Losing energy

Energy bills are soaring, driving up inflation and contributing to the cost of living crisis afflicting millions of families hit by the recession. At the same time, energy companies are enjoying huge profits.

This week, it was revealed that an energy trader for E.ON – one of the Big Six energy companies operating in the UK – had lost £20m betting on European energy prices. There is no transparency in the speculative trading activities of the energy companies.

There is now a real suspicion that the COMPANIES are privatising the profits from this speculation – for the benefit of the shareholders - whilst socializing the losses – meaning that we all meet the cost of those losses in our bills. I’ve written to the regulator, OFGEM requesting a comprehensive investigation.

The government’s only answers to rising energy bills are to tell consumers they’re to blame for not shopping around enough and to cut back on the support it is offering to help people heat their homes.

There are things the government could do.

• First, it could make the energy companies check that all pensioners over 75 are on the cheapest possible tariff – saving up to 4 million pensioners as much as £200 a year.
• Second, it could make the energy companies ensure that all vulnerable pensioners and low-income families with children at risk of fuel poverty, and who receive the Cold Weather Payment, automatically receive the Warm Homes Discount.
• Third, it could reform the energy market by breaking the dominance of the Big Six, by requiring them to sell power into a pool, allowing new businesses to enter the market, increasing competition and driving down energy bills for families and businesses.
• Fourthly, it could protect small businesses from the energy companies’ rip-off tactics.

But, I don’t expect it will.

Betts tells councils – make a fuss

Local government is faced with reshaping services in an uncertain world – and with government's plan for reform looking fragmented, select committee chairman Clive Betts tells Public Service Events' Redesigning Local Services conference. There are solutions, reports David Allaby


Clive Betts, the Commons Communities and Local Government Select Committee chairman, could muster only a hesitant prognosis for local government as he opened his address to local government officers at Westminster Central Hall: "The reality is we have enormous uncertainty and I don't think anyone in the room could say with certainty where we will be in 10 years time." 

The former leader of Sheffield City Council, a keynote speaker at Public Service Events' Redesigning Local Services conference, feels that reform of local services is fragmented and some government departments show little interest in or have any plan for localism and devolved powers. 

"If I say what have free schools, police commissioners and GP commissioning got in common, it is that they have been thought up by different government departments in different ways without any thought to how they relate to the whole and how strategic accountability at local level can take place," he told the conference.

Betts believed the troubled families' initiative was full of possibilities. "But are we really going to get the Home Office, the police, Department for Education, councils and DCLG all signed to troubled families budgets, and how on earth do payment by results fit?" he asked. 

"How do you deal with academies, free schools or police commissioners who decide they don't want to take part in a troubled families budget because they all have their independence. All these have been set up without any thought to the wider strategic whole." 

Local government had to drive a new systemic approach to service redesign, said Essex County Council deputy leader David Finch. Redesign and efficiencies would deliver savings of £330m at the authority by next year. It was not just about keen procurement or negotiation with suppliers, more about how well local government could intervene in and shape the market. Local government was part of a change agenda that needed more responsive suppliers in a systemic approach.

"We want to make sure that collaboration in the market will help to move those markets where we want them to move," Finch said, and that was not always achieved through having one or two businesses in a dominant position. 

Localism as a concept was well supported, said Betts. "I am not saying we have got to the Promised Land yet in terms of delivering on localism, but general support for the concept is very strong across all political parties," he told the CMC Partnership-sponsored event.

And government wanted to engage with councils. He challenged local authorities to force Whitehall to accelerate devolution. "There is some truth in the fact that when you say to minister Greg Clark why aren't you giving more powers to councils, he says they don't ask for them – no one comes and knocks on our door and if they do we will take it seriously. The challenge is there to go and knock on government's door and make an awful fuss if you don't get a positive response," said Betts.

Councils needed time and management expertise, political will and sometimes upfront funding to reconfigure and meet the challenge, but he warned: "Many of them haven't got time because the savings have to be made in the first two years of a four-year period, management is preoccupied with cuts, and management itself is being cut, upfront funding is not available, and political will is sapped when councils have to take the hits from the public on service reductions."

Turning Point chief executive Lord Victor Adebowale admitted he was worried by the transition gap as cuts hit services before they could be redesigned. Government may have missed the opportunity to redefine commissioning, he said. 

Conference chairman Ian Briggs of Birmingham University's Inlogov said too much time was still taken up "doing process maintenance on existing systems". 

Betts saw community budgets as "a challenge to the silos of Whitehall. Sir Humphrey doesn't like community budgets, and there is a lot of resistance in Whitehall to them because it means a central government department doesn't necessarily control the money in their budget and decide the priorities for it in every area".

For all that the Localism Act was a step forward, he said, there were still too many restrictions on local government "which a real localism agenda ought to be challenging and getting rid of". 

'They don't know what they don't know'

• A former Downing Street insider, Campbell McDonald, of the Baxi Partnership, gave delegates an insight into some of the benefits and pitfalls of setting up cooperatives and mutuals from the public sector. He said that getting up in the morning was a far better experience when you had a stake and a say in how a business was run. It was a powerful experience. However, there was always much to learn, and Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude and Communities Secretary Eric Pickles had a habit of saying "Here's a good idea, go away and do it". But McDonald cautioned that there was a "Rumsfeld gap" of knowledge and experience for those spinning out businesses from the public sector: "They don't know what they don't know."

• The managing partner of an early Whitehall spin-out, John Craig of the Innovation Unit, said: "Unless you are engaging leaders and pushing them to a commitment to one another to do better, innovation will crash on the rocks of vested interest."


http://www.publicservice.co.uk/feature_story.asp?id=19773

Further education loans are a gamble too far for adult learners

Hot on the heels of trebling of tuition fees and the scrapping of Education Maintenance Allowances from 2013/14, the government is now planning to withdraw the support it currently offers for people aged 24 and over taking A-level equivalent courses and above (Level 3 and higher which includes apprenticeships). Last year, more than 4200 such students were in colleges in South Yorkshire.

Instead, it is planning a system of loans for Further Education students. As the Government is cutting its support - currently 50% of the cost, course fees are expected to rise dramatically to around £4000 a year. When students complete their courses and start to earn £21,000 or more, they will pay back the loans.

Isn't there something bizarre about expecting individual apprentices over 24, rather than their employers, to take on loan responsibilities when they are already taking a salary cut because of their training status?

The Government has no real evidence to suggest that the majority of people will feel either able or willing to take on such loans. Far from it; it has plenty to suggest they will not, especially given the gloomy economic climate. People who didn’t enjoy or do well at school often have to be supported and incentivised towards adult learning. Even the Government believes that a minimum of 20% of existing adult learners will simply fall by the wayside as a result of these changes.

The coalition also seems determined to introduce fees for access-to-HE courses, which are designed for those who missed out on university the first time; 70% of students are female.

It’s another attack on aspiration. It will particularly hit women.

When economic growth has stalled and public confidence is at an all-time low, introducing a ‘big bang’ loans system with potential learners and re-skillers - worried about debt, family circumstances and unemployment - seems particularly misconceived.

Now cancer diagnostic times up

Earlier this week, I revealed the massive scale of the shift of NHS resources – from the poorest areas, with the biggest health challenges, to the wealthiest areas, with the best health - that the Government is now planning. 

£345 million is to be taken from the NHS in Derbyshire and South Yorkshire and given to Surrey and Hampshire.

I also reported on the dramatic increase in the number of people waiting more than 18 weeks for hospital admission, both locally and nationally. In Derbyshire and South Yorkshire there has been a more than 70% increase since May 2010.

Now, I can reveal that there has been a 131% increase in the number of people waiting more than 6 weeks for cancer endoscopy tests since May 2010, according to this week’s Department of Health statistics.

Under the last Labour government, there were significant year-on-year cuts in waiting-time for cancer diagnostic tests and treatment. There were also clear plans to improve and speed up cancer tests in primary care. But, this government simply scrapped them, and now we see the results.

Catching cancer early is the only way to get survival rates up. Investment in early testing can save money from the costs of treating advanced cancers.

You might think that the Government is seriously concerned about these increasing delays. It isn’t. It has simply floated the idea of introducing charges for a fast-tracked testing service through one of its advisors. This is both disgraceful and unacceptable. The treatment of cancer must not be based on the ability to pay.

Is our NHS safe in this Government’s hands? Based on its record to date, the answer is short: No.

All in it together?

I make no apologies for returning to my concerns about what the Government is doing to our NHS.

After David Cameron promised ‘no top-down re-organisation of the NHS” and Nick Clegg promised a “bonfire of the quangos”, we now find ourselves in the biggest top-down re-organisation the NHS has ever seen and the creation of new quangos, whose spending powers swamp all the other quangos put together.

Meanwhile, waiting-times for treatment are continuing to rise, month-by-month. This government inherited a decade of falling waiting-times, year-on-year. Since Cameron, Clegg and Lansley took control they have shot up.

Between May 2010 and March 2012, the number of patients who have waited more than 18 weeks for admission to hospital have shot up by 68% in Sheffield, 78% in Rotherham, 21% in Barnsley, 61% in Doncaster and 141% in Derbyshire.

Now, the government has announced a new funding formula in the way it distributes money to address health inequalities. You will not be surprised that, rather like the new funding formulae for local government, the outcome is that funds are being massively transferred from the poorest areas in the country – those with the greatest health needs – to the wealthiest areas.

The scale of the cuts is dramatic. Sheffield will lose nearly £73m a year; Rotherham will lose more than £64m; Barnsley will lose nearly £90m; Doncaster will lose more than £78m, and Derbyshire will lose nearly £40m.

Meanwhile, Surrey will gain more than £400m; Hampshire will gain more than £322m and Oxfordshire – partly represented in parliament by David Cameron – will gain nearly £174m.

As with the budget announcement on taxes, this government has turned “to him that hath shall be given, and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath” into a mantra to be implemented.

We’re all in it together? You must be joking.

Queen’s Speech fails the test

The Queen’s Speech is a grand occasion, with lots of pomp and ceremony. But the contents of the speech itself showed that the Government’s plans for Britain are deeply out of touch with what businesses, families and the jobless need.

Basically, the message was “No change, no hope”. For a young person looking for work, for a family whose living standards are being squeezed, for a small business which can’t get money from the bank, this speech offered no hope.

This speech was supposed to be the government’s answer to the clear message from the local elections. But on this evidence, they still don’t get it.

The Government says people have turned against them because they don’t understand the plan for the economy. The truth is that it’s not the Government’s communications strategy that is the problem – it’s the policy failure.

David Cameron and Nick Clegg promised recovery, but they have delivered recession. We have the worst unemployment in 16 years, over a million young people out of work and the first double-dip recession in 37 years. We needed action that put building an economy that works for working people centre stage. It should have been a boost to family living standards. It was none of these things.

Bizarrely, David Cameron still responds to the alternative growth strategy by saying that it isn’t affordable because it would increase debt. It’s as though he hasn’t yet recognised that his government is now going to borrow an extra massive £150bn more than it said it would, because of the failure of his economic policies.

We’re now borrowing more to pay for the costs of increased unemployment and failing businesses. The same money could and should have been used to invest, creating real jobs, providing people paying tax rather than claim benefits.

People want to see the government offering practical, affordable ways to help people right now and get our economy moving again. The Queen’s Speech should have been quite different.

Building for the future

I chair the House of Commons All-Party Select Committee on Communities and Local Government. We’ve been conducting an investigation into housing supply and have just published our conclusions.

For decades, successive Governments have failed to deliver sufficient homes to meet demand. The country faces a significant housing shortfall, and the financial crisis has amplified the problem.  232,000 new households are forming each year in England, and yet last year fewer than 110,000 new homes were completed.
There is no 'silver bullet'. We have to muster all the resources we can.  The Government’s housing strategy has, in some aspects, made a useful start and I hope many of its measures will provide a stimulus over the short to medium term. But we need much more action if we are to see significant long term improvement in housing supply.
We set out four key areas for action, which, taken together, could go a long way to raising the finance needed to meet the housing shortfall:

• Large-scale investment from institutions and pension funds
• Changes to the financing of housing associations, including a new role for the historic grant on their balance sheets
• Greater financial freedoms for local  authorities
• New and innovative models, including a massive expansion of self build housing

We think that pension funds and large financial institutions have a blind spot when it comes to housing but their investment could deliver a significant number of new homes for rent.

After a visit to Almere in the Netherlands, we were convinced that there was real potential in self build, where people manage the construction of their own homes. Self build schemes could be a major new source of housing, but it will require government, local authorities and lenders to work together to get schemes underway very quickly. I’m pushing to get this initiative piloted locally.

Dangerous Dogs

The last government launched a consultation on toughening existing laws to protect the public from out of control dogs. That ended in June 2010. Since then, more than 12,000 people have received hospital treatment for dog bites. Yet only now has the Government set out some proposals.

Britain's top vet has warned that there are now more pit bulls in London than when the animals were banned under the 1991 Dangerous Dogs Act. The Metropolitan Police seized 1152 out of control dogs last year compared to just 27 in 2004/5 and spent over £2 million kennelling seized dogs.

The long awaited proposals include:

• Extending dangerous dog laws to all private property
• Consultation on whether breeders should be required to micro-chip dogs. 
• Giving the police more discretion to take decisions on seizing and kenneling dogs.

Providing £50,000 to animal charities to promote more responsible dog ownership in areas where they have high instances of dog-related problems

The Government’s proposals have been rubbished by dog and animal welfare charities, postal workers and the police, because there is no timetable for implementation. And, more importantly, the Government has dropped plans for Dog Control Notices and for the greater powers originally suggested to tackle irresponsible owners and backstreet breeders.

The RSPCA criticised the Government’s proposals, saying “these measures not only lack bite, they raise major questions about how exactly they expect to effectively tackle the danger of irresponsible ownership to both people and animals.”

The Government is making the right noises on a phased introduction of micro-chipping and on extending the law to attacks on private property but, bluntly, the package is half-baked and does nothing to act quickly on to tackle irresponsible ownership.

How many more people are going to be seriously injured before tough action is taken?

Too Deep, Too Fast

As the budget unravels, and the government has started a u-turn on a number of its earlier decisions, what comes through loud and clear is that families on low and middle incomes will continue to be hard hit.

It has now been confirmed that we have a double-dip recession – technically, where two successive periods of three months show a contraction in the economy. This is the real confirmation that the government’s economic strategy required cuts which were too deep and too fast.

It’s obvious really. If thousands more people become unemployed, and millions of families suffer big cuts in income, they don’t spend as much, leading to even more businesses going bust or facing difficulties and more people becoming unemployed. It’s a vicious downward spiral.

The Chancellor said his policies would lead to more exports and small business growth. The belief that we could dramatically increase our exports – in a time of global recession – to fill the gap was always vainglorious. And, this week it has been revealed that bank lending to small companies has fallen in each and every month since he took control.

The result is that the government is now predicted to borrow £150bn more than George Osborne forecast. This is all borrowing to fill the gap in the lost tax revenues caused by his own economic policy.

Low and middle income families are now beginning to feel the impact from the cuts in tax, child and housing benefits starting this month. Already struggling, they didn’t need to hear three more government announcements this week which will hit them harder in the future:

• more than 350,000 children are likely to lose free school meals next year with the introduction of universal benefit;
• a plan for regional pay, which would mean that nurses, midwives, hospital porters, cleaners and paramedics will earn less if they work in the north of England. [Can you explain why highly paid managers and doctors are exempt?] It intends to extend this policy to all public sector workers;
• an additional £16bn of cuts is now to be made.

Planning for better times

On Tuesday, the Government published its National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). It is meant to provide a framework within which local people and their councils can produce their own distinctive local and neighbourhood plans, reflecting local needs and priorities. Well, that’s the theory.

Planning is all about balances – economic, social and environmental. One person’s green space is another person’s housing plot. One company’s transport access is another person’s noise from morn ‘til night. One street’s useful, local bus-shelter is, for the home it’s outside, a place for litter and disturbance.

I chaired the all-party Select Committee which, having received vast amounts of evidence and heard many conflicting representations, produced an extremely critical report about the government’s original proposals last December.

In particular, we unanimously said that:

• sustainable development must take account of environmental and social issues as well as the economic ones that the government had prioritized;
• the presumption that any planning application should be agreed unless it could be proved that ‘the adverse effects significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits’ was just unacceptable;
• the priority for development must be brownfield first, not greenfield;
• shop and office developments need to be concentrated on existing town and district centres, not on out-of-centre sites; and
• existing sportsfields needed protection.

On a first reading of the final proposals, I’m pleasantly surprised that the government appears to have taken on board a lot of what we said.

The government also appears to have made one very important concession. It has agreed that councils can now make assumptions and take account of expected ‘windfall sites’ becoming available, when it is ensuring that enough development land is available to meet future requirements. This may have the effect of reducing the number of greenfield sites councils are required to identify for future development.