Two former Conservative cabinet ministers have launched a joint parliamentary inquiry into the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, as they warned No 10’s own probe will come “too late”.

Ashley Cowburn, Political Correspondent www.independent.co.uk

As infections of the virus surge across the country, Greg Clark, chair of the Commons science and technology committee and Jeremy Hunt, chair of the health committee, said “important lessons need to be learned” to help inform decisions through the next phase of the crisis.

Their two committees – alongside MPs who sit on them – will aim to produce a joint report in the Spring of 2021, but insisted there will be “staging posts” along the way.

In their sessions the chairs are expected to call on ministers and on professor Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, and Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific, who have often appeared alongside Boris Johnson at No 10, to give evidence to MPs.

The inquiry – starting next week –will focus on the deployment of non-pharmaceutical interventions like the national lockdown and social distancing rules to manage the pandemic, the impact on the social care sector and the government’s widely criticised Test and Trace system.

It will also probe the UK’s prior preparedness for a pandemic, the development of treatments and vaccines, and the impact of coronavirus on people from minority ethnic backgrounds.

In the summer, Boris Johnson committed to holding an independent inquiry into the pandemic, but insisted it was not the right time do so as the government continued “combatting” the virus. Downing Street has not given any further details as to when an inquiry may launch or the exact format.

Ahead of the launch of the joint inquiry by the two Commons committees, Mr Clark, the former business secretary under Theresa May, said: “We’re very focused on being able to find and learn lessons during the course of the pandemic that can be applied to decisions that might be coming up further down the road.

“The prime minister has committed to a public inquiry, but clearly that has some way to go before it even starts, let alone concludes. Whatever lessons and conclusions are learnt from that, it’s likely to be too late for the weeks and months ahead. 

“We want to in a constructive way, feedback what we learn from witnesses both in this country and around the world.”

In a statement, Mr Hunt said: “Parliament has a crucial role in scrutinising the actions of government at a time when the country is in the grip of a crisis such as the current pandemic with its tragic impact on lives and livelihoods.

“Important lessons need to be learned that can help inform further decisions that will need to be taken in the months ahead. It is crucial to learn and apply them now since the public inquiry that the prime minister has promised is likely to be some time away.”

The former cabinet minister added: “Our committees will jointly learn what went well, what didn’t, and what lessons must be learnt at this point in the pandemic. We will use the independence of our cross-party committees and weekly detailed questioning of witnesses to consider the decisions and the evidence they were based on and assess their effectiveness.

“We will develop clear recommendations so that the UK can benefit from the lessons learned for future stages of this pandemic and for future crises.”

Want a new challenge? No previous experience necessary.

Owners of a family-run café in the heart of Sidmouth have expressed their frustration at losing permission for an outdoor seating area, after it was allowed for three months over the summer.

Hannah Corfield sidmouth.nub.news 

‘Street café’ connected to The Dairy Shop

The Dairy Shop on Church Street was issued a temporary pavement license by Devon County Council back in July, as a Covid-19 measure introduced to support local businesses.

“It saved the business; without it the café would not have survived,” Owner John Hammond explained.

“Our business model centres on sharing tables, with limited space available in the café. Obviously, with one person to each table we’ve reached full capacity with about three people. It’s just not sustainable.

“The extra seating outside got us through a busy summer; meaning our staff could come back full-time and didn’t have to rely on the furlough scheme.

“All things considered, it has been a good summer.”

Until September 10, when John received a letter from Devon County Council stating that he would need to reapply for a license to continue with the set up of three tables and six chairs on the pavement opposite The Dairy Shop.

“Initially, the letter seemed to imply that there would be no issue reapplying for a license. But when I did, my application to extend the permit was rejected,” John continued.

“With the arrangement having worked perfectly fine for the the past three months, I don’t understand why there is an issue with it now. We feel quite dumbfounded by the whole situation.”

Sidmouth Town Council has shown full support to The Diary Shop, requesting that ‘common sense prevail’ and the permit be re-granted to enable the business to continue operating.

Chair Ian Barlow commented: “The reasons for refusing to renew the license appear unsubstantiated and rather petty in my opinion.

“To say that Church Street is a ‘busy road’ is ridiculous. The café opposite The Dairy Shop has an outdoor seating area with no problems.”

Cabinet Member for Highways Management, who also lives in Sidmouth, Stuart Hughes said: “A permit to have tables and chairs on the pavement where they were previously located is not viable and will not be granted on the grounds of posing a risk to pedestrians.

“There is a way forward though, and that would be for Sidmouth Town Council to apply for the road closure to include Chapel Street, which runs next to The Dairy Shop.

“This would make a suitable space for an outdoor seating area. It might take some time – probably until January to secure – but it would be a lasting solution.”

When asked why the outdoor seating area couldn’t remain as it was, he responded: “There were objections made by members of the public who were unhappy about how social distancing was being adhered to and restrictions to pavement access.

“Devon County Council granted the initial three-month permit, designed to help businesses through the pandemic, with the proviso that it could be renewed if no one objected. Once complaints have been made, they have to be investigated and in this case it has been deemed unsafe.”

Theresa May has sharply criticised the government’s planning reforms, describing them as “mechanistic” and “ill conceived” as No 10 struggled to contain a backbench rebellion.

George Grylls www.thetimes.co.uk /

In August Robert Jenrick, the housing secretary, published details of a formula that will be used to calculate where 300,000 homes a year will be built.

It permits large increases in development in London and rural areas, while cities in the north including Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle will be asked to build fewer homes.

Mrs May told MPs that the reforms would send more investment into “London and the south”.

She said: “What this new algorithm does as regards to levelling up, is it flies in the face of the government’s flagship policy.

“This is a mechanistic approach and it is ill conceived. We need to reform the planning system. We need to make sure that planning system sees the right number of homes being built in the right places. But we won’t do that by removing local democracy, cutting the number of affordable homes that will be built and building over rural areas.”

In Mrs May’s Berkshire constituency of Maidenhead, according to the system, an additional 221 homes will be constructed each year over and above current requirements.

Meanwhile, a seat such as Manchester Central will have to build 260 fewer houses, Times analysis has found.

Referring to the government’s change of mind on A-level results, the former prime minister said: “I would have thought the government might have abandoned algorithms by now.”

Anger has been building on the Conservative back benches for some time over the reforms. Fifty-five Tory MPs sought to speak in the debate with nearly 80 in a WhatsApp group opposed to the targets. The government is hoping to avoid a binding vote on the algorithm, but the rebels are expected to amend the wider planning reforms if the formula is not changed.

At a meeting of the backbenchers’ 1922 committee last night, Mr Jenrick tried to calm opposition. But in the Commons, former cabinet ministers including Jeremy Hunt, Chris Grayling, Damian Green and Damian Hinds all spoke out against the algorithm, with Mr Hunt warning the government that it was showing “contempt for local democracy”.

A source close to Mr Jenrick said the government would not be “deterred” from its target of 300,000 homes a year, adding that the targets would be distributed in a “fair and sensitive way”.

Analysis by The Times has shown that Conservative constituencies will bear the brunt of the development. Excluding London — where housebuilding will increase dramatically — Tory seats will have to accommodate an additional 54,000 homes each year, while Labour constituencies beyond the capital will be asked to build 3,000 less.

Bob Seely, MP for the Isle of Wight who called the debate, said that the algorithm would leave Tory shire voters “furious” and Red Wall voters “betrayed”.

Christopher Pincher, the housing minister, responded that the planning system was “opaque, slow and almost uniquely discouraging for all but its most expert navigators”, adding that the government was “actively engaged” with backbenchers and “listening to feedback” about the effects of the algorithm.

With coastal towns severely affected by coronavirus, one creative duo are planning a string of artist-led festivals in October half-term to lure people back to the seaside

Dixe Wills http://www.theguardian.com 

Can the arts help save the seaside? The organisers of a new multi-town festival planned for October half-term (26 October-1 November) are hoping they can.

Billing itself as “a coastal call to arms”, Back & Fill was created by writer and artist Dan Thompson and designer Kate Kneale of Margate-based studio HKD as a response to the economic damage done to seaside towns by the coronavirus crisis. Working with a small team of volunteers furloughed from their jobs, the pair have invited local people involed in the creative arts to put on performances, exhibitions and other events to lure people to the seaside for one last autumn fling.

“The idea came to us when we were sitting in our studios in Margate talking about how the summer would be wiped out,” said Thompson. “So many things were cancelled and the Turner Contemporary, one of our key attractions, was closed for much of the year.”

That loss of the summer season was disastrous for coastal communities across the UK, despite the few weeks immediately after lockdown when some towns were overwhelmed by visitors as restrictions lifted. As early as April, a study by the University of Southampton and the Centre for Towns warned that lockdown would show the economies of seaside towns to be especially vulnerable. Many are heavily reliant on holidaymakers – in Newquay and Skegness, for example, more than half the local jobs depend on tourism. Of the study’s list of the 20 towns in England and Wales identified as most at risk, 16 are on the coast. By August, the National Coastal Tourism Academy was estimating lockdown would see seaside towns losing up to £10.3bn this year.

Back & Fill hopes the festivals will claw back a little of those losses. Each local event is independently run, using a starter kit devised by Thompson and Kneale that anyone can share and edit. To date, a dozen towns have signed up. Ten are in England – Cleethorpes, Hastings, Margate, Newhaven, Portsmouth, Ramsgate, Sandown (Isle of Wight), Southwold, Westward Ho! and Weymouth – along with Swansea in south Wales and Northern Ireland’s Portrush.

With anti-Covid measures still in place up and down the country, Thompson is keen to point out that he’s not encouraging large gatherings. The events are typically small and keep to the rule of six.

“They’re an antidote to big crowds,” he said. “They’re about exploring and discovering, about beauty and magic. We wanted to plan something for people to look forward to, that would extend the summer season. A moment of joy and happiness somewhere over the horizon after the summer has ended.

“We’ve also created a new network of arts organisations in seaside towns that will talk to each other and offer mutual support in these difficult times.”

Plans for events are still being finalised in many of the participating towns and details will be released shortly. Those already announced include a “pennydrop” treasure hunt in Westward Ho! by the artistic duo Quiet British Accent, who have organised similar events around the world.

Swell Portrush is unleashing Operation Zombie by the Big Telly theatre company, in which teams of up to six people will work their way across town, completing missions to drive the zombies out. There’ll also be a wild food walk, a wildlife cruise, lots of yoga, driftwood boat-making and shop-window exhibitions along Main Street.

Among events planned in Margate is an exhibition of “lockdown prints” by Robert Montgomery, famous for his art installations.

In Cleethorpes, the Birdhouse Theatre is hosting Life’s a Beach, a week-long programme engaging children and families in nature-based and creative activities, most of which will take place outdoors, including a shipwreck ramble and story-telling in the sand dunes. Full details will be announced on its website on 12 October.

According to Thompson, there’s still time for more coastal towns to join the event. So it will be worth checking the Back & Fill website nearer the date for a last dose of seaside fun before winter.

As a correspondent wrote to Owl a few days ago:

Johnson wants more young people to buy their own homes.  More and more young people will be unemployed over the current months as furlough ends and more lickdowns may take place.  Some who own their homes may have to move miles to get new jobs and will be unable to take those jobs – until they sell their homes to people who can’t afford to buy them.  Add that there is a possibility that post-Brexit house prices may fall, many new buyers may then be in negative equity.  AND their homes being converted from shops and offices may turn out to be sub-standard….. Would you buy a house from this man?

www.independent.co.uk 

Few television programmes can be as depressingly upbeat as Homes under the Hammer. It’s not the dated music, formulaic structure or the cheesy, lobotomised chirpiness of its presenters.

It’s the fact that, every weekday morning, for 1,000 episodes now, it has nonchalantly exposed the glaring absurdity at the heart of UK economy, apparently without even realising.

I’m not suggesting that a daytime TV show is responsible for the housing crisis. But Homes under the Hammer did start in 2003, which, coincidentally, was roughly when the UK property market finally ceased contact with objective reality, consigning a generation to insecure renting.

For 17 years since, a rolling cast of would-be property developers have enjoyed their 15 minutes of fame telling pinstriped estate agents how they made their fortunes flipping run-down terraced houses.

On a basic level, we know something feels intuitively odd about this. Why do we live in a country where people make so much money by covering the nation’s properties in cheap laminate, magnolia paint and faux leather sofas – then renting them out to people who can’t afford to buy their own?

Can this really be more valuable than, say, being a civil engineer or starting a business that makes something or provides a service?

Is it just an immutable law that house prices always rise? Or have we created a system with fundamental flaws?

Figures out this week give credence to the latter view. They should cause alarm, but the government seems to have its fingers its ears.  

Despite a catastrophic recession, a global pandemic, the looming prospect of mass unemployment and huge disruption to trade, average house prices jumped 7.3 per cent in the past year – far more than wages.

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson unveiled his plan to turn generation rent into “generation buy” – a slogan that hides a barely fleshed-out plan, apparently to subsidise 2 million low-deposit mortgages with public money.

To understand this phenomenon, and why the government’s plan will make it worse, it’s necessary to confront two fundamental myths about the housing market and the financial system that props it up.

First, the pervasive myth that high prices are caused by a shortage of supply. This is not true, no matter how many times it is repeated. Supply rose last year at its fastest rate for three decades, yet prices shot up.

While supply and demand are important factors in determining price of anything, in the housing market an over-riding factor is the cost of debt, because property is the one purchase that almost all ordinary households fund largely with borrowing.

According to Bank of England research, the fourfold increase in house prices since the 1980s can be explained almost entirely by falling real interest rates. Cheap money means expensive houses.  

Markets now think the economy is going to tank, so rates are forecast to stay low, meaning banks are continuing to offer cheap mortgages – particularly for those with a big deposit. Along with a cut in Stamp Duty, this has helped push up house prices further.  

The second myth is that banks are responsible stewards of money; financial intermediaries channelling idle savings into profitable investments.  

In reality, banks are more like debt factories, creating money out of nothing. They don’t look at their deposits to see how much they have left to lend then think who might make best use of it. They simply create as much money as they are allowed to under the rules and lend it out to the most profitable borrower.  

They simply tap a number into a computer and it’s in your account as a debt to the bank.

Because of poorly designed rules supposedly designed to make banks safer, it’s much more profitable for banks to lend against the value of a “safe” asset like a house than it is to lend to a company that wants to expand. Property asset bubbles are built into the system.

The vast majority of money that UK banks create is for assets or financial transactions. In other words, it does not expand the nation’s productive capacity by, for example, funding education or research, it merely inflates the value of assets that already exist.  

This has created a £7 trillion housing market that fails to construct affordable homes and gives a huge, unearned windfall to those who joined in the game first – some of them are part-time developers of Homes under the Hammer fame, others are simply homeowners born at the right time who’ve now cashed in their chips.

To all intents and purposes, the UK housing market is a pyramid scheme reliant on ever-increasing prices.

This can’t continue forever, but successive governments and central bankers have done their best to try and keep the music going long after the party should have ended, and they may well keep it going for a while yet.

At some point rates must rise, the cheap money tap will turn off and homeowners, banks and the country will have a problem. 

And yet, at this point, the government plans to provide 95 per cent LTV mortgages, adding tens of billions of pounds more debt, probably backed by the public, (though we don’t know yet as Boris Johnson hasn’t said) to an already colossal pile.

This would effectively protect banks by putting taxpayers first in line for losses when house prices fall. It will not result in more affordable homes being built.

The approach taken by recent governments has also meant years of missed opportunity. At the low rates available for much of the past decade, governments could have borrowed to expand the productive capacity of the economy, to boost skills, develop infrastructure and build publicly-owned housing.

Then, as the economy picked up and wages rose the Bank of England could have taken its foot off the throttle and increased interest rates, returning the property market slowly to planet Earth.

Instead, the government chose to slash spending on public services and is now ready to get the chequebook to underwrite a further splurge on housing debt.

So we are left with the absurdity that, a decade after a crisis caused by trillions of dollars pumped into an unsustainable bubble, our government and central bankers seem intent on giving it a few last puffs just to make sure it bursts as catastrophically as possible.

That won’t be tomorrow, it may not even be next year, but it has to happen.  

“Sea defences at the mouth of the River Otter, built 200 years ago to claim fresh farmland from the sea, along with other man-made alterations to the river over the centuries, mean the Otter is no longer as naturally connected with its floodplain as it once was.”

Unintended consequences of land-owner tinkering with nature, but who picks up the bill? And can this be cited as “mitigation” for building on the Clyst estuary? – Owl 

Howard Lloyd www.devonlive.com

Ambitious new plans have been submitted for a £15m scheme to help protect the Lower Otter Valley from the increasing threats of climate change.

The EU-funded scheme, which is still subject to approval, would create a new nature reserve while also protecting public amenities and leaving the area better-equipped to deal with rising sea levels.

The project is being proposed due to the failure of existing sea defences and the impact this is having on the immediate area.

“The project is being considered because the existing 200-year-old sea defences are now starting to fail and are becoming increasingly hard to maintain,” claim the Lower Otter Restoration Project.

“This is already impacting on public infrastructure, local businesses and homes, and recreational facilities. The project is in the process of securing sufficient funding as well as planning and other consents to allow us to move towards implementing the proposals.

“The Lower Otter Estuary is a very special place. It is home to local people and businesses. It provides habitat for a wide variety of breeding and wintering bird species, and it is enjoyed by tens of thousands of visitors each year.

“But this coastal community, like many others, faces growing challenges due to climate change. As the oceans warm up, they take up more space and sea levels rise. We are also seeing more extreme storms and rainfall events which increase the intensity and erosional power of rivers and the sea.

“The Lower Otter Restoration Project is working with local people and partner organisations to adapt and enhance the downstream part of the River Otter, its estuary, and its immediate surroundings for future generations in the face of a rapidly changing climate.”

The project, led by landowner Clinton Devon Estates and the Environment Agency, would see the Big and Little Marsh floodplains around Budleigh Salterton restored, with breaches created in the Little Bank, the Big Bank and the River Otter Embankment to allow water to flow through.

It would also see the town’s cricket club move location.

Previous flooding at Budleigh Salterton Cricket Club’s Ottermouth ground

The funding will support the Lower Otter Restoration Project’s aims of climate change adaptation by working with natural processes to provide benefits for people and wildlife.

Sea defences at the mouth of the River Otter, built 200 years ago to claim fresh farmland from the sea, along with other man-made alterations to the river over the centuries, mean the Otter is no longer as naturally connected with its floodplain as it once was.

The hope is that the plans will see ‘original habitats restored (and) riverand wildlife allowed to respond naturally to climate change’.

Floods have left part of their current Ottermouth home under water on three occasions in the last 10 years, with a plan to relocate to Janie’s Field on the outskirts of the town having been agreed.

More than 80% of people who tested positive in a national coronavirus survey had none of the core symptoms of the disease the day they took the test, scientists say.

Ian Sample www.theguardian.com

The finding has prompted fears that future Covid-19 outbreaks will be hard to control without more widespread testing in the community to pick up “silent transmission”, particularly in universities and high-risk workplaces such as meat processing facilities.

Researchers at UCL said 86.1% of infected people picked up by the Office for National Statistics Covid-19 survey between April and June had none of the main symptoms of the illness, namely a cough, or a fever, or a loss of taste or smell the day they had the test.

Three quarters who tested positive had no notable symptoms at all, the scientists found when they checked whether people reported other ailments such as fatigue and breathlessness on the day of testing.

Unlike coronavirus testing in the community which focuses on people with symptoms, the ONS infection survey routinely tests tens of thousands of households around the country whether the occupants have symptoms or not.

“At the moment, the focus is on people who have symptoms, but if you are not catching all those who are asymptomatic or presymptomatic it may be really difficult to get outbreaks down in time, before they get out of control,” said Irene Petersen, an author on the study and professor of epidemiology and health informatics.

While those who tested positive in the ONS survey may have gone on to develop a fever, cough or other common symptoms, Petersen believes there is a risk of “silent transmission” by people who are unaware they are infected.

The study, reported in Clinical Epidemiology, analysed the symptoms described by more than 36,000 people who were tested between April and June. Only 115 tests came back positive and of those only 27 people, or 23.5%, had symptoms of any description.

When the scientists narrowed the symptoms down to the main three for coronavirus infections, namely a cough, or a fever, or a loss of taste or smell, the number reporting the ailments fell to 16 or 13.9%.

On the back of the findings, Petersen argues that universities and high-risk work places, such as meat processing facilities, should do regular testing to pick up people who may be infectious but are not displaying symptoms. She urged universities to ramp up testing capacity now so students could be tested through the autumn and crucially before they return home at Christmas. “Anybody who’s had students coming home at Christmas knows they often bring some sort of bug with them and this Christmas in particular they could bring Covid home and potentially seed new outbreaks,” she said.

Last month, the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) issued a similar warning, stating there was a “critical risk” of large numbers of infected students sparking outbreaks across the country when they returned home at the end of the term.

Given the pressure on testing capacity, Petersen said pooled testing was needed, where swabs are grouped together and tested as one batch. Since most people do not have the virus, most pooled tests will be negative, but when a batch tests positive, the contributors need to be tested individually to identify the infected person.

Patrick Maxwell, head of the school of clinical medicine at Cambridge, said the study underscored that many people who are infected are asymptomatic. “There will be great public health benefit in terms of reducing transmission if we can reliably identify asymptomatic individuals and they then self-isolate,” he said.

He said Cambridge was piloting an approach that uses pooled samples to enable a “mass asymptomatic testing programme” for students.

Owl has just been tipped the wink that the Parish Council is holding another online meeting to discuss the objection that Charlie Hopkins has written on behalf of the Parish Council to the planning application. They will also be discussing the latest additional amendments to the planning application at Winslade Manor and surrounding buildings. 

Those wanting to “attend” this virtual meeting need to email the Parish Clerk beforehand to get login details ( Bishopsclyst@gmail.com ). Owl assumes they should also include their name and address.

This link will take you to a copy of Charlie Hopkins’ draft objection ( the planning barrister employed by the Parish Council)

Your Local Democracy Reporters keeping Devon and Cornwall informed

This article explains how the BBC funds journalists to provide a Local Democratic Reporting Service as a partnership between the BBC and local news organisations. [The Watch first reported on the BBC’s intention to do this in 2015, but it took until 2018 to happen]

The online article features Local Democracy Reporters: Ed Oldfield who covers Torbay and Plymouth;  Richard Whitehouse, Cornwall; and our own, and much valued, Daniel Clark who covers Devon.

Only Daniel is featured in this post (to see the others’ profiles go on-line).

 It’s good to be able to put a face to local news. [Followers will recall that the Times paparazzi snapped Owl unawares earlier in the year].

Nevertheless, there must be concern that we have to rely on a single source of Local Democratic Reporting as the Government “goes on manoeuvres” over the “impartiality” of the BBC.

Devon Live www.devonlive.com 

In these unprecedented times, it has never been more important that the facts of what is happening are reported.

Everywhere you look, you can find some sort of conspiracy theory and someone with an agenda to drive, and that muddies the truth around the most important issues of the day.

Getting to the bottom of what is happening is not always easy and certainly not quick – and in a world where journalists are under more and more pressure to hit ever increasing numbers and volumes of targets when there are fewer and fewer of them remaining – the sometimes dry, complicated and detailed world of local councils, politics, and statistics could easily be put aside.

This is where the Local Democracy Reporting Service comes in. The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) was set up in 2018 in a unique partnership between the BBC and local news organisations such as Reach PLC, which publishes DevonLive, CornwallLive and PlymouthLive as well as the Herald Express, North Devon Journal, Express and Echo, Mid Devon Gazette, The Herald, West Briton, Cornishman, Cornish Guardian and the Western Morning News.

The journalists are funded by the BBC as part of its latest Charter commitment but employed by regional news organisations, with nearly Local Democracy Reporters having been allocated to 59 news organisations in England, Scotland and Wales.

The partnership has enabled reporters to get back into council chambers (once physical, now virtual), shining a light into the corners of local authorities and reporting on what has been happening.

Stories are then written, uploaded to a wire and distributed to all partner agencies, including our traditional ‘rival’ newspapers to use as they wish.

And since the coronavirus pandemic hit the country in March, nationwide, Local Democracy Reporters have published more than 15,000 stories relating to coronavirus – covering everything from the daily statistical updates, the impact of council finances, how individuals and businesses have been affected, and the knock-on impacts that the lockdown will have going forward.

All of this has run alongside the usual business of covering council activities – although rather than putting reporters back in County Hall as originally planned, it has seen us dial it Zoom calls or watch meetings live on Youtube.

Virtual meetings have enabled democracy (and subsequent reporting of it) to carry on throughout the pandemic, but every reporter is longing for the day the words ‘you’re on mute councillor’ is a thing of a past.

Daniel Clark

Daniel is the LDR for Devon – mainly focused on covering Devon County Council, as well as when time allows, the eight district councils – East Devon District Council, Exeter City Council, Mid Devon District Council, North Devon Council, South Hams District Council, Teignbridge District Council, Torridge District Council, and West Devon Borough Council, plus Dartmoor National Park

Local Democracy Reporter Daniel Clark (Image: DevonLive)

Coronavirus has been the main thing on everyone’s mind and lips this year, so it would be churlish not to mention it, but making sure that the facts and figures, and the latest comments, warnings and advice from the county’s Public Health Team is a vital part of the job – many stories could be mentioned, but here is the latest.

The other major story that has been in the news this year has been around race and the Black Lives Matters movement following the death of George Floyd in America. It has led to councils across Devon to re-examine their relationship with their historical past, their current relationship with minorities, and allowed those from BAME communities to tell their story in an attempt to affect change.

The Greater Exeter Strategic Plan was due to be the major blueprint for development across large swathes of Devon – covers East Devon, Exeter, Mid Devon and Teignbridge. Plans for thousands of new homes, including a second Cranbrook, relocating service stations, a sports hub etc were due to go out for consultation – but following a vote from East Devon, the GESP is now dead.

Exmouth seafront remains one of the most controversial sites in Devon – with the long awaited plans to regenerate the site having hit yet more setbacks this year. It may seem an age ago, but back in February, it felt like movement was finally being made when councillors backed the marketing exercise for the site, but since then, a call-in, a change of leadership, and the coronavirus pandemic have thrown the plans into chaos and back to square one.

It has been a year where active travel and getting people out of their cars and onto other forms of transport has been high on the agenda, with Exeter seeing road closures and new cycle lanes popping up, while plans to reopen railway lines have been progressed with bids submitted for Bere Alston to Tavistock, Cullompton, and the Marsh Barton station – so back in January – which feels like a different world – I went back and looked at all the lost railway lines as part of the Beeching Axe in Devon and Cornwall.

daniel.clark@reachplc.com

Telephone: 01392 346759 / 07775 030856

Read Daniel’s latest articles here,follow him on Twitter here and visit his Facebook page here.

Taking to the podium for his speech at the virtual Conservative Party conference on Tuesday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson addressed one of society’s burning issues: “We need to fix our broken housing market… We will help turn generation rent into generation buy.”

Ruby Lott-Lavigna www.vice.com 

This is not the first time in recent years that a Conservative Party leader has tried to get to grips with the housing crisis during a set-piece conference speech. As far back as 2007, then Tory Leader of the Opposition David Cameron painted a similar picture: “All of the Shadow Cabinet here, they can tell the same story of young people who come to our surgeries, they show you their salary, they talk about local house prices and they just say: ‘I don’t see how I can achieve that dream.’”

In government, the Conservatives have spent a decade striving to help us realise that aspiration, with progress supposedly always being made, but the dream remaining just out of reach – so much so that it has become something of a mainstay of conference speeches. Every passing year that the crisis remains unsolved provides a new opportunity for fresh promises to be made.

The Coalition government came to power in 2010 and enacted a stamp duty cut. The housing problem still remained, however, and in his 2011 conference speech Cameron pledged a “new Tory housing revolution”.

“Unless they get help from their parents, do you know the average age of a first-time buyer in our country today? Thirty-seven,” he said.

The following year, it was déjà vu all over again, with Cameron asking, “You know the average age that someone buys their first home today, without any help for their parents? Thirty-three years old.”

“There are young people who work hard year after year, but are still living at home. They sit in their childhood bedroom, looking out of the window, dreaming of a place of their own,” he said. “I want us to say to them: ‘You are our people, we are on your side, we will help you reach your dreams.’”

By 2013, the housing revolution was still a work in progress. Cameron said: “In a land of opportunity, more people must be able to own a home of their own. You know that old saying, ‘Your home is your castle’? Well, for most young people today, their home is their landlord’s. Generation Y is starting to become Generation Why Do We Bother?”

But he could at least paint a picture of a young couple who had been helped onto the housing ladder by his new Help to Buy policy.

The problem still hadn’t gone away, though, and in 2014 Cameron pledged, “For those wanting to buy a home, yes – we will help you get on that housing ladder… but only if we take on the vested interests, and build more homes – however hard that is.”

Building homes had become a key political issue by this point. In 2015, Cameron returned to the theme of people still living with their parents: “When a generation of hardworking men and women in their twenties and thirties are waking up each morning in their childhood bedrooms – that should be a wakeup call for us. We need a national crusade to get homes built.”

By 2016 it was Theresa May’s turn, and she admitted that while Help to Buy was “the right thing to do”, something wasn’t working. “We simply need to build more homes,” she said.

In her 2017 conference speech – the one marred by a husky voice and collapsing backdrop – May tried to make the housing crisis a career-defining issue: “I will dedicate my premiership to fixing this problem – to restoring hope. To renewing the British Dream for a new generation of people. And that means fixing our broken housing market. For 30 or 40 years, we simply haven’t built enough homes…”

Theresa May, 2018 conference speech: “We will help you get on the housing ladder. And we will build the homes this country needs.”

She went on to announce that the government will lift a cap on councils borrowing to build more houses, which was welcomed by the industry.

Boris Johnson’s first party conference as leader brought pledges to build more homes by turning neglected areas into viable places to live. “… If the streets are safe, and if the transport links are there, and if there are good broadband connections, you enable new housing to go ahead, on brownfield sites that were never considered viable before, we enable young people to get a foot on the housing ladder.”

That year, the National Audit Office found that most of the people who took advantage of Help to Buy would have been able to afford a home anyway, while the Public Accounts Committee reported that the scheme did not make housing more affordable or address the problems in the sector.

The pandemic has revealed a previously hidden social problem: apparently young people don’t live in very good housing. Johnson told the virtual party conference: “When COVID struck, there were millions of people, often young people, who found themselves locked down in rented accommodation, without private space, without a garden, forced to use ironing boards for desks and bedrooms for offices.”

Britain cannot return to the “old normal”, said Johnson. In addition to the recent stamp-duty cut, the government will turn generation rent into generation buy, he pledged, by offering “the chance to take out a long-term fixed rate mortgage of up to 95 percent of the value of the home, vastly reducing the size of the deposit, and giving the chance of home ownership – and all the joy and pride that goes with it – to millions that feel excluded”.

The problem is, the Local Government Association has found that proposed changes to planning regulations would drastically cut the number of affordable homes being built. And the housing gap – the difference between the housing stock and the amount needed for everyone to have a decent home – is already at one million.

James Forrester, managing director of estate agent Barrows & Forrester, told industry website Mortgage Strategy that the Tories’ new policy – which will fuel further demand, without providing any extra supply – is “not only laughable, but quite frankly an insult to those who find themselves priced out of homeownership”.

Progress has been made on a ten point green action plan to help tackle climate change in Devon, councillors have been told.

Daniel Clark – Local Democracy Reporter sidmouth.nub.news

Cllr Claire Wright

Last July, Devon County Council’s Environmental Performance Board were mandated to look into how the ten actions that were proposed by Cllr Claire Wright could be addressed.

Over a year on, Cllr Wright, at last Thursday’s full council meeting, asked for an update on the progress on the actions resulting from the plan.

Cllr Roger Croad, cabinet member for environmental services, said that while the huge demands of dealing with the coronavirus pandemic have, inevitably, affected the way the council has been able to take forward its planned action, more positively though it has been recognised that environmental objectives must underpin the plans for COVID recovery.

He said: “Given the huge imperative to support the Devon Climate Emergency, the Environmental Performance Board has deliberately prioritised effort to progress our DCC carbon reduction plan, as well as assisting in the development of the Devon Carbon Plan and Climate Impacts Plan.

“For this reason, formalising this broader approach to enhanced environmental action through a refreshed suite of action plans has not yet occurred, although opportunities for action are being pursued with vigour.”

Examples of recent progress that had been made, Cllr Croad said, included the recruitment to a new Ecologist position to help provide the required capacity to take forward actions from the DCC Pollinators Action Plan, and that Local Nature Partnership work on October Dark Skies Week will raise awareness of the impacts of lighting on insects and promote actions that people can take.

He added: “Work is progressing well, with significant input from the county council, on the Development Phase of ‘Saving Devon’s Treescapes’, with the first tree planting events starting in October.

“The council is working closely with other local authorities, the Woodland Trust, Local Nature Partnership and others to secure national funding to progress a ‘Trees for Devon’ initiative, which aims to increase tree cover in the county.

“The draft Action Plan to reduce the councils’s own water consumption has been taken forward through the cleaning-up of DCC account held with Pennon Group, analysis of data over a 3-year period, identification of the top 10 sites for water usage from size of building and the establishment of a Water Resources Management System to carry out surveys on those identified sites.

“The authority is also committed to refurbishing county farm dwellings to reflect the decent homes standard. Twenty refurbishments have been completed and a further six are in progress during 2020.”

A Devon NHS trust has stopped all non-urgent blood tests after supply chain problems at diagnostics firm Roche.

By Rachel Schraer Health reporter www.bbc.co.uk 

Doctors are being told to “think carefully” before ordering any tests for their patients, amid shortages caused by a supply chain failure at a major diagnostics company.

Swiss pharmaceutical firm Roche said problems with a move to a new warehouse had led to a “very significant” drop in its processing capacity.

A spokesman said Covid-19 tests would be prioritised.

But the backlog could affect tests including for cancer and heart disease.

One NHS trust in the south west has already advised its GPs to stop all non-urgent blood tests.

A memo seen by the BBC, sent to clinicians within a large hospital trust in London, said leaders were “preparing for a sustained disruption”.

“We urgently need all clinical teams to only send tests that are absolutely essential for immediate patient care, delaying testing where possible,” it said.

Thyroid and cortisol tests were unavailable, while certain cholesterol, liver function and inflammation tests were “severely restricted”.

In a statement, Roche said: “We deeply regret that there has been a delay in the dispatch of some products.

“We are prioritising the dispatch of Covid-19 PCR [diagnostic] and antibody tests and doing everything we can to ensure there is no impact on the supply of these to the NHS.”

It did not comment on the impact on other specific tests including for kidney, liver and thyroid function, sepsis and infection.

Tests rationed

Dr Tom Lewis, lead clinician for pathology at North Devon District Hospital, said his hospital’s trust had sent out communications that all non-urgent blood tests in the community should be stopped.

Without rationing these non-urgent tests, he said, they would run out of swabs in “three to four days”.

Even with rationing, essential equipment could run short by next week, he said.

A scientist at a major London hospital’s lab said they had already stopped doing thyroid tests, and expected an important test of liver function, and another for inflammation, to run out within the day.

All of the London labs are supplied by Roche, he said, with reagents – substances used to analyse test results – proving a particular problem.

Allan Wilson, president of the Institute of Biomedical Science, said if the problem continued for days “it probably will have minimal impact, but if it’s weeks then yes it could have a considerable impact on our ability to deliver tests,” across a whole range of conditions in the UK.

Which tests are affected?

The main issue appears to be with the supply of reagents – used to detect the presence of a substance whether that’s pregnancy hormones, blood glucose or coronavirus.

Because these have such wide application, the number of different diagnostic tests that could be affected is vast.

If you go to your GP with a hormonal imbalance, chest infection or sexually-transmitted infection (STI), your test will end up being processed in the lab using these materials.

If you’re admitted to hospital, you will have your electrolytes tested again relying on the same kind of materials. And your organ function may also be monitored in the same way.

Kit supplied by Roche is crucial in testing the health of your liver, heart and kidneys.

They also supply antibodies which are used in cancer diagnosis.

For NHS trusts which use the company as their main supplier of these types of diagnostic equipment, the work of whole departments could be at risk.

Roche initially told trusts it could take more than a fortnight to resolve the problem.

But a spokesperson later said they were confident there would be “significant improvements by the weekend” and that they would be “well on the way to resolution by the end of next week”.

Logistical issue

The company is one of the main suppliers of diagnostic testing equipment and materials in the UK.

The affected warehouse in West Sussex is Roche’s only distribution centre in the UK and covers the whole country.

In September it moved from another warehouse in East Sussex as part of its Brexit preparations, the BBC understands.

It is “not a problem with the volume of product available” but a logistical issue affecting their ability to distribute it, a spokesperson said.

Dr Lewis said perhaps most concerning was the shortage of electrolyte tests supplied by Roche, since these were “the key test” for critically ill patients, as well as being extremely commonly used by GPs to check people’s medications were safe.

One virologist in the Midlands tweeted that her service had not received Hepatitis C testing kits, and was now running short.

Materials used in cancer diagnostics could also be affected.

‘Unforeseen issues’

In a letter sent to NHS trusts, seen by the BBC, Roche said: “In September we moved from our old warehouse to a new automated warehouse capable of much higher volumes.

“However, during the transition we encountered some unforeseen issues and a very significant drop in our processing capacity. Since then we have worked around the clock to prioritise and manage orders as well as increase this capacity”.

The letter went on to advise local NHS services to “activate [their] local contingency plans” and “look to prioritise essential services only”.

But one clinician pointed out that local contingency plans often involve sending tests to a nearby lab, which in this case might also be affected.

An NHS spokesperson said:”Roche has alerted hospitals to an issue with their supply chain, and they will be working urgently to resolve this issue.”

Honiton and District Chamber of Commerce and Industry have cut all ties with Honiton Town Council – cancelling their membership with immediate effect.

Hannah Corfield honiton.nub.new

The unusual move to disassociate themselves from the town council comes after a meeting held last Wednesday (30 Sept), where it was unanimously agreed that they were ‘unfit’ for membership.

In an explosive letter, Vice Chairman Joseph M Furneaux-Gotch stated: “At a recent meeting the current behaviour of Honiton Town Council was discussed at length; including the allegations and ongoing incidents of bullying in the workplace, poor treatment of staff leading to numerous resignations and litigations; continued unnecessary litigation undertaken by the council; together with the lack of support and service given to Honiton Town recently.

“This in no small way is as a result of money wasted on unnecessary legal fees which continue to this day.

“The shroud of secrecy purveyed by the council in continuing the outdated principle of Part ‘B’ meeting for anything other than discussions regarding commercial tendering left us in no doubt of the need for action.

“It was agreed unanimously that Honiton Town Council, not being a body fit for membership of the Chamber of Commerce, should be excluded from membership forthwith.

“We are saddened to find this very unusual step necessary, but feel strongly the need to disassociate the Chamber from all and every activity of the current Honiton Town Council.

“Therefore membership of Honiton and District Chamber of Commerce and Industry is cancelled with immediate effect.”

Honiton Nub News has contacted Mayor John Zarczynski for comment and is awaiting response.

Building of cheaper housing could be almost halved in some areas of England, analysis suggests.

Robert Booth www.theguardian.com 

Close to half of affordable homes in some of the most expensive areas of England will not be built if ministers proceed with changes to the planning system, analysis by councils suggests.

The government’s proposal to scrap the duty of developers to build affordable housing on sites for up to 40 or 50 homes, would have led to 30,000 of such homes going undelivered over the last five years, according to the Local Government Association (LGA).

Some areas likely to be most affected are the least affordable and under greatest housing pressure, the cross-party grouping said.

Elmbridge in Surrey, where the average house price is over £760,000, has 486 affordable homes either built, under construction or with planning permission over the past five years. This would be reduced to 271 if the proposed 40 or 50-unit threshold were introduced, the LGA said.

Lewes district council in East Sussex could lose up to 37% of its affordable homes, based on past trends. Council leaders in Cornwall have complained the change could result in 300 fewer affordable homes in the county every year.

The warning comes as several Conservative councils voice objections to the planning changes, which they also complain will limit local power over developments. Robert Jenrick, the housing secretary, defended the plans in an interview with the Guardian, telling rebellious shire Tories their party had a “moral mission” to build more homes.

The government admits lifting the threshold at which affordable housing must be included from sites with more than 10 homes to those with over 40 or 50 could cut affordable housing delivery by between 7% and 20%.

But its consultation on changes to the planning system states: “We anticipate that raising the threshold would make more sites viable for [small and medium-sized] developers and would increase the pace of their delivery as the need for negotiation would be removed.”

The LGA’s housing spokesperson, David Renard, who is the Conservative leader of Swindon borough bouncil, said the proposals were “of huge concern”.

“We need to build homes that are affordable to local people and help to reduce homelessness, rather than contributing additional funds to developers’ and landowners’ profits,” he said. “These current proposals risk allowing developers to game the system by only putting forward schemes for fewer than 40 or 50 homes, and so avoid building any affordable homes at all.”

Karen Randolph, portfolio holder for planning at Elmbridge, said: “We are strongly opposed to this approach. There is a significant need for affordable housing in Elmbridge, which coupled with limited land supply and reliance on small sites, means that every opportunity must be taken to secure affordable housing.” She said the average size of the development site in the borough was 0.11 hectares – around a quarter of an acre.

 Why have house prices in England shot up since the 1990s? – video explainer

William Meyer, the Liberal Democrat cabinet member for housing at Lewes district council said: “We have massive land shortage in Lewes and if small sites are going to be excluded it will make a difficult situation worse.” Lewes town is in the South Downs national park, which has a rule that half of any developments of more than 10 homes must be affordable.

But the change would affect other settlements in the district outside the park boundary, including Seaford and Newhaven. Meyer said building council housing rather than relying on private developers was the answer and that a cut in March to the cost of central government loans for that purpose had helped.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said the LGA was overstating the risk, because its proposal to lift the threshold for affordable housing contributions was planned to only be in place for 18 months.

They added: “Our proposals will bring in a new, simpler infrastructure levy to ensure developers pay their way and deliver at least as much, if not more, onsite affordable housing than today.”

“God loves a trier and so does the British public, but they may sicken of someone who tries their patience with sheer incompetence in handling this disease. What they got in this speech was not even jam tomorrow, but jam in a decade’s time. Many would rather just have a Covid test tomorrow, not in a decade’s time.”

 The Waugh Zone www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

“You have his words.” Normally, when a political spokesman utters this line in response to reporters’ questions, it’s because their boss has said something so controversial or sensitive that they know it’s more than their job’s worth to expand on it. Go out and just play a straight bat, don’t add anything further and just repeat what the boss has said. Defence is the best offence, etcetera.

Equally normally, after a prime minister’s party conference speech there will be a briefing in which one-sentence big picture promises are fleshed out with detail, detail that was excluded because it would interrupt the natural narrative flow. We are normally given meat on the bones, the fine brushwork to fill in the sketch, the footnotes to the argument.

But after Boris Johnson’s Big Speech, his first at a party conference since his 2019 election victory, his spokesperson answered almost every single question about policy with – you guessed it – “You have his words.” The briefing was one of the most painful, excruciatingly content-free I’ve ever had to endure in doing 23 years of these things.

Here’s a flavour. What did he mean when he hinted at a social insurance for care homes? “I’m afraid I don’t have much more on that..you’ve got the prime minister’s words”. Yes we have his words, and they told us bugger all beyond a vague citation of Winston Churchill’s “magic of averages” reference to pooling risk.

Can you tell us more about his idea of one-to-one tuition? “You’ve got his words…” Any more detail on his 95% mortgage deposit idea, how long terms would last for example? “You’ve got what he said..” My particular favourite was the answer to a question for more detail on what the PM meant by “digital ID”. “I think that’s a reference to biometric passports,” the spokesman told us. “The passport is obviously a form of digital identity document….” Riiiight, OK.

The helpless, hapless spokesperson was only his master’s voice, of course, so it was no surprise that he sounded so vacuous. It’s worth remembering too that at his first party conference as Tory leader last year Johnson had not a single new policy and his press team didn’t even bother to hold a briefing afterwards at all.

But the 2019 conference was a pre-election sloganfest, a campaign rally in all but name, not a serious update for the nation in a time of crisis as this year’s should have been. With his own competence on coronavirus the most live issue, it felt as though he wanted to reassure the public he was a big, bold deliverer of new ideas.

Yet promises and competence can only be measured if there’s some substance behind them, rather than quarter-baked items plucked out of the ideas fridge. The sheer lack of any detailed plans may prompt even those who give him the benefit of the doubt to think the Emperor really does have no clothes.

Of course, Johnson is a wordsmith and he can still deploy them to good effect. One of his best lines was how much we miss and rely on ”all the gossipy gregariousness and love of human contact that drives the creativity of our economy”. It would be a huge mistake too not to recognise the deep well of goodwill and sympathy that many of those who voted for him (particularly Labour Brexit voters) still retain.

The passage on his vision for 2030 had a certain upbeat futurism about it and no one should underestimate his skill at political amnesia, socially distancing himself from previous Tory leaders as if they were in a different party. Today, he effectively laid into Cameron and Osborne and May and Hammond on the economy as much as, citing “12 years of relative anaemia” on growth. Ditto his attack on previous governments’ ”failure to tackle the deficit in skills, inadequate transport infrastructure, not enough homes people could afford to buy”.

Yet just as a half-empty Commons chamber has brutally exposed his blustering rhetoric in the absence of a heaving mass of noisy backbenchers, so too the ethereally silent reception for his conference speech (delivered to a camera in a bare room in Canary Wharf) cruelly exposed the duff applause lines, grinding gear-changes and occasional incoherence of his words.

To take just one example, the PM said “we are working for the day when life will be back to normal”, then said seconds later told us the virus was a “catalyst for change” and “after all we have been through it isn’t enough just to go back to normal”. Just weeks ago he was saying people had to go back to the office to save city centres, now he says “instead of being dragged on big commutes to the city” he wants people to “start a business in their home town”. It’s a laudable sentiment but it jarred with his ‘Save Pret’ lecturing of last month.

Similarly, the PM said he will “ensure” that the next Tory conference would mean people meeting “cheek by jowl” again, which seemed both a hostage to fortune and a reminder to those in the events industry that their industry is currently being lowered into the grave with little state help to pay for the burial.

The irony is that if Johnson had at least tried to expand on his policy ideas, he may have won round even some sceptics. The Sutton Trust has long pushed the idea of one-to-one state tuition to give poorer children a level playing field with those who can afford private tutors. If Johnson had backed up his “we must care for the carers” with a new national carers living wage that could have proved he was serious. If he had set out funding for the billions, not a few hundred million, needed for green energy, he could have sounded credible.

By contrast, what we got was a reheat of his speech just before “unlockdown”, when he talked of coming out of an Alpine tunnel into the sunlit pasture. The problem is that we are now hurling into another tunnel and for jobs and hospitalisations (up sharply again today), the dark is all that lies ahead this winter. Covid and even Brexit were dismissed in a few paragraphs, almost as afterthoughts.

God loves a trier and so does the British public, but they may sicken of someone who tries their patience with sheer incompetence in handling this disease. What they got in this speech was not even jam tomorrow, but jam in a decade’s time. Many would rather just have a Covid test tomorrow, not in a decade’s time.

The best way to reassure people about our future plans is to deliver in the here and now. Imagine if he’d promised billions on a detailed plan to fix Test and Trace (or at least help fund small, localised labs), and on paying people a healthy sum to self-isolate. Instead, all we had – as his spokesman repeated ad nauseum – were “his words”. Right now, words are not enough.

The scale of the government’s reliance on management consultants has been laid bare as analysis shows that spending with eight top firms has risen by 45% to more than £450m in three years.

Rajeev Syal www.theguardian.com 

Deloitte, the professional services firm, was the biggest winner, earning fees of £147m from public funds in 2019-20, compared with £40m two years earlier, amid a bonanza related in large part to Brexit.

The Home Office had the biggest increase in consultancy spending over three years, jumping 788% to £57m as the department dealt with security, immigration and border preparations for leaving the EU.

The results of the analysis of more than 11,000 government invoices came on Tuesday as Boris Johnson promoted the private sector, saying “free enterprise” must lead the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

In his speech to Conservative party conference, the prime minister sounded a warning about the extent of state intervention on schemes such as furlough and said: “There comes a moment when the state must stand back and let the private sector get on with it. We must not draw the wrong economic conclusion from this crisis.”

However, last week the minister in charge of curbing Whitehall spending, Theodore Agnew, wrote a letter to senior civil servants saying the civil service had become “infantilised” by an “unacceptable” reliance on expensive management consultants.

While 1% of civil servants are paid more than £80,000 a year, day rates for management consultants working in the public sector range from about £1,000 for junior consultants to about £3,500 for partners.

Research carried out by the data provider Tussell has identified how much each of the government’s ministries has spent with eight consultancies between 2017-18 and 2019-20.

The highest-spending department on consultancies in the last financial year was the Department for Transport, which has paid out £88m, a three-year increase of 156%.

The Cabinet Office, the department from which Lord Agnew and his close political ally Michael Gove oversee civil service expenditure, has nearly trebled its spending on outside consultancies over three years to reach £37m, the analysis showed.

The Department for International Development spent £67m on management consultancies in 2019-20 while the Ministry of Defence, which has been criticised in the past for its reliance on contractors, cut expenditure on consultancies from £93m in 2017-18 to £58m this year.

Deloitte appears to be the preferred consultants for the Home Office, having received £73m out of £110m spent on external advisers since 2017-18. Although many of the Home Office contracts are related to Brexit, the biggest Deloitte contract with the department is £60m, spent on the Emergency Services Network.

PricewaterhouseCoopers was the second biggest-earning consultancy from the public purse last year, receiving £106m, according to the analysis. It has earned a total of £294m over three years. The data shows that PwC was paid £32m by the Cabinet Office over three years out of a total departmental spend on the eight consultancies of £121m.

Over that period, PwC has recruited key figures who know the Cabinet Office well, including Gavin Barwell, Theresa May’s former chief of staff, and Philip Rycroft, the former permanent secretary who held senior positions across Whitehall.

The Ministry of Defence appears to have a close relationship with KPMG, having paid the firm £76m out of a total consultancy spend of £203m between April 2017 and March 2020.

Several senior figures have left the MoD to become paid advisers to KPMG, including Air Marshal Sir Simon Bollom who left his job as chief of materiel (air) in defence equipment and support in 2016 and soon after advised the management consultancy on RAF Brize Norton. He has now returned to the MoD as the chief executive of defence equipment and support.

Over the last year, EY earned fees across Whitehall worth £75m, while KPMG was paid £57m from government departments, according to the analysis.

The other four major consultancies – PA Consulting, McKinsey, BCG and Bain & Co – signed deals worth a total of £76m last year, the analysis showed.

Management consultants are typically brought in where it is thought specialist advice or expertise is needed, but there have been longstanding concerns over the extent of their use in the public sector.

Many senior civil servants or ministers work for consultancy firms at some stage in their career, so there are often strong personal links or relationships between staff on both sides.

Cabinet Office data reported by the National Audit Office last year showed a significant drop in spending on consultants after the introduction of new controls in 2010, from almost £2bn in 2009-10 to £400m-£700m in each of the following six years.

A spokesperson for Deloitte said: “We are confident that our work adds significant value to the public sector organisations we work with.

“Deloitte works closely with the Home Office, its agencies and police forces, assisting on their largest and most complex programmes and building and delivering new technologies.”

A PwC spokesperson said the firm follows all relevant rules and regulations when employing former politicians and civil servants. “We are brought in to provide specialist skills at speed where the breadth and depth of our experience makes a positive difference. We work alongside public sector clients to help tackle complex problems and situations where our expertise is needed,” he said.

A government spokesperson said they did not recognise some of the figures in the analysis. “We continue to take considerable steps to reduce unnecessary spending and protect taxpayers’ money,” they said.

“Ministers are concerned that the government is too reliant on consultants and have written to departments to make clear that services should only be procured when external expertise is essential and represents value for money. Where possible, we want to harness the wide range of skills within the civil service.”

KPMG declined to comment. EY has been approached for comment.

The University area of Exeter has leapt into the top ten of areas in England with positive cases of Covid-19 with a rise from 127 to 223 cases in today’s updated figures showing the country’s largest coronavirus clusters.

Colleen Smith www.devonlive.com

The numbers show how many confirmed cases have been found in each MSOA (Middle Super Output Areas) between Monday September 28 and Friday October 2.

Within a matter of days the number of clusters (areas with more than three positive cases) has exploded across Devon.

There are now nine clusters in Exeter, eight in Plymouth, 10 in Torbay and six in Teignbridge – others are also in North Devon, West Devon and mid Devon.

Exeter’s university area is in the Top Ten worst affected in the country

Numbers have grown since schools and university pupils have returned to campus. MP Ben Bradshaw has accused the Government of ‘forcing’ the University of Exeter to abandon its own ‘excellent’ coronavirus testing system as numbers continue to skyrocket.

The university has been using a 24-hour ‘Rapid Response’ system in conjunction with a company named Halo, which pledged to give results within 24 hours of a test.

This table shows the areas in England with the highest number of new cases up to October 2. Like Exeter many are in areas with a university campus. There was anger when hundreds of students were filmed in Exeter ignoring Coronavirus social distancing laws during Freshers week.

Today the nursery at Exeter College has shut until October 19 following a confirmed coronavirus case at the nursery at the rear of Queen Street in the city centre.

In Torbay the first coronavirus-related death in four months has been recorded as infections rise, particularly among younger people.

Director of public health Caroline Dimond reported that the elderly woman died this week – after figures were released showing no deaths in Devon and Cornwall. Ms Dimond said half of the most recent 118 cases were young people in the 15 to 39 age group.

Devon now has 40 Coronavirus (COVID-19) positive cases by Middle Super Output Area (MSOA) – and one of the top ten worst in England

Exeter

Pennsylvania & University 223

Central Exeter 55

St James’s Park & Hoopern 30

Cranbrook, Broadclyst & Stoke Canon 6

St Thomas West 4

Heavitree West & Polsloe 6

Mincinglake & Beacon Heath 5

Pinhoe & Whipton North 4

Clyst, Exton & Lympstone 9

“……..a terrible, expensive, time-consuming way to impose house building and worst of all threatened the destruction of the green belt”.

Да, Борис!

On the eve of the parliamentary debate on planning reform and house building targets, Owl is indebted to the work and researches of EDDC planners. Their excellent brief to Councillors draws attention, amongst other things, to the contrast between Tory policy in 2010 and now.

Housing requirements

There is already a standard Government method in place for calculating housing requirements across planning authorities in England, though this does not generate a high enough level of house building to meet Government aspirations. The white paper now advises that there will be “A new nationally determined, binding housing requirement that local planning authorities would have to deliver through their Local Plans.” 

This is quite a contrast to the position of the Conservative/Liberal democrat coalition Government when in 2010 Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles stated: “Communities will no longer have to endure the previous government’s failed Soviet tractor style top-down planning targets – they were a terrible, expensive, time-consuming way to impose house building and worst of all threatened the destruction of the green belt” .

For those contemplating taking part in the White Paper “Planning for the Future” consultation, which closes on October 29, Owl recommends reading the EDDC brief, to the 16 September strategic Planning Committee, pages 36 to 73. This provides a clear explanation of what lies behind the 27 questions and ideas on how to answer them from an EDDC perspective.

Some questions are not addressed such as  Q1 What three words do you associate most with the planning system in England? – A question, that in Owl’s opinion, trivialises a serious subject.

Not all questions have to be answered.