Boris Johnson may have to spend up to £40bn to try to repair NHS waiting times and end the long delays being faced by patients, according to unpublished Downing Street estimates.

Denis Campbell www.theguardian.com

Calculations for No 10 drawn up by the Cabinet Office make clear that the prime minister may have to commit anywhere between £2bn and £10bn a year for up to four years, on top of core NHS funding, to tackle what is fast becoming a major political headache for the government.

The figures, disclosed by Whitehall sources, underline the huge scale of the challenge in getting NHS waiting times back to manageable levels before the next election.

The latest NHS England performance figures, out on Thursday, showed that the total number of people waiting for hospital treatment, especially surgery, had topped 5 million for the first time. It stood at 5,122,017 in April, the highest since records began in 2007.

However, despite negative publicity, Downing Street thinks it does not need to start throwing money at the problem soon because the public are not yet “distressed” about long delays, a source with knowledge of No 10’s thinking said.

The projections were put together by the Cabinet Office as part of its work looking at the scale of post-Covid support needed in health, education and justice. Some Tories are tipping Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, to succeed Matt Hancock as health and social care secretary.

The Treasury is reluctant to hand over large sums to tackle the deepening waiting list problem, sources say. NHS England plans to give Downing Street a detailed analysis soon of how long it will take to start providing care again within its existing set of targets, to help inform No 10’s thinking before the comprehensive spending review in the autumn.

The waiting list has soared by almost 425,000 people in just the past two months as people who either could not access non-Covid NHS care during the pandemic or were reluctant to do so belatedly saw their GP and were referred to hospital.

Hospitals in England managed to get back to providing 90% of pre-pandemic levels of non-urgent care in April. But they are hamstrung by personnel shortages, staff sickness linked to the strain of dealing with Covid and having fewer beds because of social distancing measures.

Of the 5.1 million, almost 400,000 people have had to wait more than a year for treatment for conditions including cancer and heart problems, hip and knee replacements and cataract removals. A small number – 2,722 – have already been waiting longer than two years. The NHS has not met its target of treating 92% of all patients on the waiting list within the supposed maximum 18 weeks since 2016.

Prof Anita Charlesworth, an NHS finances expert at the Health Foundation thinktank, said it had estimated that ministers would need to spend £6bn over three years to tackle the backlog. However, the sums needed will have gone up as a result of the second wave of Covid over the winter, which once again disrupted key services.

“The health service now has a mountain to climb. Reducing the backlog of long waits and getting the NHS into a position where waiting time standards are consistently met will need a major increase in funding,” Charlesworth said. But that would also need 5,000 extra beds, 4,100 more consultants and 17,100 additional nurses, she added, as the NHS was too under-resourced to ramp up the number of patients treated.

Richard Murray, the chief executive of the King’s Fund thinktank, said the NHS’s lack of scanners and operating theatres would severely limit its ability to increase activity.

Downing Street declined to comment on the leaked figures.

The Department of Health and Social Care said: “We’re backing the NHS with £1bn to tackle the waiting lists which have built up, providing up to 1m extra checks, scans and additional operations, and the NHS is providing £160m to trial innovative ways to accelerate elective recovery in key areas and enable more hospitals to go further, faster.

“That’s on top of an extra £7bn funding we’re giving health and care services this year.”

Chris Hopson, the chief executive of the hospitals group NHS Providers, said: “Trust leaders are deeply aware of how frustrating long waits for care are, and are doing all they can to prioritise those who need to be seen urgently.”

Ministers, NHS chiefs, medical groups and health charities are worried that lengthening waits for treatment could lead to patients’ health deteriorating and some even becoming untreatable.

The latest official figures show that there were a further 7,393 lab-confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the UK by 9am on Thursday. Seven more people have died within 28 days of testing positive, bringing the UK total to 127,867.

Public Health England data shows that infections are now rising again in every area of England, especially in the north-west.

Danny Mortimer, the deputy chief executive of the NHS Confederation, warned that hospitals might once again have to shut down normal care if the rising number of Covid infections produced a third wave that put serious pressure on them. He urged Boris Johnson to be ready to delay the lifting of restrictions as planned on 21 June.

In one positive element in the latest figures, the number of people being forced to wait at least a year for planned, non-urgent treatment in hospital has fallen from 436,127 to 385,490.

“Despite the extensive disruption to care caused by the pandemic, it’s encouraging that today’s figures show routine operations, cancer and mental health care have now all rebounded sharply,” said Prof Stephen Powis, NHS England’s national medical director.

“Average waits for non-urgent care have fallen to 11 weeks, and the number of people waiting over 52 weeks fell by more than 50,000 in April. Mental health services are back at pre-pandemic levels, and treatment rates for cancer are also now back to usual levels.”

A hotel in Cornwall reportedly hosting media and security staff for the G7 summit has closed following a coronavirus outbreak.

Neil Shaw www.devonlive.com

The website for the Pedn Olva hotel in St Ives said it has temporarily shut on Thursday and directed inquiries to its owners, St Austell Brewery.

The hotel said a number of staff had been affected and it would close for deep cleaning following discussions with Public Health England (PHE).

German media reported that two security guards for Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel were staying inside the hotel, although it is not clear if they are quarantining or have been relocated.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson confirmed Ms Merkel would still be attending the summit.

According to reports, the hotel had identified a coronavirus outbreak on Wednesday.

The hotel owners, St Austell Brewery, said: “We can confirm that a number of our team at the Pedn Olva, St Ives, have tested positive for Covid-19.

“We immediately notified Public Health England of these cases and have been working closely with them to ensure we follow all appropriate safety guidelines.

“Following extensive discussions over the last few days with PHE and Cornwall Council, we have taken the decision to fully close the hotel.

“We fully appreciate the inconvenience given the limited accommodation options available in the area at the moment but the safety and security of our team and guests is our upmost priority.

“The hotel will reopen once a full Covid-19 deep clean has taken place and we have the available staff to run it.”

Simon Norris, 62, who also lives near the hotel, said his wife saw people checking out of the hotel and leaving with bags at about 5pm.

“We don’t have a lot of direct contact with the hotel, I’m really saddened by the outbreak,” he told the PA news agency.

“I feel very sorry for the staff that work there because they have done a lot of work to open the hotel up for the G7 and visitors. It’s extremely disappointing.

“When we’ve gone there they’ve met all the Covid protocols, I think they’ve just been very, very unlucky. It’s a great shame really. Prior to this we have had no incidents of Covid in St Ives.”

PHE and the Department for Health and Social Care have been approached for comment.

Elsewhere, Devon and Cornwall Police denied claims of a coronavirus outbreak on the ferry used to accommodate officers to the G7 summit, saying none had tested positive.

Rachel Wigglesworth, director of Public Health for Cornwall and Isles of Scilly, said that public health teams were used to dealing with outbreaks of coronavirus.

When asked on Sky News on Friday about a hotel, reportedly hosting G7 media and security staff, having to close due to a Covid-19 outbreak she said: “As we know from living with this global pandemic there’s always these cases that arise but we are used to dealing with these sort of incidents across the country now.

“Our public health teams and the expertise around them are helping to support venues where there are any outbreaks and sometimes a business has to make the decision that they operationally cannot continue to work rather than it necessarily being a public health issue where staff have to self isolate.

“What we are seeing across the country is there are outbreaks, we have slightly increased the rates of Covid over the last few weeks, I think related to the relaxation of the restrictions from May 17, so a lot more cases amongst hospitality venues and amongst younger people that are not vaccinated.

“So we do need to continue to vaccinate but also to then suppress these cases where we do identify them.”

Matt Hancock has promised to reveal internal advice that is alleged to have required testing for people discharged from hospitals into care homes at the start of the Covid pandemic, amid claims the guidance was weakened following pressure from his department.

Robert Booth www.theguardian.com 

The claims go to the core of a decision that meant thousands of people were discharged without Covid tests from hospitals into care homes in March and April 2020.

Giving evidence to MPs investigating the government’s Covid response, the health secretary denied knowledge of the advice that a whistleblower said was produced by two senior officials at Public Health England in March 2020, according to a report in the Byline Times. However, he said he would provide whatever they produced.

The practice of discharging without testing was driven by a need to free up hospital beds, but it seeded outbreaks in care homes where thousands died in the first peak of the pandemic. Testing only became mandatory in mid-April, but care operators have said they told Hancock and his officials several weeks earlier that testing was needed to stop outbreaks spreading from hospitals.

Public Health England (PHE) declined to comment on the claim. A spokesperson for Department of Health described it as “categorically untrue”.

“Our primary duty has been to save lives and our approach has been guided by the latest scientific evidence,” they said. “We have been committed to transparency throughout this pandemic, including working closely with Public Health England to ensure scientific advice and data is published honestly, openly, safely and in a timely manner.”

Hancock has previously claimed that the government put a “protective ring” around care homes, but he told the joint hearing of the health and social care and the science and technology select committees: “I think the most important words in the sentence are: ‘We tried to.’ It was very hard.”

He said that the decision to empty hospital beds amid rising cases was not made “to favour the NHS” and recalled seeing a TV news report from Spain early in the pandemic in which a care home had been abandoned and all of the residents had died.

However, he played down the effect of hospital discharges. He claimed that a study by PHE, which showed that only 1.6% of outbreaks in the first wave were caused by people discharged from hospitals, suggested that community transmission was a far bigger cause of infection in care homes.

However, the true number is likely to be significantly higher, as so little testing was available. Greg Clark, the chair of the science and technology committee, suggested it was therefore “completely impossible” for Hancock to make the claim. The health secretary stood by the figure but conceded it was based on “imperfect information”.

Hancock told the committee that “each and every death in a care home weighs heavily on me and always will” and he denied the explosive claim last month by the former No 10 adviser Dominic Cummings that he had misled the prime minister in March by telling him people discharged into care homes were being tested.

“We set out a policy that people would be tested when tests were available and then I set about building the testing capacity to be able to deliver on that,” Hancock said.

He said he did not recall Boris Johnson being angry about what had happened in care homes in April after he had been in hospital with Covid, as Cummings has claimed.

He said: “The clinical advice was that a test on somebody who didn’t have any symptoms could easily return a false negative and therefore give false assurance … Clinicians were worried that because it took four days to turn a test around that if you leave somebody in hospital those four days, they might catch Covid and therefore go back to a care home with a negative test result but having caught it.”

That appeared to be supported by Dr David Oliver, a consultant in geriatrics and acute general medicine, who wrote on Wednesday in the British Medical Journal that concerns raised by social care leaders about discharges were overridden as much by clinicians and NHS managers as by politicians.

Oliver said: “Keeping lots of care home residents in scarce beds, waiting for tests we had insufficient access to, with a high first false-negative rate and no clear understanding of how long people remained infectious, could have posed other risks to these residents and to other patients in need.”

Following a safeguarding investigation, East Devon home care agency Charity Earnshaw has been rated ‘inadequate’ and placed in special measures.

Anita Merritt www.devonlive.com

The domiciliary care service, which supports adults in the community who require assistance with personal care – including people living with dementia, physical disabilities, mental health needs and sensory impairments – has had local authority placements suspended, as well as new private placements.

Independent health and social care regulator Care Quality Commission (CQC) recently inspected the service and fund it was failing in an number of areas. These include:

• Safe and effective care
• Risks were not well managed
• The administration of medicines was not safe
• Safeguarding concerns had not always been managed appropriately and had not been reported
• People were not supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives
• Inadequate staff training and support
• ‘significant delay’ in Covid-19 infection control training

The CQC said the Newton Poppleford based provider had not recognised the quality of the service had significantly deteriorated and had therefore put people at risk of unsafe care. It added it had only begun to make improvements when other agencies became involved through the safeguarding process.

The recently published report said: “We undertook this targeted inspection to follow up on specific concerns we had received about the safety and quality of the service. These concerns were subject to individual and whole service safeguarding investigations.

“A decision was made for us to inspect and focus on the management of risk, staff training,medicines administration and quality assurance. During the inspection, we found additional concerns related to protecting people’s human rights; the management of safeguarding and the knowledge and skills of the provider.

“We therefore widened the scope to become a focused inspection which included the key questions of safe, effective and well-led. We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements.”

It added: “Prior to our inspection we found peoples experience of the service was poor and made a number of safeguarding referrals. A whole service safeguarding enquiry was in progress with the local authority. A suspension of local authority placements was in place, and a voluntary suspension of new private placements.”

It continued: “Concerns about people’s health and safety had not always been escalated by staff, and not all staff we spoke with were aware of the processes for doing so. External health professionals and relatives told us the provider did not always work effectively with other agencies to provide safe and effective care.

“Safeguarding concerns had not always been managed appropriately and had not been reported to the local authority or the CQC. Safeguarding policies and procedures were out of date.”

It was noted Charity Earnshaw had expanded significantly since the last inspection in June 2019, when 18 people were being supported.

By August 2020 it had increased to 33 people. The staff team had increased from five to 14. It provides services in Newton Poppleford, Sidmouth, Ottery St Mary, Woodbury, Seaton, Tipton St John, Exmouth and Colyton Raleigh.

The report said: “The provider told us the training and development of the staff team and service had been delayed as a result of the pandemic and lockdown.

“The provider and staff team were committed to improving the quality and safety of the service. One member of staff told us, ‘a lot of things need to be updated. I know the provider is doing their utmost to get everything in place. I’m happy now it’s being put in place. It’s improving’.”

Inspectors also received positive reports about the service. Overall people said the service was reliable. One person said: “I have no objections. They turn up on time. They are nice carers, very helpful… I have a list of who is coming and what times and they turn up on time.”

Charity Earnshaw is working with the local authority and has drawn up a service improvement plan.

The overall rating for this service following the CQC inspection is now ‘Inadequate’ and the service is therefore in ‘special measures’. It means the CQC will keep the service under review and will reinspect within 6 months to check for significant improvements.

Charity Earnshaw were approached for a comment.

Police have concluded an investigation into a Sidmouth care home where 11 residents died following a major Covid-19 outbreak – with no further action to be taken against two staff members who were arrested.

Jamie Hawkins www.devonlive.com

The deaths were reported at the Holmesley Care Home in Sidford between February 25 and April 16, which were all believed to be related to a coronavirus outbreak.

An investigation, led by Devon and Cornwall Police, was launched in partnership with a multi-agency safeguarding response to ensure the well-being of the residents in the home and specialist officers have been liaising with family members.

Following extensive enquiries, which involved interviewing staff and residents’ family members and searches of the home, and with early consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service, the decision has been made that the criminal threshold for neglect has not been met.

As part of police enquiries, no further action will therefore be taken against a 57-year-old woman from Sidmouth and a 30-year-old man from Exeter, who were investigated on suspicion of wilful neglect under the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015.

Both the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) are now considering offences relating to the Care Act 2014 and health and safety legislation.

Senior investigating officer, Detective Inspector Lesley Bulley, said: “Our priority has been to understand the cause of the outbreak at Holmesley Care Home and ensure that safeguarding concerns were addressed.

“We would like to thank the families of the deceased for their patience throughout what has been a really complex case.”

A CQC spokesperson, added: “Following the inspection of Holmesley Care Home, CQC imposed urgent conditions upon the service. Following this, CQC are considering what further action we may want to take.”

www.mirror.co.uk

Is this East Devon’s “flagship” industry?

Summary findings from Clive Betts’ Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee report on planning reforms:

“The Government should reconsider the case for the three areas proposal.” (Growth, renewal and protected).

The future of the planning system in England – Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee

publications.parliament.uk 

Or here for pdf

Summary

This report considers the Government’s proposed reforms to the planning system announced in August 2020. It also builds on our predecessor committee’s report into land value capture. We will continue to examine future proposals for reforming the planning system, and stand ready to undertake pre-legislative scrutiny of the Planning Bill.

We heard consistently in our evidence that there was a need for greater detail about how the Government’s proposed reforms would work. There were concerns about the omission of various important issues relating to housing and to non-housing elements of the planning system.

The Government’s three areas proposal

The Government has proposed that local areas will be divided (through Local Plans) into three parts: growth, renewal and protected, with different planning rules applying in each. We have sympathy with the Government’s wish to enhance the importance of Local Plans, but we are unpersuaded that the Government’s zoning-based approach will produce a quicker, cheaper, and democratic planning system.

The Government should reconsider the case for the three areas proposal.

If the Government does proceed with the principle of the three areas proposal, consideration should be given to the inclusion of additional categories. Further details also need to be provided—particularly around how much detail will be needed in Local Plans, the impact of the three areas proposal on vital infrastructure, and who will determined if Local Plan requirements have been met.

Local authorities should set out detailed plans for growth and renewal areas which specify heights of buildings, density of development, minimum parking standards, access to retail, education, transport, health facilities and other local amenities. This may be by way of a planning brief for particular sites, which may be undertaken subsequent to the local planning process and which is subjected to detailed consultation with local people.

Public engagement and reforms to Local Plans

The Government proposes to shift public engagement from individual planning applications to the Local Plan stage. We found that far more people engage with individual planning proposals and fear that the proposed change will reduce public involvement in the planning process.

All individuals must still be able to comment and influence upon all individual planning proposals.

To ensure that public engagement throughout the planning process is facilitated we welcome the Government’s plan to expand the role of digital technology. The benefits of virtual planning meetings have been demonstrated during the Covid-19 pandemic and should be retained. This needs to sit alongside exploring new methods of interaction such as citizens assemblies; ensuring the public is consulted about the draft Local Plan before rather than concurrently with Secretary of State; and through retaining more traditional methods of notification about planning proposals such as signs on lampposts.

We sympathise with the Government’s wish to enhance the importance of Local Plans in determining where development should take place. But achieving public acceptance of any increased importance for Local Plans requires them have credibility as an accurate reflection of public views in an area.

We welcome the introduction of a statutory obligation that requires that all local authorities have a Local Plan. We also support a timeframe for introducing the new Local Plans. But we heard it would be impractical to deliver them within the Government’s proposed thirty-month timeframe, and in particular for statutory consultees to comment on each plan during its development. To ensure there is effective cooperation between local authorities the Government also needs to explain how it plans to replace the duty to cooperate that places a legal duty on councils to work together on planning issues that cross their borders.

The Government should consider a staggered roll-out of the new types of Local Plans across the country. It should be permissible and straightforward to undertake quick updates of Local Plans every two years, including with appropriate time for public consultation.

Housing formula

In August 2020 the Government proposed reforms to the current formula (the ‘Standard Method’) used to determine housing demand in each local authority. Whilst our evidence endorsed the principle of having a nationally set formula, the majority disapproved of this new proposed formula. In December 2020 the Government announced a new approach, preserving the existing formula whilst adding an ‘urban uplift’ to the demand figures for twenty major town and cities. This would greatly increase the numbers in those areas. We would like clarity from the Government on how these major towns and cities can deliver the housing demanded given restrictions on the availability of land, both in terms of brownfield sites and constraints posed by seas, rivers and protected green spaces.

We think the Government’s abandonment of its proposed formula for determining housing need is the correct decision. There remains a need for additional information about how the Government’s revised approach, announced in December 2020, might work in practice.

Housing delivery

To meet the Government’s 300,000 housing unit target there is a need to speed up the delivery of housing. The problem of ‘build out’ rates needs to be tackled, with a mixture of carrots and sticks needed to achieve this.

The Government should set a limit of 18 months following discharge of planning conditions for work to commence on site. If work has not progressed to the satisfaction of the local planning authority then the planning permission may be revoked. An allowance of a further 18 months should be allowed for development to be completed, after which the local authority should be able, taking account of the size and complexity of the site, and infrastructure to be completed by other parties, to levy full council tax for each housing unit which has not been completed.

To command public support there also needs to be greater clarity on why and how the housing target needs to be delivered, including why relying on brownfield sites alone would be insufficient.

The Government should lay out the evidential basis for its 300,000 housing units a year target and how it will achieve it, both by tenure and by location.

We support measures to promote specialist, affordable and social housing. Given the failure of the previous Starter Homes programme, a clear timeframe is also needed for delivering First Homes without adversely affecting other housing tenures. To reflect local circumstances, local authorities should have discretion over what proportion of affordable houses must be First Homes.

Funding infrastructure

The Government has proposed replacing the current Section 106 and Community Infrastructure Levy with a national infrastructure levy. We find that there is a case for replacing the latter, but not the former. Preserving Section 106 will protect against a possible loss of affordable housing. We think that the proposals of the 2017 review into the Community Infrastructure Levy and our predecessor committee’s recommendations for greater land value capture represent the best way of ensuring sufficient revenue. If the Government does proceed it will need to charge various local rates and provide additional funding for the infrastructure that will not be met out of the levy revenues.

Resources

There is a need for additional resources for planning departments, and specialist skills. The pressures on the system will only increase if the Government proceeds with its reforms, including the thirty-month timeframe for Local Plans, at the same time as local planning authorities are also operating the current system.

The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government should now seek to obtain a Treasury commitment for an additional £500 million over four years for local planning authorities. Providing this certainty of funding should precede the introduction of the Planning Bill.

Design and beauty

We welcome the Government’s commitment to enhance the place of design and beauty in the planning system. It was emphasised to us that this enhancement needs to consider a broader definition of design than one focused on aesthetics, important though that is. This should include ensuring innovations in design are not unduly stifled and the subjective nature of beauty is recognised.

Green Belt, and environmental and historical protections

One of the most contentious issues in planning is the status of the Green Belt. We heard passionate defences of it; whilst also hearing calls for a review of its status.

A review should examine the purpose of the Green Belt, including whether it continues to serve that purpose, how the public understand it, what should be criteria for inclusion, and what additional protections might be appropriate.

A major feature of the planning system since the Second World War has been ensuring the protection of environmental and historic sites and buildings.

We recommend that the Government publish an assessment of the impact of its proposed changes on historic buildings and sites.

Six out of a family party of 10 holidaymakers who stayed at a Devon holiday park during half-term have tested positive with Covid-19 – and they blame poor hygiene.

Colleen Smith www.devonlive.com

They say one of the caravans was particularly dirty when they arrived – and some of the mess included a previous occupants’ discarded test kit.

Now they are terrified that they may have passed on the virus to their elderly father who was too ill to travel with them to Devon because he has serious lung problems. Now he is also feeling ill and the family is awaiting the result of his Covid test.

The holiday was planned as a nostalgic get-together to celebrate the end of lockdown at Devon Cliffs at Sandy Park in Exmouth – which they used to visit as children.

Devon Cliffs owners Haven Holidays say they have strict cleaning protocols in place and say the family did not complain when they first arrived. Haven says no team members has Covid “at the time of the family’s break” and the person who cleaned their caravans has had no symptoms: “Whilst we take all complaints seriously we also hold our cleanliness to the highest standards and would, if we had been made aware on arrival, re-cleaned the family caravan in line with our Caravan Cleanliness Guarantee.”

The family – several of whom work in the NHS – had travelled to Devon from Portsmouth and Derby, because they have happy childhood memories of Devon Cliffs. But now they say: “We wish we had never gone.”

The family say they complained via the check-in App about one of their caravans being dirty – they cleaned up most of the dirt themselves and park owners Haven Holidays came and took away cushions which appeared to have blood stains the following day.

One of the family said: “The cutlery and crockery were all dirty. There are no dishwashers in those vans so we had to clean all of those again. The cushions and walls were dirty with what looked like blood stains.

“When we first arrived mine looked OK at first sight, but my sister told them she wasn’t satisfied and asked to speak to somebody – nobody came and so she went to reception the next day to complain.”

They also found packaging which they later realised was from a Covid test kit discarded by the previous occupants.

One of the party who has tested positive is a senior NHS nursing Sister who has been caring for people with Covid for the last 18 months: “It’s been a horrible time – I’ve not seen my parents in all that time because I wanted to protect them. We didn’t see them at Christmas – and now we have put them at risk and contracted Covid because of poor hygiene.

“It’s not good enough. I’m off work – my daughter works for the NHS and she’s off work. My youngest daughter is a student with a part-time job. She’s off work and won’t get paid – the domino effect of this is massive.”

She drove from Derby with her two grown-up children and picked up her mother. They met up with two of her sisters and four nieces.

The NHS worker said: “I feel exhausted. I suffer with asthma and I am trying to stop it going on to my chest.

“Dad has had part of his lung removed. What worries us is that before we knew we had Covid, some of us hugged dad when we got home. When we left the holiday park – one of my sisters thought she was ill with hay fever on the Friday because they were cutting the grass.

“It wasn’t until we got home that we were tested and found out six out of 10 of us are positive.”

The family has raised the issue with Devon County Council’s Environmental Health department and the CEO of Haven Holidays Jane Bentall.

A spokesman for Haven said: “Since the start of the pandemic Haven has taken a number of steps to ensure that the safety and security of its guests, owners and team remains its number one priority. We have very strict protocols in place in relation to Covid 19 with regard to the cleanliness of our holiday homes and would ask guests to contact our teams immediately on arrival if they find their accommodation has not been cleaned to our high standards.

“In the case of this family, after checking in they updated our arrival app confirming they had reached their holiday home and when asked to score the cleanliness of the caravan and if they required a call back they did not raise any issues.

“The following morning they contacted our team regarding the cleanliness of the scatter cushions which was addressed at the time, with one being taken from the caravan as a stain could not be removed. The cleaning was undertaken by a senior member of the team and the family were happy with the cleaning response. Later that day the family asked if the scatter cushion could be returned which was duly done. No other concerns were raised during the stay.”

The family dispute this and say they ticked ‘not satisfied’ on the check-in App and asked for a member of staff to contact them.

The Haven spokesman said: “Since reopening Haven has made huge investment in cleaning teams including extending the amount of dedicated park teams focused on public areas on park as well as extending the cleaning time allotted to each individual holiday home and the usage of specialist cleaning materials known to kill viruses such as Coronavirus and would refute any claim in relation to this.

“Once a holiday home has been cleaned with particular attention to high touch areas such as work surfaces, handles and television remotes, it is checked by a specialist team member and then a special seal is placed across the door to show it meets Haven’s new standard.

“At the time of the family’s break we had no team members with symptoms of Covid or any team self- isolating, in addition the cleaner who cleaned the caravan also has had no symptoms of Covid pre or post break. We are also not aware of anyone who has stayed in the caravan prior to the family stay that has contracted Covid19.

“Over the course of the last year we have worked closely with the local primary authority who have viewed our standard operating procedures and Covid Risk Assessments and have always been satisfied with our procedures and paperwork. Whilst we take all complaints seriously we also hold our cleanliness to the highest standards and would, if we had been made aware on arrival, re-cleaned the family caravan in line with our Caravan Cleanliness Guarantee.

“We are aware that the family have contacted Environmental Health Officers and we have provided them with full details surrounding the claims from the family.”

In September 2017 Owl reported: We’ve had the Heart of the South West LEP! We’ve had the “Golden Triangle” LEP (Exeter, Plymouth, Torquay).We”ve even had the “Golden Quadrangle” LEP (Owl’s suggestion for adding in Cornwall or Dorset).NOW we have the “Golden Pentangle” (adding in Cornwall AND Dorset), yet ANOTHER unelected, unaccountable and non-transparent quango: The Great South West, the LEP for LEPs

In February 2020, with incredibly bad timing, The Great South West sent its latest report to Savid Javid just as he was replaced by Rishi Sunak “The Great South West pitches to the wrong man. A week is a long time in politics”  . Then the pandemic broke.

In July 2020 The Great South West appeared to be defunct, but it has re-awakened in time for the G7 (is anyone in Government listening?):

Report says South West needs ‘levelling up’ as much as ‘red wall’ north

William Telford www.business-live.co.uk 

The South West needs “levelling up” as much as the so-called “red wall” areas of the north, a new report tells the Government.

Pennon, the South West’s biggest employer and parent company of South West Water, has written a document on behalf of the Great South West economic task force calling for the region not to be overlooked in the Government’s plans. The report demands a “green jobs boom” to stop the brain drain of talented young people leaving the region.

The call is timed to coincide with the G7 summit being held in Cornwall from June 11, which looks at the economic challenges and opportunities facing the region.

The report, Levelling Up the Great South West: A G7 Legacy, analyses every parliamentary constituency in Devon and Cornwall and says they deserve as much political attention as those in the electoral battleground of the so-called “red wall” in the North of England and Midlands.

The new ‘levelling up analysis’ in Pennon’s Great South West report finds that:

Devon and Cornwall trail the rest of the UK in terms of productivity – Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly has the lowest productivity of any UK subregion, and Devon is the seventh lowest productivity area in the UK.

On a ranking of all parliamentary constituencies in England and Wales by productivity, 13 out of 18 Devon and Cornwall constituencies are in the lowest third, with St Ives, Torridge and West Devon, South East Cornwall, North Cornwall and Torbay in the bottom 25 in the whole of England and Wales.

The working age population of the region is declining as a share of the total, with an exodus of young people to larger urban areas, especially London. 70% of 15-17 year olds in Cornwall say they will need to leave the county in order to obtain a good job.

Many parts of the region have high levels of empty shops, a key indicator of the health of the high street, reflecting low spending levels and lack of investment. In Camborne and Redruth the rate of empty shops is 38% higher than the England and Wales average, in Torbay it is 30% higher, and in Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport it is 43% higher.

The new figures point to some of the biggest economic challenges facing England’s two most south-westerly counties. Yet the report says that with the right investment and support the Great South West has huge potential too.

The combination of the natural environment and environmental science specialisms in the region means Devon, Cornwall and the wider South West could set its sights on becoming Britain’s greenest regional economy, turning global concerns over sustainability into locally-led economic growth.

It recommends that every British region, including the South West, has an economic growth plan delivered by regional leaders with regional accountability; a Transport for the South West body which can champion regional transport infrastructure projects; the delivery of ultra-fast broadband across the region; more investment in research and development in the South West’s advanced manufacturing and environmental science clusters; and more STEM pathways for students in further and higher education in the region.

What is the Great South West initiative?

The Great South West initiative is the coming together of a wide range of organisations across the South West, including three Local Enterprise Partnerships, seven county and unitary authorities, six universities and major businesses.

The Great South West partners published growth prospectus in January 2020 that aims to deliver £45billion of economic benefit and 190,000 new jobs during the next 15 years.

Michael Gove broke the law by giving a contract to a communications agency run by long time associates of him and Dominic Cummings, the High Court has decided.

us15.campaign-archive.com /

The Court found that the decision to award the £560,000 contract to Public First was tainted by “apparent bias” and was unlawful. The Court found that Gove’s:

“failure to consider any other research agency… would lead a fair minded and informed observer to conclude that there was a real possibility, or a real danger, that the decision maker was biased” (paragraph 168).

Michael Gove had claimed that the work was such that only Public First could carry it out. However, the High Court rejected that version of events. The simple truth, it held, was that the Cabinet Office didn’t even consider whether anyone else should have the contract.

The decision vindicates Good Law Project’s long-running characterisation of pandemic procurement as “institutionalised cronyism”.

Emails released in the case also showed that both Michael Gove and Number 10 were keen that Public First (and Hanbury) should win no-tender polling contracts. Good Law Project’s judicial review of the decision to award a contract to Hanbury will be heard on 26 July.

The decision is the second in our long slate of crowdfunded procurement judicial reviews – and we have succeeded in both. Two Cabinet Ministers – Michael Gove and Matt Hancock – have now been found to have broken the law.G

Following the first decision, Good Law Project wrote to Matt Hancock making proposals to improve procurement and get better value for money for taxpayers. We offered, if that invitation was accepted, to drop our further procurement challenges to save public money. Mr Hancock did not respond. Since that letter, huge further sums in public money have been wasted in fruitless defence of unlawful conduct.

Good Law Project repeats its invitation to the Government to learn lessons – and to stop wasting more public money staving off political embarrassment.

Good Law Project is grateful to its legal team of Jason Coppel QC and Patrick Halliday of 11KBW Chambers, instructed by Rook Irwin Sweeney. And of course to the tens of thousands of people whose financial contributions make litigation like this possible.

We are the arrow but you draw the bow.

Thank you,

Jo Maugham

Director of Good Law Project

Investment in three Cornish towns worth more than £65m and a major nature recovery initiative across 21,000 hectares of land were announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson last night, as he prepared to host the G7 Summit of major world leaders in Carbis Bay.

(From the print edition of today’s Western Morning News)

The Town Deals announced for Penzance, St Ives and Camborne will fund projects at the heart of communities in some of Cornwall’s most deprived areas.

This includes creating a new network of foot and cycle paths across Camborne, Penzance and from St Ives to St Erth. Community hubs including theatres, sports clubs and historic buildings will also be restored and expanded, to ensure both residents and visitors can fully enjoy the cultural heritage of the region. 

Other funding will go to sustain businesses and commercial sectors most badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic and to create new business hubs in the towns designed to re-establish them as “economic powerhouses and centres of innovation” – creating new jobs.

And in an effort to reverse the decline in biodiversity and restore Cornwall’s natural environment the Government, in partnership with Natural England and the Cornwall Wildlife Trust, is launching a land restoration and regeneration programme, planting trees, restoring peat, making improvements to water quality, recreating scarce habitats and reintroducing lost and declining species such as dormice and the marsh fritillary. 

Boris Johnson, said: “As the eyes of the world look to Cornwall this week, not only will they see an area of outstanding beauty, they will witness a region that is innovative, exciting and looking firmly towards a bright future.

“The exciting projects we have announced today are a fitting legacy for a region playing host to some of the most important diplomatic talks in a generation. As the world builds back better from coronavirus, Cornwall will lead the way.” 

Natural England Chair, Tony Juniper, said: “We are very pleased to announce this new G7 environmental legacy project in Cornwall. It will assist with nature recovery through reconnecting habitats and ecosystems across the region, contributing to the conservation of rare species, carbon capture and improved water quality.”

The Government says it is working closely with Cornish leaders and institutions to shape the long-term legacy for the region from hosting the G7.  The Summit this week will profile local contractors – including its website being designed in Cornwall, tables for the Summit being made in Falmouth and gifts for world leaders being sourced from St Ives. Ahead of the Summit, the Government has also made a £7.8m investment into Cornwall Airport Newquay’s facilities.

Visit Cornwall estimates the total economic impact of hosting the G7 Summit will be £50 million – £24m during the event itself, and over £26m from future growth in the international tourist market over the next five years.

A correspondent writes:

One benefit of the proposed boundary changes is that there will be 2 coastal towns in the Honiton constituency and not one (Seaton).  Parish, with his Somerset farming background and farming interests in Parliament, seemed oblivious to the needs of the coast.  Perhaps now Sidmouth is included any future MP might feel the need to balance rural and coastal issues more carefully than heretofore.

Though maybe it would have been more sensible to split the constituencies into “East Devon Rural” and “East Devon Coastal” to allow MPs to concentrate on the very different issues and avoid conflicts of interest.

THE UK is the only country in Europe seeing a surge in Covid cases, grim graphs reveal.

Infections are being driven by the new Delta variant that first emerged in India.

Vanessa Chalmers www.thesun.co.uk (Extract)

The UK is the only nation in Europe seeing a surge in Covid cases, having had the lowest infection rate for months

At least 3,500 cases of Delta have been detected in the UK.

But the true figure is likely to be twice as high, given that only half of Covid tests are screened to see which variant they were caused by.

Daily new cases per million people have doubled in the UK between May 25 and June 7, according to official Covid figures collected by Our World in Data.

During the same period, other EU nations have continued on a downward trend.

Only France has seen a marginal uptick in cases, as health officials say there have been scattered clusters of the Delta strain.

The UK, diagnosing 74 cases per million a day, does not have the highest infection rate.

France, the Netherlands and Denmark among those with worser case rates.

However, if the UK’s cases continue to grow at the same pace, it looks to soon overtake those countries. 

Between January and mid-April, the UK’s case rate dwindled rapidly thanks to lockdowns and the vaccine drive.

Meanwhile, the rest of Europe battled a “third wave” which peaked around April time as its jab programme started at a snail pace.

But the tables have turned once more thanks to the Delta variant making its way onto British soil.

It ends an almost three-month spell of the UK having the lowest case rate in Europe.

Plans to allow an NHS system to extract patient data from doctors’ surgeries in England have now been pushed back by two months amid worries over privacy. Here are some of the key questions and concerns about the proposals.

Peter Walker www.theguardian.com

What is the plan?

Officially known as General Practice Data for Planning and Research, it had been due to come into force in England from 1 July, but has now been delayed to 1 September. The plan is to compile information about physical, mental and sexual health from GP surgeries into a central database, including diagnoses, symptoms, test results, medications, allergies, immunisations and referrals, as well as data on sex, ethnicity and sexual orientation, and on who has treated patients. It will exclude any identifying details such as names, addresses, images or details of conversations. Postcodes will be included, but in a coded form.

What data will be collected?

It will include everything for the last 10 years, and will be updated constantly as more data is added to GP records. Some elements of data are not allowed to be shared under law, for example about IVF treatment, and some information about gender re-assignment. Individual patients can also opt out from the scheme. They had been given until 23 June to exercise this right, but a now likely to have longer, though a new deadline has not yet been announced.

Why is it being collected?

According to NHS Digital, the data will be used for a “wide variety of research and analysis to help run and improve health and care services”. Among areas it highlights include the long-term impacts of Covid, health inequalities and research for serious illnesses. However, it will also be available to private sector organisations with the necessary provisions, although the data cannot be used purely for commercial purposes.

How is this different to what existed before?

It replaces a data system called General Practice Extraction Service, which also allows for the study of pseudonymised data (and in certain cases, data with identifying elements). However, rather than being one ever-updated central store of data, it is a more bespoke system, with individual GP practices voluntarily agreeing to take part and sending information when requests are made.

What are the objections?

There are two main worries. One is the sheer amount of data being held centrally, and the concern for breaches, or for the leak of any identifiable information. The other is what is seen as a lack of public information about the scheme, and the limited time for people to opt out. Similar concerns led to the scrapping of an earlier data-sharing scheme in England in 2016 called Care.data.

Who is concerned?

Primarily doctors’ groups. The Royal College of General Practitioners has written to NHS Digital to say that, while it backs the idea of data sharing, it was “critical that this is transparent and that patients have confidence and trust in how the NHS and other bodies might use their information”. On Friday last week, the British Medical Association called for the scheme to be delayed “until patients and the public have had time to be aware of and understand the programme and choose to opt-out if they wish”. On Sunday, Labour also called for a delay to allow for a wider consultation.

Neil Parish feels “cut in half”.

Simon Jupp voted to stop parliament blocking the change but holds his thoughts on the proposals close to his chest.

Sidmouth Town Council Chairman, Ian Barlow, would be disappointed to lose “young and modern” Simon Jupp but thinks Sidmouth would no longer be overshadowed by Exmouth as it would become the largest town (by a short head) in the restructured “Honiton” constituency”.

Of course Neil Parish could be the candidate for “Tiverton and Bridgewater” which presumably includes his family farm and Simon Jupp could avoid a relocation by becoming the candidate for “Honiton”.

Does Budleigh now become a suburb of Exmouth? – Owl

Philippa Davies sidmouth.nub.news 

Reactions have been coming in following the boundary review announcement his morning, which would see Sidmouth becoming part of the Honiton parliamentary constituency.

A public consultation’s under way on the re-drawing of the boundary lines, which will create a new constituency for Exmouth, including Budleigh Salterton and Topsham, and another for the Tiverton area.

The Honiton constituency would have Sidmouth and Ottery on its western border, with Axminster on its eastern edge: read more and view the map here.

Constituency boundaries are changed regularly in response to population growth in some areas, to make sure that each MP has a similar number of people eligible to vote in their patch.

The chairman of Sidmouth Town Council, Ian Barlow, told Sidmouth Nub News there would probably be ‘pros and cons’ to the changes, but he would be disappointed if they result in Sidmouth losing Simon Jupp, the current East Devon MP, as the town’s parliamentary representative.

He said: “Simon Jupp is young and modern, and he seems to be working really hard for Sidmouth, engaging with us at town council level which I think is unusual, and it’ll be a shame if he’s not our MP any more.

“The only bonus to Sidmouth is that we would be the largest town in that constituency – in East Devon we’re the second largest town and maybe we’re missing out because of that.”

Mr Jupp told us: “The constituency I’m proud to represent contains the largest population in Devon and has to change under the rules of the boundary review. I will put forward my views as part of the consultation process as the East Devon constituency will change to reflect a growing population across the area. I voted to ensure Parliament can’t block the final recommendations which are designed to make Parliamentary representation fairer across the United Kingdom.”

Neil Parish, the MP for the current Honiton and Tiverton constituency which looks set to be split in two, expressed shock at being ‘cut in half’.

Talking to Nub News, he said: “I was not expecting Tiverton and Honiton to be sliced apart. It was certainly a surprise, and this clearly affects my position as the constituency’s MP.

“My current electorate will be split and so I will no longer be able to represent each of my current constituents.

“I will have to await the final proposals in full, to ensure I have all the details, before I can make any decisions on whom I will seek to represent within the new boundaries.”

In terms of Devon as a whole, the planned changes would mean an additional MP.

The public consultation runs until August 2. To view the proposed changes in full, and submit a response, click here.

MAPS reveal how quickly the super infectious Delta (Indian) variant spread to all corners of the country. 

In just two weeks, the strain went from a proportion of 38 per cent to 75 per cent, making it dominant in England.

Vanessa Chalmers www.thesun.co.uk  (extract)

May 15: Where the Delta (Indian) variant had become dominant

May 29: Where the Delta (Indian) variant is now dominant

The data from the Welcome Sanger Institute shows how fast the variant has managed to grip the UK, having only been detected for the first time on April 10.

It’s reminiscent of the Alpha (Kent) strain which caused havoc at the end of 2020 when it soared to dominance in a matter of weeks, throwing England into the third lockdown.

The data comes amid growing pressure to delay the June 21 unlocking in England. 

The Delta variant is driving the rise in Covid cases, alongside lifting of restrictions.

Experts have said it is now evident the UK is at the start of a third wave and things would only escalate if June 12 went ahead. 

Not only is the Delta variant (B.1.617.2) faster spreading by around 40 per cent, but there is now evidence that it causes more severe disease.

But rising cases is yet to be mirrored by increasing hospital cases, however, with the latest data showing patient numbers have climbed slightly.

The NHS is in a race to double jab the vulnerable as fast as possible given that one jab is not considered protective enough. 

But some Tory MPs are fighting against “moving goalposts” for the opening of society due to the damage it will have on businesses. 

There are reports the PM is considering holding back by just two weeks to allow more time for vaccinations, with a decision imminent.

Data from the Sanger Insitute – which tracks Covid variants – shows that in the fortnight to May 15, the Delta variant had already become dominant in no more than 50 areas.

Fast-forward to May 29 – the most recent date available – the Indian variant has become dominant in at least 150 areas.

The Delta variant (B.1.617.2) now makes up 75 per cent of cases, according to Sanger data which does not take into account travel related or surge testing cases. The Alpha (Kent, B.1.1.7 ) strain is the cause of only 23 per cent of cases

Dominance means that of all Covid cases sequenced, B.1.617.2 is making up at least half.

On May 15 the “hotspots” were visible and centred in the North West. Parts of the South West and South East, including London, were also more affected. 

But now there is a sea of dominance in the Midlands, with hotspots including Derby and Leicester.

Delta has spread throughout the South East, now dominant in the majority of London boroughs, through to Kent and some parts of Essex.

Only parts of the South coast spared, such as Brighton.

The North West region has become completely overthrown by the variant, having had hotspots of Bolton and Blackburn with Darwen for a few weeks. 

The maps also show the Delta variant spread quite rapidly to the East of England in one fortnight.

And parts of the South West are also facing a growing epidemic, including Cornwall and North Somerset.

Case numbers are not always high in areas where the Delta variant is dominant. 

The article goes on to list hotspots by case numbers and by dominance.

Fears have been raised that patients are being discharged from Cornwall’s main hospital to clear space in case it is needed for VIPs, delegates, police or protesters during the G7 summit.

Steven Morris www.theguardian.com 

The Liberal Democrats in Cornwall claimed two wards had been emptied at the Royal Cornwall hospital in Truro in readiness for the three-day meeting of world leaders.

Health officials refused to discuss details of their plans but confirmed that “capacity” was being created to prepare for the event, which begins on Friday.

Andrew George, the health spokesperson for the Lib Dems in Cornwall, accused the UK government of not planning adequately for the event, during which tens of thousands of delegates, police, protesters and media representatives will descend on the far south-west of Britain.

George said: “The early discharge of sick patients to clear hospital wards is among the inevitable consequences of the government failing to put proper plans in place before the G7 comes to town.”

One woman, from Newquay, claimed she had been asked to find a care home bed for her 97-year-old father who is in the hospital, which is known locally as Treliske.

The woman, who spoke to Radio Cornwall and gave her name as Lindsey, said: “I was absolutely incensed at the thought that patients needing treatment are being shipped out of hospital, and local people including my father are not able to find a space. I am absolutely disgusted with the situation.

“A care home owner told me that Treliske hospital has to provide 78 empty beds for the G7 and that patients were being sent out of the hospital into care homes and so she said you were very unlikely to find anywhere.”

NHS Kernow said: “As at any time when we expect increased demand for our services, we work together with our health and care partners to create additional capacity in our hospitals. We have done this to ensure we are prepared for G7, as we would with any major event in the county.

“Patients being discharged are, as always, medically fit and with an adult social care package in place when required. This is business as usual for health and social care.

“It is not good for people to remain in hospital longer than they need to and places additional pressure on our hospitals. We work closely with Cornwall council to ensure it has put in place a social care package to support anyone who is fit and well enough to leave hospital. Especially when our hospitals are so busy.”

On Tuesday, NHS Kernow tweeted a request for people to help the health service during the summit by only calling 999 if they faced a life-threatening emergency and believed they needed the care of a paramedic on the way to hospital.

NHS Kernow also urged people not to turn up at a minor injury unit without contacting NHS 111 first and not to visit an emergency department “unless you have an urgent, life-threatening condition such as a suspected heart attack, stroke, severe loss of blood, difficulty breathing, or are unconscious”.

It also advised people who are booked for a Covid vaccination to allow extra time for journeys if they live in an area where there will be travel disruptions.

A UK government spokesperson said: “The government has not requested that any patients be removed from local hospitals to prepare for the G7 summit. Decisions on patient care are matter for the local NHS, and Cornwall council is responsible for adult social care provision.”

openDemocracy has won a significant legal victory against the UK government. The judgement forces transparency on a secretive unit accused of ‘blacklisting’ Freedom of Information requests from journalists, campaigners and others.

Peter Geoghegan www.opendemocracy.net 

After a three-year battle, judge Chris Hughes found that the documents the Cabinet Office presented in court about the controversial Clearing House unit were ‘misleading’. He added that there is a “profound lack of transparency about the operation”, which might “extend to ministers”.

Finding in openDemocracy’s favour, Hughes also criticised the Cabinet Office for a “lacuna in public information” about how the Clearing House coordinates Freedom of Information (FOI) requests referred to it by government departments and agencies.

The Cabinet Office had offered an out-of-date Wikipedia entry as evidence that information about the Clearing House, which circulates lists of journalists across Whitehall, was available to the public.

The ruling came in an information tribunal case taken by openDemocracy, with public interest law firm Leigh Day, in a bid to bring transparency to the Cabinet Office Clearing House. The case was heard in April but the judgement was published only late last month.

openDemocracy had previously revealed that the Clearing House has blocked the release of politically sensitive information, in one instance comparing the handling of an FOI request to the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war.

Cabinet minister Michael Gove had previously called openDemocracy’s journalism “ridiculous and tendentious” but his department has now been ordered to release further details of how the Clearing House blocked FOI requests.

Tory MP David Davis called for change, saying the ruling ‘demonstrates what we have known all along’

The judge said that “given all the circumstances” including “a lack of accurate publicly available information about the constitutionally significant role in coordinating FOI responses there is real weight in the public interest in disclosure”. The Cabinet Office has yet to release the documents to openDemocracy.

The tribunal judgment has been hailed as a major victory by politicians and transparency campaigners.

Shadow cabinet office secretary Angela Rayner urged Gove to “intervene and set out how he will be ensuring that this government abides by the law and upholds the right of citizens, journalists and campaigners to access information under Freedom of Information”.

Conservative MP David Davis called for immediate change, claiming the ruling “demonstrates what we have known all along”.

He said the Cabinet Office had “failed to meet its obligation either to the letter or the principle of the Freedom of Information Act and has withheld important information about government activity from the public domain”.

Michelle Stanistreet, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, said: “This is an important win in an FOI battle to get the Cabinet Office to come clean about the tracking of FOI requests made by journalists and NGOs.”

The judge also noted that the Cabinet Office had “minimised the significance of” the Clearing House FOI list, which is circulated daily across Whitehall and which has contained the names and details of journalists from openDemocracy, The Guardian, The Times, the BBC, and many others, as well as researchers and campaigners. These lists also contain the Cabinet Office’s advice to departments on how to handle FOI requests.

Freedom of Information requests are supposed to be ‘applicant-blind’, meaning who makes the request should not matter. Data protection experts have warned that the Clearing House could be breaking the law.

‘High political sensitivity’

The Clearing House has existed since FOI legislation was introduced. The Cabinet Office took responsibility for the unit in 2015, which started to receive significant attention only after openDemocracy revealed extensive details about its operation late last year. In February, more than a dozen former and serving Fleet Street editors signed an open letter calling for an inquiry into its operation.

The tribunal ruling comes almost three years after openDemocracy first asked for a sample of the Clearing House lists, in August 2018. When the Cabinet Office appealed against an order from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to disclose details of the Clearing House, openDemocracy took a case to the information tribunal.

The Cabinet Office had previously insisted that the FOI unit was fully compliant with all legislation. Ahead of the tribunal in April, Michael Gove wrote to The Guardian and the Society of Editors criticising openDemocracy’s reporting on the Clearing House.

But behind the scenes, the Cabinet Office backtracked. Gove’s department published information about the Clearing House, including criteria by which FOI requests – such as those regarding “cases involving high political sensitivity” – were referred for review.

The unit also released some of its lists, which showed that the Clearing House had encouraged departments to dismiss information requests.

In one case, the unit said that an FOI for details of government records systems from Times journalist George Greenwood “appears to have no discernible purpose”.

At the hearing, the Cabinet Office said the Clearing House handled round robin requests sent to multiple government departments but stated that these lists did not include requests deemed ‘sensitive’.

Noting that the Cabinet Office had “changed its position radically”, the judge found that Gove’s department had “misled” the tribunal by originally stating that the Clearing House lists included ‘sensitive’ data, which would have justified withholding the information.

However, questions have been raised about the Cabinet Office’s argument at the tribunal. Analysis conducted by openDemocracy has found that a third of requests on a sample Clearing House list released under FOI were individual requests that had not been sent to multiple departments. Often these requests were of high public interest.

Documents obtained by openDemocracy also show that Whitehall departments have routinely flagged ‘sensitive’ requests to the Clearing House. In one instance, the Cabinet Office unit instructed the Treasury to withhold information from infected blood campaigner Jason Evans, whose father died after being given blood contaminated with HIV.

Katherine Gundersen, deputy director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, said: “The Cabinet Office’s handling of this request raises questions about its fitness to advise other departments on FOI.

“It inaccurately described the contents of its ‘round robin’ lists, misleading its own minister, the Information Commissioner and the tribunal by suggesting the information was more sensitive than it actually was.”

Noting that the Cabinet Office had ‘changed its position radically’, the judge found that it had ‘misled’ the tribunal

An openDemocracy report, ‘Art of Darkness’, which was published last year, found that the Cabinet Office is the worst performing Whitehall department on key FOI metrics.

Since the report was written, the Cabinet Office has stonewalled a number of requests from openDemocracy about the Clearing House operation.

A Cabinet Office spokesperson told openDemocracy: “A Clearing House function has existed since 2004 to help ensure there is a consistent approach across government to requests for information which go to a number of different departments or where requests are made for particularly sensitive information.

“We remain committed to transparency and always balance the need to make information available with our legal duty to protect sensitive information.

“In order to be as transparent as possible we have released the vast majority of information that was requested in this case and have already published a considerable amount of information on Clearing House, including a gov.uk page explaining its purpose and remit.”

An ICO spokesperson said: “We welcome the decision of the tribunal”.

The round robin lists released to openDemocracy can be viewed here, which are being hosted at a new research project at the University of Westminster, UK Unredacted.

Devon is set to gain an extra MP under proposals for a shake-up of England’s electoral map in 2023 – with major changes planned for other constituencies.

[So will another Blue MP mean the Government will take any more notice of Devon? And what about the cross border proposal for a “Tiverton” and “Minehead” constuency – could this be mirrored in the “unitary authority” carve -up of Devon that Phill Twiss, new memebr of DCC cabinet, is rumoured to be cooking up?]

Daniel Clark www.devonlive.com 

Across the South West, the region has been allocated 58 constituencies – an increase of three from the current number – which includes an extra seat in Devon, albeit a cross-boundary division including parts of Somerset.

A seat straddling Devon and Cornwall – the infamous ‘Devonwall’ proposal – has been avoided but the Commission said it had “not always been possible to allocate whole numbers of constituencies to individual counties”, with a proposed Tiverton and Minehead constituency which will cross the county boundary between Somerset and Devon.

Across Devon, main changes include the splitting of the existing Tiverton and Honiton seat held by Neil Parish into a Tiverton and Minehead and a new Honiton constituency.

Changes to the electoral boundaries proposed for the East Devon area – existing boundaries in blue and proposed changes in red

The Tiverton and Minehead constituency would cover Tiverton, Uffculme, Willand, and Bampton, as well as the ‘West Somerset’ section of the existing Bridgwater and West Somerset seat.

The Honiton constituency would comprise of Cullompton, the existing areas of East Devon it serves, as well as areas around Sidmouth and Ottery St Mary, currently in the East Devon seat.

A new Exmouth constituency would be created, comprising the remainder of the existing East Devon seat, but also see part of the Priory ward in Exeter, covering the area around Wonford and Burnthouse Lane move from the Exeter constituency into the Exmouth constituency.

Changes to the electoral boundaries proposed for the Exeter area – existing boundaries in blue and proposed changes in red

The seats of Newton Abbot, North Devon, Torbay and Central Devon are proposed to be broadly unchanged, although Poltimore would move into the latter from East Devon.

Torridge and West Devon would be renamed Torridge and Tavistock, and see the area around Crapstone, Buckland Monachorum and Meavy moved into the South West Devon constituency, which would in turn lose the area around Modbury, Kingston and Bigbury into the Totnes constituency.

In Plymouth, the proposal divides the Peverell ward between the Plymouth Sutton and Devonport, and Plymouth Moor View constituencies in order to keep change elsewhere to a minimum and to allow for the Devonport ward to remain in a maritime constituency.

Changes to the electoral boundaries proposed for the Plymouth area – existing boundaries in blue and proposed changes in red

The proposed changes would leave Devon with 13 MPs – up one on the existing 12 – although one would be split across Devon and Somerset.

The proposals from the Boundary Commission for England says the aim is to make Parliament fairer by giving each MP a roughly similar number of voters, which involves redrawing and renaming some seats.

The total number of seats in the House of Commons will stay at 650 but population changes mean England is set to have 543 MPs, Wales 32 and Scotland 57 – that is an extra 10 for England, with Wales losing eight and Scotland’s count cut by two

The review is designed to end the discrepancies in the current system with some MPs having only 50,000 constituents and others having double that, and seats will be redrawn so they have, by law, between 69,724 and 77,062 registered voters each, although some island constituencies, such as the Isle of Wight and Anglesey, being given special dispensation to be outside these requirements.

The Boundary Commission is consulting on the initial proposals for an eight-week period, from June 8 to August 2.

In Blue, Existing Constituencies, And In Red, Proposed Changes to electoral boundaries across Devon

A spokesman said: “We encourage everyone to use this opportunity to help us shape the new constituencies – the more responses we receive, the more informed our decisions will be when considering whether to revise our proposals. Our consultation portal at www.bcereviews.org.uk has more information about our proposals and how to give us your views on them.”

A second consultation with public hearings will then get under way in spring 2022, followed by a final four-week consultation on revised plans in autumn 2022.

Final recommendations are due by July 1, 2023, after which the government has four months to implement the plans.

The changes will only come into effect in late 2023, but if a General Election is called before the new boundaries are in place, the election would be fought on the old boundaries.