advice’s estimate of excess profits, we welcome their report and recommendations. We will continue to work closely with them and wider stakeholders to apply lessons learnt from previous price controls for the next price control period (RIIO2).”
Last week Ofgem confirmed its methodology for calculating their next set of price controls, including a lower return on equity of 4.3 per cent and a lower allowed return on debt. This would lead to customers’ bills being reduced by £6 billion over five years from 2021, calculations it says Citizens Advice supports.
Meanwhile, households were warned they could be hit with average annual energy bill rise of almost £210, or 20 per cent, as 60 fixed dual fuel energy tariffs come to an end this week according to switching service weflip, charities have called for immediate action to better support energy customers in vulnerable circumstances.
An independent report published this week says urgent action is required by all energy companies, regulators and government as well as price comparison websites – with support from consumer groups and charities – to better identify customers in vulnerable circumstances and improve the help and support given to them.
Joanna Elson, chief executive of the Money Advice Trust, who served as a member of the Commission for Customers in Vulnerable Circumstances, which produced the report, said the charity is increasingly hearing from people struggling to meet everyday household costs.
“This report puts the energy industry firmly under the spotlight. Significant work is needed to improve support for energy customers in vulnerable circumstances. As the report notes, there is good practice out there, but this support is inconsistent and varies greatly across the sector.
“Training frontline staff to identify customers in vulnerable circumstances is a crucial first step, while actions such as committing to not use High Court Enforcement Officers, can also make a big difference for the most vulnerable.
“There is also an important role for the third sector to play alongside suppliers through greater partnership working. This could be through signposting to debt or energy saving advice, and helping people access financial help and other essential costs.”
“Kensington and Chelsea council made £129m from selling property in the years leading up to the Grenfell fire tragedy – money which we can show for the first time could have prevented cost-cutting on the tower’s renovation works.
An investigation by HuffPost UK, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the BBC Local Democracy Reporting Service can reveal the property deals overseen by senior officers and the council’s cabinet in the run up to the Grenfell disaster.
Evidence shows one of these deals was directly linked to the financing of the Grenfell Tower renovation and our investigation reveals that the council had far greater power over its funding of the works than it has previously admitted.
The council has previously claimed legal restrictions meant it could only use rental income from local authority housing to pay for renovation works. But this was not the case.
In fact, the council’s own documents show £6m of the Grenfell works was paid for with proceeds from the sale of council property – basement units in Elm Park Gardens in Chelsea.
The government has confirmed to us that councils are free to use money from the sale of property to fund improvements in housing stock.
This new information means the council had a far larger pot of money available to invest in its council housing than it has previously acknowledged – including on Grenfell Tower.
Our investigation also found the council had £37m in the bank, specifically from the sale of property, at the time when funding decisions over Grenfell were being taken.
But in 2014, cuts were made to the budget for building work by the tenant management organisation that was managing the project, including saving £300,000 by using cheaper, more combustible cladding.
The cladding was a key contributor to the speed with which the fire tore through the building on June 14, 2017, killing 72 people and leaving hundreds of families homeless.
The revelations have prompted fury over why spending on the Grenfell works was tight when the council had a significant income stream that could have been used to increase the budget. …”
“… Over three times more men aged 70 and above are working full-time compared with a decade ago: 113,513 up from 36,302 in 2009.
The number of women aged 70 and above who are still working has also more than doubled in a decade. Today, there are 175,000 women aged 70 and above in work: an increase of 131%.
In addition, the research found, there are currently more than 53,000 over 80s working in the UK, 25% of whom are working full-time.
But Catherine Seymour, head of policy at Independent Age pointed out that the rise in people working beyond 65 coincides with increases in pensioner poverty. “One in every six people – nearly two million – of pension age are now living in poverty and every day, another 226 people join that number,” she said.”.
“Many people who are now working in their late sixties and seventies are doing so out of necessity to pay the rent, heat their homes and afford their weekly shop,” she added. “Everyone who wants to should be able to retire from paid work at state pension age, and these figures suggest many people cannot afford that right.” …
“… Nearly three out five journeys by public transport are on buses, but passengers are getting a poor deal say MPs as there are long-term funding plans for rail and roads, but not buses.
And the House of Commons’ Transport Committee is calling for a “national strategy” for buses to give passengers a better deal.
The strategy should make bus services more passenger focused and provide value for money, help to bring more people, especially young people, onboard.
The report says local authorities should be able to create new publicly-owned bus companies and encourage people to switch from cars to buses.
Labour’s shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald said: ”The Tories have neglected buses, along with the people and communities who rely on them. …”
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bus-services-services-plunged-damaging-16205852
“Local councils are unlawfully denying destitute children support because their parents’ immigration status is under suspicion, the Guardian can reveal.
Families whose immigration status becomes insecure can quickly become destitute because they lose their right to work and access benefits. Such families who have dependent children can seek support under section 17 of the 1989 Children’s Act, which states that local councils have a duty to provide cash or accommodation to ensure a child’s immediate needs are met.
Hundreds of these families have been unlawfully denied this support since 2010 because local authorities have focused on the parents’ immigration background.
Many of the children affected are either British or entitled to British citizenship, and campaigners say it has now become normal practice for them to threaten local authorities with legal action in an effort to ensure a fair assessment. …”
“… Alston, an eminent New York-based human rights lawyer, said the government response amounted to “a total denial of a set of uncontested facts” and that when he first read its public comment “I thought it might actually be a spoof”. He said he feared it showed ministers were not willing to debate official figures that showed 14 million people were living in relative poverty and therefore consider what he believes are essential changes to the welfare system.
“The statement is as troubling as the situation,” he said. “There is nothing that indicates any willingness to debate over issues which have generated endless very detailed, totally reputable reports across the political spectrum in the UK. All of these are dismissed.”
Alston’s report compared Conservative policies to the creation of Victorian workhouses. Amber Rudd, the work and pensions secretary, felt it was politically biased and alleged that Alston did not do enough research, only visiting the UK for 11 days. The government said it would complain to the United Nations and the UK’s ambassador in Geneva is understood to have this week requested a meeting with the UN high commissioner on human rights over the matter.
When Alston said the Department for Work and Pensions had created “a digital and sanitised version of the 19th-century workhouse”, some commentators said he had gone too far. Writing in the Daily Mail, the historian Dominic Sandbrook said it was “simply ridiculous” and “an insult to our national intelligence”.
But far from backing away, Alston, who describes his politics as progressive and left-of-centre, has pushed his argument harder.
“I think breaking rocks has some similarity to the 35 hours of job search [required per week to receive universal credit] for people who have been out of work for months or years,” he said. “They have to go through the motions but it is completely useless. That seems to me to be very similar to the approach in the old-style workhouse. The underlying mentality is that we are going to make the place sufficiently unpleasant that you really won’t want to be here.” …”
“A leading United Nations poverty expert has compared Conservative welfare policies to the creation of 19th-century workhouses and warned that unless austerity is ended, the UK’s poorest people face lives that are “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”.
In his final report on the impact of austerity on human rights in the UK, Philip Alston, the UN rapporteur on extreme poverty, accused ministers of being in a state of denial about the impact of policies, including the rollout of universal credit, since 2010. He accused them of the “systematic immiseration of a significant part of the British population” and warned that worse could be yet to come for the most vulnerable, who face “a major adverse impact” if Brexit proceeds. He said leaving the EU was “a tragic distraction from the social and economic policies shaping a Britain that it’s hard to believe any political parties really want”.
The New York-based lawyer’s findings, published on Wednesday, follows a two-week fact-finding mission in November after which he angered ministers by calling child poverty in Britain “not just a disgrace but a social calamity and an economic disaster”. Now he has accused them of refusing to debate the issues he raised and instead deploying “window dressing to minimise political fallout” by insisting the country is enjoying record lows in absolute poverty, children in workless households and low unemployment.
The “endlessly repeated” mantra about rising employment overlooks that “close to 40% of children are predicted to be living in poverty two years from now, 16% of people over 65 live in relative poverty and millions of those who are in work are dependent upon various forms of charity to cope”, he said. …
In his most barbed swipe at Rudd and her predecessors in charge of welfare, he said: “It might seem to some observers that the department of work and pensions has been tasked with designing a digital and sanitised version of the 19th-century workhouse, made infamous by Charles Dickens.”
He said he had met people who had sold sex for money and joined gangs to avoid destitution.
[Owl won’t bother wirh the Tory responses …. predictable … everyone happy … no problems … only we can …. the usual drivel …]
Alston will present his report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva next month and will argue that successive Conservative-led governments persisted with austerity and welfare cuts amid high levels of employment and a growing economy despite evidence that large-scale poverty was persisting. In doing so, “much of the glue that has held British society together since the second world war has been deliberately removed and replaced with a harsh and uncaring ethos … British compassion has been replaced by a punitive, mean-spirited and often callous approach apparently designed to impose a rigid order on the lives of those least capable of coping.”
The report slams the government’s austerity programme, with criticisms of “shocking” rises in the use of food banks and rough sleeping, falling life expectancy for some, the “decimation” of legal aid, the denial of benefits to the severely disabled, falling teachers’ salaries in real terms and the impoverishment of single mothers and people with mental illness.
Alston said austerity had “deliberately gutted” local authorities, shrinking library, youth, police and park services to the extent that it was not surprising there were “unheard-of levels of loneliness and isolation”.
There was some praise for ministers for increases in work allowances under the universal credit welfare system and supporting the national minimum wage, but Alston said these measures had had not stopped the “dramatic decline in the fortunes of the least well-off”.
He recommended ministers reverse local government funding cuts, scrap the benefits cap, eliminate the five-week delay in receiving initial universal credit benefits and rethink the privatisation of services including rural transport.
“Thomas Hobbes observed long ago, such an approach condemns the least well-off to lives that are ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’,” he said. “As the British social contract slowly evaporates, Hobbes’ prediction risks becoming the new reality.”
“Headteachers have spoken out about the hardship their students are facing in the wake of a Human Rights Watch report that highlighted the growing number of children in the UK going hungry.
Those working in schools said hunger had led to children stealing sachets of ketchup and exhibiting noticeable weight loss. They said that levels of poverty meant some schools had to provide breakfast clubs, food banks and clothes for pupils.
Geoff Barton, a former secondary school headteacher who leads the Association of School and College Leaders, described the situation as “astonishing” and “a national shame.” He added that tackling food poverty was becoming a main priority for a number of headteachers.
“The most striking conversation I had last year was with a group of headteachers in Lancashire – mostly secondary heads,” Barton said. “I asked what the biggest issue they were facing was, and usually they say funding or recruitment and retention. But the number one issue they said was hungry children. They were spending the first half of the day making sure children had breakfast. It’s shaming.”
Human Rights Watch, the New York-based NGO, accused the UK government of breaching its international duty to keep people from hunger by pursuing “cruel and harmful policies” with no regard for the impact on children living in poverty.
The report concluded that tens of thousands of families did not have enough to eat, revealing that schools in Oxford were the latest to have turned to food banks to feed their pupils. The government dismissed the findings, saying it was misleading to present them as representative of the whole country.
Barton said: “The fact you even have some schools having to provide something as basic as food and becoming surrogate food banks … should leave us all with sense of national shame.” …
The shadow education secretary, Angela Rayner, said: “All too often I’m hearing that schools are now acting as a fourth emergency service, forced to step in because the Tories have cut society’s safety net to shreds. It is a scandal that, in one of the richest countries in the world, there are children struggling to learn because of poverty and hunger.
“Our schools have suffered from years of cuts and are themselves increasingly relying on donations from parents. Cuts to public services and social security have combined with low pay, insecure work and rising costs to leave too many families on the breadline. It’s clear that, despite this prime minister’s claims, austerity is far from over for our children.
“A Labour government will take action, investing in the support children need and providing a free healthy school meal to all primary school pupils, so no one goes hungry at school.”
A government spokesperson said the HRW report was not representative of England as a whole, adding: “We spend £95bn a year on working age benefits and we’re supporting over 1 million of the country’s most disadvantaged children through free school meals. Meanwhile, we’ve confirmed that the benefit freeze will end next year.”
“Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused the UK government of breaching its international duty to keep people from hunger by pursuing “cruel and harmful polices” with no regard for the impact on children living in poverty.
Examining family poverty in Hull, Cambridgeshire and Oxford, it concluded that tens of thousands of families do not have enough to eat. And it revealed that schools in Oxford are the latest to have turned to food banks to feed their pupils.
In a damning 115-page report that echoes previous expert condemnation of the UK’s policies on food poverty, the NGO – better known for documenting abuses from Myanmar to Haiti – said that the government was breaching its obligations under human rights law to ensure people have enough food.
Volunteers and staff at schools in Oxford confirmed that they were now reliant on donations, saying that teachers were noticing pupils who were missing meals at home and needed to be fed.
HRW said that ministers had “largely ignored growing evidence of a stark deterioration in the standard of living for the country’s poorest residents, including skyrocketing food bank use, and multiple reports from school officials that many more children are arriving at school hungry and unable to concentrate”.
The report will provide further ammunition to those who say that the government is failing in its duty to the poorest. It comes before Wednesday’s release of the final report on the UK by Philip Alston, the United Nations rapporteur on extreme poverty, who has already highlighted the same issues in his interim findings, following a two-week tour of the UK last November.
The report, which will appear on the eve of the European parliamentary elections, is likely to echo Alston’s warning last month that the political preoccupation with Brexit meant that issues like poverty are being ignored in a way that will leave the country “severely diminished”. Alston said: “You are really screwing yourselves royally for the future by producing a substandard workforce and children that are malnourished.”
The government dismissed the findings, saying that it was misleading to present them as representative of the whole country, and said it is helping parents back into work to reduce poverty and is ending the benefit freeze next year. …
Kartik Raj, the author of the HRW report, said growing hunger was “a troubling development in the world’s fifth largest economy”. He said: “Standing aside and relying on charities to pick up the pieces of its cruel and harmful policies is unacceptable. The UK government needs to take urgent and concerted action to ensure that its poorest residents aren’t forced to go hungry.”
“MORE THAN 2,500 post offices will be wiped out within a year unless ministers intervene, a trade body is warning.
Business Secretary Greg Clark was last night told communities across the UK face “catastrophe” without Government action.
In a blistering report, the National Federation of SubPostmasters (NFSP) warns that the Post Office network is “beyond tipping point” and urgent support is required to keep almost one in four branches going.
The Federation says a “digital” first approach by ministers means that revenue from providing Government services such as DVLA forms has collapsed from £576 million in 2005 to just £99 million in 2018.
And it says Royal Mail appears more interested in dealing directly with the public over the web than supporting the network.
Some 98 per cent of Post Offices are run by franchisees or ‘SubPostmasters’, with many vital for smaller towns or villages. There are 9,300 branches employing approximately 40,000 people.
‘BEYOND TIPPING POINT’
Calum Greenhow, NFSP chief said: “The viability of sub post offices and the morale of sub postmasters has been eroded to the extent that the network’s resilience is extremely limited.
“We believe a tipping point has been passed and the consequences of this are now being realised.”
He added: “SubPostmasters are resigning in high numbers because it is increasingly difficult to make a decent living.
“The closure of 2,500 post offices in a year would be a catastrophic loss to communities across the UK.”
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9109911/post-offices-close-one-year-report-warns/
Owl says: how much more has been swept under the austerity carpet?
“In the aftermath of the Winterbourne View care home scandal Jeremy Hunt pledged to make improving the care of vulnerable patients a central mission of his time as health secretary.
But despite speeches, policy documents, steering groups and delivery groups two reports next week will lay bare the continued failure of the system to protect those least able to help themselves. One of those reports was commissioned by Mr Hunt’s successor and Tory leadership rival, Matt Hancock. He won’t be thanking him for it.
Part of the problem is political. For example, despite introducing minimum standards for how adults on mental health wards should be treated in 2014, no such standards exist for children. For that, responsibility rests with ministers.
They are also responsible for a system that provides no incentives to minimise the use of expensive in-patient mental health beds. Those beds are paid for by the NHS whereas community care is paid for by stretched local authorities.
The NHS itself should not be absolved of blame. One former Conservative health minister said they had been shocked by just how unresponsive NHS leaders were to reform. It is certainly true that the NHS has jealously guarded its freedom to set spending priorities.
Finally, despite being the authors of one of the reports the Care Quality Commission, which inspects mental health units, bears some responsibility. That it took a minister, under pressure from the media, to uncover the continued failure of these units is shocking.”
Source: Times (pay wall)
“The average British worker makes £17 a week less than they did a decade ago, once increases in the cost of living are taken into account.
But salaries for bankers and others in the finance sector are £120 a week higher than in 2009, a new study suggests.
To find the results, the TUC took a look at official earnings figures for different workers now, and compared them to those a decade ago. Then it factored in price rises.
TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “It’s not right that pay is racing ahead in the City when most working people are still worse off than a decade ago.
“The architects of the financial crisis are earning record amounts while teachers and nurses struggle to get by.”
Nurses and teachers are among workers hardest hit, with those employed in health and social work and education £36 a week worse off than in 2009, said the TUC.
By contrast, average real pay in the financial sector has increased by 9.3% (£119 a week) since 2009 reaching a record average of £1,405. …”
https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/normal-workers-paid-less-decade-15669618
East Devon Watch 