Virus Easing Use your bus pass before the Tories cut the benefit further.

Many elderly and disabled people fully rely on the benefit they receive through the National bus pass scheme to manage their lifestyles.


The scheme introduced by Labour in 2008 to bring English pensioners a benefit which had been enjoyed by the Scots and Welsh for many years prior and to gift free off peak bus travel to almost 20% of English residents, has untold benefits beside filling empty seats on off peak buses.

Regular travel by bus helps to break the cycle of social isolation something that has been prevalent in the lives of many pensioners during the recent pandemic as well as giving people the chance to exercise whilst shopping and enjoying travel further that their local shops that they may possibly just not be bale to afford otherwise.


In 2008 the scheme benefited everyone over the age of 60, 10 years of Tory austerity changed the face of the scheme and now people can only access the pass when they reach pensionable age, thats now a seven year cost saving to the Government from its original concept.


The affordability of the scheme is currently in question by Councils and the condition the current Conservative Government has left many County and Metropolitan Boroughs in financially through increased Covid 19 social services and public health costs has them considering the price of the scheme particularly when buses are also non-commercial and subsidised in rural areas. With Tory councillors asking about ‘double charging’ e.g. subsidy and covering pass costs as successive austerity led Governments have allowed more and more of the costs fall onto hard pressed local authorities.

The Concessionary Bus Travel Act states that local bus operators should be “no better nor worse off” as a result of the scheme, which meant that reimbursement rates would be less than standard fares to allow for the fact that many extra journeys would be taken by pass holders. This ensured Councils got an excellent rate for journey’s travelled.


Covid 19 has vastly reduced the benefits to the bus companies and the worry that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is running around trying to blame the costs of Covid 19 on anyone but the Johnson Government doesn’t bode well for the continuation of the pass scheme.


Local and National Government spent £985M on the concessionary bus pass scheme last year but that was offset by the £2,9Bn spent by pass holders in local economies on a trip taken with their pass.


State pensioners who make up 20% of England's population are needed to aid the financial recovery of the nation as they make up the prime daytime economy from Monday to Thursday. They support local markets and shopping and have increased their spend as the triple lock which is also being attacked by the Tories has grown their incomes.


We laymen in Northumberland are extremely concerned about the Tories thoughts on double charging and the cost implications on Councils next year as bus companies have taken a huge hit through Covid 19. The Council in Northumberland has recently released figures about supported buses and its those supported buses and the communities they serve which will be hit first so we urge everyone with a concessionary pass to ensure they use it as soon as they feel safe enough to do so and save rural buses in Northumberland and across England.


Northumberland County Council Information


Service Contract Description Operation Annual Cost What it covers
No of Days
DAR 1 Wooler, Whittingham Market day
PC0010 and Lesbury pilot Alnwick Tues £3,900.00 service - one
DAR's return trip
Market day

691 Upper Coquetdale & Morpeth Mon £2,544.00 service - one
return trip
Market day

694 Redesmouth to Hexham Tue + Fri £13,528.00 service - one
return trip
Market day

695 Blanchland to Hexham Tues £3,655.60 service - one
return trip
Market day

696 Carrshield to Hexham Wed £3,725.90 service - one
return trip
Whittonstall, New Ridley Market day

613 and hexham Tues £4,680.00 service - one
return trip

680 Hexham to Bellingham Mon - Sat £81,514.30 full timetable
seasonal

AD122 Hexham to Haltwhistle Mon-Sun & £25,080.00 tourist
B/Hols service full
timetable
Byrness and Otterburn to Market day

885 bellingham Tues £10,400.00 service - one
return trip
Carrshield - Hexham Market day

889 Tuesdays Tues £6,923.80 service - one
return trip
Market day

406 Longframlington and Alnwick Wed £2,100.00 service - one
return trip

131 Jedburgh - Newcastle via Mon - Sat £23,156.83 full timetable
Otterburn

267 Wooler and Berwick via Mon - Sat £94,769.60 full timetable
Milfield

464 Wooler and Berwick via Mon - Sat £76,018.20 full timetable
Lowick

470 Wooler and Alnwick via Mon - Sat £68,625.00 full timetable
Chatton

473 Wooler and Alnwick via Mon - Sat £82,350.00 full timetable
Powburn
Wed Sch & seasonal

477 Berwick - Holy Island Mon - Sat £22,653.18 tourist
(Non Sch) service full
timetable

710 Kelso - Newcastle via Sat £6,630.00 full timetable
Coldstream, Wooler
Market day

460 Eglingham - Alnwick Thur £3,432.00 service - one
return trip
Market day

266 Wooler & Kirknewton Wed £2,915.00 service - one
return trip

448 Guide Post and Bedlington Mon - Fri £18,145.00 school journey
Station (Sch) full timetable

X84 Ovington Newcastle (as now Mon - Sat £63,940.20 full timetable
to Hexham)

692 Newbiggin Nipper Tue + Fri £4,538.14 full timetable

689 Consett & Hexham Mon - Sat £28,233.85 full timetable

681 Slaggyford and Haltwhistle Mon - Sat £56,970.95 full timetable

434 Ashington & Blyth via Mon - Sat £39.81 Off peak
Cambois daytime

X14 Thropton and Morpeth Mon - Sat £52,961.01 full timetable

418 Alnwick & Belford via Coast Mon - Sat £71,065.00 full timetable

309 Blyth and Whitley Bay Mon - Fri £2,368.08 one early am
journey

East Hartford & Cramlington
58 to East Cramlington Mon - Fri £32,510.50 full timetable
Hosipital Holywell &
Hartley Square

Hoppa Berwick Town service Mon - Sat £29,650.00 full timetable

688 Hexham - Allenheads via Mon - Sat £64,580.70 full timetable
Allendale

74 Hexham - Newcastle Via Mon - Sat £53,778.22 full timetable
Stamfordham, Ponteland

808 Otterburn - Newcastle Mon - Sat £36,600.00 full timetable

185 Haltwhistle and Carlisle Mon - Sat £33,916.00 full timetable
now Birdoswald

683 Hexham Town Service Mon - Sat £55,726.55 full timetable

684/686 Hexham and Prudhoe via Mon - Sat £61,695.40 full timetable
Ovingham

15 Thropton and Alnwick Mon - Sat £30,600.00 full timetable

16 Rothbury and Coquetdale Tue + Thur £6,432.00 full timetable
Circular

57A Holywell to Cramlington Mon - Sun £5,585.93 full timetable
In

19 Ashington and North Shields Mon - Sat £28,892.94 Northumberland
- full
timetable
market day

882 Barrasford to Hexham Sat £3,640.00 service - one
return trip
West and East market day

815 Woodburn,Otterburn,Byrness Fri £1,560.00 service - one
and Rochester into return trip
Bellingham

T01 Alnwick and Amble - Mon - Sat £6,100.00 Amble links
Deminimis extension

Alnwick and Berwick via
X15 warenford - Deminimus Mon - Sat £66,431.64 full timetable
Payment

X18 Alnwick and Berwick via Mon - Sat £66,313.80 full timetable
coast - Deminimis Payment

Alnwick to Amble Winter Winter Winter Sundays
X18 Sundays - Deminimus Payment Sundays  £5,062.40 extension to
Alnwick

773 -764 X Border contribution - Annual £8,076.70 Contribution
Townfield - consett Charge to Durham CC
Contribution

67, 67P Berwick to Galashiels Monthly £45,999.96 to Scottish
charTge Borders
Council
 

Will Less Grass and more Council services be cut to support Newcastle Airport?

In the past, many residents of the North-East haven’t put flying out to Benidorm or Prague for a boozy weekend or a hen party as anything to do with the renewal of books in your local library the cleanliness of your high streets or how warm the water is in your local swimming baths, but it does.


Newcastle airport has been one of the North Easts success stories for decades, 51% is in the ownership of the seven Councils of the North East both North and South of the Tyne and your Council has milked the profits to support front line services and more recently linked the aspirational growth in their business plans and core strategies with the economic plans of both the airport and the region.


An example of the power of a top regional airport to Government being the aspirations to reopen and expand the regions rail-network with pipeline projects such as the Leamside line, now on the Governments investment list and the Northumberland line, a simple reopening to passenger traffic for one of the North Easts now less used mineral lines which links South East Northumberland travellers up to the airport via the metro system have only seen progress through the emergence of the airports masterplan which is aspirational in wanting to increase passenger numbers who arrive by public transport from its current base of 13% up to 30% by 2035. The emerging masterplan allowed Northumberland County Council to invest heavily in the study’s required by law to reopen this line between 2013 and 2017.


Covid 19 and the Governments response to Councils has left both the airport who directly employ 3,900 staff and support a further 15,000 full time jobs on airport related activity besides many more in the regional economy, are still waiting for the Government to unveil anything but rhetoric on their support plan for aviation leaving the North-east communities reliant of aviation jobs, mainly Newcastle, North Tyneside and Northumberland suffering a massive jobs black hole that in the words of Unite the Union who have reported their concerns to their members ‘may take decades to recover’.


The Local Government Trade Unions, GMB/UNISON already working with councils to save front line services jobs following the latest Government Covid pressure on Councils and the lack of support for the extra spend the pandemic has placed on social services have the added problems of arguing about where your Council should spend to safeguard most communities this winter, local services or the long term economic miracle of Newcastle Airport.


As Northumberland laymen we are aware that Councillor Oliver of Corbridge has reported in one of his Black Hole papers to the Councils cabinet that the government owes the Council £12M. In recent weeks they have also spun out massive figures and promises of investment County-wide including the statement they will be using reserves to fund the rebuild of Blyth’s Town Centre, pay for new schools in Ponteland and Hexham and a myriad of other undeliverables such as Bedlington and Ashington ‘holes’ prior to the elections in 2021.


He seems to forget when he’s spouting that Northumberland is unique in being intrinsically linked with the National Health Service and Governments experiment to weld social services and health together, they even share a Chief Executive with the NHS and that experiment has a massive cost.


The well reported hatred of public services of Boris Johnson and his Parliamentary Cabinet team and the Covid and no deal BREXIT excuses will allow him to deny access to winter pressures funding to the NHS for the next two years as his support for the City and market forces are rekindled whilst Covid 19 subsides, leaving Northumberland in the funding dilemma of who to support with only enough true reserves to cover the Councils long term borrowing will it be the Airport and its re-emergence as a regional profit maker, front line Council Services or the NHS?


It would be great if the Conservative Northumberland County Council could tell us without the spin but their Dominic Cummings links won’t allow it!
 

 

Conservatives being led by the nose with Tories holding the strings.

UK farming and food ditched by Government, Its the Stock Market’s US interests and not the People for Boris and Dominic!


UK Agriculture plays a vital role providing 61% of the raw materials for the wider UK agri-food industry which is worth around £108 billion of GVA to the national economy and provides over 3.7 million jobs. The agri-food sector as a whole generates around £18 billion of gross export earnings for the UK each year.


Last years news that Labour was introducing a farming tax was a ‘Cummingsianism’ an unacceptable Tory political lie!

The Labour Party’s farming policy is and always has been to protect the interests of UK farmers, agri-food producers and high quality British Food standards.


With millions about to join either the hidden Universal Credit population become a reduced earning state pensioner or a Government labelled ‘striver’ your about to be joined by hundreds of thousands of agricultural workers and family farmers who’s livelihoods will be lost or slashed as the Government signs up to embrace the backsides of the US food marketeers, the soya lobby, US brewing conglomerates and accept seriously lower food standards through the Governments Agriculture Bill.


PS. Boris Johnson was ‘Born in the USA’
 

Northumbria Police Commissioner Kim McGuinnes and North of Tyne Mayor Jamie Driscoll need to unite to map the forthcoming recession.

Waiting with baited breath to see the real effects on people of the forthcoming Covid and Brexit based recession when coupled with the Tories changes to planning law to suit the offer made to bring between 3-5m Hong Kong residents to the UK is a time for some serious reflection.


Living in an area with a rapidly changing identity made up of a City region and an ancient County we will be seen as an area to experiment with by the current Government.


Some of us more elderly laymen can remember the Thatcher and Norman Tebbut eras and how people from this area were used for the ‘get on yer bike’ experiments and we know how close this Government is to that historic way of thinking.


As a nation moving rapidly towards isolation from our neighbours, to produce enough food to feed us all this current Government needs to move many landowners from being Euro supported agriculturalists over to mass producing horticulturalists, but to do that they need a ready supply of cheap labour to encourage the farming squires to embrace the new economy.


Boris Johnson probably believes he will will get that labour market fixed in using Hong Kong residents escaping the pressure to conform being exerted by mainland China, but we must remember that if that is his plan up to five million people will need places to live.


Dominic Cummings has been working on the post Brexit changes to planning law required to implement such a plan. Under his dream it will be easier to replace existing buildings and construct upwards. Greenbelts will also be exposed to change through the adoption of a zonal planning system and it will become the norm to change the designation of property from Commercial to Residential if need exists.


Need does exist and it exists everywhere, Shelter tell us that one million people are currently in need of suitable housing and at least 300,000 new social homes are needed before the current administration leaves office to ensure a standstill situation, leaving new residents and current displaced families in exactly the same position as when this Government arrived.
To access funds to house those in greatest need Authorities need to know where that need is. It will be a rapidly growing need way in excess of anything we have known over the last 35yrs as the expected recession arrives with a wave of the governments right hand and the protection of furlough turns to universal credit.


As we all know poverty and homelessness leads to rising crime rates and both will increase rapidly over the coming months.


Therefore we the laymen believe that the mapping of poverty to access funds needs to be joint effort from the PCC and the North of Tyne Mayor and has to start today. It needs to map those in the poverty trap and those close to it so that Town and Country planners can work to locate sites and produce the very flexible housing plans for the future to assist in where the new horticulture units housing and transport links to serve horticulture need to be placed with the A1 and A69 corridors being easy Government targets for both.
 

Northumberland’s ‘Black Holes’ Sci-fi or Fact?

 

A couple of weeks ago Northumberland County Council reported to its secret cabinet that the Government had left them with a £12M Black-Hole in their accounts through Covid 19 and then spun that as news out into the local press.

Running stories based on Black-Holes has become a regular feature of the management style adopted by Councillor Oliver of Corbridge who holds the finance portfolio on Northumberland County Councils one party only ‘secret cabinet’. He located his first black hole back in 2017 a few weeks after his Tories took office and began paying handsome sums to officers they thought may not share their loyalty to them and those who may question their newly adopted delivery tea

Councillor Olivers initial black hole wasn’t recorded in the first set of accounts put out from the current Tory regime nor did the external auditor comment on it in his annual report so we need to ask as county Laymen, when does a black hole in the accounts become a recognised black hole and why has the Chairperson of internal audit Councillor Ms Georgina Hill of Berwick not adopted a process for the true recognition of the matter.

The answer to that may lay in the fact that Councillor Ms Hill has been noted in a report by an outgoing Nationally recognised external auditor of running an internal audit committee that does not show any independence from the administration whatsoever.

We will give a couple of examples here:
Councillor Olivers first announced black hole in 2017 was not looked at by Ms. Hills audit committee in any detail as no schedule explaining his accountancy problem was put forward through the internal audit process. Therefore the scrutiny of this item did not take place at committee or through the corporate scrutiny panel of the Council but it was spun out into the mainstream media.

Also the Council through its described non-independence has employed four heads of finance in the last three years of office (a form of tantrum management maybe? ).This has led to possible black holes being missed from Ms Hills agenda such as the dreadful change from successful arms length company ARCH to mediocre Advance Northumberland where the huge costs of change from one to the other were reported by the external auditor but not correctly brought for debate and scrutiny to the internal audit committee by neither the Internal Auditor nor Ms Hills. This could be a correct example of a black hole that was clearly missed through the non-independence of her and her internal audit team and committee.

When coupled with the massive losses made by Advance Northumberland in the last two financial years Councillor’s Oliver and Hills missed three opportunities to report and have recorded true ‘black-holes’ in the accounts but didn’t bother as we laymen suspect they were caused through the political management of the current administration and we can’t have that reported can we?

So back to our original question, when is a black hole a true black hole and when is it just sci-fi. I bet the Government audit office will be checking on Councillor Olivers latest outburst before settling on a figure the Government owes Northumberland as they will not have missed their questionable recent financial history.




 

Philanthropy and sitting like the Jack of Spades won’t deliver ‘best value’ for the Council taxpayer.

When Northumberland Labour last won enough seats to form a minority administration in May 2013,following a five year coalition between the Tories and the LibDems they had the Governments auditors look at the books to locate any anomalies to ensure they could deliver ‘Best Value’ for Northumberland’s Council taxpayers.

A number of the more serious issues revolved around the finance of the Children Services and the viability of some schools. The Council then began a deep dig to locate the full extent of the problem.

It was found that funding for schools delivering 6^th forms struggled with finance as young people were disappearing from the system County-wide to take courses out of County and £3.3m of Council taxpayers cash was being used to support the demise of the Counties high schools.

It was found that young people were being furnished with first class rail travel passes as well as unlimited travel bus passes travelling to private education establishments in Durham and out of County colleges to the detriment of its own

Labour pushed on with a plan to aid schools without damaging he opportunities for special educational needs children and those who could least afford to travel to take courses that would benefit them in the future and the taxpayers bill dropped from £3.3m to an affordable figure that diminished over three years down to £240,000 whilst high school budgets recovered as students stayed local to take their higher level exams.

 The Council changed hands over to the Tories during 2017

Then during early 2018 the penniless philanthropist using taxpayers cash Councillor Wayne Daley, who was in the middle of a battle with Tynedale ‘Stars’ education group, decided to unlock the Council Policy without rewriting it and give ‘Free Travel’ passes to young people if they would pay the first £50 to cover the administration costs of the scheme

The expenditure in the first year, 2018-2019 soared to £706,000 and is racing upwards towards their previous coalition spend. In year one of the ‘freedom’ an additional 748 young people joined the scheme. When coupled with their own £50, £671 was paid towards each travel pass for students roughly the same cost as a commercial pass from Arriva and the Counties other bus providers for passes which cover Northumberland, Newcastle and Tyne & Wear unlimited for the full academic year.

The other £241,000 cover the costs for 129 young people who are either SEND or members of lower income families.

This is certainly a ‘one eyed jack’ management arrangement.

As described by the outgoing external auditor the lack of independence in internal audit will mean this costly change will never be looked at clearly nor properly by the internal audit committee but as Council taxpayers questions should be asked what are the Tories attempting to not tell you.

As Laymen we would like to thank the TPA for the FOI covering this matter and hope that schools affected will openly report their concerns as the delivery of Best Value also affects them.

 

Items for editors:

https://www.northumberland.gov.uk/NorthumberlandCountyCouncil/media/Document-store/School%20Transport/Post-16-Transport-Policy-2020-21.pdf

Conservatives Killed ARCH but can’t deliver best value with its replacement ADVANCE Northumberland.

Arch, the Northumberland County Council owned company who’s reputation was poisoned by Northumberland Conservatives in their campaign to win the Local Government elections in 2017 was not scrapped as described in Councillor Peter Jackson the Tory leader’s manifesto. It was simply replaced by their own company ADVANCE Northumberland.


Unlike the very successful company ARCH who even delivered a rural Grant system on the governments behalf due to infighting among the Tories the company ADVANCE has been shown to fail in all its endeavours and lost £4m during 2018-19.


Following that failure they should have been able to drive improvements through the simple art of planning for success, but their plan failed in its aims and they were caught out by their external auditor, who has told the public in his letter to the Council and the company that they have not delivered best value for their taxpayers and do not allow their audit process any independence and act in the same manner as its parent the Council.


Its also believed by many that when the company changed from ARCH to ADVANCE the Tories in their infinite wisdom forgot to protect its Directors and indemnify them from responsibility in the event of losses. The ducking out of top Tories from the Board of Directors including the Leader and his Deputy who’s joint aim it was to ‘scrap ARCH’ shows there may be some truth in those beliefs.


The auditors letter has been reproduced for this article and the link to companies house placed below so you the taxpayer can view the high profile bailouts.


The question has to be: will the next Labour Council choose to scrap ADVANCE?

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/11161983/filing-history