PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS

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Re: PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS

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While Parliament and the government concentrate on what they see as important, the plight of cash-strapped councils worsens. There is to be a Panorama programme tonight looking specifically at Somerset. (LINK)
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Re: PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS

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See THIS BBC account of a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies which describes the success of the initiative instituted By labour but also noting that funding has been cut by two thirds and 800 centres closed due to lack of funding. They recommend the obvious course of action. Will anyone be listening?
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Re: PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS

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See THIS BBC report of further enquiries into the failure of Northamptonshire CC Social Services. Reading between the lines one of the factors seems to have been social service workers being swamped by high case loads. There were other failings but how much role had under-funding to do with this? Not directly mentioned in the report is the fact that the Social Works service faces even more funding cuts this year due to the fact that the Council has been judged to be either bankrupt or at least, in terminal financial failure.
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Re: PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS

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I have been listening to a report on malnutrition in school children in India on World Service. An organisation which is expanding rapidly in India has won a competition to find the Food Chain Champion of 2019 and at the end of the report the director said something that astounded me. They believe that their model should be exported world wide and as an example he cited the fact they are already operating in London helping to feed our hungry schoolchildren! See THIS BBC report.
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Re: PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS

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We live in one of the richest nations in the world, I forget whether we are 4th or 5th at the moment. So with that in your mind read THIS BBC report on Poverty in Working Families then ask yourself "how can this be?". Remember as well that the conditions of the people below them are even worse.
Then ask yourself another question, "Is this seen as a serious matter and if so, what is being done about it?".
I may have missed something but I have no evidence of any serious effort being given to these underclasses and looking at the future with Robotics and AI taking over even more jobs and chance of income I can't see it getting anything other than worse.
This is UK today.......
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Re: PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS

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Not bang on-topic but close enough...
`Northern Powerhouse 'undermined' by austerity, five years on' LINK
`The Northern Powerhouse is being "undermined" by austerity despite signs of economic growth, a think tank says. Five years since its launch, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham said the project was at risk of "fizzling out". The Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) North said the economy had "moved in the right direction" but more children were living in "poor" households...'
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Re: PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS

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I noted the same report Tiz. What struck me was that despite all the assurances the Downing Street spin machine pumps out the spend on transport alone on transport in the South is over twice what it is in the north......
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Re: PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS

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£2.5 million of public money (and counting....) has been spent on Frogmore Cottage. Wonderful how we can always find these sums... Or am I just suffering from the effects of 'The Politics of Envy'?
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Re: PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS

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From Wiki . In June 2019 it was reported that renovations made to the cottage before they moved in had cost the taxpayer £2.4 million. So that's where the tax on my pension is going and I thought it was being wasted on down and outs. That's all right then.
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Re: PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS

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And that's only the latest available accounts..... I see the neighbours are complaining...
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Re: PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS

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`When poverty means living without soap' LINK
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Re: PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS

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A timely link Tiz. Just imagine what could happen in October...... The whole treatment of vulnerable people under Austerity is a national disgrace and is not being addressed. We need a completely new start on the road to some sort of compassionate efficient politics. Having listened to Jonathan Sumption's Reith Lectures I am now persuaded that this is not a new political system but reform of the present one via One Nation politics and the Justice System.
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Re: PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS

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See THIS for a report of the latest speech made by Cressida Dick. Whist she doesn't directly attribute the low prosecution rates directly to cuts there can be no doubt what her core message is. The Tories as the natural guardians of Law and Order? They are running all our services into the ground.
Meanwhile all the focus in the media is on the spurious democratic contest for leadership and whether Angela Merkel is crumbling under the strain of leadership. (No mystery there, look what it did to T May!)
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Re: PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS

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I heard an MP in Parliament recounting a story told he by a teacher. A boy turned up at school one Monday morning and fainted. When questioned it transpired that he had ate nothing since the previous Friday. He was given a sandwich and an apple and when he left the apple he was reassured that he would get his dinner as well. He said that he knew that, he was saving it for his sister in an adjoining classroom who had also not eaten.....
This is 2019 not 1819! How can such things be? I was talking to my old tutor Steve yesterday and we recalled free school meals and milk.
Politicians spend all their time arguing about high matters of state and approve £2.4million and counting on a young couple's house from the public purse. All I can think of is hungry kids, the millions of kids facing hunger over the school holidays and food banks. This is disgraceful and doesn't need high political thought to address the problem. Just one more example of the way government has stepped away from the core responsibilities of a responsible society. A complete lack of compassion.
These are the things we should be continually protesting about, not wind farms and Brexit.
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Re: PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS

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See THIS Guardian account of a letter written by senior police officers warning that the police have been emasculated by the Tory cuts and that a full enquiry should be held into the future of the force.
We are used to howls of pain from the police but of late they get more reliable and serious. Lots of other signals like investigation and detection rates, the growth of the drug trade and most of all the rise in urban knife crime all reinforce this message. The standard government excuses were always thin and now are risible.
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Re: PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS

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All part of Boris Johnson's plan to get rid of the nanny state. People should have the choice to live in their gated communities with private security drive round in Chelsea tractors and avoid down town no-go areas if they wish to do so. And for the rest of us 'Tough'. It seems to work quite well in America.
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Re: PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS

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Unfortunately true P.
I think we need a symbol denoting irony alert.... You are so good at it!
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Re: PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS

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`Universal credit: Multi-million pound scam targets claimants' LINK
Claimants are being tricked by scammers...
Messages from dozens of officials on an internal DWP message board, seen by the BBC, show the extent of the scam:
"How many more times can claimants add children named Ha, Ha and Ha to their UC claims, or add a landlord called Harry Kane, or add any other obviously made-up names to claim a UC advance?"
"This is a massive issue. They are literally making up street names and children (I have had Lisa, Bart and Homer recently, Simpsons cartoon characters) getting the money and we never hear from them again."
"A lot of what we see is uni students being approached to make a claim for a fee: 19 years old with six blind children."
The forum, which is open to operational staff within job centres, says the scam is particularly rife in the north-west of England.
"Around 200-300 new referrals every day" in the region are fictitious, wrote one official, and "at between £1,200 and £1,500 for each advance, the numbers are staggering".
Another official writes that "the loss of taxpayers' money could be in the region of £20m".
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Re: PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS

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I saw that report.... Another black mark against IDS and his pet scheme.
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Re: PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS

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See THIS BBC account of a report commissioned by the Mayor of London , Sadiq Khan, which indicates a link between rising levels of violent crime in London with poverty. Of course, this is one of those links that we think are bleeding obvious but it can be quite difficult to prove evidentially. It looks as though this study has done that. One of the key areas in terms of public service cuts, let alone austerity in general, is the provision of youth services and the relationships with the police on the ground, all of which have been eroded by cutting funding from central government.
How long can these uncomfortable facts continue to be ignored by government? I forecast a long time ago that austerity would inevitably result in erosion of society. This is a prime example.
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Re: PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS

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See THIS Mirror report. Britain's households have experienced a slower income growth in the past two years than in the aftermath of the 1990s recession, figures suggest. Inflation coupled with falling wages has left families cash-strapped and struggling to make ends meet, according to think tank the Resolution Foundation’s annual Living Standards Audit. In addition, real wages haven't yet caught up in real terms with levels before 2008 and the Credit Crunch.
Remember May announcing that austerity had ended? Really......?
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Re: PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS

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Stanley wrote: 17 Jul 2019, 05:32 Britain's households have experienced a slower income growth in the past two years than in the aftermath of the 1990s recession, figures suggest
How can this be so? The latest Government pronouncement show that there are more people in work earning more money and spending a larger proportion via the internet. The high street bricks and mortar outlets are losing out because people are banking their money in the face of the Brexit uncertainty. Once Boris becomes Prime Minister the economy will take off like a rocket with firms taking advantage of the lower £pound. Exports will boom. As in the 'Life of Brian' always look on the bright side of DEATH.
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Re: PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS

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Irony alert Lads! He's so good at it.
As I have said so many times how many of these 'jobs' have good benefits and provide a living wage? Look at the number of employed people who are forced to go to food banks.....
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Re: PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS

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Tizer wrote: 09 Jul 2019, 09:19 `Universal credit: Multi-million pound scam targets claimants' LINK
Claimants are being tricked by scammers...
Messages from dozens of officials on an internal DWP message board, seen by the BBC, show the extent of the scam:
I dont belive it, it takes seconds for a Govt Agency to check a Electorial Register (I have moved and am deleted off Burnley already - I need to mail the new authority for my postal vote), the NHI and NHS number databases (NHS numbers are given at birth), reasonablness checkers and to check the Inland Revenue for Landlords who should have registered for Self-Employment ( well Schedule whatever for residental lettings ) within weeks of starting their business and of course some authorities have landlord registrations in some areas ( a requirement for all HMOs). The checking of The Land Registry takes seconds to do too. And that is without the Birth Registrations, Inbound Migration Records and so on. Without being (I trust) racist, there is , I admit, a problem with some african , and more particulary Indian/Pakistani names simply because of the way in which family and individual names are not linked in the same way as most European Conventions are. Mum has a neighbour whose children I think have either gone into care, or the father/s have claimed custody of so there will be an element of confusion occuring (she has I think a social worker support though that I trust is getting things right as an appropriate advocate). And I dont know of many advances of the four figure amounts. The old system worked/ or failed , quite well. In elements of the North West -and London, there are quite a lot of now homeless as landlords have changed or jobs lost and these are folk without right to a recorse to public funds as their immigration status has been under the radar for so long- working for cash and paying rent in cash for example and when illness strikes they move to begging or the charitable food banks (and realistically are we going to let some folk starve to death - the 10% and margin rule plus helping the stranger in your land are all good bibilcial principles wonderously forgotten by our tory party in their prayers.
Maybe the report was that with on-line submissions it is too easy to create non-existant persons and the weeding out has to be done manually- there is normally a declaration that the information is correct to the best of the submitters knowledge though.
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Re: PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS

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The proportion of crimes solved has fallen to the lowest level recorded, according to Home Office data. In the 12 months to the end of March only 7.8% of offences resulted in someone being charged or summonsed to appear at court. Work out for yourself why this might be....
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