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

CONSERVATIVES TO MAKE STATE PENSIONERS PAY FOR COVID AND BREXIT

Tory spin on pension figures is the rebirth of ‘Blame Game Austerity’

According to Government figures not adjusted for Covid 19 deaths there are 11,930,000 people of State Pension Age. 6,487,000 Women and 5,443,000 men in 2020.

The Tory spin doctors are attempting to inform the Working Age population of the UK that state pensioners receive £175.20 per week. This level of payment is only received by ‘New Pensioners’ who reached their state pension age this year, who in the main are women who have waited an additional 6 years to receive their pension. 

Most pensioners, approximately 11M receive less and for many older pensions much less.

The average state pension payment in the UK is £134.00 per week.
The Chancellor of the exchequer wants to freeze the increase in pensions (known as the Triple Lock formula) for two years or more in order to pay for his Governments incurred costs in handling the Covid 19 pandemic.

The triple lock ensures the state pension increases each year in line with the rate of inflation, average earnings growth or 2.5 per cent – whichever is higher.

State Pensions rose by 3.9% in mid 2020 due to the Governments poor handling of wage inflation factors last year.

The Government is preparing to let the economy go into free fall after it achieves its goal of a no-deal Brexit which is looking more likely as each month passes.

The Office of Budget Responsibility has released figures showing that state pensions will rise by 2.5% in 2021 and may rise by 18.3% in 2022. If the Government does not control wage inflation.

The Chancellor seems to be planning to use wage inflation for those remaining in work after Brexit to support growth in the service sector that will be suffering stagnation and massively high levels of unemployment by 2022.

The Office of Budget Responsibility spin doctors are using the top rate state pension for brand new pensioners as the base calculator for all pensioners and the Chancellor has followed suit, his news spin includes pensions will rise by £37.20 per week costing the nation an additional £34Bn by 2020.

Based on the actual average state pension and the actions of quantitative easing by the Bank of England yesterday who in true Keynesian style released £100Bn of ‘new money’ into the economy to negate the effects of inflation caused through Covid 19 and smooth a no-deal Brexit the cost to the nation ensuring economic free fall is avoided.

Real state pensions growth to protect the elderly through the triple lock would be 2.5% in 2021 a rise in the average payment of £3.35 and a 3.4% rise in 2022 of £4.66 would take the base average up to £142.02.

2022 begins the waning years of the baby boom with less people becoming state pensioners and with the average death rates in poorer areas going into a period of growth through more elderly people (700,000 predicted) falling into energy poverty then the new average, taking the rise for new pensioners into consideration should sit around £146.20 as new pensioners will receive £185.54 no where near the £212.45 being spun out by Government.

Taking the fall in numbers into consideration and the backwatching from the Bank of England the real rise will be in line with the OBR’s growth figures of £4Bn.

The treasury needs to ensure state pensioners are not left behind in the scramble for cash after Brexit and the Chancellor needs to concentrate on resolving wage and energy price inflation and not attack those who’s sweat and toil have given this nation the wealth it has.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=kukKpqd_B2c




 

Fears of Lower Aggregate Demand may bring on post-Covid and Brexit Stagflation

Add caption

With the social media platforms alight with raging cost of food from our primary supermarkets and the quietened by Government media guru’s last quarter fall in UKGDP to -20% and when coupled with Gove’s constant denials of all and everything on differing political platforms we seem to have missed the slippage into a ‘Bear Market’ mentality among economists.

The Dow Jones index agreed that the Western economies had slipped into an uncompromising position on March 11^th 2020 when the stock exchanges across most major countries had caused the index to fall by 20% from its previous 12 month average.

This led the very well respected economist Lord Robert Skidelsky of Warwick University to speak out on Bloomberg TV on the possibility of the UK entering a period of lower demand, that as the real unemployment levels following the Covid 19 Pandemic and the evident slippage by the Johnson/Cummings Government into a no deal Brexit will lead the nation by the nose into a period of ‘Lower Aggregate Demand’ and inflation similar to the 1970’s ‘Stagflation’ period when as the inflation reached its peak brought misery to millions as we experienced 15% mortgage rates to keep savings at a reasonable level and taxes down.

This ‘new wave’ Tory Government made up of many neoliberals who embrace market-oriented reform policies such as eliminating price controls, deregulating capital markets, lowering trade barriers and reducing state influence in the economy through austerity and privatisation among other reforming policies are driving the no-deal agenda which economists believe will lead to raging inflation and high unemployment.

In Northumberland 34,000 people are currently furloughed, receiving 80% of their ‘normal salary’ we can’t predict their future prospects as a huge percentage of those people work in the Tyneside Conurbation and are not measured in the County GDP figures, but needless to say we may find that matters begin to unravel from 15^th June 2020 the change from furlough to Universal Credit will begin for some, and with 10% of under 24’s already unemployed the scene for spending less will see its curtains rapidly raising.
 

Conservatives preparing to Concrete over your County Cummings and Jenrick about to change planning laws to favour developers.

The change over from Theresa May to Boris Johnson as Leader of the Conservative Party has changed the way top Tories think about managing the UK. For years the Conservatives have sat back on matters that drive progress at a local level running campaign after campaign on their wish to control planning in their locale and conserve what they have. Its often been said that you can tell a good Tory by the amount of ‘brown furniture’ they have in their homes, and in many respects that true. But Boris Johnson thinks completely differently to most of his cohorts and on the advice of his man Dominic Cummings in forcing an election on the nation last December called it right and damaged his enemies beyond belief. That campaign was extremely costly in cash term to the Tory party but on installing Mr Johnson into No. 10 his Cummings his prime advisor came up with a plan to hook up the Tories in the long term with a sector who’s profits have grown and grown for the last seven decades, Construction! The construction industry has only one hurdle to cross to ensure it grows even faster in future,’Planning Laws’. They are a very simple process that attempts to ensure the long term aims of Councils and the wants of the Nation are fulfilled whist protecting people and the Countryside whenever possible. Hiccup’s in Planning Law can take years of wrangling to resolve and can be extremely costly to developers in both time and cash, cash that they can’t donate to the Tory Party because its locked up. Its been reported that Mr Cummings the PM’s notorious senior advisor, had identified a shake up of the planning system as the Tories biggest priority as soon as Mr Johnson assumed the throne as Prime Minister with a huge majority. He saw it as a major obstruction to growth in one the countries largest sectors, the housing market. The PM has also told Parliament that he is going to launch a series of infrastructure projects to kick start the economy after Covid 19 and Brexit and his experience of planning in a previous life as the Mayor of London coupled with his parties HS2 and Cross rail arguments have steered him towards acceptance of the Cummings plan. Cummings who is a very clever spin doctor has had Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick’s department work up new rules on the back of the Labour Party’s long term slogan when Councillors are arguing for more social housing, that of ‘People wish to live in towns and villages in which they were either born or brought up’. This is a major change from Conservative beliefs as it puts pressure on Parish Plans, Local Plans and Core Strategies but this is the direction that Policy Exchange the Tory right wing think tank wish to take Planning Law and the Conservative Government in the near future. To that end Ministers are waiting with baited breath to launch a White Paper that will delver change which will effect every City, Town and Village in England and change the way Utility Companies and Councils have to work in future. Leaked plans include the introduction of a zonal planning system and the use of ‘special planning zones which will allow developers to ’bypass’ the bureaucracy of the planning system and to start building almost as soon as they have done a deal on the land. Robert Jenrick when questioned said he ‘wants to rethink planning from its first principles’. Jenrick is pushing a massive and dramatic extension of permitted development rights where developers can see vacant buildings demolished then immediately replaced with housing without the need for planning permission. Developments will be fast tracked through the system if they meet high design standards, putting pressure on village and County Town settings to accept higher population numbers into their communities, something that will be hated by the ‘Brown Furniture’ property owners. Its to be followed on by more bubble thinking from the Tories through the creation of special planning zones that would see Government investment in infratructure to open up sites for private development and zonal planning systems will stop your local Council being involved in planning outcomes. Jenrick is expecting the Tories ‘New Wave’ MP’s whom are mostly urban based to carry this white paper through its various Parliamentary stages, then the new Tories can sit back and watch their coffers grow. https://policyexchange.org.uk/publication/rethinking-the-planning-system-for-the-21st-century/

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/872091/Planning_for_the_Future.pdf

We the Laymen would love to see the Northumberland public included in decisions being made by their ‘Secret Council’ but it appears Labour Councils have time for their residents but Tory’s believe they know whats best for you and yours.

Durham County Council consult the public on the management of their ‘Street Space’
Northumberland haven’t bothered!


County Durham Council has begun a full public consultation about how your high streets and street space should look and be managed following the pandemic.


They have offered the public across the County the opportunity to comment and lobby their Council through the following process:

County Durham has been allocated just over £460,000 from the Reopening the high streets safety fund, with the main headings for funding being action plans, information campaigns and changes to the physical environment. It’s not a huge amount of money but if you want to lobby to involve your high street and your council in the process please contact Graham.Wood@durham.gov.uk and Wendy.Benson@durham.gov.uk.


They are also consulting the public on how their streets should look:

 

• Durham County Council consultation to identify locations where the current street layout could be improved to enable social distancing and to encourage travel by foot and cycle.  The govt announced a national £2 billion COVID response fund to be used to try and facilitate these forms of transport.  Please could you share the information via your social media and other communication methods so that as many people can respond as possible.  The consultation is quick and requires identifying locations on a map and providing notes about the location/issue.

Street Space County Durham consultation
Durham County Council are inviting you to take part in a Street Space County Durham consultation. The consultation runs until 31st July! You can access it through the link above and through the DCC website.
Background
Help us to identify locations in your neighbourhood that you feel need to have additional space provided temporarily to protect public health, by supporting social distancing in public spaces.
We want to encourage people to travel on foot and by bike during the coronavirus restrictions and into recovery. The government has made funding available as part of its emergency response to COVID-19. To enable us to apply for these funding opportunities, we need to know where measures are required. 
Temporary emergency measures using barriers, fencing or bollards could be used to:
·create pop-up cycle lanes
·reduce through traffic on certain roads
·reallocate road space to create wider pavements
·introducing 20 mph streets
·adding extra cycle parking
·remove street 'furniture' like pedestrian guard rails that are no longer required.
The consultation is specifically focussed on emergency measures to address social distancing for people on foot and on bikes. Please do not add long-term aspirational projects as these are not relevant for this consultation.
This online consultation uses Commonplace, an external website.
Please share with your friends, family, neighbours, colleagues, groups and clubs. We want to reach as many people as we can!

There’s nowhere to hide for Johnson’s new wave members as recession and Sumaks planned austerity scheme hits pensioners, public servants, the service industry and industrial sectors this autumn.

 

With both the Bank of England and the Times newspaper predicting a long period of mass unemployment and the UK economy now being completely ignored by both Trumps Government and the EU states, recession in our most major employment and spending sectors now seems inevitable.

This will bring huge numbers of people in contact with Ian Duncan Smith’s Universal Credit and Council Tax rebate schemes for the first time. Following on from the vicious debt trap of a badly managed Covid 19 period and Sumaks early end to his crutch of furlough schemes Autumn 2020 will be a bleak time for all.

The UK’s economic output dropped 15% in the second quarter of this year with only the essential supermarket chains predicting a rise in fortunes for the time being, but with the popular press predicting anywhere between two and five million unemployed the inevitability of the third quarter looking even worse than the early months of lockdown with Britain falling into an official recession looking more likely than ever.

Experts from Durham business school reminded us last month that during the 2008-9 recession the world economy contracted by 0.6% and caused untold misery to millions but they and others are predicting a 1.5% downturn with even the giant Chinese and Russian markets being caught up in this this massive retraction of trade in which its expected to take a decade or more to recover the lost ground economically.

The Tories only clue towards a response is to hint towards freezing state pensions and capping public sector pay rises including the NHS for at least two years, effectively using austerity to manage the economy creating a three tier society of the poor, the underclass and the Tories. Its an economy model which will sink the service sector for almost a decade.

Just to put this in perspective, Unite the union is predicting that over a third of the 3.2M who work in the hospitality sector will lose their jobs due to the way the Government reacted ridiculously late in introducing safety measures putting the economy before people and allowing massive events like the Cheltenham Festival take place also allowing the Prime Minister to miss Cobra meetings when he should have been steering the nation towards safety.

We laymen are sure some of Johnsons new wave MP’s do have a thought process but we would like to lay the type of odds that were found at Cheltenham that their thought process is fully engaged in worrying about the wages they will lose than bothering to think about how they can minimise the effects of their policy decisions on the electorate.