On the back of this article saying £9.2 billion has already gone from the NHS to private companies:
It’s good to be reminded of this oldie:
Category Archives: Privatisation
“Head of Ofsted calls for greater scrutiny of multi-academy trusts”
Owl says: there are many multi-academy trusts in Devon – unaccountable and unscrutinised by both parents and local authority and nothing either can do about it. Scandalous.
“The chief inspector of schools has called for increased powers to scrutinise multi-academy trusts (Mats), warning that parents and policymakers currently have only a partial view of what is happening in England’s schools.
Amanda Spielman, the head of the schools regulator Ofsted, said trusts were not being held to account properly as her inspectors were not allowed to inspect them.
Ofsted’s inspections are limited to a “summary evaluation” based on a sample of schools belonging to a trust, rather than on the trust itself, resulting in a lack of accountability, according to Spielman.
A growing number of schools in England are being taken out of local authority control and turned into academies, which critics have long claimed lack transparency and local accountability.
About three-quarters of secondary schools and a third of primaries are now academies and three-quarters of those belong to a Mat, some of which control as many as 50 schools or more. “Given the power and influence of Mats, it’s important that they are properly accountable to parents,” said Spielman.
“The fact that Ofsted is unable to inspect trusts directly means parents and policymakers are only given a partial view of what is happening in our schools. This presents some very real risks, which we have seen highlighted by the recent failures of some academy trusts.”
The system of summary evaluations of Mats was introduced this year and allows Ofsted to carry out inspections of a number of schools and publish individual reports. Overall findings are discussed with trust leaders before a summary evaluation report on the work of the Mat is published, though an inspection grade, which would be normal with schools, is not given.
Six Mats have been the subject of summary evaluations, among them the Outwood Grange academies trust, which has in the past been criticised for its discipline policy and high levels of exclusions. Ofsted’s report was positive overall but recommended that the trust should reduce exclusions by continuing to improve pupil behaviour.
Ofted published a report on Monday based on an investigation into Mats, which found that schools in larger trusts benefited from economies of scale, back-office support, training, career progression and recruitment. However, it said some Mats had taken on a large number of struggling schools too quickly, without always having the capacity or leadership necessary to improve them.
A Department for Education spokesperson said the academies programme and the freedom it gave school leaders has been at the heart of the government’s education reforms. “Ofsted have already published a number of summary evaluations reports, which are among a wide range of tools we use to hold academy trusts to account. This includes published information about trust performance, annual accounts and letters to trusts where there are issues of under-performance or weaknesses in governance or financial management.”
Environment Agency severely criticises water companies about pollution risks
Water companies – you know, those privatised companies (with monopolies in their areas) that hand massive bonuses and dividends to their (often foreign) owners and shareholders.
From the report:
“… “This report shows that:
• with one exception, none of the companies are performing at the level the environment needs
• rather than improving, the performance of most companies has deteriorated, reversing the trend of gradual improvement since we introduced the EPA in 2011
• serious pollution incidents which damage the local environment, threaten wildlife and in the worst cases put the public at risk, have increased
This report is about 2018, but I am sad to say we are not seeing dramatic improvements in 2019. As a result we will toughen our regulatory approach!”
Water, water everywhere, but ne’er a drop to drink …
“The owners of Britain’s water companies received almost £5 billion in dividends over the past five years, according to analysis by a union campaigning for renationalisation.
The GMB union said shareholders had “pocketed eye-watering sums” from the privatised water industry, which it called an “abject failure”, including a further £1.4 billion in the form of interest on loans.
Industry returns are in the spotlight after Labour vowed to renationalise the industry and after Southern Water was fined a record £126 million in penalties last week after systematically covering up sewage leaks over seven years.
There are 17 water companies in England and Wales. Three are listed — Severn Trent, United Utilities and South West Water, part of Pennon Group — and the rest privately owned.
The GMB analysis calculates £4.7 billion in dividends were paid out to shareholders between 2014 and 2018, including more than £800 million last year. It counted a further £264 million in other payouts such as share buybacks. It said owners of the water companies had also received £1.4 billion in interest on loans and had accrued a further £520 million in interest, giving a total of almost £6.9 billion it said shareholders had made.
Tim Roache, general secretary of the GMB, said: “If you needed a poster child for abject failure, the privatisation of the water industry is it. Bills up 40 per cent above inflation, billions of litres of water lost in leaks as families face hose-pipe bans and all the while shareholders are trousering billions in profit.”
A spokesman for Water UK, the industry’s representative body, said: “Privatisation of the water and sewerage industry has achieved a great deal over the last 30 years — nearly £160 billion of investment, a healthier environment, better water quality and improved service to customers.
“Customers are now five times less likely to suffer from supply interruptions, eight times less likely to suffer from sewer flooding and 100 times less likely to have low water pressure than when the industry was in government hands. Nationalisation would risk turning back the clock to the days when service and quality failures were far more common, and cash-strapped governments wouldn’t pay for the improvements needed.”
Mr Roache called it a “complete disgrace” and urged the government to do “something about it”.”
Source: The Times (pay wall)
“Serco given new asylum housing contracts despite £6.8m fines”
“The outsourcing firm Serco was awarded new contracts to house vulnerable asylum seekers despite having been fined nearly £7m for previous failings, the Guardian can reveal.
Responsibility for housing people seeking asylum in the UK was taken away from local authorities in 2012 and given to the companies Serco, G4S and Clearsprings under deals with the Home Office known as Compass contracts.
Despite concerns by leading charities that outsourcing the service had resulted in “squalid, unsafe, slum housing conditions”, in January the Home Office awarded Serco, Clearsprings and the company Mears new contracts to provide housing for asylum seekers for 10 years from September.
Figures released following freedom of information requests and a parliamentary question show that £6.8m worth of “service credits” were imposed on Serco between April 2013 and December 2018. The figures do not include the month of March 2016.
Service credits are sums deducted from a company’s monthly invoice when it fails to meet key performance indicators included in its contract, such as property standards or how quickly issues are resolved.
Serco was fined a total of £2.8m for its contracts to provide asylum seeker housing in Scotland and Northern Ireland over that period, and just over £4m for its contract in north-west England.
Serco’s penalties were at their highest in 2013/14 (£3.9m) and 2016/17 (£1.16m). Between April to December 2018, after the new contracts were put out to tender, it was fined £850,000. In January the firm was awarded two contracts to provide asylum seeker housing: – one in the north-west and one in the Midlands and the east of England, from September.
The figures also show G4S was fined just over £2m for breaches of contract – £1.5m for its contract in the Midlands and east of England and £500,000 for its contract in the north-east and Yorkshire and the Humber, both of which end in August. Most of these fines (£1.7m) were incurred in 2013/14.
Clearsprings, which manages asylum accommodation in Wales and south-west England and London and the south-eaast, was not fined, despite also being criticised over standards of accommodation.
The Home Office initially refused to release data on the fines it had imposed, claiming the information was commercially sensitive, but it was forced to do so following a ruling by the Information Commissioner’s Office. …”
” Taxpayers ‘funding the outsourcing sector’ “
“A union has claimed taxpayers are propping up the outsourcing industry as local authorities spent £20bn on contracts in the last three years.
The GMB union said that local authorities should be focusing on services “not lining the pockets of private companies”.
Research conducted by Tussell – a data provider on UK government contracts – found that between 2016 and 2018 local authorities spent £20bn on outsourced contracts.
Of these Transport for London was the biggest outsourcer of services by value, with 253 contracts costing an estimated £2.3bn over the three years.
Harrow Council, the Metropolitan police, Northern Ireland Housing Executive and North Lanarkshire Council make up the rest of the top five outsourcers.
GMB found that Veolia was the top supplier of services with contracts worth £1.4bn, followed by IBM, Pennon Group, Amey and Amazon.
The most commonly outsourced service was facilities management on which £5.3bn was spent, followed by waste management, business and IT services.
Rehana Azam, GMB national secretary, said: “If we’ve learnt anything form the collapse of Carillion – it’s that outsourcing doesn’t work.
“At a time when local authority funding is already cut to the bone, this out of control outsourcing places even more risks and burdens on budgets and workers.
“Taxpayers’ cash shouldn’t be propping up an outsourcing industry descending into chaos as companies underbid each other for contracts in a race to the bottom, which will see a serious decline in public services.”
https://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2019/06/taxpayers-funding-outsourcing-sector
“Plan to hire thousands of foreign nurses for NHS is axed”
Owl sats: this one change means that all NHS plans (and even those for privatised health services) cannot work.
“A controversial target of hiring 5,000 foreign nurses a year for at least 15 years has been cut from a flagship plan to deal with the NHS’s staffing crisis, the Observer understands.
The move will frustrate health chiefs, who are desperate for a clear strategy to reduce NHS staffing pressures, which are expected to worsen.
There are also mounting concerns that new post-Brexit immigration rules could end up making the situation even worse unless the NHS is handed special treatment. The government’s long-awaited plan to tackle shortages included the ambition of recruiting 5,000 nurses a year until 2024 to help relieve short-term pressure. However, it is understood that while the latest version talks about the need for a significant increase in nurses from overseas, the specific figure has been removed.
Senior medics have complained about the government’s failure to solve the health service staffing shortage. Many point to the decision by George Osborne, as chancellor, to stop paying nursing students’ tuition fees and maintenance grants as a key factor in the nursing crisis.
Including the target for overseas would be politically difficult as the government remains committed to a big reduction in net migration. The plan is being drawn up by senior NHS executives led by Baroness Harding, the Conservative peer who chairs the regulator NHS Improvement.
Health experts are still unclear about how new post-Brexit immigration rules will affect the NHS. Proposals released last year that migrants would have to earn at least £30,000 a year would have barred more than 40% of migrant nurses joining the NHS in 2017-18, according to the Nuffield Trust thinktank.
It found that 72% of nurses, 70% of scientific, therapeutic and technical staff and 36% of ambulance staff earn less than the required £35,800 threshold for indefinite leave to remain. It said that while occupations with shortages are exempt from the thresholds, such exemptions are temporary.
Its analysis of the new rules warns: “The NHS is in a state of chronic staff shortage due to poor planning and insufficient training numbers over many years. There are 100,000 vacant posts in English trusts alone, although many will be filled by agency workers. The problem is concentrated in nursing and general practice.”
Mark Dayan, policy analyst at the Nuffield Trust thinktank, said: “Even if you take all the actions that we could identify in terms of boosting nurses in training, preventing them from leaving at the same rate, the nursing gap is not going to shrink at all in the next five years without international recruitment.
“We calculated that international recruitment of 5,000 nurses a year would be what it would take to halve the nursing gap, not even eliminate it, by 2023-24. If that doesn’t happen, the sort of shortages we have now will continue. That’s a patient safety issue and the ability of the NHS to move forward and get out of this crisis situation.”
Ditching the figure will place even more pressure on the need to train up British nurses. Dame Donna Kinnair, chief executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said: “While it’s beneficial in the short-term, reliance on overseas nurses to plug gaps in England is clearly unsustainable.”
NHS Improvement said: “NHS Improvement and the Department of Health and Social Care are finalising the interim [workforce] plan which should be published shortly.”
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/02/foreign-nurses-target-cut-from-nhs-staffing-plan?
“Calls for compensation after regulator error causes £24.1 billion hike in everyday bills”
Owl cannot believe this was accidental.
“Regulators have allowed water, energy, broadband and telephone networks to overcharge customers by £24.1 billion over the past fifteen years, according to stark new figures from Citizens Advice.
The news comes after research found an initial investigation that unearthed £7.5bn of overcharging for connection to key services was just ‘the tip of the iceberg’.
In 2017 Citizens Advice found Ofgem made errors in setting price controls for energy networks, resulting in energy customers being overcharged £7.5 billion over an 8-year period. After the charity highlighted these concerns, three energy network companies returned a total of £287m to consumers.
But now the charity has found the same errors have been made by Ofgem over a much longer period and by regulators in other markets including water, broadband and phone networks.
This research shows misjudgements by the regulators Ofgem, Ofwat and Ofcom on key decisions have meant customers have been paying far too much for the pipes and wires that connect their homes to essential services over the last 15 years.
These sectors include companies that face little, or no, competition to drive down the price they can charge their customers. Instead, regulators tell the network companies how much they can charge by setting a price control. Customers then pay the charges for these networks as part of their water, energy, broadband and phone bills.
These overpayments partly occurred because regulators made forecasting errors. They predicted that costs, such as debt, would be higher than they became. Regulators also over-estimated how risky these businesses were for investors.
Citizens Advice is now calling for both widespread compensation and a fundamental change in the way these calculations are made.
Instead of forecasting costs, regulators should use available market data to calculate costs and adjust their estimates of investment risk, it argues. This would avoid consumers paying too much in future.
While several energy and water companies have taken steps to return some money to customers, Citizens Advice is calling for all firms to provide a voluntary rebate to their customers. If they don’t, the government should step in.
“Regulator error has meant customers have been charged too much by energy, broadband and phone networks for far too long,” says Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice.
“At a time when so many people are struggling to pay their essential bills, regulators need to do more to protect customers from unfair prices. They have started to take steps in the right direction but it is vital they continue to learn from their past mistakes when finalising their next price controls.
“Companies need to play their part in putting this multi-billion pound blunder right. They must compensate customers where they have been paying over the odds. If they don’t government needs to intervene.”
In a statement responding to the research, the energy regulator Ofgem said: “Ofgem remains determined to drive the best deal possible for consumers. Overall, energy network regulation has delivered for consumers, with £100 billion invested, power cuts halved, record customer satisfaction and reduced costs.
“While we do not agree with Citizens Advice’s estimate of excess profits, we welcome their report and recommendations. We will continue to work closely with them and wider stakeholders to apply lessons learnt from previous price controls for the next price control period (RIIO2).”
Last week Ofgem confirmed its methodology for calculating their next set of price controls, including a lower return on equity of 4.3 per cent and a lower allowed return on debt. This would lead to customers’ bills being reduced by £6 billion over five years from 2021, calculations it says Citizens Advice supports.
Meanwhile, households were warned they could be hit with average annual energy bill rise of almost £210, or 20 per cent, as 60 fixed dual fuel energy tariffs come to an end this week according to switching service weflip, charities have called for immediate action to better support energy customers in vulnerable circumstances.
An independent report published this week says urgent action is required by all energy companies, regulators and government as well as price comparison websites – with support from consumer groups and charities – to better identify customers in vulnerable circumstances and improve the help and support given to them.
Joanna Elson, chief executive of the Money Advice Trust, who served as a member of the Commission for Customers in Vulnerable Circumstances, which produced the report, said the charity is increasingly hearing from people struggling to meet everyday household costs.
“This report puts the energy industry firmly under the spotlight. Significant work is needed to improve support for energy customers in vulnerable circumstances. As the report notes, there is good practice out there, but this support is inconsistent and varies greatly across the sector.
“Training frontline staff to identify customers in vulnerable circumstances is a crucial first step, while actions such as committing to not use High Court Enforcement Officers, can also make a big difference for the most vulnerable.
“There is also an important role for the third sector to play alongside suppliers through greater partnership working. This could be through signposting to debt or energy saving advice, and helping people access financial help and other essential costs.”
“Government spends almost £100m on Brexit consultants”
Owl says: When people such as “Failing Grayling” (chaos in all departments he has run, the latest being transport) and Swire’s choice for PM Dominic Raab (the Brexit Minister who didn’t realise how much traffic to and from the EU goes through Dover) in charge – was it money well spent?
And how come these consultants had all the experts and the civil service didn’t?
“… The vast bulk (96%) of the Brexit consultancy expenditure under Cabinet Office arrangements – which accounts for £65m of the £97m total – has so far been handed to six consultancy companies: Deloitte, PA Consulting, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), Ernst & Young, Bain & Company and Boston Consulting Group.
Five departments: the Cabinet Office, Home Office, Border Delivery Group, Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, account for the majority of spending via the Cabinet Office. …”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/29/government-spends-almost-100m-brexit-consultants
Swire’s choice for PM : wants all schools and NHS run by private companies for profit
Should one be judged by the company one keeps?
“Tory leadership hopeful Dominic Raab has been described as more rightwing than Margaret Thatcher over his proposal to let state schools be run by profit-making companies
Raab, who is second favourite in the race to be the next prime minister, made the case for privately run state schools in 2013 and again in 2014, saying the government should open up the education system for companies to make money.
The idea is one of a number of rightwing proposals put forward by Raab in pamphlets over the years. The former Brexit secretary has also suggested encouraging more private companies into the NHS by giving them tax breaks or paying them premiums, and scrapping the 45% top rate of income tax, instead having a basic rate at 15% and a higher rate at 35%.
Asked whether Rabb still endorsed the idea of letting companies run state schools, his spokesman did not rule out the proposal, saying: “Dominic has set out his priorities to fight for a fairer Britain – a fairer deal for workers by cutting taxes for those on low and middle incomes, a fairer society by boosting apprenticeships and getting a fairer deal from Brussels.”
In his 2013 paper Capitalism for the Little Guy, Raab suggested the government should “lift the bar on profit-making companies running academies and free schools”, subject to a minimum of 50% of profits being reinvested into the school. At present academies and free schools cannot be run for profit.
Raab wrote that opening up schools to profit-making companies could help to raise capital investment for education at a time when funding from central government was under pressure, arguing that such a move would help raise standards.
He acknowledged there was an “understandable sensitivity of introducing the profit motive into schooling”, suggesting that as well as the 50% profit limit on, dividends should only be paid if educational performance standards were met and that there should be a bar on the sale for commercial gain of school assets purchased with public money. …”
“Why councils are bringing millions of pounds worth of services back in-house”
“Chris Morgan got a job as an electrician repairing council houses in Stoke-on-Trent just over five years ago. Although he enjoyed his job, Morgan, 36, says he did not always feel he could raise issues with his line manager. “Our supervisors weren’t always in the trade we were in,” he says. The city council had outsourced its housing repairs service to Kier group in 2008. But since the council brought the work in-house last year, Morgan says he feels happier. “I know my supervisor knows what I’m on about. It makes me more confident,” he says. “We have had extra talks, health and safety training. They have put in a new canteen and showers, so the facilities are better too.” And with a £1,000 pay rise, plus an extra £500 for doing asbestos work, Morgan is also a bit better off.
Now all repairs, maintenance and home improvements to the council’s housing stock, as well as public building maintenance, are in-house.
A report by the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE) published today, shows that Stoke is far from unusual, with 77% of UK councils planning to bring services back in-house this year. And the report calculates that between 2016 and 2018, at least 220 local government contracts have been brought back into council control.
Labour ‘will ban’ outsourcing of public services to private firms.
Outsourcing began under Margaret Thatcher with compulsory competitive tendering back in the 1980s and was embraced wholeheartely by New Labour. Now attitudes seem to be hardening against contracting out. “What we are seeing is a 40-year experiment in public service delivery being put under the microscope,” says Tom Sasse, a senior researcher at the Institute for Government.
The Labour party has pledged that under a Labour government all frontline services would be provided by the public sector, from railways to social care. Even the Conservative government has been forced to look again at outsourcing, renationalising probation services after outsourcing them disastrously failed. And in the NHS, the cervical cancer screening programme for England will be brought back into the health service later this year, after Capita failed to send more than 40,000 women screening invitations and reminder letters to have a smear test.
“A catalogue of failure has shown that private providers have struggled to generate profit and deliver services of the standards that the community expects,” says Paul Evans, director of NHS Support Federation.
“The rise in insourcing shows that commissioners are being forced to recognise this. Not all contracts display problems, but experience now shows that the risk is high.’
For many public sector bodies, bringing services back in-house is increasingly a pragmatic way to cut costs and improve quality. “On its own, it is not an absolute panacea, but there are significant advantages to bringing services back in-house,” says John Tizard, a former Capita executive and now a strategic adviser on public services.
According to today’s report, 78% of local authorities believe insourcing gives them more flexibility, two-thirds say it also saves money, and more than half say it has improved the quality of the service while simplifying how it is managed.
“Insourcing allows councils to regain control over local services,” says Mo Baines, head of communication and coordination at APSE and author of the APSE report. “Fragmented service delivery through outsourced contracts has failed to deliver on price and quality. It is no longer a viable option.”
Sasse adds: “In the 1980s, there were typically 20% cost savings by outsourcing services like waste collection, but those efficiencies have now been made.”
Steven Griggs, professor of public policy at the local governance research centre at De Montfort University, says: “In the context of austerity, insourcing offers reductions in management costs that can be used to fund frontline services. If you are locked into long-term contracts, then inevitably cuts will fall on remaining services.”
Some councils have opted to insource because the provider walked away from the contract. In Scotland, Highlands council brought cleaning public lavatories back in-house in 2017 after the provider said it wished to terminate the contract because it was no longer commercially viable without increasing the contract value by just under £450,000: a 31% increase.
Griggs says councils are also finding other benefits. “Insourcing builds in-house capacity, facilitates the joining up of services, shores up financial flexibility, keeps the public pound in the local economy and provides opportunities to work with small- and medium-sized businesses to strengthen local supply chains.”
And in some cases it can generate much needed revenue.
In Stoke, the council created a wholly owned trading company, Unitas, to allow the housing repair team to bid for other contracts and generate profits. As housing revenue grant is ringfenced, any surpluses or profits made by the council have to be spent within that budget. But by creating the trading company, any profits could go back to the council’s general fund.
“Last year we returned £4.6m to the council and provided an improved service,” says Steve Wilson, operations director of Unitas. The company has won contracts worth £2m to refurbish civic and other local buildings. It is also hoping to bid for maintenance work with other housing providers. “Rather than line shareholders’ pockets, this approach has generated income for the council, improved customer service and staff morale,” says Carl Brazier, director of housing and customer services at Stoke city council. …
In Cheshire, Halton borough council has saved £750,000 a year by bringing its three leisure centres back in-house, while Nottingham has saved £500,000 annually by insourcing maintenance of its civic buildings and cut the cost of staff catering by 17% by bringing it back in-house.
One of the biggest insourcing programmes has been in the London borough of Islington. Following its 2011 fairness commission, the council has brought back about £380m of services, helping to improve the pay and conditions of 1,200 frontline staff and generating net savings of about £14m for the council. Services brought back in-house include building cleaning; housing repairs and maintenance; waste and recycling; grounds maintenance; and temporary accommodation.
Today’s report argues that the economic case for insourcing means all councils should consider it. “In an age of austerity, councils can no longer afford outsourcing failures. Most can deliver quality services at a better price and without sacrificing the workforce on the altar of the lowest bidder.”
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/may/29/bringing-services-back-in-house-is-good-councils?
Secretive group which wants to privatise NHS is funding Conservative Party (and Swire’s choice for PM)
Swire is a lead supporter for Dominic Raab – named below
“A secretive think tank which called for the NHS to be scrapped while its heads pour millions into the Conservative Party – and its MPs’ – coffers is being funded by big tobacco, an investigation has found.
British American Tobacco is one of the groups funding the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a free market think tank which is notoriously close-lipped about its donors.
The IEA has been an outspoken critic of public health measures for tackling smoking, obesity and harmful drinking, and past funders include organisations affiliated with gambling, alcohol, sugar and soft drinks industries. …
It has close links to the Conservative Party and the chair of its board of trustees, Neil Record, donated £32,000 to health secretary Matt Hancock between 2010 and 2018.
Dominic Raab – who, alongside Mr Hancock, is aiming to succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader – also has close links with the IEA, speaking at its 60th anniversary event, and promoting an annual essay competition as recently as last month.
When asked about these links by the BMJ, a spokesperson said Mr Raab has “always been a strong supporter of public health initiatives to make the UK healthier and reduce pressures on the NHS”.
While Mr Hancock is among the biggest beneficiaries, 30 Tory MPs including David Davis, Liam Fox and David Willets have received cash or hospitality from Mr Record or fellow trustee Sir Michael Hintze.
In total MPs have declared funding to the value of £166,000 from the pair since 2005, and they have donated £4.3m to the Conservative Party.
The BMJ investigation identified a 1999 document listing UK supporters of the IEA, including British American Tobacco, Rothmans UK Holdings, Tate and Lyle, Whitbread, and Coca-Cola Great Britain and Ireland.
When the authors followed up with key organisations to see which were still actively funding the IEA, British American Tobacco confirmed it was still donating. …”
Is nationalisation now a Conservative Party policy?
Perhaps THIS is why EDDC ex-Tory Leader Ian Thomas left the party (though Owl is STILL waiting to hear his explanation).
Imagine the debates at EDDC as Twiss and Skinner have to argue for it!
“The British government will renationalise the management of probation services in England and Wales five years after a heavily criticised programme of privatisation was deemed to have put members of the public at risk.
The supervision of about 200,000 low and medium-risk offenders will be removed from part-private companies and taken over by the government when the current contracts end in December 2020, said Justice Minister David Gauke.The existing model was intended to drive down re-offending levels when it was introduced but the chief inspector of probation, described the system last month as being “irredeemably flawed”.
The probation watchdog had previously found thousands of offenders were being managed by a brief phone call once every six weeks. Some prisoners were being given tents on their release from jails, an inquiry into homelessness published in March found.
“Delivering a stronger probation system, which commands the confidence of the courts and better protects the public, is a pillar of our reforms to focus on rehabilitation and cut reoffending,” Gauke said.
The U-turn marks a fresh embarrassment for Transport Minister Chris Grayling, who introduced the shake-up when he was justice secretary and has been dubbed “Failing Grayling” by the British press.
In his current job, Grayling awarded a 14 million pound contract for companies to ferry in essential supplies to Britain in the event of a no-deal Brexit to a company that owned no boats.
The decision to partially privatise the probation service was heavily criticised at the time.
Companies including France’s Sodexo, the United States’ MTCnovo and British firms Working Links and Interserve have been given contracts to oversee probation services.
The government has already announced it would abolish the use of handing out of new contracts to private companies to run government projects after reviews revealed little evidence of financial benefits.
It has also moved to strip some companies of their contracts because of poor performance or due to financial trouble.
Last month, the government announced it was taking over the running of a Birmingham prison from private operator after inmate violence made it unmanageable.
Last year the collapse of Carillion, one of the biggest beneficiaries of such privatisation contracts, forced the government to step in to guarantee services ranging from school meals to roadworks that the company had previously provided.
A few months later, it renationalised the rail route between London and Edinburgh, taking back the line from a private company after it over-estimated profits.”
“Probation services set to be renationalised as [Tory] Government accepts failure”
Owl says: Privatisation was supposed to be the answer … not the problem!
“Probation services are set to be renationalised as the Government prepares to accept its experiment has failed.
An announcement on how supervision of thousands of offenders will return to the National Probation Service is expected in weeks.
Reforms introduced by Chris Grayling when he was Justice Secretary have cost taxpayers almost £500million and led to an increase in murders committed by criminals.
Sources said the news could be broken as early as Thursday.
… The Ministry of Justice began partially privatising the probation service in 2013.
It involved 21 “community rehabilitation companies” monitoring people released from jail after serving short sentences. But the Government announced last year their contracts would end in 2020 – 14 months early.
Dame Glenys Stacey, the Chief Inspector of Probation, has previously described the current model as “irredeemably flawed”.
She told MPs on the Commons Justice Committee yesterday there were “deep-seated, systemic issues”.
She said it was “remarkably difficult” to condense probation into a set of contractual measures.
The Mirror revealed this year that 225 people had been murdered by convicted criminals being monitored by firms since privatisation.
The toll soared to 71 last year from 42 in 2015, shortly after Mr Grayling introduced the changes. …”
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/probation-services-set-renationalised-government-15868831
Civil servants set up food bank for their office cleaners
“An emergency food bank has been set up in the Whitehall offices of a government department after cleaners and other support staff became the victims of a payroll blunder by one of Britain’s biggest outsourcing companies.
An email was sent to workers at Greg Clark’s business, energy and industrial strategy department on Thursday asking them to donate food at four drop-off points set up in the ministry.
The email, seen by The Sunday Times, said the request followed problems with the department’s new facility services contractor, ISS World.
The problems meant that “every single payday since they took over the contract on March 1, our staff have not been paid, paid incorrect amounts, unexplained deductions, etc.
“This has resulted in cleaners unable to travel to work as they have no money for bus fares, a member unable to give their wife transport money to take their sick son to the GP, forcing her to walk for 1.5 hours and others facing eviction proceedings. The situation has become unbearable for them.”
The email, which was written by a trade union official, added: “We have called for crisis talks with [department] senior management, after repeated assurances have been reneged on . . . Please donate whatever you can urgently.”
Reacting to the appearance of a food bank at the department, Mark Serwotka, the general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, said: “It is absolutely shocking that our members are being forced to use food banks because of ISS’s mismanagement of the contract. This underlines why all contracted-out services in . . . government departments must be brought back in-house as a matter of urgency.”
The department said last night it was in “daily contact” with ISS, and promised that “any additional costs incurred by staff due to the error” would be reimbursed. It said it was contacting every contractor to “ensure any further errors not yet identified are resolved within the same day”.
ISS World did not respond to requests for comment.
Source: Sunday Times, paywall
“Companies pocket millions from kid’s uneaten free school meals campaigners claim”
“Private companies are pocketing millions of pounds from children’s uneaten free school meals, campaigners reveal today.
Firms which have deals to provide school catering are benefiting from a loophole which allows them to pocket any unspent cash left on pre-loaded cards, according to Citizens UK.
It believes contractors are trousering millions from the arrangement – and called for a crackdown by education chiefs.
The group’s activists calculate some £70million a year lies dormant in youngsters’ free school meal accounts.
Some of the funds are recouped by cash-strapped schools and town halls, and pumped back into the system.
But where catering has been contracted out, the money helps to swell private firms’ coffers, the group claimed.
One year eight pupil said it was “wrong” for companies “to be taking our money without telling us”.
They added: “It’s practically stealing. Imagine all the other things you could afford to buy with all the money that’s being taken away from us.” …”
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/companies-pocket-millions-kids-uneaten-15011227
British Gas shares plummet – CEO’s salary soars
“The boss of Centrica [formerly British Gas] is fighting for his job as investors lose faith in his leadership.
Iain Conn has been chief executive of the British Gas owner since 2015 – picking up £11.1 million in pay along the way.
But the FTSE 100 group’s shares have tumbled 60 per cent on his watch and are at their lowest level since 1999.
The father-of-three’s position is seen as particularly vulnerable since the arrival of Charles Berry, who succeeded Rick Haythornthwaite as chairman in February. …
Conn has also attracted the ire of retail investors who have seen the value of their savings plummet from 279p a share when he took over in 2015 to 109.05p at the close of business yesterday.
The slump has slashed Centrica’s value from £15.9 billion to £6.2 billion.
The backlash among shareholders comes a week after it emerged that Conn, 56, enjoyed a 44 per cent pay rise to £2.4million in 2018.
The rise of £740,000 covered a year when British Gas hiked bills for millions of families and saw 742,000 customers leave. …
Centrica this month announced another 500 jobs are at risk – 400 of which are based in Glasgow –- as part of the company’s plan to cut 2,000 jobs this year. It has axed 7,700 jobs since 2015.
Centrica declined to comment last night. …”
“Revealed: Collapsed private provider to the NHS owes £11m”
“A patient transport company which collapsed after it withdrew from a key NHS contract owes more than £11m, including to the NHS, statements filed with Companies House have revealed.
Liquidators winding up Coperforma have found just a few thousand pounds in the company’s bank accounts. But the papers also showed the company owes £11.3m to unsecured creditors, including NHS organisations and suppliers of ambulances and staff.
Clinical commissioning groups in Sussex – where Coperforma won a patient transport service contract in 2016 – have claimed the company owes them £7.6m. In a statement, the county’s CCGs said: “The Sussex CCGs are actively pursuing all options to maximise recovery for the NHS of costs incurred as a result of the failure of the patient transport service contract.
“In particular, the CCGs are pursuing legal recovery against an associated party of Coperforma which provided a parent company guarantee. The CCG is currently unable to publicly give more details for legal reasons.”
Companies House lists Guernsey-based Seabourn Ltd as a “person with significant control” in Coperforma.
Coperforma claims instead that the CCGs owe it nearly £2.5m, although the documents lodged at Companies House showed the liquidators and their solicitors felt “there was not sufficient evidence to progress recovery”. The CCGs’ claim could be offset against this, it was suggested. This could still leave the CCGs owed more than £5m.
The liquidators are also investigating “potential antecedent transactions” involving the firm, although they will not say who was involved in this. These transactions normally involve the transfer of money out of a firm before it becomes insolvent.
Earlier documents, from just after the company went into administration in early 2018, suggested it had assets of around £400,000, excluding the money it said it was owed by the CCGs. It also owed £377,449 to “trade and expense creditors”.
Coperforma took over the Sussex PTS contract in April 2016, having been the only bidder for a contract which split the transport side of the service from the scheduling of ambulances. It struggled to deliver the service, with many patients arriving late for appointments or being left in hospital. Two of its subcontractors went into administration and the CCG had to pay some staff wages to make sure the service kept going.
Following growing complaints from commissioners and patients and a critical Care Quality Commission report, the company abandoned the £16m a year contract in November 2016. It was handed to South Central Ambulance Service Foundation Trust.
The Sussex CCGs involved were Eastbourne, Hailsham and Seaford; Hastings and Rother; Brighton and Hove; Coastal West Sussex; Horsham and Mid Sussex; Crawley; and High Weald Lewes Havens, which led on the PTS procurement.”
Much cheaper water bills in south west – thanks to Jeremy Corbyn!
Threatened with nationalisation, South West Water cuts bills by 15% – interesting!
“Under threat of nationalisation from a putative Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour government, Britain’s three listed water companies have agreed to the largest cuts in customer bills since privatisation by Margaret Thatcher 30 years ago.
The reductions will mean that households in the West Country will pay 15 per cent less at 2019 prices over the next five years. In the northwest of England, bills will fall by 11 per cent before inflation.
While the inflation link in water charges will mean bills will fall by less, new penalties for missing environmental and operational targets could mean suppliers having to cut household charges by even more as a means of compensating their communities.
Of the 17 water companies in England and Wales, three have made a fast-track agreement with Ofwat, the regulator, to set customer charges from April 2020 to March 2025.
The other 14 suppliers have been given a must-do-better notice by Ofwat. Having been told by the regulator to resubmit their plans and make them more ambitious, the 14 will be told by Ofwat in July whether their revised proposals are acceptable.
As there is no competition in the supply of water to households, the 17 suppliers are all local monopolies and as such are tightly regulated by Ofwat. However, critics of the regulatory regime, including MPs on both sides of the House of Commons, have argued that Ofwat has for too long allowed suppliers to put up prices without investing enough in, for instance, stopping leaks, which in some areas lead to 25 per cent of the treated water in the mains system going missing.
The three suppliers who have been fast-tracked by Ofwat for presenting credible business plans for the 2020-25 price review are, coincidentally, the three remaining stock market-quoted water companies: United Utilities, formerly known as North West Water, which serves 3 million homes from Cheshire to the Scottish border; Severn Trent, which serves 4.3 million customers in the Midlands; and South West Water, which supplies 1.8 million people in the West Country and is a subsidiary of Pennon Group.
Household customers of South West Water have long had the largest bills in the country. Ofwat has agreed with the group that those bills will fall before inflation by 15 per cent, or £77, from this year’s £527 average to £450.
However, South West Water has also agreed with Ofwat that if it does not clean up its act with the Environment Agency — it is the most regularly fined for pollution incidents — then it could face further cuts to the charges it makes.
United Utilities has agreed to a £49, or 11 per cent, cut in bills over the next five years but has been told it will have to cut charges more if it does not hit targets to reduce its leaks by 20 per cent.
Severn Trent is to cut bills by 5 per cent, or £16, over the five years. It has committed to more than halving the average time its customers are without water every year or face penalties.
Under Ofwat’s rules, bills will go up every year in line with CPIH, the consumer price index that includes housing costs, now running at 1.8 per cent.
The suppliers’ charges will get final clearance in December. David Black, the Ofwat director in charge of the process, said: “Our draft decisions for these companies show that investment in service and infrastructure can go hand in hand with more affordable bills.”
Source: The Times (pay wall)
Privatisation the Virgin way
Virgin has many privatised contracts with the NHS. Is there any reason to believe his companies will treat the NHS any differently to the way they treat what used to be our railways?
“Sir Richard Branson will have taken at least £306m in dividends from Virgin Trains by the time the firm’s 22-year tenure as a rail operator comes to an end within the next 12 months.
Branson said on Wednesday the Virgin name could disappear from trains by November, after its joint venture partner, Stagecoach, was blocked from three franchises by the Department for Transport over its refusal to pay more into rail staff pensions.
Analysis by the Guardian indicates that Virgin Rail Group Holdings, the joint venture company, will have collected at least £600m since its launch in 1997, a figure that drew criticism from Labour. …
The final total is likely to be higher once this year’s dividend is declared when the company’s next set of annual accounts is published in October next year.
Branson’s Virgin Group owns 51% of the venture, giving him a £306m share of the overall dividend pot.
The remaining £294m was allocated to the Stagecoach transport group, whose largest shareholder is the Scottish businessman and Scottish National party donor Brian Souter, together with his sister, Ann Gloag.
The highest dividend in a single year was paid in 2009, when Virgin Trains paid out nearly £95m. The figure has hovered around £50m over the past three years.
Andy McDonald, the shadow transport secretary, said: “This money could and should have been used to invest in services and hold fares down, not siphoned off by shareholders.
“The railway should be run as a public service in public ownership. Instead, absurdly, its run in the financial interest of foreign state-owned companies and billionaires such as Richard Branson. If Virgin disappears from the railway as Branson warns, it won’t be missed by taxpayers or passengers. …””
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/11/richard-branson-earned-300m-virgin-rail-franchises?
East Devon Watch 