No surprises there, then. But what about the rest of us?
https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/neil-parish-backs-gove-over-2927618
Tory hopeful talks about the effects of WTO rules with no deal
Hugo’s pick Raab is for crashing out under WTO rules. Here’s Tory hopeful Rory Stewart on what that means in practice.
Mmmm … cheaper milk from the US and cheaper beef from Argentias … cheaper cars from Japan … sounds good until you realise we have to export milk, beef and cars into the EU with massive tariffs!
“Slums Croydon: ” Political pygmies” and their rabbit hutch flats
This is legal:
Offices to homes permitted development has led to some of the tiniest micro-flats being built in Croydon.
“PDR, as it is known, has managed to strip local authorities of their planning powers, but left them to deal with the costs and consequences arising from such developments. The government is considering extending PDR, allowing shops to be converted into flats or for extensions to be built without requiring any planning permission.
In Croydon, where the local authority used legislation to block any further office-to-resi conversions in the town centre after 2014, senior councillor Sean Fitzsimons has called such flats, “the slums of the future”.
But that was not before planning permission had already been given for the lucrative conversion of offices to at least 2,700 flats in the borough, and where some of the “micro-flats” are being marketed to Chinese investors, with one-bed apartments fetching £280,000.”
‘Political pygmies’ to blame for Croydon’s ‘slums of the future’
“An influential figure in British architecture has hit out at office-to-flat conversions – of which there have been thousands in Croydon – describing them as “ghastly little f**k-hutches”, and all thanks to policy which is being ruined by “political pygmies”.
“Copley has also discovered that 1,837 London PDR flats are smaller than the legal minimum standards, and that 240 were less than half this lowest threshold.
In a statement issued from Copley’s City Hall office they said, “Some of the worst examples are seen in Croydon where 80 per cent of properties identified failed to meet minimum space standards, including one development where the smallest flat was just 10 square metres.”
That flat is in Urban House on Cavendish Road in West Croydon.”
Slums of the Future: Croydon has capital’s smallest micro-flat
“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.”
“The dream of free buses still lives on”
Guardian letters:
“David Walker’s recollection of South Yorkshire’s publicly subsidised public transport system (Letters, 30 May) is only part of the story.
The aim of the cheap fares was to make the bus service totally free of fares by 1984 – a hop-on, hop-off service funded through a precept on the rates and savings made from not having to collect fares.
The South Yorkshire Freedom Riders are pressing the Sheffield city region mayor Dan Jarvis, the Labour and Green parties, locally and nationally, to give serious consideration to a publicly owned and run universal basic service with a zero-fare expanded bus service. For most people it will mean a minimum of a £30 uplift in disposable income as well as removing cars from our roads and reducing levels of pollution.
Motorists are facing higher costs to force them into buses. Let’s give them a viable alternative. Let’s give everyone access to towns, villages, friends, the countryside and work. Let’s give them a free-to-use bus service as was intended by a visionary authority in 1974.
Mike Smith
South Yorkshire Freedom Riders, Barnsley”
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/may/30/the-dream-of-free-buses-still-lives-on?
“Peer who never spoke in Lords last year claims £50,000 expenses””
“A Labour peer claimed almost £50,000 in attendance and travel expenses covering every single day the House of Lords was sitting last year, despite never speaking or asking any written questions, a Guardian investigation reveals.
The former trade union general secretary David Brookman was among dozens of other lords and baronesses who never took part in a single debate, while almost a third of the 800 peers barely participated in parliamentary business over a 12-month period despite costing almost £3.2m in allowances.
The details have emerged from a new analysis of public data that will raise fresh questions about the size and effectiveness of the Lords, and the funds that can be claimed by those who fail to regularly contribute.
The findings show:
Eighty-eight peers – about one in nine – never spoke, held a government post or participated in a committee at all.
Forty-six peers did not register a single vote, including on Brexit, sit on a committee or hold a post. One peer claimed £25,000 without voting, while another claimed £41,000 but only voted once.
More than 270 peers claimed more than £40,000 in allowances, with two claiming more than £70,000.
The former Lords speaker Frances D’Souza, a long-term advocate of reform, said the findings corroborated “what everyone suspects is going on”, and that a minority of peers risked discrediting the hard work of their colleagues.
“There’s clearly a need to reduce numbers,” Lady D’Souza said, adding that the research “clearly shows there are people who are attending the House of Lords who are not contributing, and therefore they are simply redundant”.
The Guardian’s analysis covers the attendance, participation and allowances claims of 785 lords serving for a full year between 2017 and 2018. They comprise 244 Conservatives, 196 Labour and 97 Liberal Democrats, as well as 248 crossbench peers and various others.”
The new “sustainable” villages – beware estate rentcharges
Cranbrook has not recovered from the arrangenent where developers imposed charges on residents of their estates for such things as gardening and maintenance. In the end, the town council took over these charges and spread them over ALL residents, many of whom were naturally upset at extra charges they had never signed up for.
“Estate rent charges” – another warning on new-builds such as those in Cranbrook
Now, the new (brutalist architecture) estate developer in Exeter says it will severely restrict parking by having only 185 car parking spaces for 400 homes and residents will need permits to use the spaces.
BUT enforcement of these parking restrictions will be done by “a specialist management company which will patrol the site to ensure vehicles are parked within dedicated spaces and to ensure that non-residents aren’t using the site”.
And who will pay these charges? Just those who have parking spaces or ALL residents? And who will control escalation of the charges?
Swire says Exmouth deserves “a better museum” …
[corrected to show Exmouth Museum has a £1 entrance fee]
… and coincidentally, of course, thinks it should be on the seafront and incorporated into a tourist attraction that people pay a lot for. Exmouth Myseum charges £1 entry fee.
One must remember that Swire Swire was sacked in the July 2007 Conservative re-shuffle for suggesting his party would scrap free museum entry …
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Swire
Ever the privatiser!
Sounds something like the Seaton Jurassic Centre, where entry is from £8 (senior) to £22 for 2 adults and 2 children (entry for one year).
“Sir Hugo said Exmouth ‘deserves a better museum’ and thinks there is a place for it on the seafront.
He said: “That might be somewhere on the Queen’s Drive by developing a visitor centre which could educate people on the Jurassic Coast. …”
https://www.exmouthjournal.co.uk/news/east-devon-mp-invited-to-exmouth-museum-1-6079409
Currently Exmouth Myseum is free. Seaton Jurassic is run by Devon Wildlife Trust, and the cost of entry at present is anywhere from £8 (senior) to £22 for a family of 2 adults and 2 children.
Greater Exeter: new Brutalism architecture the latest design fad?
New “mini-villages” are being planned throughout Greater Exeter, with East Devon’s being concentrated in the commuter belt just outside the Exeter City area.
Owl is struck by the similarity of the design of one mini-village in Exeter (close to the football stadium) to the design of squaddie accommodation at the Marine Conmmando base in Lympstone and student accommodation in Exeter.
Is this what we should expect “Greater Exeter” to look like in future?
New bed block for Lympstone Commando base:
New flats for “new mini-village in Exeter:
and student accommodation in Exeter:
Those optimistic “growth” figures from our LEP look even more unlikely
“Calling an organisation the “UK 2070 Commission” is not without its risks. Who cares what happens that far out?
But that, in a sense, is the point. The commission, set up to investigate Britain’s “marked regional inequalities”, publishes its first report today. And, as its chairman Lord Kerslake puts it: “If you want to understand what happens in economics, you need to look 50 years back and 50 years out.” Indeed, as the commission notes: “The reference to 2070 is an explicit recognition that the timescales for successful city and regional development are often very long, in contrast to the short-termism of political cycles.”
A Brexit-addled government nicely illustrates that — not that it’ll have been any surprise to Lord Kerslake, the ex-head of the home civil service. And in these distracted times, the report is doubly welcome. It kills the myth that inequality is not on the rise and helps to explain Brexit — or at least the disparity between Remainer London and the Brexiteer regions.
The report finds London “de-coupling from the rest of the UK”. And to nobody’s benefit. Research from Sheffield University professor Philip McCann finds the “UK is interregionally more unequal” than 28 of the 30 advanced OECD countries, the exceptions being Ireland and Slovakia.
Productivity in the capital is 50 per cent higher than the rest of the UK. Indeed, similar growth between 1992 and 2015 from cities outside London would have added at least “£120 billion to the national economy”. And, on present trends, half of the UK’s future jobs growth will be in London and the South East, which accounts for only 37 per cent of the population.
The effects show up everywhere. Healthy life expectancy in the UK’s poorest regions is “19 years lower”. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation found in 2016 that dealing with the effects of poverty costs the UK £78 billion a year. And, even then, poor is a relative term. The children’s commissioner for England found that “a child who is poor enough for free school meals in Hackney, one of London’s poorest boroughs, is still three times more likely to go on to university than an equally poor child in Hartlepool”.
No one wins from such imbalances. People and businesses in the North “miss out on the benefits of growth” — forcing more spending on benefits. But those in “overheating” London and the South East find “increasing pressures on living costs and resources”, so reducing “quality of life”. That forces spending on pricey infrastructure, exacerbating the imbalances. Hence Crossrail, a phase-one HS2 skewed to the capital and an environmentally damaging third Heathrow runway.
So, what to do? Well, here the commission suggests a mix of regional devolution and German-style national planning. It points to the eye-popping €1.5 trillion spent post-unification to help to bring east Germany up to speed with the west. For Britain, it proposes an extra £10 billion spend annually for the next 25 years: a fabulous sum equating to 0.5 per cent of GDP. Lord Kerslake says it’s for government to decide whether it would come from borrowings, tax or such things as levies on uplifts in property values.
Yet he reckons “higher regional growth rates would over time offset this cost”. He emphasises, too, that this is just an initial report, seeking feedback. And don’t the divisions over Brexit underline that Britain needs to do something? Waiting until 2070 isn’t an option.”
Source: The Times (pay wall)
“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 says he’s “probably not a feminist”
Owl says: Trust me, Dominic – if you’re not sure then you DEFINITELY aren’t one.
You ok with that, Tory ladies?
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/dominic-raab-feminist_uk_5ceedcc5e4b0508c91e10a46
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. …”
The Greater Exeter “mini-village” – quality or quantity?
A correspondent, on seeing the post a couple of days ago about a new “mini-village” in Exeter:
https://eastdevonwatch.org/2019/05/28/design-for-new-mini-village-in-exeter/
has deja-vu as it appears to mimic another time and (local)place! Owl is still wondering if this was a late April Fool prank …!
“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?
“English councils warned about use of reserve cash”
Somerset, which oversees funds being spent by our Local Enterprise Partnership, is one of the councils mentioned in this BBC article.
“Some councils in England have been warned they risk running out of cash reserves if recent spending continues.
Analysis by the BBC has identified 11 authorities the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (Cipfa) said would have “fully exhausted” reserves within four years unless they topped them up.
The Local Government Association said councils faced “systemic underfunding”.
The government said councils were responsible for managing their funds.
Councils have faced cuts to their government funding and rising demand for services such as social care, while MPs have warned children’s services are at “breaking point”.
Cash reserves – money held back for specific projects or emergencies, such as flooding – are seen as a measure of financial security.
Between them the 152 major councils in England had £14bn in reserve in March 2018, £500m more than the year before but £400m less than in 2015.
The BBC analysis of government data follows work by Cipfa, which published a “resilience” index of councils, but stopped short of naming those it warned were depleting reserves the fastest.
The warning was based on the latest data available, comparing reserves as of March 2018 with March 2015.
The analysis reveals which 11 of the 152 major English councils have used so much of their reserves since 2015 that Cipfa said they would run out within four years if spending patterns continued.
The research comes ahead of Wednesday’s Panorama, which reveals the failings of the social care system as the population gets older and more people need help with day to day living. …”
“Kensington Council Made £129m From Selling Property That Could Have Prevented Cost-Cutting At Grenfell”
“Kensington and Chelsea council made £129m from selling property in the years leading up to the Grenfell fire tragedy – money which we can show for the first time could have prevented cost-cutting on the tower’s renovation works.
An investigation by HuffPost UK, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the BBC Local Democracy Reporting Service can reveal the property deals overseen by senior officers and the council’s cabinet in the run up to the Grenfell disaster.
Evidence shows one of these deals was directly linked to the financing of the Grenfell Tower renovation and our investigation reveals that the council had far greater power over its funding of the works than it has previously admitted.
The council has previously claimed legal restrictions meant it could only use rental income from local authority housing to pay for renovation works. But this was not the case.
In fact, the council’s own documents show £6m of the Grenfell works was paid for with proceeds from the sale of council property – basement units in Elm Park Gardens in Chelsea.
The government has confirmed to us that councils are free to use money from the sale of property to fund improvements in housing stock.
This new information means the council had a far larger pot of money available to invest in its council housing than it has previously acknowledged – including on Grenfell Tower.
Our investigation also found the council had £37m in the bank, specifically from the sale of property, at the time when funding decisions over Grenfell were being taken.
But in 2014, cuts were made to the budget for building work by the tenant management organisation that was managing the project, including saving £300,000 by using cheaper, more combustible cladding.
The cladding was a key contributor to the speed with which the fire tore through the building on June 14, 2017, killing 72 people and leaving hundreds of families homeless.
The revelations have prompted fury over why spending on the Grenfell works was tight when the council had a significant income stream that could have been used to increase the budget. …”
“UK and territories are ‘greatest enabler’ of tax avoidance, study says”
u”The UK and its “corporate tax haven network” is by far the world’s greatest enabler of corporate tax avoidance, research has claimed.
British territories and dependencies made up four of the 10 places that have done the most to “proliferate corporate tax avoidance” on the corporate tax haven index.
The UK ranked 13th on the list, which was published by the Tax Justice Network on Tuesday.
The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, said the findings showed the government’s record on tax avoidance was “embarrassing and shameful”.
McDonnell added: “The only way the UK stands out internationally on tax is in leading a race to the bottom in creating tax loopholes and dismantling the tax systems of countries in the global south.
“The rot has to stop. While Tory leadership hopefuls promise tax giveaways for the rich, a Labour government will implement the most comprehensive plan ever seen in the UK to tackle tax avoidance and evasion.”
A government spokesman said tackling tax avoidance was a priority and the UK had “been at the forefront of international action to reform global tax rules”. …”
Swire’s pick for PM gets roasted for leadership video
Design for new mini-village in Exeter
Is this an example of the level of design we can expect in Greater Exeter? Breathtakingly beautiful isn’t it (not!):
https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/400-homes-pretty-village-green-2916444
East Devon Watch 