As the council prepares to make major savings in the wake of declaring bankruptcy it will be looking back on financial decisions made in the past few years.
These include property deals, made with the intention of making money for the cash-strapped council.
The Croydon Park Hotel was bought in August 2018 with the aim of bringing in £1 million profit a year for the council.
But the hotel in Altyre Road went into administration in June this year and is currently being used as temporary accommodation for homeless people while the council decides what to do with it.
The decision to buy the hotel was highlighted by auditors Grant Thornton in a report in the public interest, published last month, which recommended that the purchase be reviewed.
It was a ‘leader decision’ by then council leader Tony Newman and not reviewed by cabinet and the overview and scrutiny commission until a month later.
The auditors report will be discussed at an extraordinary council meeting on Thursday (November 19).
The council’s medium-term financial strategy (2018-2022) established what it called an ‘asset acquisition fund’ of £100 million to invest in property as an ongoing income stream.
This fund was increased to £200 million in December 2019.
The Colonnades Retail Park, Purley Way, was the first purchase after the asset acquisition fund was approved.
The council bought it in November 2018 for £53 million, at the time it hoped that it would provide an annual income of £1.4 million. Auditors noted that the income of the retail park had been badly hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.
In December 2019 Croydon Council announced it had bought two more properties.
These were builders’ merchants Selco in Imperial Way, Waddon, and medical supplies specialist Alliance Healthcare at Vulcan Way in New Addington – at a combined cost of £14 million.
At the time it was thought the annual income from the tenants, which employed 300 people, would be £330,000.
But a damning report into the financial state of the council, published by Grant Thornton, deemed the investments “inherently flawed”.
It said: “The investments in The Colonnades and Croydon Park Hotel were not
grounded in a sufficient understanding of the retail and leisure market and have again illustrated that the council’s strategy to invest its way out of financial challenge rather than pay attention to controlling expenditure on core services was inherently flawed.”
Croydon Council has commissioned an independent review into properties the authority has bought which is expected to be published this month.
Recommendations off the back of this report will be presented alongside a budget review in February 2021.
Council leader councillor Hamida Ali said: “As a council we are fully committed to implementing the changes and improvements to address the recommendations made by the auditor as swiftly as we can, and to learn from our mistakes.
“First we must come together as a whole council, to address the serious criticisms contained within the auditors’ report and agree a way forward to ensure that this can never happen again. It will be an extremely important step on our improvement journey.”
Just as we are struggling to read the nuance, if any, between a Ben Ingham (Independent) and a Ben Ingham (Conservative). The party he rejoined is fragmenting into groups and factions.
The new schism isn’t as simple as in the Thatcher era when Tories could be divide into the “wets” and the”dries” – far from it.
It seems that members of some of the traditional groups such as “The One Nation Group” and the “Free Market Group” can still be identified.
But new ones are forming with euphemistic titles such as “The Common Sense Group” and “The Covid Recovery Group”. Remember how the “Brexiteers” became “The European Research Group”? Very Orwellian.
MPs seem to be hedging their bets by joining more than one, creating parties within the party.
Wonder which groups our intrepid Neil Parish and Simon Jupp belong to?
Thinking more parochially, are we going to have to pigeonhole our local Tories? Where to start? Owl
Conservative MPs who see the government as remote or lacking a policy agenda are flocking to backbench pressure groups in the hope of forcing Downing Street to listen to their concerns.
After the success of the European Research Group in shaping Brexit policy, a string of new groups have been set up in recent months with a remit on issues from migration to criticism of “the woke agenda”. They claim they have their finger on the pulse of the subjects which voters in the party’s treasured new “red wall” seats care about.
One MP who is a member of two of the new groups told the Guardian: “I would say we are ready for a culture war, and we are confident that our policy agenda will help win it.”
The latest of the groups, the Covid Recovery Group (CRG), was announced on Tuesday and appears to pose the most direct threat of rebellion over the government’s policies on lockdown. It is led by the ERG veteran Steve Baker, who one member said was “the best whip in Westminster”.
It launched with 50 members and at least 10 more have joined its ranks in the last 24 hours, the Guardian understands.
The Common Sense Group, which launched quietly in the summer with about 40 members, was the subject of a front-page story in the Daily Telegraph this week after it accused the National Trust of being “coloured by cultural Marxist dogma” and in the grip of “elite bourgeois liberals” over a report acknowledging links between its properties and slavery.
It now has 59 MPs and 7 members of the House of Lords in its ranks.
Sir John Hayes, the founder of the group, told the Guardian: “The ERG has served an important role, but it has very largely done its work. The government has to decide what its defining purpose is beyond Brexit. There’s a thirst in the party to have an open debate about what the direction should be now. There’s a different kind of Conservative family emerging.”
One member of the group, Jonathan Gullis, posted a “CULTURE WAR ALERT” on Facebook last month telling his followers that research by Greenwich Maritime Museum into the Royal Navy’s links to slavery was “leftwing ideological nonsense”.
Members have met with Priti Patel to discuss their views on immigration. “We had a Zoom meeting with Priti within two or three days of forming, and I hope we did have some influence, help to shape the thinking,” Hayes said.
On Wednesday, members of the Northern Research Group (NRG) used a Westminster Hall debate to call on the government to set out a “northern economic recovery plan”. One member, Southport MP Damien Moore, told the minister Kemi Badenoch: “We can’t just hope our way out of this crisis.”
Henry Hill, news editor at the Conservative Home website, said that the groups had formed because “whereas with Thatcher or Cameron you had a coherent ‘-ism’, with Johnson you don’t really have one of those. There are just whole areas of policy where Johnsonism isn’t a thing.”
The CRG has been modelled on the ERG, which was tightly organised, commissioned in-depth reports, had official briefings for journalists and MPs, and employed a staff researcher who handled communications.
The new group has already engaged the services of Ed Barker, a seasoned Tory PR professional and former parliamentary candidate who worked for the pro-Brexit group Global Britain and for Esther McVey’s short-lived leadership campaign.
Ben Bradley, the MP for Mansfield, who was one of the first “red wall” group of Tories to be elected, in 2017, is a member of the Common Sense Group and the NRG.
He said the spate of new groups reflected the priorities of a new kind of Tory MP, drawing comparisons with some of the thinktanks that emerged under Theresa May, like the free-market group Freer, and Onward, run by former May advisers Will Tanner and the MP Neil O’Brien.
“When we got in in 2017, there was this proliferation of new groups,” Bradley said. “In 2019, there are also a lot of new ideas coming from seats that have new priorities, levelling up the north, immigration.
“This is a mechanism of getting that across. But this time there is senior leadership who are invested too, big guns on the backbenches like Jake Berry, around John Hayes in Common Sense, there’s Esther McVey in [another group] the Blue Collar Conservatives. It’s very much a 2019 viewpoint that has found a wider reception.”
Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, cautioned against groups “being amplified because if a mouthy backbencher is said to represent something it lends them legitimacy”. But he said the “turning of the page” from Brexit had helped create space for such voices. “The energy almost needed somewhere else to go within this closed system,” he said, noting of the CRG that “the journey from Euroscepticism to lockdown scepticism is fairly easy ”.
A Tory MP who is part of the CRG said that the new groupings were all viewed as “adversarial” by Downing Street. “The fundamental reason for this is that No 10 is so dominant,” they said. “It’s clear that if you want to be heard, you have to shout. Johnson has no views beyond Brexit. We’re in a particularly odd place where access is limited to a very narrow faction and so it’s hardly surprising if real conservatives are trying to find a way to act.”
Some backbenchers on the left of the party are concerned about a new factionalism. One who is aligned with the One Nation Group of soft-right Conservatives said they feared the emergence of multiple “parties within a party”.
The MP added: “I’m wary of some of these endeavours, given the grief they wrought on the party last year. But it should be said that you don’t have to be a headbanger to think that the sphere of influence in No 10 is too small and that groups that put pressure on things that Tory voters care about is not necessarily a bad thing.”
Today’s Health and Adult Care Scrutiny meeting painted a grim picture of the situation in Devon, with leadership which is just not meeting the needs of the situation:
Shortages of hospital and ICU beds – the SW has the fewest in the country (and the UK almost the fewest in Europe) meaning that – despite our Covid level being the lowest – the two lockdowns have been necessary to save our hospital system.
‘Physical space constraints’ due to the pandemic are restricting the restoration of ‘elective’ surgery – after improving more slowly than planned, this is now going backwards because of more Covid cases. 4,500 people and rising have been waiting over a year!
There are bed shortages in mental health units, too – as well as staff shortages, which are also affecting 111 and after-hours call-outs, with weak governance in both services.
Yet in the midst of all this, Devon CCG are saying that they must go back to implementing £400m financial savings (planned before the pandemic) in 2021-22.
They also want to proceed with the planned closure of Teignmouth hospital, although we have insisted that Scrutiny will look at the consultation results (which were not ready today) and send our views to the CCG before it makes a decision.
WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! The pandemic will not end on 31st March, so EMERGENCY FUNDING MUST CONTINUE NEXT FINANCIAL YEAR. And we need to plan now for a post-pandemic new deal:
Centralise Covid services in the acute hospitals, disperse other services to more sites, restore proper intermediate (step-down) care outside the care home system.
Recognise that we have been badly caught out by Covid – we need to permanently maintain a larger hospital system, with more beds, so that we are ready for the next pandemic (which experts say could be worse).
Make full use of our community hospital system, so that people can be treated safely, closest to home wherever possible. Drop the Teignmouth closure programme.
Devon CCG and DCC must go and tell the Government, which is splashing out tens of billions on testing, that it must find a billion more for Devon’s NHS and adult care services. Cancel the cuts and invest in a viable future plan. WILL M.P.s AND COUNCILLORS OF ALL PARTIES JOIN ME IN PUSHING FOR THIS?
There are more patients in Devon hospitals now, after a positive Covid-19 test, than at the peak of the pandemic – with that number set to rise until the end of November.
Dr Paul Johnson, chairman of Devon Clinical Commissioning Group, presented the stark picture that the NHS is dealing with to Thursday’s Local Outbreak Engagement Board meeting.
He told the board that there were currently 219 patients in hospitals in Devon – although not all were admitted for Covid-19 – and that it wasn’t until the end of November that they expected to begin seeing the impact of the second lockdown and patient numbers begin to reduce.
Dr Johnson said: “Lockdown coming when it did was very good news for us as if cases kept rising beyond the end of November, then the NHS wouldn’t have been able to cope.”
In presenting the issues and pressures the NHS are facing, Dr Johnson said that the South West does have problems that could have seen it run out of beds quickest, due to geography, an older population and a relatively lower proportion of beds, which made the region vulnerable even with a lowest number of cases.
He said that there three pressures that hospitals were now facing they were not the case in April and May that means they are under more stress now than back in Spring.
The board heard that in April and May, elective referrals from GPs to hospitals were only at 40 per cent of the usual figures as people stayed home, but as of September, that was nearly back up to 100 per cent, with Dr Johnson saying: “Unlike the first wave when we had breathing space from routine elective activity, we are not seeing that this time.”
He added that in the first wave, cancer referrals in April fell to around a quarter of their usual levels, only returning to normal by June, adding: “That gave us breathing space, but was a worry that people with cancer symptoms were not coming forward and missing the chance for an early diagnoses.
“We are still waiting to see if that is the case and referrals have picked up and back at the high level and we are confident we are picking up the diagnoses now but have the added pressure.”
And he said that accident and emergency admissions fell to around 40 per cent of usual levels in the spring, but they have also returned to just below normal levels, but it felt more pressured due to the extra infection controls that need to be taken.
Dr Johnson told the board that normally the NHS aims to only have a maximum of 90 per cent of beds occupied in hospitals to ensure they have capacity to deal with any ‘surge events’ but that in the spring, only 45 per cent of beds were being used after emptying hospitals of patients to ‘deal with what could have been the worst case scenario’.
He said: “Thankfully we didn’t see it but we had the capacity to deal with it.”
The board heard that around 93 per cent of beds in Derriford Hospital, 91 per cent in Torbay Hospital, 90 per cent in Exeter, and 82 per cent of beds in North Devon Hospital were currently occupied by patients who were in hospital for a variety of reasons, not all Covid-19 related.
But he said: “The number of Covid-19 patients in hospital has exceeded the peak in the first wave, which gives us problems in hospitals.
“Some operations have had to be cancelled and we are having to close some wards as people who when admitted tested negative initially have in subsequent screenings tested positive and when happens, they are usually on a non-covid ward so that had implications around discharges and bed occupancy.
“We are not see a slowing yet and it usually around four to five weeks before any impact on hospital admissions from measures so we won’t see anything from the lockdown until the end of November, and we expect to see more of a rise for the next two and a half weeks, and then a drop as we see the impact on the lockdown.
“We are making plans to optimise the use of beds and to get people home quickly, but if it keeps rising beyond the end of November, then the NHS wouldn’t have been able to cope, so lockdown coming when it did was very good news for us to cope.”
Dr Virginia Pearson, director of Public Health for Devon, said that it was more important than ever that the public interventions of social distancing, hand washing, and wearing face coverings were adhered to do in order not only to protect ourselves but the NHS as well.
She added: “We can see the spread of the virus leading to increase in case in older age groups, which parallels with pressure with the NHS.
“There is some encouraging info from the North which suggests that they have peaked and but we will see the pressure going up for a couple of weeks, so need to expect some disruption to services.”
The meeting heard that in terms of the latest figures around coronavirus cases for Devon, the numbers were ‘relatively flat’ but there was an increasing level of ‘background noise’,
Simon Chant, public health specialist, said that the infection rates for Devon were 104 per 100,000 population, which was well below the figures for Plymouth and Torbay, and significantly below the England average of 245 per 100,000.
Figures for Exeter, East Devon, North Devon and West Devon were just over the 100/100,000 mark, with lower numbers in Teignbridge, South Hams, Torridge and Mid Devon.
Dr Pearson added that the underlying backdrop was of a gradual increase in case numbers, but that the amount of testing in Devon has increased phenomenally, from around 8,000 tests a week back in September to over 20,000 tests a week now.
She said: “Partly there are more cases because of more testing, but there is also more spread, and the pattern is small numbers scattered across the whole of Devon. There is more testing availability in Devon with the number of national labs increased, but also people are recognising that important if have symptoms to get tested.
“We want to know what is out there and it is important to understand the spread of the disease and there is no substitute for being able to get rapid data and take rapid action around self-isolation.”
Since the second lockdown began last Thursday, figures showed that traffic on Devon’s roads was down 30 per cent on weekdays and 40 per cent on weekends, but that compared to a 70-80 per cent during the first lockdown.
Dr Pearson added: “The big difference is that in the first lockdown, schools were closed, so some of the transport is school traffic. This will give us an idea of the extent how much younger people are impacting the spread. There has been an impact in schools, but not huge or a significant issue, so we will keep a close eye on the incidence, where it is, and what age groups as we go through the lockdown.”
Man you’ve never heard of resigns from job you never knew existed – it doesn’t sound the most exciting of headlines. Except, that is, when it affects a man everyone has heard of and indeed who many believe has the most important job of all as the real leader of the country. So forget Lee Cain and Carrie Symonds – the spat between them is like all those proxy wars in Korea, Afghanistan and so on during the Cold War. The real battle is between the superpowers – Dominic Cummings on the one hand and Tory MPs on the other, with the Prime Minister, like Berlin, sandwiched in the middle.
It is the same battle which seems to rage in all modern governments: between ministers and MPs on the one hand and unelected advisers and Downing Street spokesmen on the other. Remember Alan Walters vs Nigel Lawson in Thatcher’s day, Alastair Campbell vs anti-war Labour MPs in Blair’s day, Nick Timothy vs Tory MPs under Theresa May? It is effectively the same old battle, but getting more vicious with each passing administration. Prime Ministers like small bands of trusted advisers whom they can keep close at hand; MPs, still less ministers, think they are the ones who should be wielding power and do not like being sidelined.
But no adviser has ever gained quite the profile of Dominic Cummings. For a man who doesn’t much like talking to the press, he attained from the beginning a remarkable public profile. Which other government adviser ever had reporters regularly stationed outside their house? Cummings has attained mythical status as much by fascinating people as by doing things. He is an Eric Cantona of government. He doesn’t much speak to us, but somehow we know him anyway. We know he doesn’t much like Tory MPs and that he holds the civil service pretty well in contempt.
If you are the unrecognised, unknown minister for paperclips all this must be pretty galling. You spent long years on the rubber chicken circuit, speaking to local people about buses, notching up brownie points to impress Conservative association selection panels. You worked your way up via parliamentary assistant to some junior minister. And yet still you are blocked from the Prime Ministerial ear by Cummings, who seems to have spent long years doing nothing at all, other than scribbling an impenetrable blog.
Cummings was never likely to last a full Parliamentary term at No 10. The wonder is that he has lasted this long. For Boris Johnson the case for keeping him is that he has some super-insight into the minds of voters whom others ignore – a reputation he gained from his role in Vote Leave and in last year’s general election. We don’t, though, know the counter-factual. Maybe Britain would have voted to leave the EU without him – no-one can say for sure that the country wouldn’t have voted 53 percent to 47 percent, rather than 52 percent to 48 percent, had Cummings not offended some people with his £350 million a week claim on the side of the battle bus.
But one thing is for certain: while Cummings may possibly help to win referendums and elections, he certainly can’t help win Commons votes – only MPs can do that. What precipitated this week’s crisis at No 10 was last week’s vote on a second lockdown, where the Government’s 80-seat majority all but evaporated. Cummings, despite his jaunt to Barnard Castle, is a lockdown fanatic. Lee Cain is blamed by many for leaking the lockdown plans which led the Prime Minister to bring forward his announcement of the new restrictions, and to the hurried press briefing with the dodgy graphs.
There are still four years to go before an election – where Cummings could show his greatest usefulness. Commons votes, on the other hand, are going to come around with increasing rapidity. That is why Cummings is hanging by a thread and likely to lose the battle for his job: right now, the Prime Minister needs Cummings’s many enemies more than he needs the man himself.
Let’s face it. Government by unelected and unaccountable SPADs has been a costly failure (and a delicious PR disaster). Time for Dominic Cummings to spend more time with his family in Durham? Lockdown would be a good time to make the journey. – Owl
Steven Swinford, Deputy Political Editor | Oliver Wright, Policy Editor | Eleni Courea, Political Reporter www.thetimes.co.uk
Even by the tumultuous standards of Boris Johnson’s government the rise and fall of his trusted aide Lee Cain has shaken those around the prime minister.
On Tuesday Mr Cain was Mr Johnson’s presumptive new chief of staff, having loyally served him long before he entered Downing Street. But by last night he was gone — losing not only the job he wanted but also resigning from his present role as the prime minister’s director of communications.
His departure, and the events that led up to it, reveal a fractured top team around Mr Johnson that has pitted his Brexit allies against the prime minister’s own fiancée in a battle over what kind of prime minister he should be.
It is a row that has engulfed the highest levels of No 10 and could prove to be a decisive moment for the direction of the government.
The enmity between Mr Cain and Carrie Symonds, herself a former director of communications for the Conservative Party, has long been simmering under the surface but became public yesterday after The Times disclosed Mr Johnson’s intention to promote Mr Cain to a new role.
If he had got the job the appointment would have cemented the influence of Downing Street’s Vote Leave faction around the prime minister, Mr Cain having worked for Dominic Cummings during the EU referendum campaign.
Yesterday, until his resignation, allies of Mr Cain had been insisting that he was the right man for the role, having been acting as the prime minister’s de facto chief of staff for some time.
“His instincts and the prime minister’s instincts are the same,” one government source said. “They have a tight bond. The point of a chief of staff is that they can provide direction and clarity on behalf of the prime minister. Lee can do that.”
Ms Symonds, however, believed that elevating Mr Cain would be damaging.
“She knows he runs the operation in an uncollegiate way where few people can get to him,” one friend said. “There’s not a diversity of opinion, he is not getting good advice. His top advisers are running him into the ground.”
Mr Cain’s potential promotion was always a bit tenuous. Last week he is understood to have tendered his resignation amid suggestions that he risked being marginalised by Allegra Stratton, who was chosen by the prime minister to front daily press briefings.
Ms Stratton has extensive broadcasting experience and previously worked for Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, as his director of communications.
Mr Cain is said to have objected to her appointment. “She was not his first choice, it was very much the prime minister’s call,” a Downing Street source said. “It has not gone well.”
According to Downing Street sources, the pair had not spoken since Ms Stratton moved to No 10 a fortnight ago. “Allegra has made no secret of the fact she wants to do things differently,” one No 10 staffer said.
“You had someone [in Boris] who was the most popular politician in the country who is now one of the least popular. She wants No 10 to be much more open, to take people with it. Both the party and the country.”
Mr Johnson, however, wanted to keep both Mr Cain and Ms Stratton. After Mr Cain suggested he could quit, the prime minister is understood to have “wined and dined” his aide and urged him to stay.
The role of chief of staff was discussed, with Mr Cummings and Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, both of whom are said to have pushed strongly for Mr Cain’s appointment. Two sources familiar with the matter said that Mr Cain had been verbally offered the role. Another disputed this and said that Mr Johnson had not made up his mind.
Either way, Ms Symonds was intent on stopping the appointment. “She didn’t think he was the right person to do it,” an ally said. “Why would the prime minister make the person who ran government communications during the pandemic his chief of staff? It doesn’t make sense.”
Some of Ms Symonds’ allies are concerned she will be “smeared” as a Lady Macbeth figure for intervening in political matters.
“She’s allowed to have a view. It’s a critical decision for the prime minister,” the ally said. “She is deeply political and has extensive experience.”
But Ms Symonds was not alone in her concerns. Ms Stratton is understood to have made clear to the prime minister that she believed Mr Cain’s appointment would have been a mistake.
Munira Mirza, head of policy at No 10, was also said to have concerns, though allies have rejected the claim.
Ms Stratton wants a change of tone. The treatment of Sonia Khan, a former Treasury adviser who was led out of Downing Street by armed police after being accused of leaking, still rankles.
“[Allegra’s] uncomfortable with how we’ve communicated with the public and the treatment of journalists and special advisers,” a No 10 staffer said.
However, one figure who worked with Mr Cain and Mr Johnson in Downing Street said he was one of the few people who could get the prime minister to take a decision. “Boris has a tendency to put off making difficult calls but Lee gets into a place where he is prepared to take a decision. There are not many people who can do that.
“Unlike Dom, Boris doesn’t see him as having an agenda. Lee is the prime minister’s man. He created him. Unlike many people he owes everything to Boris.”
Until now Mr Cain had made a remarkable ascent. He was a special adviser at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and briefly at No 10 under Theresa May before working for Mr Johnson in the Foreign Office. One source said that Mr Cain beat Ms Symonds, who was a special adviser herself, to the role.
Mr Cain stuck with Mr Johnson after he left Mrs May’s government, and was instrumental in the Tory leadership campaign that followed. He was rewarded for his loyalty with the role of director of communications.
But Mr Cain’s appointment caused consternation among some Tory MPs who were concerned by the influence of the Vote Leave faction in No 10. And that may be what eventually did for him after the news leaked prematurely.
One said the party would regard it “with some horror” and that it could increase rifts between the No 10 operation and backbenchers. In the glare of publicity Mr Johnson ultimately decided that the risk was not worth taking.
Mr Cain’s previous role will now be filled by James Slack, a civil servant, who has a close relationship with Ms Stratton and previously worked for Mrs May. It signals a less adversarial approach to Downing Street communications.
People in their 20s are still testing positive for Covid-19 more than any other age groups across Devon and Cornwall, except in Torbay where people in their 50s are.
The latest figures, based on tests reported between November 3 and November 9, continue to show that as was the case last week, Plymouth, Cornwall and the Devon County Council area, the 20-29 age group are still seeing the highest prevalence of cases.
But in Torbay, that is only the fourth highest age range, with the 40-49, 50-59 and 60-69 age ranges seeing more positive tests.
Across Torbay, Plymouth and Cornwall, the proportion of over 60s testing positive has risen in the last week, but there has been a small drop in the Devon County Council area in that age range.
All four areas have seen a drop in the proportion of those aged 10-19 testing positive – with one explanation likely to involve the time period of when the tests would have taken place coinciding with the half-term break.
The figures related to positive cases reported this week between November 3 and November 9, although do not necessarily relate to specimens from that time period.
In Devon County Council area, the proportion of cases in the 60+ age range have dropped to 20 per cent (from 21 per cent), with a drop in the 10-19 age range (10 per cent, down from 11 per cent), with 21 per cent of positives in the 20-29 age range.
Torbay has the highest percentage of cases in the 60+ age range (26.5 per cent, up from 24 per cent last week) and the second lowest in the 10-19 age range (7.7 per cent, up from 10 per cent). The Bay is seeing 20 per cent of the positive cases in the 50-59 age range, and 18.5 per cent in the 40-49 age range, and just 11.7 per cent of people in their 20s.
Plymouth has the lowest percentage of cases in the 10-19 age range (6.7 per cent per cent, down from 8 per cent), with the second lowest in the 60+ age range (17.7 per cent, up from 14 per cent). More than a quarter (25.8 per cent) of positive tests are in the 20-29 age range.
Cornwall has the lowest proportion of those in the 60+ age range (15.6 per cent, up from 14 per cent), but the highest in the 10-19 age range (14 per cent, down from 16 per cent), and also is seeing more than a quarter (26.6 per cent) of all cases in the 20-29 age range.
Second-home owners, investors and pensioners face paying tens of thousands of pounds more in tax under a review ordered by the chancellor that could raise £14 billion a year.
[Day of reckoning for all the consultancy bills approaches – Owl]
David Byers, Assistant Money Editor | Oliver Wright, Carol Lewis www.thetimes.co.uk
Rishi Sunak’s advisers on tax reform have suggested increasing capital gains tax (CGT) in a move that would particularly affect high and middle-income earners.
He is looking for ways to repair the public finances amid the coronavirus crisis. However, any move on CGT would meet fierce resistance from Tory backbenchers who have warned Mr Sunak that it would be politically disastrous by punishing the party’s base.
At present anyone selling shares, a second home or other assets is liable to pay capital gains tax on the profits they have made from the sale.
Those earning less than £50,000 are charged 18 per cent on residential property and 10 per cent on profits from other assets. For those whose income is more than £50,000 the tax is 28 per cent on residential property and 20 per cent on other assets.
In its report for the Treasury, the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) suggested that the chancellor bring CGT into line with income tax. This would mean higher rate taxpayers facing a flat rate of 40 or 45 per cent.
In a separate recommendation the OTS suggested the chancellor could reduce the threshold at which the levy kicks in from £12,300 to £5,000. This would double the number falling into the net each year to more than half a million. This would be tripled if he cut the threshold further to £1,000.
Mr Sunak needs to find up to £40 billion a year in cuts or additional revenue after the pandemic, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. However, Tory MPs have already expressed strong opposition to any move on CGT. “I think it would be very unwise,” Marcus Fysh, deputy president of the Board of Trade, said. “It would kill off incentives within the economy at a time when we want to stimulate growth. We should be looking at ways of simplifying tax by reducing it.”
Another said: “It has been made clear to Rishi that colleagues will not support it.” A Treasury source played down the report, saying it would not have a bearing on any decision by the chancellor.
The OTS justified aligning the rates by saying that the present disparity “can distort business and family decision-making and creates an incentive for taxpayers to arrange their affairs in ways that effectively re-characterise income as capital gains”.
Bill Dodwell, the group’s tax director, said: “If the government considers the simplification priority is to reduce distortions to behaviour, it should consider either more closely aligning CGT rates with income tax rates, or addressing boundary issues between CGT and income tax.”
Mr Dodwell said that the OTS would publish a second report in the spring, with further recommendations on how the tax can be revised. He stressed that Mr Sunak had not asked him to examine ways of scrapping the capital gains exemption on the sale of main homes, a potentially explosive move.
The government raised £9.5 billion in 2018-19 from 276,000 taxpayers against capital gains of £62.8 billion. Receipts from the tax would continue to be small compared with other levies, suggesting that the chancellor would also have to raise rates elsewhere.
George Bull, a partner at the tax firm RSM, said that changes to CGT would be “attractive to the government”. “In addition to simplifying the tax system, it also promises to dramatically increase the amount of CGT collected each year,” he said.
Nimesh Shah, chief executive of the tax advisers Blick Rothenberg, suggested that the study was politically motivated and went beyond tax simplification, saying: “This report contains more policy direction than any other report I have seen from the OTS.”
A Treasury spokesman said: “We have asked the OTS to examine and provide recommendations on how to make CGT as clear and efficient as possible. Over the last few years the OTS has reviewed nearly all the major taxes but had not yet reviewed CGT. The OTS provides independent advice to the government. It is for the government to make tax policy decisions.”
Tory council leaders have delivered a stark warning to ministers that failure to tackle English local authorities’ cash crisis will force them to cut vital services, from social care to libraries and refuse collection.
The County Councils Network (CCN), 32 of whose 36 members are Conservative-controlled said just a fifth of authorities were confident they could meet their legal duty to set a balanced budget next year and avoid effective bankruptcy.
Over half of its member councils were planning “moderate or severe” service reductions in adult social care, nearly a third were seeking heavy cuts to road repair budgets, and 33% were considering major savings in library services.
Over two-thirds said that cuts to frontline service would hamper efforts to support the government’s “levelling-up” plans to boost local economies in the north and Midlands, while 60% agreed the cuts would result in greater hardship for residents.
“We are quickly running out of ways to meet the funding shortfall without dramatic reductions which will make visible and damaging changes to highly-valued services,” said David Williams, CCN chair and leader of Hertfordshire county council.
“The financial support provided by government over the past year has been very welcome. But even before the onslaught of a second wave, councils were facing difficult choices and they are now left with little room to manoeuvre over the coming months as they face further escalating costs resulting in an immediate cliff-edge next year.”
The warning comes as all councils continue to struggle with serious financial pressures stemming from the pandemic, including the spiralling cost of providing personal protective equipment, coupled with an abrupt fall-off in council tax and business rates income.
The survey of CCN members, carried out in October, found that 60% were anticipating having to make a “fundamental reduction” in frontline services. Without extra government funding, over half said they would cut access to care packages for older and disabled residents, with many planning to introduce new care charges.
Although recent rises in numbers of vulnerable children mean children’s social care budgets will be relatively protected, over a quarter of CCN member councils were planning reductions to child protection, early years and youth services budgets.
The survey shows over half of CCN councils are planning reductions to school transport services, libraries, education support, recycling and waste collection. Nearly half predict cuts to road pothole filling services.
The CCN’s members provide local council services in about two-thirds of all Tory-held parliamentary constituencies, including in home counties heartlands such as Kent, Surrey, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Hampshire.
The government is expected to set out its funding plans for English local government though the Treasury spending review scheduled for the end of this month.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said:“We’re giving councils unprecedented support during the pandemic, with nearly £1.2bn in non-ringfenced emergency funding for county councils. Additionally, their core spending power increased by £974m in 2020-21 even before emergency funding was announced.”
An inquiry by parliament’s spending watchdog into how ministers distributed £3.6bn to help deprived towns has raised serious concerns that funding decisions were politically biased.
The cross-party public accounts committee said it was “not convinced by the rationales for selecting some towns and not others” when the towns fund was distributed by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, (MHCLG) last year.
Justifications offered by ministers for selecting individual towns were “vague and based on sweeping assumptions” and raised concerns over the decisions being politically motivated, the committee said.
The highly critical report comes after the communities secretary, Robert Jenrick, earlier this year denied having any role in selecting his constituency, Newark, for a £25m grant under the scheme, despite having boasted about it during last year’s general election.
Jenrick said the award had been signed off by the then communities minister Jake Berry, while he had approved a grant for Darwen in Berry’s constituency.
Meg Hillier, chair of the committee, said the system gave “every appearance of having been politically motivated”.
“MHCLG must be open and transparent about the decisions it made to hand out those billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money, and what it expects to deliver,” she said.
The scheme was originally launched “at pace” in July 2019 to support struggling towns across England.
Officials in the department then drew up a ranked priority list of 541 towns based on need and potential for development for ministers to select from.
While the top 40 “high priority” locations were all confirmed, ministers then picked another 61 “medium and low priority” communities from across the rest of the list including one ranked just 536th.
Although the department was supposed to record the “rationale” for choosing some towns and not others, the committee said it was “not convinced” by some of the reasons given. “The selection process was not impartial,” they concluded.
The committee also complained that the reasons given by the department for not publishing more information about the selection process were “weak and unconvincing”.
It said concerns had been heightened by press statements which wrongly claimed the National Audit Office had concluded that its procedures were “robust”.
While the department’s permanent secretary, Jeremy Pocklington, said he was satisfied the requirements of “propriety and regularity” had been met, the committee said it was “disappointed” that a summary of his assessment remained unpublished.
“This lack of transparency has fuelled accusations of political bias in the selection process, and has risked the civil service’s reputation for integrity and impartiality,” it said.
The MHCLG responded to the report with a statement rejecting the main conclusions. A spokesperson said: “We completely disagree with the committee’s criticism of the town fund selection process, which was comprehensive, robust and fair.
“The towns fund will help level up the country, creating jobs and building stronger and more resilient local economies.”
The cost of rolling-out the US/German jab is likely to be at least ten times higher than our home-grown version, and the logistics of distributing a vaccine which needs to be kept in dry ice is staggering.
It is like backing the winning horse only to realise you’ve been hit with an eye-watering bill for veterinary fees and stabling.
Matt Hancock has warned the mass distribution would be a “colossal exercise” involving not just the NHS but the Armed Forces.
The Health Secretary acknowledged there was “enormous complexity” in administering the Pfizer vaccine.
“You can’t take it out of that freezer more than four times on its journey from the manufacturing plant into the arms of patients [so] that brings its complications,” he said. “The AstraZeneca vaccine is easier to deploy logistically.”
Although the Government has not yet disclosed full details of the deals with Pfizer or AstraZeneca (the company producing the Oxford vaccine) the US is being charged around £29.47 for the two doses needed for each person.
In contrast, EU countries have been offered a dose of the Oxford vaccine for just £2.23.
The price of the Pfizer drug is likely to be higher for Britain, because the US deal was brokered by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (Barda) which helped to fund Pfizer’s vaccine.
Likewise, Britain has undoubtedly secured a discount for the Oxford vaccine, because it funded much of the research.
So if the Oxford vaccine fails to deliver quickly, Britain could be left with a far higher bill for a mass vaccination programme than it was expecting.
The fact the Government placed an order for 100 million doses from AstraZeneca compared to 40 million for Pfizer shows where its loyalties lie.
And now that it’s clear the Pfizer drug needs two jabs, the Government order has essentially been cut in half, meaning just a third of the population could be vaccinated, way too few for herd immunity.
The Oxford jab is cheaper because it relies on traditional methods of vaccine production. In this case, the spike protein of coronavirus, which helps it attach to human cells, has been inserted into a common cold virus.
Once in the body, the immune system spots the new invader and produces t-cells and antibodies that will kick into action should the real virus turn up.
In contrast, the Pfizer vaccine is a ‘messenger RNA’ vaccine which sends a piece of genetic code into cells instructing them to make the spike protein themselves. No vaccine has ever been successfully created in this way before, so it carries the expense of novelty.
And because the Pfizer drug relies on a live piece of RNA it needs to be kept at super cold temperatures to avoid the genetic code being destroyed.
Sir John Bell who is heading Oxford’s programme, said the cold storage problem meant it was unlikely that GPs would be unable to carry out the inoculations.
The vaccine needs to be transported in liquid nitrogen, or stored in a container which maintains a temperature four times lower than a domestic freezer.
“The Pfizer vaccine needs a cold chain at minus -80,” said Sir John. “The idea that that’ll be done through local GPs sounds a bit unlikely to me.”
To make matters worse, the two Pfizer jabs need to be given three weeks apart, a further logistical headache for the Government.
Dr Jonathan Stoye, group leader, Retrovirus-Host Interactions Laboratory, at London’s Francis Crick Institute, said: “One can foresee at least two drawbacks to the Pfizer vaccine, even assuming it works as well as we currently think.
“First, it requires two injections for full effectiveness, spaced three to four weeks apart. Second, it needs to be stored at -80 degrees before use. Both properties will severely complicate administering the vaccine.”
Many experts believe that Pfizer jumped the gun on Monday (announcing interim results ahead of scientific peer-review) and think Oxford is not too far behind. The group looks to be just weeks away from releasing its own findings.
If previous announcements are anything to go by, the team will release the results on the same day as publication, meaning they can go straight to regulators for approval.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has been working closely with both Pfizer and AstraZeneca which should expedite the approvals process.
Prof Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, said: “We continue to work on the vaccine and anticipate early efficacy readings in the coming months should the transmission rates remain high.
“Ideally, we need several of these to be successful for the best possible results for humanity.” Sir John, who is leading Oxford’s vaccine research, has also said the team was just weeks from a result.
He told MPs at the Health Select Committee that he believed there was a “70 to 80 per cent chance” that the vulnerable would be vaccinated by Easter, so that life could begin to return to normality.
“That’s provided they don’t screw up the distribution of the vaccine,” he added.
A major operation is under way in Devon to combat holiday hunger for children this Christmas.
[And Selaine Saxby MP who previously said she “very much” hopes businesses offering to feed hungry children for free “will not be seeking any further government support”, provokes a predictable comment when she tweets. her support ]
Devon County Council is set to lead the operation to organise networks of providers across the county and will use a £2 million Government grant to support vulnerable children and families in the most effective way.
Leader of Devon County Council, Cllr John Hart, told Wednesday morning’s cabinet meeting: “We are going to receive just over £2 million from the Government and we now have the opportunity to do the right thing.”
Over the next few weeks a range of community kitchens, holiday clubs, charities and local businesses will be enlisted to coordinate help and support for those who need it the most in every district in Devon.
They will ensure that every child entitled to Free School Meals will be able to get free food over the Christmas holiday, during the Easter half-term and the Easter holidays.
Devon’s Cabinet member for communities, Cllr Roger Croad, added: “We need to act quickly to ensure that no child goes hungry this Christmas.
“We envisage that in most areas there will be a range of solutions and options that are geared to meet the needs of their individual communities.
“These are likely to include holiday clubs providing food, cooking sessions, community meals, offers from local cafes and businesses and community larders.
“Our top priority is to ensure those in receipt offree school meals have enough to eat over the holidays. But we also want to help and support people with wider vulnerabilities.”
Cllr Hart added: “This pandemic has been so cruel to so many people. We are aiming to support those families who were suddenly left without money, without a job and without savings as a result of coronavirus.
“This partnership of local organisations tailoring support to the local needs of their communities coupled with the Devon-wide organisation of the county council seems a really good way forward.
“I believe it will be an effective and practical way of combating holiday hunger and I want to thank all of the groups that will be working with us.”
The latest statistics show that 14,774 children in Devon are registered for free school meals – 15 per cent of the total school population.
It follows the Government’s U-turn on providing free school meals over the holidays to the poorest children which has been welcomed by Devon’s head of education who said it is a massive step forward of getting support to families.
The UK government had extended free school meals to eligible children during the Easter holidays earlier this year and, after a campaign by Manchester United and England striker Marcus Rashford campaigning, did the same for the summer holiday.
Initially though they refused to do so for half-term and the Christmas holidays, before making a U-turn this week when a winter grant scheme programme of £400m was announced by Government to provide support with food and bills, with a holiday food and activities programme to be expanded.
Speaking at Tuesday’s Devon County Council children’s scrutiny committee, Dawn Stabb, the council’s head of education, said that if properly implemented then it should be a significant step in the right direction for helping children.
Committee chairman Cllr Rob Hannaford had prior to Monday’s announcement put forward a motion to December’s full council meeting that would see the council resolve to use some of the allocated hardship funding to ensure that all eligible children receive free school meal vouchers for the Christmas and New Year holiday period.
He said: “I welcome the change of direction and that had caused a lot of controversy and there were so many families affected by the issue.”
Asking Mrs Stabb, he said: “In your opinion, does the current package do all that we would want it to do in Devon and what members wanted it to and can you see in the new scheme, much welcome as it is, any gaps we may need to plug to make sure no families slip through the net?”
In response, she said while they only currently have the headline figures, it is a massive step forward of getting the support to families.
She added: “The route is correct, the principle is correct, we have the infrastructure in place to deliver it, but we don’t have the exact detail as to how the funding will be applied or any other restrictions. I cannot give a categorical answer but if it is properly implemented, it should move us significantly in the right direction. The key focus is to ensure food makes its way to children.”
Cllr Frank Biederman added: “I am thankful that the Government has listened and acted and have moved in the right direction,” while Cllr Richard Hosking said that rather than a ‘change of heart’, it was a ‘change in circumstances with the second lockdown’ that led to the U-turn.
In a report to the meeting, she said that there were 14,774 pupils claiming free school meals in Devon, which at £3 per meal, meaning it would cost £44,322 per day to provide a meal to these children, with 15 per cent of all pupils eligible.
In Torridge, 18 per cent of pupils would be eligible, with 17 per cent in North Devon and Exeter, 15 per cent in Mid Devon and Teignbridge, 14 per cent in West Devon, 13 per cent in East Devon and 12 per cent in the South Hams and of pupils who live in Plymouth but who study at schools in the Devon County Council area.
The report added that every single area had been an increase in claimants in October compared to pre-lockdown levels.
Asked whether she thought schools would have to close, Mrs Stabb said that the Government had been clear that keeping them open was a priority.
She added: “The number of infections coming down in Devon’s school. When I last reported to the committee there were 30+ schools and 1600 pupils off self-isolating and that it now down to 20 school and 382 children self-isolating.
“There is no national indicator of spread within the school environment and cases are coming from contacts outside the school, with no evidence of increased risk of children attending schools. From the figures we are seeing in Devon, there is nothing to suggest it would warrant a school closure.”
Selaine Saxby MP on Twitter
[In a now-deleted Facebook post Selaine Saxby, who represents North Devon, wrote: “I am delighted our local businesses have bounced back so much after lockdown they are able to give away food for free, and very much hope they will not be seeking any further government support.” ]
No child should ever go hungry, and the extra £2M for @DevonCC will ensure local families that need extra support with food and bills this winter can access it, which is very welcome news.
From comments in the Guardian:
This is very the same Tory MP who wasn’t satisfied with just voting against feeding hungry kids.
She said that businesses who helped feed hungry kids should not ask for any government help in lockdown.
She actually wanted to punish businesses for stepping into the breach left by her Party.
Two reports in today’s press show that the Otter Restoration Project is proving to be highly controversial.
From today’s Western Morning News:
ENVIRONMENT: A major floodplain restoration project has come up against opposition from campaigners who argue green landscape will be lost to mudflats amid two years of disruptive works. Philip Bowern reports.
A PLAN to ‘restore’ the lower reaches of Devon’s River Otter (pictured above by Helen Dart) by breaking through flood barriers and allowing a flood plain to develop has come in for opposition from a group fighting the move.
East Devon district council is considering an application presented by the Environment Agency for the Lower Otter Restoration Project. The applicants say they are working with local people and partner organisations, including Clinton Devon Estates, to “adapt and improve the downstream part of the River Otter, its estuary and its immediate surroundings for future generations.”
The scheme, which reconnects the river to its floodplain, will create what the applicants say is an increased area washed by the tides and bring “significant biodiversity benefits.” The Environment Agency says it believes the scheme will compensate for lost areas of inter-tidal habitat in other coastal sites, like the Exe estuary, which have been “squeezed” due to increased development at the coast and the building of coastal defences.
But a group of local people are opposing the plans. They have formed a campaign group called Stop the Otter Swamp and are calling on others to object to the proposals to East Devon council before the advertised deadline for comments on Friday November 13. In their leaflets they warn the proposals will bring about major unwanted changes.
They say: “Residents were taken by surprise when a planning application was lodged at the end of September quite unlike previous proposals, including major construction works in a huge area of land. Few people were informed about it, and most are still completely unaware of a proposal which is of widespread significance.”
The application covers 151 hectares of land in the parishes of East Budleigh, Budleigh Salterton and Otterton, stretching from the Lime Kiln Car Park to an area south of Frogmore House in the the Lower Otter Valley.
Part of the plan would relocate the Budleigh Salterton cricket club away from its current flood-prone site and also, the applicants say, secure the livelihoods of tenant farmers in the area as well as maintain access to South Farm.
But the protesters claim: “If approved, it will destroy the Otter Valley as we know it forever. The green landscape will be replaced by mud flats; trees will be felled; wildlife species such as owls, otters, bats and beavers will be lost and the nature reserve will be disturbed by major building works lasting at least two years.”
The original plan for the changes, which date back three years to 2017, came from landowners the Clinton Devon Estate. The Environment Agency backed the proposals because it has a statutory need to compensate for the loss of mud flats on the nearby Exe estuary.
In a summary of the proposals the applicants say: “The natural environment of the Otter estuary has, for hundreds of years, been modified by humans. These changes have led to a disruption of natural processes with the river no longer able to adapt and move naturally across the floodplain as it once did, nor can it cope effectively with flooding events, which are more prevalent due to climate change. There is a strong argument to take action.”
They say if the plans are not approved there is a risk of further flooding of a road, continued flooding of Budleigh Salterton Cricket Club and the “catastrophic breaching of embankments.”
To comment on the plan go to the East Devon district council planning portal.
From today’s Exmouth Journal:
Act now and work with nature to future-proof our community
Kate Ponting countryside and communities officer for Clinton Estates
A stormy sky over the Otter Estuary
Walking along the South West Coast Path last week and looking at the stormy English Channel, reminded me just how much the sea has shaped our environment here in East Devon.
Two years ago, a very high tide at Budleigh Salterton contributed to the collapse of a section of the South West Coast Path. It was only thanks to the prompt work of the Environment Agency and other partners that a catastrophic breach of the embankments on the River Otter Estuary was averted.
Even so, it was still four months before the footpath could be safely reopened.
The sea is constantly changing the landscape, and climate change is speeding-up those changes so we’ll all have to prepare ourselves for more stormy weather and rising sea levels.
Unless we act soon, nature will certainly breach the man-made embankments of the lower River Otter and the Otter Estuary; eroding the footpath, flooding the cricket club, threatening access to homes and businesses and exposing an old municipal tip.
The Lower Otter Restoration Project, a partnership which includes the Pebblebed Heaths Conservation Trust, has come up with a solution to this problem.
It will mean raising South Farm Road and building a new road bridge to protect access to the area, working to save the South West Coast Path, protecting the redundant tip and relocating the cricket club. It will also recreate a rare wetland habitat which will provide a home for many threatened and endangered species.
Thanks to a time-limited funding package from the EU’s Interreg programme, we have a small window of opportunity to realign the Lower Otter and the Otter Estuary with its natural floodplain through a carefully managed programme of work.
Change will come to the lower Otter valley, the sea and the climate will see to that.
We have two alternatives: do nothing and accept we will have to deal with whatever the changes bring, or act now and work with nature to future-proof our community and protect a much-loved amenity
It’s never been clearer: what we build, where we build it and how we move around are some of the biggest causes of carbon emissions. We know from painful experience that the destruction of nature is a common casualty of reckless development. That’s why a robust, locally led planning system is crucial, not the top-down free-for-all proposed by the government earlier this year.
At CPRE, the countryside charity, we want to see affordable, well-designed new homes for rural communities. But these homes should be put there by a locally accountable planning system, not one dictated by an algorithm created in Whitehall. They should also be as environmentally sustainable as possible, from the materials used to the standard of insulation.
But the government’s plans fail to deliver any of this. They’re ambiguous about environmental measures and make few if any promises for when objectives will be met. The government’s aim to deliver carbon neutral new homes by 2050 is actually a sign of failure. This target represents 34 lost years, given that a pledge to achieve the same thing by 2016 was dropped by the Conservatives five years ago.
Boris Johnson is expected to outline his ten-point plan to tackle the climate emergency this week. With so much at stake we need clarity of thought and speed of action. But what’s the point in investing in new technology to capture carbon when our planning system produces dislocated, car-dependent, land-hungry developments, further increasing carbon emissions?
Where’s the logic in planting millions more trees when developers are given a free rein to build on precious countryside even though they could build more than a million homes on previously developed brownfield sites at a fraction of the environmental cost?
The planning system, if properly reformed, can come up with solutions to our environmental problems rather than add to them. It needs to recognise that the built environment, transport and energy play a big role in generating greenhouse gases, and act to change that. Above all we must value nature’s capacity to sustain our world. If the prime minister’s ten-point plan for the environment is to amount to anything, it must force a rethink of his damaging, polluting planning reforms.
Richard Simmons is chairman of the policy committee of CPRE, the countryside charity
An inquiry by parliament’s spending watchdog into how ministers distributed £3.6bn to help deprived towns has raised serious concerns that funding decisions were politically biased.
The cross-party public accounts committee said it was “not convinced by the rationales for selecting some towns and not others” when the towns fund was distributed by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, (MHCLG) last year.
Justifications offered by ministers for selecting individual towns were “vague and based on sweeping assumptions” and raised concerns over the decisions being politically motivated, the committee said.
The highly critical report comes after the communities secretary, Robert Jenrick, earlier this year denied having any role in selecting his constituency, Newark, for a £25m grant under the scheme, despite having boasted about it during last year’s general election.
Jenrick said the award had been signed off by the then communities minister Jake Berry, while he had approved a grant for Darwen in Berry’s constituency.
Meg Hillier, chair of the committee, said the system gave “every appearance of having been politically motivated”.
“MHCLG must be open and transparent about the decisions it made to hand out those billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money, and what it expects to deliver,” she said.
The scheme was originally launched “at pace” in July 2019 to support struggling towns across England.
Officials in the department then drew up a ranked priority list of 541 towns based on need and potential for development for ministers to select from.
While the top 40 “high priority” locations were all confirmed, ministers then picked another 61 “medium and low priority” communities from across the rest of the list including one ranked just 536th.
Although the department was supposed to record the “rationale” for choosing some towns and not others, the committee said it was “not convinced” by some of the reasons given. “The selection process was not impartial,” they concluded.
The committee also complained that the reasons given by the department for not publishing more information about the selection process were “weak and unconvincing”.
It said concerns had been heightened by press statements which wrongly claimed the National Audit Office had concluded that its procedures were “robust”.
While the department’s permanent secretary, Jeremy Pocklington, said he was satisfied the requirements of “propriety and regularity” had been met, the committee said it was “disappointed” that a summary of his assessment remained unpublished.
“This lack of transparency has fuelled accusations of political bias in the selection process, and has risked the civil service’s reputation for integrity and impartiality,” it said.
The MHCLG responded to the report with a statement rejecting the main conclusions. A spokesperson said: “We completely disagree with the committee’s criticism of the town fund selection process, which was comprehensive, robust and fair.
“The towns fund will help level up the country, creating jobs and building stronger and more resilient local economies.”
The UK’s vaccine tsar is to pay almost £700,000 in taxpayers’ money on a team of boutique PR consultants whose secretary is a long-time business associate of Dominic Cummings’ father-in-law.
Over the weekend, it was reported that Kate Bingham, the head of the vaccine taskforce, who reports directly to the prime minister, was to spend more than £670,000 hiring PR consultants from a firm called Admiral Associates.
The owner and founding managing director of Admiral Associates is listed in companies house as Georgie Cameron, whose husband Angus Collingwood-Cameron is also listed as secretary. He is also a park manager for Chillingham Castle Wild Cattle Association, and a director since 2004 along with Humphry Wakefield, father-in-law of Cummings.
Eight of Cameron’s freelance consultants are overseeing Bingham’s media strategy. There has been growing disquiet after it was claimed Bingham disclosed confidential data about government investment priorities to US financiers before it emerged that she could personally profit from the launch of an investment fund bankrolled by UK taxpayers.
Appearing before a joint select committee hearing last week, Bingham denied any wrongdoing and described the report as “nonsense”, “inaccurate” and “irresponsible”.
On its LinkedIn page, in the only post during the last five months, Admiral Associates appeared to announce it was hiring for the roles to support the UK pandemic response and that they required people skilled in crisis communications.
It said experience of working with or within a healthcare or research setting and/or a government department was an advantage and that remuneration would be “excellent for the right candidates”.
The overarching company last year reported tangible assets of £2,884 and total equity of £194,065. The company filing said: “The director of the company has elected not to include a copy of the profit and loss account within the financial statements.”
The association between Wakefield and the PR company is likely to reignite accusations of a so-called “chumocracy” at the centre of British politics after a number of contracts amid the coronavirus crisis were awarded to allies of the prime minister’s chief of staff without tender.
Rachel Reeves, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, said: “These revelations raise yet more serious questions about how taxpayer money is being spent during the pandemic and how government is being run.
“The public deserve urgent answers as to how a small PR agency with close links to the PM’s closest adviser was simply gifted such a large contract – and what exactly was delivered for such a price tag.
“We know Dominic Cummings doesn’t think the rules apply to him, but this is no way to treat taxpayer money. The prime minister must be transparent about the processes he has put in place to allow such potential breaches of public trust.”
According to the Sunday Times, £500,000 has already been spent on the team, which is contracted until the end of the year, suggesting each consultant is on the equivalent of £167,000 a year. There was not been an open procurement process but this is not unusual practice in some circumstances.
Bingham, who is married to the Conservative minister Jesse Norman, is herself in a temporary role and had always been expected to step down later this year. The role was not advertised and it has been reported she may have been headhunted by Johnson, from whom she won praise for her work on procuring coronavirus vaccines.
It was reported those assisting Bingham, who reports directly to the PM, are helping her prepare for media appearances, drafting statements and overseeing a vaccines podcast on Spotify, which has broadcast eight episodes since August.
The preamble for one episode reads: “Developing a vaccine is one thing, but manufacturing it in very large amounts is a significant challenge in itself.” Another episode discusses how to reassure people who may be reluctant to take a vaccine.
The apparent PR push comes as the health secretary, Matt Hancock, said on Tuesday he had asked the NHS to get ready for a rollout of the vaccine as soon as next month.
The Collingwood-Camerons and Admiral Associates did not return requests for comment. A No 10 spokesperson said: “It is ridiculous to make such an imaginary and tenuous link. Dominic Cummings has never heard of Georgina or Angus Cameron.
“Specialist communications support was procured by the Vaccine Taskforce in line with proper practice.”
The number of new deaths relating to coronavirus have been registered in the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures across Devon and Cornwall has fallen.
The figures from the ONS, relating to the week of October 24 and October 30 but registered up to November 7, show that 11 of the 332 deaths registered in the two counties had Covid-19 mentioned on the death certificate.
The previous week saw 14 of the 313 deaths mention Covid-19 – although a 15th death has subsequently been added into the figures.
Of the 11 deaths from the most recent week of figures, six were of people from Torbay, with five hospital deaths and one in a care home, while two people from Plymouth, and one from Mid Devon, the South Hams, and Torridge died in hospital as well.
A further three deaths – two in Plymouth and one in Teignbridge – occurred in previous weeks but were only registered in the most recent dataset.
The Teignbridge death occurred in hospital in the week of October 17-23, with a Plymouth death in hospital in the week of September 26-October 2, and a care home death in the week of September 5-September 11 added.
Previous weeks have seen 15, 6, 5, 2, 0, 3, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2, 1, 0, 1, 1, 2, 2, 5, 1, 7, 10, 11, 15, 38, 44, 70, 85, 107, 90, 60, 16 and nine deaths registered.
The Isles of Scilly has still yet to see a COVID-19 related death, while Exeter has now gone 20 weeks, West Devon eight weeks, Cornwall three weeks, East Devon two weeks, and North Devon and Teignbridge one week without a new death registered in the most recent weekly figures.
In total, 624 deaths from coronavirus have been registered across Devon and Cornwall, with 332 in hospitals, 245 in care homes, 46 at home, one in a hospice, and one in a communal establishment.
Of the deaths, 213 have been registered in Cornwall, 106 in Plymouth, 77 in Torbay, 51 in East Devon, 39 in Exeter, 35 in Teignbridge, 27 in North Devon, 22 in Torridge, 21 in Mid Devon, 19 in West Devon, 14 in the South Hams and none on the Isles of Scilly.
The figures show in which local authority the deceased’s usual place of residence was. For instance, if someone may have died in Derriford Hospital but lived in West Devon, while the death may have been registered in Plymouth, their death would be recorded in the mortality statistics for the ONS figures against West Devon.
Deaths that have occurred in hospitals following a positive coronavirus test since October 30 will be recorded in next week’s figures, as long as the deceased lived within Devon and Cornwall, the death has been registered, and COVID-19 was mentioned on the death certificate
The government’s conservation watchdog has been “cut to the bone”, with staff underpaid, undervalued and overworked and feeling unable to protect England’s most valuable wildlife sites, according to a new report and testimony from workers.
Natural England, which is sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), has a range of responsibilities, including monitoring and protecting the country’s most valuable habitats such as sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs) and national nature reserves (NNRs). It also works with farmers to protect biodiversity and advises the government on environmental policy, planning and licensing.
Defra’s funding for the agency has dropped by £165m since 2008, and as a result it is struggling to carry out these statutory duties, according to Prospect trade union’s Natural England 2020-21 report. “There’s a certain weirdness to working in Natural England in that everyone knows that we’ve been absolutely cut to the bone,” one employee told the Guardian. “Everyone knows we can’t do basic statutory stuff, let alone the bigger, exciting projects we want to do.”
Following a decade of cuts, this year the agency was awarded an additional £15m to recruit around 200 new staff, including roles to help deliver the Environment bill legislation going through parliament. While the report welcomes this investment, it calls it a “drop in the ocean” and warns that “urgent, radical investment is needed”.
“Public awareness of the plight of biodiversity and fragility of our landscapes has finally come to the fore … but it is clear from the trajectory of both funding, pay and staff numbers that to meet the ambitions and challenges set out in this report, and to not let the green recovery fall flat, government must step up and make good the damage done,” the report says.
Natural England’s “lack of money is affecting everybody because it is the paymaster for a lot of local nature conservation efforts – it’s the spider in the middle of the web,” said author and conservationist Peter Marren. “I don’t think most people have ever heard of Natural England, it’s not a high-profile public body. This is happening because nobody cares about it … apart from the tight circle that work in nature conservation.”
Natural England teams are increasingly being centralised in small regional hubs due to staff shortages. Management of SSSIs – which cover 8% of England – is mostly dealt with remotely, by email and phone. Previously, one person would manage 10-15 SSSIs, now they have up to 40. More than 60% of SSSI sites are in “unfavourable” condition, and half of them haven’t been monitored in six years, which is a statutory duty, meaning the reality could be worse.
Pay has been an ongoing issue at Natural England. Last year staff were in their eighth year of a 1% cap on pay, which has since been lifted. Only 9.5% of staff believe their pay adequately reflects their performance and the gender pay gap across the agency is 8.4%.
One employee, who left last summer, told the Guardian she was earning £20,000 for four days a week and worked two extra jobs to make ends meet. She had been working for a decade before joining the agency and had two first-class degrees from Oxbridge. When she raised the pay issue with her manager she said she was told, “it’s normal for people in Natural England to have second and third jobs to get by”.
She described working at the agency as stressful: “Natural England staff are the medics of the environment and they are watching their charges – the environment, species, habitats – going extinct and rotten every day. The grief and trauma of working in the natural environment in this country is intense. In Natural England it’s a nightmare.”
This week staff were planning to strike over pay issues. In response, Natural England set up a pay reform project and union leaders have given the agency six months before it will consider industrial action again. A union representative told the Guardian; “It’s hurtful that we’re not valued like our counterparts in Defra. Our work is technical, specialist and high risk, but not properly recognised by the government and yet it depends on us for advice. It’s a plea, really, for the government to recognise the vital work that Natural England does for nature and people.”
Public sector investment in conservation has fallen in real terms by 33% in five years, according to the 2020 biodiversity indicators report. Natural England chair Tony Juniper has previously said that ongoing budget cuts have left the organisation “massively depleted”, and he has been lobbying for more funding.
Mike Clancy, Prospect union general secretary, said there was a “yawning gap” between the government’s rhetoric on climate change and biodiversity, and the reality of years of underfunding environmental agencies.
“Protecting nature means investing in the people who do that work,” he said. “Natural England is at the heart of this agenda but it can only be effective if it is properly funded and the importance of its staff properly recognised.”
Natural England has an “absolutely critical job” in turning around catastrophic wildlife decline, said Craig Bennett, chief executive of Wildlife Trusts. “If our nation is to have the natural world that we yearn for, then ministers need to give Natural England the money and powers it needs to do its job, and let it get on with it.”
Green party peer Natalie Bennett said people protecting nature are doing so “on a shoestring” due to the severity of cuts. “We’re one of the world’s most nature-depleted countries, yet Natural England has been under-resourced at every turn and this threatens the work of its expert staff … clearly funding needs to be restored.”
Marian Spain, chief executive of Natural England, said the agency is embarking on a nature recovery network, rebuilding resilient landscapes, restoring wildlife, improving soil health, and helping people to connect to the natural world. “Our staff do an extraordinary job in caring for the natural world and we are committed to making sure they are rewarded fairly for their hard work,” she said in the comment, which came via Defra.
“This government has set out ambitious environmental targets, which Natural England is well placed to deliver on – however ongoing and significant investment will be needed if we are to truly realise the ambition of leaving the environment in a better state than we found it.”
Reassurances have been made following safety concerns raised over an Exeter retirement village which has kept its swimming pool and gym open during the second lockdown.
Millbrook Village in Topsham Road, a retirement community operated by Inspired Villages, offers an extensive range of facilities for its residents including a relaxation pool, fine dining restaurant, gym and studio, a library, a private cinema, and a concierge service.
It also usually offers an inclusive programme of social activities and events.
While leisure facilities across England had to close as of last Thursday due to current lockdown restrictions, some degree of normality has been able to continue at Millbrook Village.
Devon Live has been contacted by a member of the public concerned that the on-site gym and swimming pool remaining open would pose a health risk to residents.
But management say that, with the introduction of extra measures, the facilities are safe to use.
Jamie Bunce, CEO of Inspired Villages, said: “The health, safety and wellbeing of residents and colleagues are our top priorities. We have taken serious action to protect lives and keep our retirement communities free from outbreaks of Covid-19 and are pleased to report we have had no cases at the village.
“To maintain this protective shield, we have extra cleaning and infection control measures in place. The bar and restaurant are closed, residents get a ‘buddy call’ from a village team member every day, and the team is delivering grocery essentials and cooked meals to doorsteps for residents who would like this support.
“The mental wellbeing of our residents has been another important focus for us. The exercise room, swimming pool and residents’ lounge are not premises open to the public, but are extensions of residents’ homes which support their mental and physical wellbeing during this challenging time.
“To keep residents safe, we have introduced a single household booking system, with spaces thoroughly cleaned between sessions. Online exercise classes have also been made available to residents if they would prefer to exercise in their own home.”
Millbrook Village was built in 2014 and has 206 luxury two-and three-bedroom cottages and one-and two-bedroom apartments for those aged 55 and above.
The retirement village says it is proud of how it tackled the first lockdown imposed in March and how it kept its residents safe and happy.
Leah Jackson, a dedicated wellness navigator, who is responsible for supporting the requirements and interests of residents previously told Devon Life: “The pandemic brought about many restrictions to public movement. Our main concern was how we could help residents stay connected and remain active whilst keeping everyone safe and well.
“From online Pilates classes to a pop-up shop with all the essentials people were struggling to find in supermarkets, which we deliver to residents’ doorsteps, we are offering a variety of services to maintain the high standard of living for which Millbrook is renowned. Having a video catch-up with a G&T in hand is also proving to be a popular alternative to popping to the neighbour’s house.”
She continued: “Due to our close-knit on-site community and support network, we were able to tackle the challenge really effectively – the village team really pulled together to support the residents, who were really understanding of why we were introducing the safety measures we did.
“If anything, lockdown highlighted just how much Millbrook Village can cater to our residents’ needs without needing to leave the grounds. “
The scale of the contracts, which was disclosed by the Financial Times, dwarfs the annual budgets of some government departments. The Department for Transport has a budget worth £24 billion, the Cabinet Office £15 billion and the Home Office £14 billion. It is also more than the entire annual expenditure on policing in England and Wales.
At some point there will be a day of reckoning – Owl
The government is preparing to spend more than £40 billion to help deliver on Boris Johnson’s “moonshot” pledge for mass coronavirus testing across the UK.
Public Health England has issued a contract worth £22 billion for a new national testing framework, which includes the manufacture and development of tests for the NHS over the next four years.
The NHS has issued another tender worth £20 billion which includes on-the-spot tests and diagnostics equipment. It said that the value of the contract had increased from £5 billion to £20 billion because of the pandemic and “immediate overall increased spend in support of [the] Covid-19 testing programme”.
A third tender for £1billion, covering just three and a half months, offers £912 million for the supply of rapid turnaround “lateral flow” tests. The contract could be enough to supply tests to cover the entire population.
The scale of the contracts, which was disclosed by the Financial Times, dwarfs the annual budgets of some government departments. The Department for Transport has a budget worth £24 billion, the Cabinet Office £15 billion and the Home Office £14 billion. It is also more than the entire annual expenditure on policing in England and Wales.
The disclosure came as Matt Hancock, the health secretary, announced that mass coronavirus testing would be rolled out to 67 local authorities in England.
A total of 600,000 rapid coronavirus tests, which are capable of giving results in an hour, will be sent out across the UK this week to start the next phase of mass testing. Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire and the West Midlands are among the areas that will receive the tests.
Since Friday every resident in Liverpool has been entitled to receive a test under a scheme run by the army.
Speaking in the Commons this afternoon, Mr Hancock said: “The next step is to roll out this mass testing capability more widely. So I can tell the House that last night I wrote to 67 directors of public health who have expressed an interest in making 10,000 tests available immediately and making available lateral flow tests for use by local officials, according to local needs, at a rate of 10 per cent of their population per week.
“That same capacity — 10 per cent of the population per week — will be made available to the devolved administrations too.”
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said directors of public health had been prioritised for the first phase of rapid community testing based on the local prevalence of Covid-19 and expressions of interest to the department.
However, any director who wants to start rolling out local testing using lateral flow tests can do so by contacting the DHSC.
The department said local teams could direct and deliver testing “based on their local knowledge”.
Coventry city council, which is among the local authorities to be part of the mass testing programme, welcomed news of additional tests.
Liz Gaulton, the city’s director of public health, said: “Anything that will help in the battle to reduce the number of positive cases in the city is to be welcomed.”
George Duggins, Labour leader of the council, welcomed the initial batch of 10,000 tests destined for the city but warned against complacency.
He said: “Although this news of the additional testing for the city is welcome, it is noticeable it comes with no additional funding for rolling it out or implementing, which means additional expense to all local authorities.
“We will of course do that, but all local authorities need to be recognised and reimbursed for the considerable work they are all doing in helping to fight the pandemic.”
Wolverhampton’s director of public health, John Denley, said the lateral flow tests would “help us to break chains of transmission much more quickly”.
He added the city “expressed an interest” in bringing testing to Wolverhampton after observing results of the Liverpool pilot and said tests would be provided “in the coming days”.
