PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS

[Stanley]

NAO have looked at the way Serco is running Hinchingbrooke hospital and are not impressed. They are losing money and evidently grossly over-estimated the savings they could make when they bid for the contract. NHS safe in their hands? (LINK)

[Tizer]

No, not safe in their hands. These days one doesn't have to be a dyed-in-the-wool socialist to know that much of the private sector has, sadly, become incompetent and lost the plot. The financial services sector is corrupt, incompetent and decaying - do we want a health services sector that is the same? The NHS has its problems but it doesn't need a Master in Business Studies degree to understand that the answer is to improve management of the NHS, not to give it to the profiteers. Also we need to give the NHS adequate funding - we can't expect to have an efficient health service if it doesn't have the money to work with. Medical equipment (scanners for example) are extremely expensive and forever rising in price as they become more sensitive and effective - the NHS needs money to buy these and if we don't provide it then wages will be too low for medical staff. We need to train more doctors and nurses too and not depend on foreign staff - as their home countries become more highly developed they will stop coming to the UK and we won't have enough trained people of our own. The bottom line is...we should all be paying more tax to fund a better health service. But it was difficult to raise that issue even before the credit crunch!

[Stanley]

Tiz, dead right. If I remember rightly there was once a poll asking whether a tax rise ring-fenced for the NHS would be popular and the answer was a clear yes. Problem is that the Treasury is historically dead against homologated taxes as it reduces their ability to shift money round between accounts. Anyone who reads Private Eye will be well aware of the dodgy credentials of many of these private providers. See the allegations against Spire private hospitals in the latest scandal on breast surgery. (LINK) Too many of the providers have dodgy track records in the US where they are based. Same applies to some of the drug companies as well. Phil Hammond in PE is extremely good value on these subjects. Have you seen his preferences if he ever has to have a hip implant?

[Stanley]

I noticed that the Dorothy Hartley book I have just bought was withdrawn from Orpington library. Selling books to raise money? See this LINK.

[Stanley]

See this LINK for the latest survey done by Age UK into adult social care. They describe a 'crisis' in the funding of care of adults. This is bad enough but the full effect of the cuts hasn't bitten yet. Another example of the real cost of slashing spending on welfare. The tragedy is of course that there is plenty of money available, it's being channelled elsewhere. One of the most reliable measures of compassion and social responsibility in a society is the way it treats the disadvantaged. We are failing them.

[Nolic]

Either someone in the Department of Health is keeping ministers in the dark or there is a Government smokescreen on the issue to cover up the failings/ funding of the centralised regulators.
The power to "go through the books " of a care provider has always been there for regulators and is currently covered in Regulation 25 of the 2001 Care Homes Regulations. " The registered person shall, if the Commission so requests, provide the Commission with such information and documents as it may require for the purpose of considering the financial viability of the care home, including—
(a)the annual accounts of the care home certified by an accountant;
(b)a reference from a bank expressing an opinion as to the registered provider’s financial standing;
(c)information as to the financing and financial resources of the care home;
(d)where the registered provider is a company, information as to any of its associated companies."

So why all the fuss about giving the CQC more powers. Prior to 2002 in Lancashire's inspection unit we regularly asked for this information and submitted it to number crunchers for a financial assess. When the NCSC, the CSCI took over regulation we were surprised that not only did they refuse to employ accountants for this purpose but even when we had concerns about viability we were not allowed to engage external advice.( Instead we employed pharmacists on silly salaries who sat around al day doing bugger all.)

My thoughts are that this is a smokescreen to hide past - including recent past with Southern Cross - failings under the pretence that greater powers are needed. Nolic

[Stanley]

Comrade, that sounds like a reasonable assumption.... Shades of Charlie Webster....

[Stanley]

We begin to see the increasing effects of public service cuts. The focus this morning is on the social services for the elderly that are largely financed by local government like Day Centres and associated activities like luncheon clubs and exercise classes. These services are in many cases the main motivation for old people to get out of the house and socialise. The point is being made that down the line, neglect of these services is going to rebound in more cost to the NHS for essential care as people deteriorate because of less interaction with society. A good example of how cutting the money to local authorities is in the end going to be counter-productive and in the process erodes the quality of life of those least able to object.

[Stanley]

A sign of how cuts are biting in the NHS. The CQC have warned 17 hosptals that their staffing levels are dangerously low and impacting on patient care. We shall see more of this.

[Stanley]

Child care costs rose over 6% in 2012, twice the rate of inflation. Perhaps 6% per annum is a more accurate rate of inflation for essentials.

[Stanley]

The cuts in taxes for the wealthy and also the cuts in Housing Benefit creep closer. They both start at the beginning of April. Can't quite see the justice in either of them.

[Whyperion]

The Housing Benefit main change [ which affects people in Social Housing { Private Housing Rules already being the same } ( rating people's current family size to the maximum size of accommodation they can get the fullest proportion of housing benefit ), has been part spun to help people into appropriate sized housing - are they funding moving costs , appliances ( as some properties may have bedrooms but the living space may be arranged differently ) ? It was also mentioned there was a shortage of family sized housing , - so why were planning controls on splitting of family properties into 1/2 bed flats and new developments of small flats in the 'hotspots' of the South East permitted ? There has always been promotion by local authorities of helping families though to exchange council properties differing in size or location according to their needs , including downsizing.

Is there a definition of a bedroom by size , as properties the family has been associated with over the years certainly have rooms so described in estate agent speak , that all one could fit in (maybe) , is a single bed and not much else.



There may not be any significant reduction in the amount of housing benefit actually paid out once all the move shuffles have been carried out.

[Stanley]

See this LINK for a very good overview of the benefit cuts that start from today. Yhe Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimate that 1.9 poorest families are going to be affected. Worth noting that later in the month the wealthy get their tax cut. Some things never change....

[Stanley]

Have a look at this LINK for an exaple of one of the lesser known sources of funding that are being cut. Imagine the feelings of anyone relying on it.....

[Stanley]

£800 million is to be cut from the Social Care budget in the next financial year. This brings the total cuts over the last three years to £2.7 billion. Approximately one care home a week closes as the funding from local councils gets tighter. All part of the overall programme of cuts which is only now beginning to bite. I realise that cuts have to be made but can't help believing that the targets aimed at by the government are predicated more by political ease and dogma than social justice. We need a Quiet Revolution, something along the lines of Harold Macmillan's Middle Way. I've not seen any recent figures for the gap between Rich and Poor but suspect it is widening at a faster rate than at any time in the last 50 years. I don't see how this can contribute to the health of society or its stability. Worrying stuff for those of us who tend to take the long view.

[Stanley]

I've been banging on for months about the fact that we hadn't seen to full effects of the cuts and I know it gets boring but this morning we see a report from The National Housing Federation on the impact of the cuts to housing benefit. (LINK) It is hitting harder than was forecast. Add to this the news on family incomes yesterday, the average wage has dropped almost 2% this year but remember that this is only an average and includes the 7% pay increase of the top management. Add to this the fact that energy, transport and food prices are rising faster than overall inflation and these items are a larger proportion of the spend for the poorest families and you begin to get the picture. And then of course there is the upcoming £11.5 billion cut up to 2015. Ossie admits that austerity will continue till 2018 but I believe this is an underestimate, can we really believe that all will be well for the poor in five years?

[Tardis]

Andrew Rawnsley took issue with the Balls line yesterday:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... k-credible

What the social housing issue has shown is that the mix of housing stock within them is incorrect for the people occupying them. Remember, the spare room subsidy only affects those who are claiming benefits.

Even this morning Councils on Today were arguing that they should be allowed to put people in whatever houses they wanted and claim the full benefit in return.

That's a good line to take, but are Councils saying this because the money for Housing Benefit comes directly by grant from Central Government?

The underlying problem is the enormous housing asset bubble, which we are slowly deflating through inflation rather than bursting and getting on with clearing up the crash.

Take a look at the info graphic I put in the politics thread about benefits

[plaques]

I have this cunning plan. Raise the Bank of England interest rate by 3%. This would result in massive mortgage default, No more house price bubble. No more housing shortage. At the same time stop all housing benefit payments. This would stimulate the renting sector and reduce the burden on central government.
Actually I suspect we are already moving down this line. Well at least I tried.

[Bruff]

That's fair enough. but as 7 out of 8 recipients of housing benefit are pensioners or folk in work there is the chance it would lead to the embeggerment of 'strivers' and pensioners. And it remains to be seen whether this short term pain would be alleviated in time through a rent correction. Same with engineering a significant house price correction. That's not to argue that the cost of housing is not a serious drag on this country, but there are societal consequences that need acknowledging and perhaps tackling. That's a serious public policy question. You can't also I would have thought, approach this in isolation from the related issue of pay levels. Corporate welfare as some call it, is another drag on the public coffers. That chart on another thread illustrates this nicely - 'skivers' are a very, very small portion of the benefits budget.

Anyroads, at the EU Summit the other day the PM flagged the establishment of a panel of six business leaders to examine 'red-tape'. I would have hoped (though I recognise the futility of this hope), that this panel would have been balanced by an equal number of Trade Union leaders. Again in the forlone hope that we could have a more adult, perhaps mature, approach the merits of this red-tape' one way or another. But that's simply beyond us. We seem happy with pitting arrogant and bullying management against confrontational and intransigent Unions to the detriment of any semblence of consensus building at all. Oh well. One day, we might grow up.

Richard Broughton

[Stanley]

I know what you mean Richard. Classic case was in the 20s when the unions recommended nationalisation of the mines, a commission agreed and laid out a process but the mine owner's lobby got to work and the government refused to act. If we read the history it's quite surprising how many social advances stemmed from the unions who, being close to the grass roots, understood where the problems were. Look at the antecedents of the major players in the 45 Labour government who gave us the most significant advances in social justice the world has ever seen. They came from the grass roots and understood what needed to be done. I really believe that our present leaders are completely out of touch, bereft of social principle and have no concept of the misery their policies are causing. I can't help thinking that there is a storm on the horizon, reality can't be ignored forever.

[plaques]

I always thought it was the skivers fault that we are in all this trouble but now it appears to be the pensioners!

Lady Williams – one of the champions of the health service's "free at the point of use" ethos – on Friday called for a rethink over the way the system is funded. In an essay for the Nuffield Trust, a thinktank, Williams said: "There might be a case for at least considering a nominal charge for GP appointments … It might get people to value the service." She also suggests that wealthier pensioners should start paying for the NHS. Currently pensioners do not pay. However, Williams said: "You could also have a nominal charge for prescriptions for older people, with appropriate exemptions. An awful lot of people do actually have quite substantial pensions in addition to the state pension."

[Stanley]

You'll notice that even the government has stopped talking about 'skivers' because they have found that they are such a small percentage of the whole. In any case, how do you define the term. Is someone with a disability a 'skiver'? The new assessors certainly seem to have widened the net. And yes, the pensioners are a problem, because of better medical care there are more of them. Lady Williams is quite right, adjustments will, have to be made to the NHS. However, none of this is anything to do with the public service cuts which at the moment are badly targeted and not helpful because they are reducing disposable incomes and creating more needy cases while at the same time dropping domestic GDP because of lowered spending power amongst the section of the population that creates 85% of the demand. That's the vicious circle that is ensuring we have a flat lining economy.

[plaques]

“Who cares about what happens to the 85% of people at the tail end of the pecking order. There’s nothing wrong with a system that put me at the top! So a few trouble makers will squeal a bit but in the long run nothing will change because we won’t let it. When will the “workers” realise its time to get back in their box and do as they are told.”
As discussed previously GDP has nothing to do with wealth distribution. Cutting PUBLIC services is a direct attack on the vast majority of people making them poorer by the day. We are in a downward spiral because the “government” wants it that way. Local councils are being drained of funds while doing their best to keep things going. Unfortunately, the bottom line will be “if you can’t pay for it, you can’t have it”.

[Stanley]

I've been warning for a long time that the majority of the cuts is yet to come but was reminded the other day that I had been left behind. See this LINK for analysis of the IFS report that 60% of Ossie's proposed cuts are yet to come.
That's bad enough but I made the connection between what I have been banging on about for a while, the unintended consequences of the cuts and how they will bite our arse in years to come, with the present furore about the breakdown of sea defences and drainage which many who know put down to lack of investment in maintenance over the last twenty years. (That's right, it's Labour's fault!). What we are seeing are the long term consequences of short term cuts brought to light by an exceptional event, in this case by worse than usual weather. Transfer the case to a shortage of hospital beds due to an epidemic or a rise in crime figures due to under investment in education and youth services. Make up your own examples. My point is that when priorities are governed by party dogma and not realistic estimates, it's the external effects Dear Boy that govern what actually happens in the long term. It looks as though the river bank bursting at Moorlands near where the Tone and the Parret meet is due to the vast amounts of water being pumped from lower level to 'get it away'. Problem being of course that the rivers can't handle it because they are only running at 40% capacity. The short term knee jerk has come up against the long term lack of maintenance and only now are vast amounts of money being thrown at it. It's a lousy way to run a country and an economy.

[Stanley]

See this LINK for Archbishop Vincent Nichols' attack on cuts to welfare benefits and the way applicants are treated. He joins the other churches in similar attacks on the government's welfare policies. The politicians would do well to listen, what these criticisms chronicle is the regression to the old welfare mantra of the 'undeserving poor'. It is a disgrace in a 'modern' society and in the final analysis will do tremendous damage. Remember that 60% of the cuts haven't bitten yet.....