Wouldn’t THAT put the public cat amongst the private (fat) pigeons!
Yep – fairer funding DOES mean cuts!
“Friend,
I’ve crunched the numbers on Justine Greening’s latest funding proposal – and it doesn’t look good. 17,385 schools still face real-terms cuts.
Find out how your school is affected now on schoolcuts.org.uk.
Education Secretary Justine Greening is responding to our campaign. In July she scraped together £1.3bn for schools from other parts of the education budget.
That’s because of every single person who made this campaign possible.
But we can’t rest yet. The money she moved around falls well short of reversing the cuts schools have been facing for years.
Find out how your school and community will be affected by cuts:
https://www.schoolcuts.org.https://www.schoolcuts.org.uk
Over the coming weeks we’ll be mobilising communities across the country to come together for our schools.
I hope you’ll join us.
Andrew
Andrew Baisley
School Cuts Campaigner
What would a completely flood-proof city look like?
Some very interesting examples in the article.
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/sep/25/what-flood-proof-city-china-dhaka-houston
Tory MP doesn’t want to pay maintenance for his kids and asked questions in Parliament about his matrimonial issues
“With a taxpayer-funded MP’s salary of £80,000 a year, Andrew Bridgen is hardly poor. But the bleating Tory moaned to a judge about having to pay for Remembrance Sunday wreaths out of his own pocket so he can honour Britain’s war dead. And he reckons a bitter divorce battle with ex-wife Jacqueline, 40, has left him virtually penniless – while it is claimed he manages to pay high rent on a £2million property and lavishes gifts on new partner Nevena Pavlovic.
The 52-year-old asked a court to stop a monthly £1,100 maintenance payment to Jacqueline for their two children. He said: “On Remembrance Sunday I buy five wreaths for the five main services, I will attend three and I will read the names at all of them. “It is now de rigeur that MPs can’t put in claims for wreaths or travel. £175 on wreaths it will cost me, £200 [including travel] to be the MP of North West Leicestershire on that Remembrance Sunday. “Something I do gladly but which is not appreciated by the general public. “So the remuneration of an MP is not the same as if I was working for the Co-op. There are huge costs to being an MP which can never be claimed for. I have not had a holiday this year.”
But his griping sparked fury at a time when the Tory party has plunged millions of ordinary people into poverty with crippling austerity and cuts to public services and the military.
Labour MP John Mann said: “He should stop moaning. It’s a privilege to be an MP. His attitude just brings all MPs into disrepute. “He’s an embarrassment and a disgrace. I’d call on Theresa May to withdraw the Tory whip, for him to make a public apology and announce
he’s resigning.”
Colleague and Afghan war veteran Clive Lewis added: “Tory cuts have hit the armed forces hard, our servicemen and women who are suffering under the public sector pay cap probably won’t have a lot of sympathy with a Tory MP who voted for austerity having to pay for a wreath. “This just adds insult to injury.”
Bridgen, of Coleorton, Leics – who married 38-year-old Serbian opera singer Nevena in April – made his pleas of poverty during a family court hearing to try to stop maintenance. He claimed the split from trainee teaching assistant Jacqueline cost him more than £1million in payments to her and he had to sell his £2.2million mansion at a cut price. And he said he has forked out more than £500,000 in legal fees on the divorce.
The court heard Bridgen’s brother has frozen him out of his family farm business, which had netted the MP £110,000 a year. And his income fell after he lost chairmanship of a select committee. He said: “My personal assets run to less than £20,000 and that would be if I sold all the furniture in the house I rent. I have no car, no house and a bad credit rating. Until I am paid I have less than £200 in the bank. “My income has dropped by 70%. I fought two general elections in the last two years, where I could have lost my job, and, who knows, we might be fighting another one soon. “There is no more insecure employment than politics.” But that won no sympathy from District Judge Richard MacMillan who told him: “You chose to go into politics, Mr Bridgen.”
And Jacqueline told the hearing at Nottingham crown court her ex “chooses to live a luxury lifestyle to the detriment of our children” and she cannot bring them up properly without maintenance payments. She also claimed he recently bought a £3,000 ring for Nevena, transferred £2,500 to her account and spent thousands visiting her in Serbia.
She added: “The court should put the needs of our children above his needs. His income is approximately £4,000 a month and he chooses to spend over half on rent for a property that is way beyond his means. “My income is £8,000 a year while his is 10 times that. Frankly without that money I don’t know how I’m going to manage each month.
“I have spent the last 20 years being bullied and controlled by Mr Bridgen, there is no one more desperate than me to be out of his control. However, I still need the support of spousal maintenance payments so I can meet the needs of our children. “I have to sit here and fight and listen to the foul things Mr Bridgen has to say because I have no alternative to provide for my children.”
Throughout the two-hour hearing, Bridgen continually interrupted his ex-wife’s evidence. Judge MacMillan finally lost patience with his outbursts and told him: “We are not in the Commons now.” Bridgen even tried to stop the Mirror attending the hearing on Friday. But the judge said he saw no reason to exclude the press “however embarrassing it may be”.
The MP had applied to have around £5,000 in maintenance payments given back to him by his ex. Judge MacMillan refused but agreed he was not obliged to hand over £7,673 of payments he had missed this year.
The couple married in 2000 but had an acrimonious split around five years ago. The court heard Jacqueline is now living with a Mr Gittins at an address in Packington, Leics, meaning her circumstances had changed.
Perjury query weeks before court date
Andrew Bridgen wasted Government time asking questions about family courts weeks before his maintenance hearing. On September 4 he asked the Justice Secretary David Lidington : “How many people have been prosecuted for perjury in the family court in each year since 2007, by gender?”
When told the answer could only be got “at disproportionate cost”, he asked on September 14: “How many (a) men and (b) women were prosecuted for perjury in the family court in 2016?”
Outside court we asked the MP whether tabling Government questions on personal matters called into question his impartiality. He said: “It’s perfectly appropriate. I have a personal and professional interest.”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tory-mp-moans-spending-175-11231238
“’More transparency is needed about big decisions affecting our NHS’ “
“Eddie Duller OBE, a director at Healthwatch Oxfordshire, the county’s watchdog on health and social services matters, asks why the authorities are not more open about the big changes ahead
IT may sound bizarre but the Information Commissioner’s Office, which is the UK’s independent authority set up to promote openness by public bodies, appears to be saying it is alright to plan changes to health and social care in Oxfordshire and neighbouring counties in secret.
At least, that is my interpretation of a ruling as a result of Healthwatch Oxfordshire’s attempt to find out what was happening in the biggest health and social services shake-up for many years.
We raised the query in July last year under the Freedom of Information Act with the Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (OCCG), which has been tasked by the NHS to save money and change the way services are delivered.
The main reason for this was that a new authority was introduced by the NHS: the Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West (BOB) area, which was supposed to create savings by joining up services from several areas.
Secondly, our view was – and is – that the public should have been involved earlier in the detail of the plans.
However, our request was turned down by the OCCG on the grounds that ‘releasing the information into the public domain at this time would be likely to inhibit the ability of public authority staff and others involved to express themselves openly, honestly and completely…..’
But what really got me going was the fact that the OCCG claimed that the new BOB organisation was not a statutory organisation and therefore the Freedom of Information Act did not apply.
That means that BOB could – and still can – take decisions in secret. I still think that is wrong.
They appear to want their cake and eat it by claiming it is not a statutory authority but at the same time giving it enormous powers to change the health service over a large area of the country.
The final version of the plan was published and the first explanations were made available just before Christmas last year – six months after we asked for information.
The Information Commissioner’s Office backed up the OCCG just a few days ago, 14 months after we queried their secrecy.
In effect it rather belatedly backed up the OCCG by saying it was alright to consider matters in secret as long as the proposals were published at a later date.
So what was the problem in giving out the information earlier?
When it was finally published the BOB transformation plan, which includes Oxfordshire, promised that there would be “meaningful engagement and consultation activity on services, such as those at the Horton General Hospital in Banbury and community hospitals in Berkshire West to help inform commissioning of future services”.
So why did it take so long to get round to it? Why not involve the public earlier?
The outcome of some of the changes in services at the Horton is that the question over the downgrading of the maternity department has been referred to the Secretary of State for Health after pleas from thousands of people to keep it as a consultant led service were ignored, and there is still no detail about what is to happen to the rest of the hospital site.
In effect the resulting judicial review is holding up the whole of the other services referred to in the first phase of consultation, although some of them are not contentious.
I hope the OCCG will learn from this and tell the public what it is thinking about in relation to the rest of the county much sooner.
In fact, now would do.
They should, in my view, form advisory bodies in each market town and Oxford as they did when creating the new “health campus” in Henley so that local people can have a greater say in designing the services.
It is an opportunity to involve the public through voluntary organisations and GP practices participation groups among others.
The BOB plan talked about the risks involved in changing the services, among them public sensitivity and cynicism.
It says grandly that “people view the programme as a money saving exercise which has no positive effect on health services in their community. “
It adds: “Stakeholders need to be openly engaged and involved in the process so that they are able to develop a proper understanding and can become ambassadors for the programme.”
I think it follows that if they practised what they preached and told us what is going on at an earlier stage they would stand more chance of getting a reasoned reaction and discussion for a plan which may have some potential merits.”
EDDC lays foundations for new HQ in Honiton – but who is paying?
EDDC must be feeling VERY positive about the outcome of the PegasusLife Planning appeal as the sale of Knowle land, at around £7.1 million, is meant to contribute to the £10,361,000 cost (at last years costing – who knows what it is this year).
And does it include the £1m plus cost of Exmouth town hall?
Next year’s council tax deliberations will be interesting!
Q: who does Diviani represent on the NHS? A: Jeremy Hunt
How does Owl know?
Well, he DOESN’T represent East Devon District Council – they told him to vote to keep local community hospital beds and maternity services open. He went to a DCC scrutiny meeting and voted to close them.
He DOESN’T represent the eight district councils he is supposed to represent at DCC [as a co-optee NOT a full member of the committee – and he was only allowed to vote because the badly-worded DCC constitution does not make the voting power of a co-optee clear] because he admitted in public that he did not consult any of the other councils before voting.
He DOESN’T represent DCC because he has not stood for election to that council and been successful.
WHAT was his reason/excuse/pathetic flim flam for his vote then?
That other attempts to refer the closure to the Secretary of State had failed, so this one would also fail.
How did he know that? Does he have a direct line to Hunt’s office or what passes for Hunt’s brain? He must have one or the other because he KNEW in advance what would happen and chose to vote on what he says he KNEW.
But if he KNEW what would happen (and he says he did) then why not vote as EDDC told him to do? The letter would have failed and he could still say he had voted as instructed at EDDC (though not as other councils wanted as he had no idea about that.
BUT – as he again admitted – it would have slowed down the closure. It would have given councils, the staff and supporters of the hospitals, the patients and their carers, more time to put alternative plans into action. More home care staff, more suitable plans for hospital buildings, better care for patients at home.
He did none of these things. He and Sarah Randall-Johnson consigned community hospitals to the rubbish heap.
And all because, he says, he knew what Jeremy Hunt would do.
So, now we know, he has a direct line to Jeremy Hunt and does what Jeremy Hunt wants him to do.
But why? Owl can only guess that he wants a gong from this despicable government to add to his only other qualification – an innkeepers certificate.
And the only way to do that is do the bidding of those who hand them out.
And if that isn”t his rationale, Owl would welcome a comment from him which would be published on the blog in full.
And what of his “representation” of the other councils? Who voted for him to be their representative? Was there a vote at all?
Or conversations in dark corners of County Hall?
You want your child to have lavatory paper at school? Pay for it
“Teachers and parents are increasingly propping up schools with donations and buying essential items such as lavatory paper, surveys show.
Direct debits of up to £1,000 a year are being set up by some school staff to help pay for classroom equipment.
A survey by the Times Educational Supplement (TES) and the National Education Union suggested that 94 per cent of teachers had spent their own money supporting their schools.
Basics such as teabags for the staffroom and paper towels were also being withdrawn by school leaders, the survey of 1,800 teachers claimed.
Stationery items, books, art materials, emulsion paint and storage equipment for classrooms were among the items bought by teachers.
A rising number of parents are being asked to contribute cash to schools. Of 1,500 parents surveyed by the PTA UK association, 29 per cent said that they had been asked to supply teaching equipment, such as stationery and books, the TES reported.
Forty two per cent of parents had been asked to donate to the school fund compared with 37 per cent last year. There had also been a rise in voluntary contributions in the category of £10 to £304 a month, with 26 per cent donating this year compared with 21 per cent last year.
Michelle Doyle Wildman, acting chief executive of PTA UK, said: “Parents are a silent army supporting our schools to give every child the best possible outcome in their education.
“We are concerned that teachers and parents are reporting that they are contributing more to provide the essentials which many expect to be provided by the state.”
A Department for Education spokesman said: “Our new fairer funding formula will replace the outdated funding system which saw our children have very different amounts invested in their education purely because of where they were growing up.”
Campaigners have challenged the fairness of this formula after a separate report indicated that 88 per cent of schools faced real-term cuts in funding between 2015 and 2020, despite the government’s pledge of an extra £1.3 billion.
Jo Yurky, of the parent-led campaign group Fair Funding for All Schools, said: “The national funding formula has become a joke already because there isn’t enough money in the system to go round. The vast majority of schools around the country continue to face a bleak financial situation.”
Source: Times, paywall
“FIFTY police officers sent to a few dozen aging protesters”
”They drink tea, eat cake and from time to time burst into song.
The few dozen, predominantly retired, professionals at this very English protest hardly add up to a formidable force.
But on the fracking front line police are taking no chances.
At a time when forces up and down the country complain that they are struggling to cope because of budget cuts, North Yorkshire Police are facing accusations of mounting a ‘disproportionate’ and expensive show of strength.
Usually outnumbering – and certainly outmuscling – the grey-haired demonstrators, up to 50 police officers at a time are dealing with the protest.
The start of work to prepare for fracking at the Third Energy well at Kirby Misperton, near Pickering, has prompted the protests.
This week 12 people have been arrested, mainly for obstruction of the highway or a police officer.
Many of the protesters are pensioners who gather daily outside the site gates cum rain, cum shine to express their displeasure. They fear fracking – the controversial method of mining for gas and oil – poses a threat to this beautiful and unspoilt rural area. …
On Thursday around 30 were walking up the path to deal with protesters, although up to 50 are on site. Anyone who sits on the road to try to block the entrance gate risks being picked up by a uniformed officers and arrested. The trucks are escorted on to the site by two patrol cars and a police van packed with officers.
Sue Gough, 62, a retired teacher, said: ‘I have never protested before in my life. It is awful the way the policing has escalated. One of us was chased through Kirby Misperton by police and all he was doing was riding his bike.’
Jackie Brooks, 77, a great grandmother, was serving tea and cake from a stall beside the gates where protesters sang songs and strummed guitars. The former nurse said: ‘I don’t want this beautiful countryside poisoned by the chemicals they use.’
Another protester was Annabel Holt, 76, daughter of war hero Lieutenant Colonel Percy Legard, commander of the No 4 Commando strike force. ‘My father fought to save Britain from 1939 to 1945 and would have been against fracking,’ she said. ‘He fought for his country and I’m trying to do the same.’
Monica Gripaios, 66, claimed the force used by police has been ‘utterly disproportionate to the mood and actions of the peacefully assembled people’.
This week police have been dealing with between 30 and 60 protesters. Nine have been charged and a further two have accepted cautions. They include an 18-year-old woman, who has been charged with assaulting two officers.
Police insist they are acting responsibly. Superintendent Lindsey Robson said: ‘We have a duty to ensure people who want to assemble and protest do so safely, balanced against a duty to ensure that businesses can go about their lawful commercial activity.’
This week one of the country’s top officers warned that the police service is under unsustainable pressure due to the resources required to fight terrorism.
Sara Thornton, head of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, warned that officer numbers are at 1985 levels, crime is up 10 per cent on last year and police work has become ‘ever more complex’.
John Dewar, of Third Energy, said: ‘We look forward to running a safe and successful operation [at the site] that will be carried out with minimal impact on local residents and the environment.’
… When a lorry arrives, about every half hour at peak times, police advance up the remote country lane towards the protesters and force them on to the verge.”
“Tories block recording concerns over biggest ever planned health service cuts in Devon”
Oh, how different it will be if (when) Tories lose control of DCC. We will then hear Twiss and his party colleagues saying EXACTLY what Claire Wright is saying!
Party politics sucks. More Independents needed – urgently.
From the blog of Claire Wright:
“.. And the County Solicitor will be called to address the committee to remind it of its responsibilities.
Devon County Council conservatives blocked my proposal yesterday to record significant concerns over the biggest cuts facing Devon’s health service in living memory.
Sonja Manton from NEW Devon Clinical Commissioning Group gave an update on the plans to slash around £500m by 2020, as part of Devon’s Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP).
The county’s STP is one of 44 across the country and is the government’s main programme of major cost cutting and centralisation in the NHS, to stem a £30bn shortfall by 2020.
I asked a number of questions mainly on staffing, budgets and buildings, along the following lines:
What are the vacancies and how do you plan to fill them and when do you plan to make redundancies (which has been previously hinted at)?
The answer was woolly (and no amount of pushing would encourage Dr Manton to reveal more). It contained no information on numbers, but she did mention that there is a 30 per cent turnover rate across Devon, in home care staff and that 75 per cent of the NHS budget is spent on staffing.
Next I asked whether pregnant women would still have a genuine choice where to give birth, as three community maternity units at Okehampton, Tiverton and Honiton were set to close (two have already closed temporarily due to staffing issues).
The answer was that the new service would meet national guidelines, so I pushed and asked whether pregnant women would be able to have a choice of a midwife led unit and how far they would have to travel. The answer was that there will be a new midwife led unit at the RD&E, adjacent to the consultant led unit.
So essentially women from all over Devon will soon have to either have a home birth, or travel to Exeter to give birth, whether that’s at a midwife led unit or a consultant led unit. There was a bit of a disagreement about me saying the current midwife led units were closed, despite the announcement having already been announced that this was the intention and two being temporarily closed due to staffing pressures.
Next I asked how many more beds were planned to be cut.
More prevarication.
I pushed. Was the figure of 600 bed cuts recognised, which was the broad figure in the first draft of the STP?
Yes this figure was recognised but it depended on a raft of issues.
Finally, I asked about the selling off of redundant estate. How many, where and when? Another non answer ensued. It was the next piece of work.
Entirely frustrated at the refusal to answer questions, not because I believe, the answers are not known but because there is a total refusal to get into any detail whatsoever, I expressed my complete frustration and disappointment at the answers. It made no difference.
Other councillors asked other questions.
At the end of the debate I proposed a resolution that the committee express significant concerns over the STP, its potential effect on patient care and the lack of transparency so far.
I called for urgent information on staffing, beds, buildings and budgets, in particular.
The proposal was seconded by Chair, Sara Randall Johnson, who added that a piece of work would be done on this.
Unfortunately, my wording appeared to upset the conservative group. Cllr Philip Sanders said he didn’t like that I had said the process appeared not to be transparent and wanted this word deleted. I replied that that it was entirely justified and refused to amend my proposal.
But fellow Conservative, Phil Twiss, wanted ANY mention of concerns deleted.
He said: “We don’t need the emotional language.”
Three years ago, Cllr Twiss reported me and this blog to the police cyber crime unit. You can read about it here, if you like – http://www.claire-wright.org/index.php/post/eddc_tory_whip_reports_me_to_the_police_for_a_comment_on_this_blog
Cllr Twiss then proposed that ALL my words were deleted, simply retaining the section that relating to a task group being set up.
This was voted through by the vast majority of the Conservative group.
Letting down every single resident in Devon who relies on the NHS.
Yes, I think that’s everyone.
Ambulance Trust response targets are failing and RD&E unable to discharge its patients in good time
Later in the meeting we were examining the performance review.
The South West Ambulance Trust which used to meet the national target of eight minutes largely without a difficulty, are now significantly under target. Only 59 per cent of calls were answered within eight minutes, across Northern, Eastern and Western Devon, in July of this year. The target is 75 per cent.
Lives are surely being put at risk. Certainly news of the failures are hitting the local media.
The narrative attached to the graph claimed that the reason was the rural nature of the South West. Yet the South West has been rural for years and this wasn’t a problem previously. Of course there have been cuts to budgets, and reductions in the number of ambulances so that is more likely to be the cause of the failure.
Problem with delayed discharges at the RD&E
Similarly, the RD&E was shown to have a significant problem with delayed discharges.
In June this year a daily average of 66 beds were occupied by patients who were well enough to go home.
It was obvious from the graph that the problem was clearly way out of kilter with other local NHS trusts.
This was largely to do with major staffing problems in the care sector, an officer confirmed.
of course it is these staff among others that we will rely on, to look after people in their own homes following community hospital bed cuts.
I proposed a resolution that the committee record its concerns at the ambulance response rates and the high level of delayed discharges at the RD&E and invite both trusts to the next committee meeting.
I had to argue with the chair that the proposal should retain the bit about recording concerns, before it was seconded by Cllr Brian Greenslade.
One of the Labour councillors was unhappy with me mentioning the RD&E at all in my resolution because she was chairing a piece of work looking at delayed discharges. I tried to point out that the resolution supported her work but she was adamant …
Then Cllr Twiss started up again. He said he didn’t like my wording and that I was simply making a statement that “looks good in the press.”
I reminded Cllr Twiss that the committee is legally constituted to scrutinise health services on behalf of the people and our job is to hold the health service to account. In fact such words had been used recently in a standards committee hearing minutes.
Anyone who is familiar with the basic requirements of an audit trail will recognise the importance of the committee recording concerns about service failures in this way.
I told Cllr Twiss that I intended to ask in the work programme agenda item, that the county solicitor attends the next committee meeting and outlines our responsibilities.
The final amendment removed my words about concerns about the RD&E’s delayed discharges but retained the words about the ambulance trust target failure.
So Ambulance Trust representatives will be invited to the next meeting.
I have certainly heard anecdotally that things are very challenging indeed within the Trust, with too few ambulances and low staff morale.
I duly asked in the final agenda item for the County Solicitor to attend the next meeting to remind the committee of its remit.
Some councillors appear to be in sore need of training.
Playing political games with health scrutiny resolutions is a dirty and unacceptable game.
NHS Property Services and buildings
Cllr Martin Shaw spoke to a report he submitted to the committee on this. The upshot will be that a sub group will examine the future of community hospital buildings.
The speaker itemised webcast can be viewed here – https://devoncc.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/301904”
Reading BCouncil apologised for the error after objectors spotted a mistake on feedback form
“Reading Borough Council (RBC) invited residents to give feedback after the Education Funding Agency (EFA) offered to invest £1.36m in exchange for five per cent of some school land it owns.
One objector, John Heaps, accused the council of manipulating the outcome by removing the ‘strongly disagree’ option from the online survey to add weight to the EFA’s proposal.
He claimed: “I have attended all of the action group meetings and the wording on the feedback forms has changed since the original consultation started.
“Negative responses have been altered and the council have changed their stance midway through the process.
By making this change, it allows them to say all consultation respondents agreed that the granting of the lease to the EFA would enhance the amenity value of the ground.
“It is a very serious offence and it is evidence that a governing body is manipulating a legally required consultation process.”
Residents were asked if the EFA offer would enhance the amenity value and the latest form gives three options, including ‘very likely, more likely and less likely’.
Mr Heaps said there was no way for people to strongly reject the EFA bid due to the absence of the ‘not likely’ option and accused the council of distorting the outcome of the consultation.
RBC cited ‘human error’ and apologised, adding: “A human imputing error on the website means the ‘less likely’ and ‘not likely’ options were accidentally combined into one option for people responding to question 2 of the online survey.
“To address this point, and any subsequent concerns raised, the Trustees will be asked to consider that all responses given to this question should be in the ‘not likely’ category.
“We apologise for the error and will of course advise Trustees of the error when reporting back the consultation results.”
EDDC Tory councillors voted against themselves to protect Leader
Sir
“A letter, copied below, from today’s Sidmouth Herald (22/09/17), explains:
The issue of no confidence in EDDC Leader Paul Diviani is nothing new, as the 4,000 people who took part in the SOS Mass March to Knowle, nearly 5 years ago, would agree. (Nov 3rd, 2012, photos archived on http://www.saveoursidmouth.com).
How is it, then, that the ‘Motion against East Devon District Council leader’ failed’ (Sidmouth Herald, 15/09/17)?
Paul Diviani had, according to a senior Conservative colleague, clearly broken trust with the District Council. At the County Health Scrutiny Committee, the EDDC Leader had failed to represent his own Council’s unanimous (i.e. cross-party) recommendation that hospital bedcuts should stop until an effective alternative had been shown to be in place. His contrary vote had influenced the outcome at the DCC, the only body capable of statutory action, thereby apparently betraying not just his own Council, but the people of East Devon that they represent. This left the Tory group of District Councillors “caught between a rock and a hard place”, as Cathy Gardner (EDDC Ward Member Sidmouth Town, East Devon Alliance) reminded them, at the Extra Ordinary Meeting at Knowle (13/09/17).
But all the Tory Councillors present (just one abstained), did an extraordinary thing. To the disbelief of the public crammed into the Council Chamber, they turned the debate away from their uncomfortable Leader’s conduct, and onto problems with the National Health Service. Then, in voting against the Motion of No Confidence in the Leader, they effectively blockvoted against their own unanimous recommendation regarding NHS problems and bedcuts, taken just a few weeks’ earlier. The sort of thing, and Leader, that brings a Council into disrepute?
Jacqueline Green
Sidmouth”
How ‘no confidence vote’ came to be rejected by Council let down by its Leader
“Ministry of Defence spent £64,000 on internet usage for ONE phone last year, new figures reveal”
Was that person even on earth?!!!
“The Ministry of Defence spent £64,000 on mobile internet use for a single phone last year, new figures have revealed.
The hefty bill was the most expensive in a list of staggering figures which the Government department paid out enable its staff to stay in touch while abroad.
The MoD forked out an eye-watering £324,407 to pay for the data roaming charges for the ten most expensive mobile phones bills alone. …
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4909440/MoD-spent-64-000-internet-usage-phone-year.html
“Knowle plans would create ‘elderly ghetto’ “
<em“Appeal documents published this week reveal the continued strength of feeling against redevelopment plans for Knowle – with claims Sidmouth would be dealt a ‘devastating blow’.
PegasusLife has taken landowner East Devon District Council’s decision to refuse its scheme to the Planning Inspectorate.
In emotional submissions, residents said the developer’s proposals for 113 retirement flats ‘run a coach and horses’ over the site’s 50-home allocation in the Local Plan and would create an ‘elderly ghetto’.
Organisations including Sidmouth Arboretum, the Vision Group for Sidmouth, and the Knowle Residents’ Association have also responded to reiterate their calls for the application to be thrown out.
The Sid Vale Association said: “PegasusLife has clearly done its utmost to maximise the development on the site for commercial reasons.
“The appeal should be refused on the grounds that it seeks more than double the number of dwellings earmarked in the Local Plan; that it proposes buildings of a poor architectural design, and that its impacts on nearby residents and on the public parkland are unacceptable.”
Liz Fuller, the buildings at risk officer at SAVE Britain’s Heritage, restated its strong objection to the proposals, saying they represented a ‘devastating blow’ to the history and character of Sidmouth.
Knowle Drive resident Robin Fuller said: “If, at the first major test of the Local Plan, a developer succeeds in turning over its objectives by a huge margin, then the process of local planning is null and void and local democracy can be considered dead and buried.
“Approval on appeal will set a precedent for other developments to run a coach and horses through the intentions of the plan.”
PegasusLife said its scheme will only ‘materially impact’ Hillcrest and its amenity will not be adversely affected.
Homeowners Rob and Sandra Whittle challenged this, adding: “It is crucial that the planning inspector make an internal visit to Hillcrest to understand the negative impact on our home and appreciate what a permanently devastating blow this development in its present form would have on our lives.”
Submissions said 20 homes besides Hillcrest, in Knowle Drive and Broadway, would be adversely affected.
George and Ann Ellis live in Knowle Drive but were in support of the appeal. They said: “Although parts of the development will have some effect on us we feel that these will not be too much of an inconvenience in what to us seems an otherwise satisfactory and necessary scheme. We are very conscious that there is a great need for more housing in the UK with a growing and ageing population.
“Sidmouth is a very popular retirement location and there now appear to be few sites for development – hence the suitability of Knowle.
“There is a big demand for older people to downsize and the benefit of this is that more properties are freed up for younger families.”
EDDC’s development management committee defied officer advice to refuse the scheme last December – arguing it represented a departure from Knowle’s 50-home allocation in the Local Plan. Members also objected to the scale, height, bulk and massing of the proposed development.
At the appeal, PegasusLife will argue the scheme is ‘thoughtful and considered’, its benefits outweigh any potential harm to the listed summerhouse and there is a ‘compelling need’ for extra care accommodation in East Devon.
The deal is worth £7.505million to EDDC, which is relocating to Exmouth and Honiton.
The inquiry will open at 10am on Tuesday, November 28.”
http://www.sidmouthherald.co.uk/news/knowle-plans-would-create-elderly-ghetto-1-5203821
South-west doomed to low productivity because of its coastal towns
“Let’s start with the good news: there are some regions of Britain where the economic productivity rate is higher than the German average. Now the bad news: there are three of them. Three out of 168.
In fact when it comes economic bang-for-buck, which is ultimately what productivity is, only the London borough of Tower Hamlets, which includes Canary Wharf, would scrape into the German top five. Nowhere in this country can compete with the output per hour generated in Munich, Ingolstadt or Wolfsburg, home to BMW, Audi, and VW.
There is nothing new in the idea that the British economy is less productive than most of its industrialised counterparts. You probably already knew that for every hour worked, the French and Americans generate about 30 per cent more income than Britons and Germans 36 per cent more. You probably know, too, that of all our inequalities, perhaps the greatest is regional. No other European country has as great a gulf between rich and poor areas.
Weak productivity equals weak wages, equals social division, equals many of the problems haunting the country today. But the odd thing is that until now no one had thought to dig deep into the data underlying these problems. That all changes today, with the release of a paper by Richard Davies, Anna Valero and Sandra Bernick from the London School of Economics.
And as it happens, those comparisons with Germany are about the most conventional of all their findings. Consider the location of Britain’s productivity engine, such as it is. You might have assumed the answer was the southeast. In fact, the strongest and most efficient economic activity is to be found on a thin corridor stretching west from the capital along the M4, through Slough and Reading to Bristol.
A glance at the way industries cluster themselves around the country yields further surprises. Far from being overly concentrated in London, it turns out the financial sector is quite widely spread, accounting for 15 hubs outside the capital. If you’re after a sector which is overly concentrated in London, look no further than the creative industry and IT, both of which are almost entirely based there and in the southeast.
In a sense this is even more alarming than the conventional wisdom. Finance is no longer the productivity growth machine it once was, whereas over the coming decades computers and IT are likely to be far more important. Why are they not more widespread?
Examine the numbers closely enough and preconceptions such as the north-south divide also start to dissolve. Yes, London dominates, but there are productivity hotspots all over: Aberdeen and its oil industry; a string of innovative chemicals firms along the banks of the Mersey; the life sciences companies in and around Hertfordshire; university hubs such as Oxford and Cambridge. If anything, Britain’s real economic disparity is not between north and south but between coastal and inland towns.
The most prosperous cities in any country are typically found on the coast. In Britain, that relationship is inverted: seaside towns tend to have more business failures than those inland. Productivity is lower, as is health quality and life expectancy. The prevalent industries are often those with weak output: food services and, more broadly, tourism.
Why? Maybe because the sea is less important to Britain than it was a century ago, when trade was physical goods rather than ideas and services. Maybe because, once trading dwindled, all that was left was fishing and tourism. Much like mining towns in the Welsh valleys, the economy moved on and no one gave much thought about what, or who, would be left behind.
We don’t have the answers because we are still only starting to work out the questions. While Britain’s policymakers do plenty of inflation and fiscal forecasts, little or no work is done into the way economic activity is spread around the country. This is no parochial point: such things matter.
After all, consider Wales, where the central region around Brecon has the unenviable distinction of being the least productive part of Britain. Only 40 or so miles south is a business which single-handedly lifts Wales’s overall productivity: the steelworks in Port Talbot. In much the same way as the Great Wall of China is visible from space, it is one of a few factories in Britain whose productivity can actually be spotted in the national accounts. In other words, those 4,000 jobs matter not just for the employees and their families, but for the balance of Britain’s productivity. Something to dwell on, given Tata Steel’s announcement this week that it is finally selling the plant.
A couple of years ago George Osborne proposed a few reforms that might have helped. Whitehall was to devolve full control over business rates to the regions; local government pension funds were to be pooled to create five or six “wealth funds” to help invest in the infrastructure that could help boost productivity. By the time of this year’s Queen’s Speech, the reforms seemed to have disappeared — casualties of Brexit legislation.
This was always the risk following the referendum. Not sudden economic oblivion but more the danger that Brexit would distract us from the important business of becoming more prosperous. It is already happening.”
Source: The Times, pay wall
Times and Tories work out that affordable housing means votes,
After YEARS of believing affordable and social homes are lived in only by Labour voters and therefore not worth building, the Conservatives suddenly seem to have woken up to the bigger issue that NO housing = NO votes for them either.
Duh. And, as the saying goes: wise words butter no parsnips – writing or making speeches is not doing.
“The covenant of British politics is broken. The European referendum of 2016 was the first clue and the strange general election a year later the second. As the political assemblies gather at their conferences to contemplate their own little world, the gap between the promise of politics and popular problems has perhaps never been greater. There will be urgently missable fringe meetings in Brighton and Manchester over the next fortnight which seek to draw lessons from Syriza’s Greece, Trump’s America or Macron’s France. The problem can be located much closer to home.
Housing minister was once a cabinet position and really must be again. For an issue which has so frequently paid a political dividend it has been remarkably relegated down the order of priorities. The domestic response to the two world wars was to rebuild the housing stock. David Lloyd George pledged homes fit for war heroes and the 1924 Labour government offered a housing act as its only substantive achievement. Aneurin Bevan spent more time on housing after 1945 than he did on the NHS and the number of houses built was one of the ways the Attlee government asked to be judged. The last time the Conservative Party really connected to the urban working class was when Margaret Thatcher arranged for 100,000 of them a year to buy the homes once owned and neglected by the council.
For the most part, though, the covenant on housing policy has operated silently. There has been an implicit bargain in postwar British politics that buying your own home is an index of progress and that, with hard work, it should be possible. After Bevan, housing policy has been directed towards the vision that Neville Chamberlain once described as “the property-owning democracy”.
There is a hint of the politics of housing in that phrase. Tories have assumed that owning property makes conservatives of people while Labour, the constant voice of municipal housing, has assumed the large estates create a client group of its own voters. Council house sales were first mooted by Joe Haines, who worked for Harold Wilson, but rejected by his party for privatising the nation’s assets. Throughout the twists and turns of policy, property rights have had a unique connotation in Britain, signalling the assumption that a home of one’s own is the prize for all citizens.
It is therefore a political fact of the first order that home ownership has fallen to 63.5 per cent, its lowest level since 1987. Household growth has been strong as the population has increased and as more people live alone but the supply of houses is stagnant. With the value of land increasing, house builders are better described as landlords. Building is at its lowest level since 1923 and last year Britain built 100,000 homes fewer than the 250,000 per annum that are needed just to meet existing demand.
The facts gathered by the Resolution Foundation in its report Home Affront: housing across the generations continue the work that David Willetts, now the think tank’s executive chairman, began in his fine book The Pinch. They describe a life for the youngest generation of adults that may differ fundamentally, financially, from that of their grandparents and may be, for the first time, worse. Housing costs for the average family have tripled since 1961, from 6 per cent of income to 18 per cent. The typical age for buying property is moving from the 30s to the 40s. The generation of people below the age of 30 spend almost a quarter of their income on housing, which is three times as much as their grandparents spent at the same age. They are also having to make do with smaller places to live, further from work. It is both more expensive and considerably worse and there is never a political dividend in that combination.
Home ownership has been falling across all regions and income groups since 2003 but the youngest cohort will be hit the hardest. The option of social housing is now a rarity so a whole generation has started to rent privately. Half a century ago one in ten 30-year-olds rented a home. Now it is four in ten. A family headed by a 30-year-old today is half as likely to be a homeowner as their parents were at the age of 30.
There are manifold reasons for the decline in home ownership. People are spending longer in education, marrying and having children later, immigration has increased, the divorce rate has required more houses for the same population and people are living longer and are understandably reluctant to vacate the homes they call their own. In the wake of the crash of 2008 wages have been stagnant and access to mortgage finance has been curtailed. The low supply of new homes has produced the obvious effect of higher prices. A generation ago it took the average family 3 years to save enough for a deposit on a house. Now it would take almost 20 years.
It means that a different life beckons from the implied bargain of British politics. Coming to home ownership later, if at all, means that people will carry mortgages later in life, perhaps even beyond working age. That, in turn, will affect the capacity of that generation to save for retirement. The whole journey of life shifts back and that is for those who manage to embark at all. There is a set of people who are seriously thinking they might be stuck renting indefinitely. There are now 11 million people in rented accommodation in the private market.
The minister in charge, Sajid Javid, has an opportunity if he is bold enough to seize it. In a speech on Tuesday he made some encouraging noises about a review of social housing policy after the disaster of Grenfell Tower. He really needs, though, to do something about the quantity of social housing too. The proportion of families in this sector has halved, under government neglect, since 1981 and there is no quick solution which does not involve the government doing some building. The problems here are fundamental. Low and stagnant wages, money flowing into British property from offshore, restrictive planning and no infrastructure guidance from the centre.
“Unless we deal with the housing deficit, we will see house prices keep on rising. The divide between those who inherit wealth and those who don’t will become more pronounced. And more and more of the country’s money will go into expensive housing instead of more productive investments that generate more economic growth”. Wise words. Theresa May’s words, at the launch of her campaign to succeed David Cameron. She needs to say them again in the knowledge that, if her party retains its fabled survival instinct, it will grant her enough authority to act.”
Source: The Times, pay wall
“STPs ‘need more funding and to be better implemented’ “
“Sustainability and transformation partnerships need more funding and to be better implemented, the Healthcare Financial Management Association/CIPFA health and social care conference heard today.
The partnerships are the best hope for health and social care integration, Richard Humphries, a senior policy fellow from the think-tank the King’s Fund, told delegates at the conference in London.
“The ambitions of the plans are good but the delivery and implementation is fraught with problems in the current financial climate,” he said.
“I think everybody agrees that we do need to transform social care but history tells us that the only way you do that is to have transformational funding for the double running costs of building up services in the community so you can then reduce hospital activity.”
He added: “The existing system is fragmented, based on commissioners and providers. Nobody wants another top-down reorganisation to reverse those [current] reforms.
“So [greater integration] is being done through the backdoor, essentially, through these STPs.”
Humphries believed STPs were the “right direction of travel” but noted that there were issues.
He outlined the following problems:
The STPs are being driven by NHS financial control, which he said was “unrealistic”
There are “heroic assumptions” being made about how much care you can shift out of hospitals
The plans are not engaging local government and social care enough.
Humphries said: “Although it is a laudable motive, the current structures that we’ve got in both commissioning and providers, separation, funding, payment mechanisms was designed from an entirely different purpose when it was based on the idea of competition and choice being much more important than collaboration.”
The conference also heard the findings from a survey conducted by CIPFA and iMPOWER. It showed 55 of 56 respondents said they did not believe joint working will be achieved between local government and the NHS in the next five years.
Rob Whiteman, CIPFA’s chief executive, commenting on the survey of 25 local authorities and 31 NHS bodies, said: “While it is now clear what the overall ambitions are for STPs, the survey released today highlights there may be major barriers to achieving these.
“The survey shows that there are some significant concerns with regard to joint working, which is vital to the success of STPs. Therefore, serious care and attention must now be paid to building relationships and trust between partners.”
Whiteman also echoed the sentiment of Humphries when he said suitable levels of funding were needed, or the ambitious targets set by the STPs would turn out to be “financially unachievable”. “
http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2017/09/stps-need-more-funding-and-be-implemented-better-0
EDDC has other ways of raising cash … but not votes
Owl says: shame they couldn’t put the same amount of effort into getting voters to register. CEO Williams said it was much too dangerous to go around the dark, rural roads in East Devon seeking them out.
Owl hopes the officers tasked with weeding out these miscreants have had good martial arts training for dealing with those elderly widows, widowers and single mums!
And just as well officer time is never costec when accounting for how such an exercise!
“Council Tax paying resis who wrongly claim they live alone and get a council tax discount are being targeted in East Devon. Checks are beginning this month to ensure that the 21,000 East Devon householders who currently claim a 25% discount for living alone are still entitled to it.
Councillor Ian Thomas, portfolio holder for finance, said “anyone genuinely claiming a reduction should not be concerned. However, if you are found to be deliberately misleading the council, you could face a penalty of £70, as well as having to repay the discount,” he added.”
[Source: BBC Devon]
EDDC seems to prefer income loss to seafront attractions
Owl has spotted a disclosure by EDDC in relation to a FOI on the loss of income and business rates on closed Exmouth seafront businesses:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/lost_council_income_from_queens#comment-80255
EDDC effectively admit that council rental income from those properties on Queens Drive, which they closed a while back, mean a loss at a rate of over £18,300 pa. On top of the rent, they will have lost an as yet unspecified amount of council business rates and beach hut hire income. Oh, and the area now looks derelict.
Though there were claims that the Fun Park site was needed in connection with works on phases 1 and 2, there are plans in existence (see on Save Exmouth Seafront Facebook page) which show no such need for access as yet to the Fun Park.
It seems clear that EDDC have done little or nothing about arrangements for ‘temporary attractions’ on the Fun park site next year – at least as far as the public can determine.
So, we know that already part of the seafront is looking run down and desolate, and is losing money into the bargain. Further, the case for getting rid of the Fun Park seems much more to do with EDDC taking offence at a long established family business having the sheer gall to take EDDC on in pursuit of that families legitimate rights, than allowing them to continue to provide a much-loved service to the community – including thousands of tourists.
No, rather EDDC take a chance that something “might” come up by way of temporary attractions if only it hopes hard enough.
And surely EDDC is breaking its own (well-honed) rules on confidentiality when it voluntarily gives information that one owner allegedly had an outstanding unpaid bill – again.
“Local councils blame Tory cuts for dramatic surge in homelessness”
“Government benefit cuts are to blame for soaring levels of homelessness, local councils and housing providers have said.
The number of people being declared homeless has increased by more than a third since 2010, while the number of people sleeping rough on the streets has surged by even more: up 134 per cent since the Conservatives came to power.
A string of Government welfare changes – including cuts to housing benefit and the introduction of the benefit cap – have led to the dramatic increase, according to the organisations charged with tackling the crisis. …
… According to the survey, 61 per cent of local councils and 49 per cent of housing associations also said the fact a prospective tenant is unlikely to receive enough in welfare payments to cover their rent is now the most common reason for someone being turned away for home.
It comes just days after a damning report by the National Audit Office accused government ministers of a “light-touch approach” to tackling homelessness, and concluded that benefit cuts were “likely to have contributed” to the rise in homelessness. Tackling the problem is costing the state £1bn a year, the report said.
In an attempt to get a grip on spiralling homelessness, Government ministers have placed a legal obligation on local councils to help people find homes.
Typically, this would involve helping someone into a property managed by a housing association – but cuts to benefits mean associations are increasingly having to turn tenants away. …”
