Treatment waiting times at record low, proof our investment in NHS is delivering for patients. #welovethenhs
— David Cameron (@David_Cameron) October 18, 2012

Jesus wept!

Number of UK poor receiving emergency food aid doubles

The number of the UK's poor and destitute receiving emergency food aid has almost doubled in the past six months, the country's largest organiser of food banks has reported.

Figures from the Trussell Trust, which operates 172 food banks and has a further 91 banks under development nationwide, show that from April to September nearly 110,000 adults and children were referred for emergency help by professionals such as the police, social workers and job centre advisers and GPs.

The trust, which operates a controlled voucher scheme to track referrals, said that in the whole of the last financial year they fed 128,000 people. Based on demand over the last six months, they expect that number to rise to more than 200,000 between 2012-13.

In the trust's south-west region, one in 120 children have been fed with food packages during the last six months, while in Wales the current figure stands at one in 130.

A breakdown of the figures also shows that while less than one percent of those being referred are pensioners, there appeared to be a prevalence of young teenagers and adults taking up emergency food aid.

In the latest set of figures, 14,500 people, 16% of all those being referred, were aged 16-24, a group that makes up around 11% of the UK population in total.

The trust's executive chairman, Chris Mould, said that while they weren't reaching as many old people as they should be, travel and rent increases and the dire state of the youth employment market had left many of the UK's young adults in a desperate state with little financial resilience.

"When you've got people who are on the margin of just making it and there's another price rise, another change in their outgoings, they can't negotiate [the change]... something gives, and it is going to be the food."

The trust's own indicators show that the largest block of people were being left unable to feed themselves because of delays or a change in circumstances to their benefit claims.

Currently 45% of professionals referring families and adults for food packages cited troubles and delays with the benefits system, a figure that was up from around 40% on the year before and had more than doubled since the recession began in 2009.

Mould said the rise was "significant". "In the first half of this year that's another six or seven thousand people who are being helped at food banks because of problems relating to the timely availability of benefits," he said.

Mould said that other reasons for hunger included debt and delayed wages; circumstances arising out of domestic violence and sickness, but that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) who are responsible for the benefits system needed to ask why so many people were being left hungry by bureaucratic failure; increased use of benefit sanctions; and the government's reform measures, which could require benefit claimants to switch to different types of benefits.

"The period in which people are left with no recourse to money and therefore an inability to get food on the table is longer," Mould said.

"The DWP should be deeply interested in what's driving and generating these crises. They really should be asking the question, is there anything we can do to resolve this and to reduce the prevalence, the occasions per month when this happens."

In response to the figures, a DWP spokesperson cited the fact that 80% of benefit claims were turned around in 16 days and said that reforms were making the welfare system more effective. "We recognise the welfare system we inherited is broken, trapping on benefits the very people it was designed to help. Our reforms will transform the lives of some of the poorest families in society by making work pay and lifting thousands out of poverty," a department spokesperson said.

"Jobcentre plus processes thousands of benefit payments each day and we also pay crisis loans to help people who have emergency costs or benefit delays. Where appropriate we also refer people to the Trussell Trust following their request for us to do so," they added.

Shiv Malik and John Burn-Murdoch, The Guardian

Cameron: 'This party has a heart'

Here's an extract from David Cameron's speech to the Tory faithful at Conference 2012:

"This party has a heart but we don’t like wearing it on our sleeve. Conservatives think: let’s just get on with the job and help people and not bang on about it. It’s not our style. But there’s a problem with that. It leaves a space for others to twist our ideas and distort who we are: the cartoon Conservatives who don’t care.

My mission from the day I became leader was to change that. Yes, to show the Conservative party is for everyone: North or South, black or white, straight or gay. But above all - to show that Conservative methods are not just the way we grow a strong economy, but the way we build a big society.

That Conservative methods are not just good for the strong and the successful but the best way to help the poor, and the weak, and the vulnerable. Because it’s not enough to know our ideas are right – we’ve got to explain why they are compassionate too. Because we know what we’re up against.

We say we’ve got to get the private sector bigger and the public sector smaller…our opponents call it ‘Tory cuts, slashing the state’. No: it’s the best way to create the sustainable jobs people need.

We say help people become independent from welfare…our opponents call it: ‘cruel Tories, leaving people to fend for themselves.’ No: there is only one real route out of poverty and it is work.

We say we’ve got to insist on a disciplined, rigorous education for our children…our opponents call it: ‘elitist Tories, old-fashioned and out of touch.’ No: a decent education is the only way to give all our children a proper start in this world.

The reason we want to reform schools, to cut welfare dependency, to reduce government spending is not because we’re the same old Tories who want to help the rich...

...it’s because we’re the Tories whose ideas help everyone - the poorest the most."

North-eastern NHS Trust set to sack 5,500 staff and re-employ them on inferior terms and conditions

NHS bosses in North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust are due to sack all 5,500 staff and re-employ them on inferior terms and conditions which is a move away from the national agreement Agenda for Change (AFC). The Trust runs University Hospital of North Tees in Stockton and the University Hospital of Hartlepool.

It aims to remove enhanced sick pay from those staff entitled to be paid the normal shift rate when on sick leave. This is part of the national terms and conditions and signals a move away from AFC by the employers that could see the introduction of regional pay and further attacks on terms and conditions. This proposal is part of a package to make savings of £40 million over three years. Previous plans by the Trust included regular car boot sales in the hospital car parks.

Managers have called this a consultation exercise yet plan to sack staff; and those who refuse the new terms will have them imposed upon them without any form of negotiation or consultation. The Trust is hoping to close the two main sites and develop a single centre. Previous plans under PFI have failed and it now looks like NHS staff are being penalised in order to fund new developments.

Nationally AFC is under attack and the employers want to negotiate a range of cuts to terms and conditions attacking holiday entitlement, sick pay, shift allowances and pay progression in return for so called guarantees and no further cuts in the future.

Alarmingly, there have been signs in the early stages from the unions that they would be prepared to negotiate and that the unions should enter into a form of concession bargaining. This has been met with understandable opposition from union branches and members with the call that this agreement should be defended and unions should refuse to negotiate any erosion of pay and conditions. So far the unions have not made a clear statement saying they will refuse to negotiate and further talks are to take place.

There have also been developments in the South West where employers have set up a pay cartel to try to break up national bargaining and introduce regional pay. And there have been rumours of a pay cartel in the Northern region despite a number of Trusts saying they have no intentions of moving away from AFC.

Unison's head of Health has issued a strong statement attacking this proposal and warns of the potential impact of staff coming into work when unwell and the potential threat to vulnerable patients.

Strong words must be matched with action and a campaign to defeat these moves and defend the national agreement. A local and regional fightback is needed now but unless the unions organise on a national basis and prepare for industrial action there will be similar moves across a range of NHS Trusts as managements try to make workers pay for the crisis in funding and the attacks on the NHS by the Con-Dem coalition government.

John Malcolm, Unison branch secretary (mental health), writing in a personal capacity on the Socialist Party website

Cuts could force Shelter office closures

Shelter is considering closing eight of its advice offices in England because of cuts to legal aid. The government cuts will mean a 50 per cent reduction in funding for the housing charity’s face-to-face advice services. Shelter is currently consulting staff on the impact of the cuts before it makes a decision.

Campbell Robb, chief executive of Shelter, said: ‘If these services have to close as a result of cuts to legal aid, this will be a massive blow not only to our staff, but to the people in the affected areas who will no longer be able to get face to face advice and support from Shelter. We will be doing all we can to ensure people around the country can still get help with their housing problems through our helpline and website.’

He added that the ongoing recession and welfare reforms mean the loss of the services would be felt particularly keenly. The affected offices would be in Rotherham, Ashford, Milton Keynes, Cheshire, Gloucester, Somerset, Hertfordshire and Cumbria.

Inside Housing

Kenyans tortured by British colonial forces told they can sue Britain

Three elderly Kenyans tortured by British colonial forces were told they can sue Britain, in a London court judgment likely to encourage other claims dating back to the days of the British Empire. The government, which had tried for three years to block their legal action, said on Friday it planned to appeal as the judgment could have far-reaching legal implications.

Paulo Nzili, 85, Wambugu Wa Nyingi, 84, and Jane Muthoni Mara, who is about 73, suffered castration, rape and beatings while in detention in the 1950s during a crackdown by British forces and their Kenyan allies on the Mau Mau movement fighting for land and freedom.

The trio want Britain to apologise and to fund welfare benefits for Kenyan victims of torture by colonial forces. "The people they imprisoned and put in the detention for seven years (resulted in Kenya) losing a generation," Gitu Wa Kahengeri, Mau Mau War Veterans Association secretary general, told reporters in Nairobi. Nearby, about 40 Mau Mau veterans and relatives cheered, hugged and performed a traditional dance in the midday heat when the news came through.

The veterans said British authorities should stop using legal technicalities to fight the case and, instead, negotiate a settlement speedily as the claimants were frail and elderly. "What could be more despicable, what could be more immoral of Her Majesty's Government than to bide time simply to wait for all these victims to die one by one before tasting justice," Paul Muite, a lawyer advising Mau Mau Veterans, told reporters in Nairobi.

At first, Britain had said that responsibility for events during the Mau Mau uprising passed to Kenya upon its independence in 1963, an argument which London courts rejected. The government then said the claim was brought long after the legal time limit. However, judge Richard McCombe said in Friday's judgment there was ample documentary evidence to make a fair trial possible. "The government and the military commanders seem to have been meticulous record-keepers," he said.

The Foreign Office said while it did not dispute that the claimants suffered torture and other ill treatment, it would appeal nevertheless, because of the judgment's implications.

Reuters

Revealed: David Cameron's ignorance

'He went, he smirked, he was thoroughly humiliated. It was never supposed to turn out like that for the PM Big Dave. What does Magna Carta mean, asked David Letterman, the king of late night TV in the United States. Britain's shame-faced prime minister didn't know. But then this was nothing more than poetic justice. 

For just a couple of months ago, Cameron quite literally turned his back on an opportunity to learn everything that there is to know about Magna Carta at a special private exhibition painstakingly prepared by the London Metropolitan Archive at London's Guildhall. When he was about to be introduced to the document, with experts standing by to answer his every question, Cameron's response was to spin on his heel with a curt "I've seen that" and go into a corner to play with his iPhone. "It was breathtakingly rude," said one witness. And costly. Poor Dave. Oh dear.'

Hugh Muir, Guardian

NHS faces £8bn cuts 'after next election'

What did I tell you?

Independent - http://ind.pn/UeXNiJ

NHS has cash reserves of £4 billion, Audit Commission reveals

The NHS has built up cash reserves of almost £4bn even as rationing has increased, the number of nurses has fallen and the service has had to make unprecedented savings, an Audit Commission report reveals.

"This would not happen if hospitals were directly run by the NHS – money could then be moved to where it is needed most, balancing the books and safeguarding patient care," said Christina McAnea, head of health at the union Unison, which represents 400,000 NHS staff.

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: "It is better to plan for a surplus because it gives the NHS the flexibility to respond to the unexpected."

Like being told its budget is no longer ring-fenced?

Guardian - http://bit.ly/PBARWD

The Olympic Legacy 2012

The government has published a 10-point plan for securing a lasting legacy from the Olympic Games.

• £125m per year funding for elite sport over the next four years - up until Rio 2016.

• £300m investment to turn the Olympic site into the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, open to the community.

• Bringing 20 major sporting events to UK by 2019, with more bids in progress.

• Sport England's £135m Places People Play legacy programme to fund new facilities, volunteering and participation programmes.

• £1bn investment over the next five years in the Youth Sport Strategy, linking schools with sports clubs and encouraging sporting habits for life.

• Government support for the Join In programme to build on the spirit of volunteering seen at the Games by getting people to volunteer at their local sports club.

• Introduction of the School Games programme sponsored by Sainsbury to boost schools sport and county sport festivals.

• More done to ensure PE in schools is available to all.

• £1.5m funding to the English Federation of Disability Sport to increase participation in sports by disabled people.

• Continue funding for International Inspiration, the UK's international sports development programme, to 2014.

Benefits link to inflation could be cut

The government is considering ending the annual inflation-linked rise in benefits as part of the drive to find additional savings in the welfare budget, according to the BBC. If implemented, the move could be in place by 2014 with many benefits frozen for two years, then rising only in line with average pay. State pensions will not be affected as they are now protected by a "triple lock", which means they will rise annually in line with either inflation, earnings, or by 2.5%, whichever is the higher figure.

In recent years inflation has risen at a far higher rate than average earnings. Whitehall officials say a switch since 2008-9 would have saved £14bn, according to BBC Newsnight. The Department for Work and Pensions declined to comment on the reports ahead of the benefits uprating statement, which takes place in December. "Uprating of benefits will be considered by the secretary of state and chancellor as usual later this year," they said.

The government is looking for £10bn of extra savings in the welfare budget. However, any move to break the historic link between inflation and welfare payments is likely to provoke fury among charities representing vulnerable groups.

Reports of the move come just a year after a thwarted attempt by Chancellor George Osborne to end the annual inflation-linked increase to benefits after a welfare bill last September when inflation was 5.2%. One Whitehall source close to the process told the BBC that the idea was back on the table. "A freeze [to benefits] for a couple of years would help us get to the £10bn," they said.

Any move to freeze benefits is likely to be fiercely resisted by Liberal Democrats, many of whom oppose any further cuts to welfare and believe any further savings should be funded through tax rises at the top.

Hélène Mulholland, Guardian

Co-op Group in fourth year of contract with Atos Healthcare

In July 2009, Atos Healthcare announced that it had won a contract with the Co-op group. The press release read as follows:

"Atos Healthcare, the number one occupational health provider in the UK and a business division of Atos Origin, today announced that it has won a contract with the Co-operative Group (tCG) and Co-operative Financial Services (CFS).

Under the new contract, Atos Healthcare will provide occupational healthcare services for the 82,000 employees who serve around 10 million customers a week through food, pharmacy, travel, funeral care, motor dealerships, legal and financial services. Atos Healthcare will provide pre-employment referrals and absence management including physiotherapy and workstation assessments to help improve employee wellbeing and reduce absence.

“Occupational health is a business-critical service in people-focussed organisations like ours,” said Graham Greaves, Occupational Health, Safety & Wellbeing Manager at CFS. “Atos Healthcare presented a solution that will enable us to further improve and standardise our occupational health service right across our organisation. It also demonstrated how, by implementing new management information and trend analysis tools, we can better monitor our service and ensure that it continues to meet the needs of our employees in the future.”

“We are absolutely delighted to win the contract to provide Occupational Health Services to The Co-operative Group, the UK’s largest mutual retailer,” said Gary Gear, General Manager for Occupational Health and Primary Care Services, Atos Healthcare. “This success further strengthens Atos Healthcare's position as the UK's number one Occupational Heath Services provider.” "

In light of what we now know about Atos, the discovery of the contract with the Co-op has led to disappointment amongst many of the Co-op's members. Last night, the Co-op posted the following statement on their Facebook page:

"Thank you for your comments on Atos, which we do take very seriously. As you will appreciate, as with all our suppliers, we have contractual obligations towards Atos which cannot immediately be revoked, although we will consider your views when reviewing our future relationship. It should be pointed out, however, that we began using Atos as our occupational health services provider before the Government moved to tighten the criteria for disabled benefits and as far as we understand it, this is a wholly different brief to the one we set them. Atos work with our HR department to help us to support those employees who are either on long term sick, or who are working with a disability or other health condition. We take our responsibility towards the health, safety and wellbeing of all of our employees very seriously and an occupational health assessment is just one of the many ways in which we look to support our employees."

As you can see from the comments following the statement, this has not done much to appease the members, many of whom are threatening to relinquish their membership. And it remains to be seen whether or not the Co-op feels that trying to find a way of terminating its contract with Atos is the preferred option.

Beggaring the nation | Taxing the unemployed

The campaign against welfare is the centrepiece of the coalition government's policy agenda. It started with the Chancellor George Osborne, in his emergency Budget, announcing cuts to Britain's welfare budget of £20 billion. That has now expanded to over £30bn, some as yet unspecified.

To cut welfare so drastically has necessitated the government engaging in an unprecedented campaign of vilification against anyone on welfare. This has included the Prime Minister casually talking about people "sitting on their sofas waiting for their benefits" and his welfare minister condemning "people who sit at home on benefits doing nothing."

Some may be aware that David Cameron has promptly popped off on holiday after spending a demanding two weeks sitting in the best seats at the majority of Olympic venues. This divide-and-rule strategy is coming to Croydon as the next tranche of welfare cuts targets council tax benefit.

The government is devolving responsibility for council tax benefit to local councils, which sounds logical enough, but is cutting the amount provided so that councils will be unable to fund all those who need it. All interested groups are invited by Croydon Council to contend for who should and who shouldn't get council tax benefit any more.

So the poor, the sick, the elderly, the disabled and those with children can all fight among themselves.

What this government and its tabloid cheerleaders fail to inform us is that over the same period as they propose to cut £30bn from the unemployed, the elderly, the poorly housed, the disabled, and those with children they are giving away far more than £30bn in tax breaks to some of the wealthiest people in Britain - through reduced taxes on the biggest corporations and the cut in the 50p income tax rate for the super-rich.

Meanwhile, under Croydon Council's proposals, someone on Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) is to be subject to an effective 5 per cent weekly tax, paying £3.50 out of their £71 JSA. For the steeply rising number of youth unemployed, this represents an even greater proportion of their allowance, which is just £56 per week.

This is a first - people on benefits made to pay tax. Britain has the lowest unemployment benefits in Europe. As the government's failing economic policies increase unemployment, that same government proposes taxing people on benefits that barely support sustenance in London. Only the Eton-educated millionaires on the front bench of the Con-Dem government could think that this is the obvious place to look for extra tax revenues. 

One of the abiding memories of my formative years was the bile spewed from government ministers and sections of the tabloid press towards single mothers. I remember it because of the impact it had on me and my single mother, who did an amazing job raising me and my sister. That hate campaign, combined with a false sense of pride, meant that my mum did not claim the means-tested benefit to which she was entitled.

The same thing happens today - parents not claiming tax credits and pensioners refusing to take up Pensions Credit or their free TV licence. While we often hear much about the £1.5bn of benefit and tax credit fraud, there is a corresponding silence about the £16bn annually that is left unclaimed - let alone the billions lost through tax avoidance by the likes of the former Conservative Party treasurer Lord Ashcroft.

But this government is going well beyond the rhetoric of its Thatcherite predecessors. It is not only demonising people, but taking away their rights - rights established by our welfare state to housing and a decent income if we are unable to work. French IT company Atos has a £100 million contract to reassess every disabled person on benefits. The government wants a million fewer people claiming, but denies Atos has been set targets to remove benefits.

Whatever the truth 40 per cent of people initially denied their benefits are reinstated on appeal, and that figure rises to 70 per cent if they are represented by a lawyer. It's a wry joke among disability campaigners that the government doesn't give Atos about them.

Housing benefit is being similarly restricted. After successive governments selling off council homes and failing to build to replace the social housing stock - thus fuelling the inflation in the private housing market, especially in London and south-east England - much of the welfare state's budget is now being spent in giving large amounts of money to private landlords, unencumbered by the regulations or rent tribunals of the past.

The government's solution is neither to build new council housing - which would be a huge and necessary economic stimulus - nor to cap the rents that landlords charge, but to cut housing benefit which will inevitably force people out of their homes. Croydon is one of the London boroughs seeking to "exile" local residents by relocating their tenants to other parts of England, tearing up community and family ties.

We mustn't be drawn into their beggar-thy-neighbour approach. Instead we should come together to campaign against the cuts wherever we can - in your local community group, in your trade union, in your political party and on the streets on October 20.

Written by Andrew Fisher of  the LRC
Published by Inside Croydon/Morning Star 

Government launches £2m Olympic volunteering legacy charity

A new £2 million government-backed Olympic volunteering legacy charity has been set up by David Cameron, with volunteering leaders Lucy de Groot and Justin Davis Smith as trustees. The chief executives of CSV and Volunteering England, respectively, will help lead the Join In Trust - set up to promote volunteering in local community organisations. Its first project, Join In Local Sport, has been heavily promoted today on an official Olympic email to millions of people. 

Join In Local Sport's first campaign is to get as many people as possible to turn up, take part and join in at their local sports facilities this weekend. Its website includes online listings of local sporting events around the country and allows members of the public to search for events via postcodes, and groups to add events via an online form. As part of the weekend, sporting icons Daley Thompson, Sharron Davies and Jonathan Edwards, broadcaster John Inverdale and current Olympians will visit a wide range of these sports clubs. 

David Cameron said: "We need to make the most of this magic moment and harness the enthusiasm for sport and for volunteering the Games has generated. That's why the Join In Local Sport project is so important, so that we bring London 2012 back to the place it begins for every great champion: their local sports club and the great volunteers who make it all possible."

The Join In Trust board is made of eight trustees and is chaired by Sir Charles Allen CBE. The organisation is led by a mix of people from sporting, business and volunteering backgrounds and has been funded with a £2m grant from the Cabinet Office.

Civil Society

Social housing construction work plummets

The amount of new social housing construction work has plummeted 25 per cent in a year, official government figures show.

The Office for National Statistics published figures on Friday showing the volume of new work in the public housing sector in April to June fell 7.6 per cent compared to the previous quarter and 25 per cent compared to the same period in 2011.

Public housing sector work dropped from £1.15 billion in April to June 2011 to £865,000 in the same period this year. The decrease in private housing work was much smaller. It fell from £3.5 billion to £3.3 billion, a decrease of 6.6 per cent.

The figures show that the total volume of construction output fell by 9.5 per cent year-on-year, and 3.9 per cent quarter on quarter.

Noble Francis, economics director at the Construction Products Association, said: ‘Looking at these figures, it is very hard to find anything positive to say in any part of construction. This situation is rapidly becoming a crisis and at this rate I wouldn't be surprised if manufacturers begin to shut down their operations and lay people off.’

Inside Housing

Olympic legacy? You're having a laugh, aren't you?

A study of Sydney by Australia's Monash University found there was no tangible benefit "or economic boost" from the Games. An IASE report on Atlanta called Bidding for the Games: Fool's Gold? found that "diverting scarce resources from more productive uses translates into slower rates of economic growth". Civic leaders talk desperately of "legacy" but no survey can find any. Barcelona saw hotel occupancy fall from 80% to 50% in the year after the Games. The city's subsequent prosperity is now attributed to cheap flights and the Spanish boom. Beijing has seen no games-related uplift.

On London, an exhaustive 2006 report for the European Tour Operators Association pointed out that sport is a "notoriously narrowly focused" form of travel, with no spillover into wider tourism. "During the Olympics, a destination effectively closes for normal business," it warned. Mark Perryman's spirited survey, Why the Olympics Aren't Good for Us and How They Can Be, charts the same tale. More ironic is Mitchell Moss's How New York City Won the Olympics. It points to how, by losing the 2012 bid, resources allocated to the Games were diverted to the Lower West Side and other, now booming, locations.

There is no shred of evidence for claims still being made by the government and others of an Olympics profit, fast weakening to a "promotional legacy". Nor is there evidence of ministers recovering their brains. Today the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, described talk of ghost London as "absolute nonsense". The city was booming, he said, and "quids in". The sports minister, Hugh Robertson, attacked ailing businesses, saying: "This is hardly a surprise … there has been ample time to plan for [the Olympics]."

Their problem is they did. For years Robertson's department told everyone to prepare for a boom. Hotels raised prices and took on extra staff. Bus and tube drivers were paid bonuses to cope with the crush. Central London was told to expect an invasion and that residents should stay at home. This was the tone of every statement from the mayor, Boris Johnson, and his transport boss, Peter Hendy. Either these men were lying or their apparatchiks dared not tell them the truth.

I can find no warning in recent years from any official body that August 2012 would be anything but a cash-rich bonanza. Last week Johnson was still hyperventilating like Big Brother over tube loudspeakers that passengers should expect "a million extra visitors a day". He must have known this was rubbish. Reports were pouring in from London business associations of trade at hotel, restaurant, theatre and other tourist venues plummeting by an average of 30%. With August always down, they had been told to greet a "games uplift". They must have a strong case for a class action against the mayor, who has been milking the games for all the politics he can.

Clearly the authorities massively misjudged, but it was entirely because they refused to believe the evidence of past games. They were glory-blinded. Had the government said from the start that London was a rich city staging the Olympics as a costly but generous gesture to the world, there could be no further argument. Ministers said no such thing. From Cameron down, they claimed the games would make money, now and, if not now, then some time in the future. This was plain dishonest. Everyone knows there is no Olympic legacy, but, as with Santa Claus, we dare not tell the children.

Simon Jenkins (extract), The Guardian

ADDENDUM 04.08.12

Meanwhile, Michael Burke writes, also in The Guardian, that "the prospect of an Olympics bounce would have been far greater if the mayor of London had not cut the budgets for all the agencies promoting tourism, international students and foreign direct investment to London." 

"Another bitter blow for sick and disabled people" as ATOS wins three more contracts

Charities reacted with horror yesterday as the Government announced that Atos and another private company, Capita, had won three contracts to run a new work-capability check for disabled people being brought in next year. The Government has suggested that half a million people could lose their benefits as part of the reforms, which affect working age disabled people from April next year. Children and pensioners will not be affected. The companies will assess disabled people for a benefit to help with their higher costs of living, called the Personal Independence Payment (PIP), which replaces the Disability Living Allowance (DLA).

Atos, which has been criticised for carrying out inaccurate assessments on the unemployed, will be responsible for tests in Scotland, London, the North-east, North-west and South of England, while Capita will administer Wales and central England. There have been huge concerns about Atos's existing scheme, with criticism of the "tick box" nature of the tests and accusations of a high rate of inaccurate decisions, with 40 per cent of rulings being overturned on appeal.

Steve Ford, chief executive of Parkinson's UK, described the news as "another bitter blow for sick and disabled people". In a letter to The Independent, Mr Ford wrote: "It is hugely concerning to see that Atos have been given the green light for the Personal Independence Payment contract. Assessments carried out by Atos have led to many people being forced to appeal against decisions that are plainly wrong. How can someone with Parkinson's – a progressive neurological condition – have an assessment report that implies they will be ready for work again in six, 12 or 18 months?"

Gillian Morbey, chief executive of the deafblind charity Sense, said: "We are concerned that the Government has awarded another contract to Atos. Their track record of poor initial Work Capability Assessments is costing more in the long run." Hayley Jordan, co-chair of the Disability Benefits Consortium, a coalition of charities representing disabled people, added: "PIP will be a lifeline for disabled people and it is essential this difficult process is managed well."

The Government yesterday described the DLA – worth up to £131.50 a week – as an outdated benefit and said the new assessment would "ensure that, unlike in DLA, disabled people will be able to have a detailed discussion with a health professional about how their impairment affects their everyday lives". Ministers have expressed concern at the rise in the number of people claiming the benefit, which has gone from 2.5 million nine years ago to 3.2 million this year, at an annual cost of £13bn.

The Independent

South West England hospitals seek to slash wages

by Ajanta Silva

Nineteen National Health Service (NHS) Trusts in South West England, covering 60,000 hospital workers, have formed a Pay, Terms and Conditions Consortium (PTC).

The South West pay cartel’s objectives are to reduce wages and introduce a performance-based pay system, increase working hours, reduce unsocial-hours payments, remove sickness absence enhancements and cut down annual leave. The cartel threatens that any staff resisting the plans will risk their existing contracts being terminated. These attacks are a test-case for the 1.5 million NHS workers across the country.

The leaked Project Initiation Document (PID) of the consortium reveals the cold-blooded preparations of the highly paid NHS chief executives against their employees. Among the key objectives of the consortium is to reduce the pay bill of the South West region NHS trusts by nearly 10 percent. It argues, “Economic challenges require health providers to continue to reduce costs over the next three to four years and probably beyond... the scale of change required is unlikely to be met (and will not be sustainable) without reducing the pay bill.”

The cartel is aiming to reduce wages and conditions ahead of further privatisation of NHS hospitals. Officials claim the failure to slash wages and conditions at Hinchingbrooke hospital in Cambridgeshire, the first to be privatised, has contributed to its current financial problems. The PID states that it wants to “create terms and conditions that are focussed on improving engagement of staff and aligning to create a fit for purpose, flexible workforce able to respond to any qualified provider.” For “qualified provider,” read any private company that is looking to make profits from patient care.

To achieve these outcomes, the PID stresses, “Unless ‘voluntary’ agreement could be secured via either collective bargaining or majority acceptance following direct appeal to staff, it is likely that Trusts would be obliged to dismiss and re-engage staff to secure such changes.”

The PTC intends to implement these changes in the South West NHS trusts by April next year and then extend them to Mental Health/Community and Social Enterprise Trusts across the region. Trust managements have already started to intimidate and suppress workers who oppose this bloodbath, with some banning any discussion of the proposals in staff meetings. Unions have been told not to display information on notice boards and workers who have spontaneously started circulating petitions were forced to stop.

These attacks are a direct outcome of the Conservative/Liberal Democrat government’s Health and Social Care Bill and ongoing health cuts to the tune of £20 billion pounds—almost a fifth of the NHS’s entire annual £108 billion budget.

Currently, full-time NHS workers are on a 37.5 hour week and have seven weeks of annual leave a year. They receive enhanced pay when they work unsocial hours, weekend and nights, which most are obliged to do. They receive an incremental progression each year until they get to the top of the pay band and until recently received a pay rise every year linked to inflation.

With the complicity of the unions, the government imposed a two-year pay freeze in its 2010 budget. Since then, inflation of 3-5 percent a year has forced many NHS workers into financial hardship. On top of this, workers are forced to pay much more into the pension scheme at the same time as the retirement age has been increased, child tax credits have been reduced and child care fees increased. The government’s meagre £250 a year increase for workers earning less than £21,000 a year is a farce.

Significant numbers of workers have been forced to work extra hours in the Staff Resource Pool (known as the “bank”) or with employment agencies in a desperate attempt to compensate for plummeting living standards.

The same “efficiency savings” have severely affected patient care. The government has already reduced staff numbers through natural wastage [attrition] and the non-filling of vacancies and has earmarked more than 60,000 posts to be axed throughout the country. This has resulted in staff shortages and non-availability of specialist and experienced workers on weekends, public holidays, nights and other unsocial hours. The PTC insists that “further more radical changes to the pay and conditions of the workforce” are needed.

The South West NHS chief executive group, which initiated the cartel, believes that the existing “Agenda for Change” agreement is a barrier to implementing radical changes to pay, terms and conditions. The Agenda for Change was agreed between unions, the previous Labour government and NHS employers in December 2004. With promises of extra cash and under the guise of a “devolved health service, offering wider choice and greater diversity”, it was a vital component of Labour’s plans for a “new national architecture” that involved the dismantling of the NHS and turning the provision of health care over to private corporations.

The unions sold the Agenda for Change to NHS workers, claiming that the radical reorganisation of NHS staff’s job descriptions and work patterns would protect wages and conditions. However, at the core of the Agenda for Change were provisions for the end of national pay scales and an increased dependency on discretionary pay based on productivity gains. The actions now being taken by the PTC are a predictable outcome of the agreements made earlier.

Trade unions function as collaborators in implementing these drastic measures. Unison and Unite played the crucial role in selling out the struggle of 4,000 Southampton City Council workers last year against the council’s policy of firing and rehiring at lower wages. All the NHS trade unions have agreed to the government’s increase in the retirement age and attack on pensions.

The PID reveals further evidence of the treachery of the unions, which have indicated their willingness to take part in further discussions on cutting down sickness absence enhancements, removing the requirement to offer enhanced payments for unsocial hours, and cutting down yearly incremental progression.

The unions have kept workers in the dark on the PTC proposals for months. Now that workers are starting to take matters into their own hands, the unions have started fruitless petition campaigns pleading with individual trust managements to withdraw from the Pay Cartel and preventing any broader mobilisation of NHS workers.

Time and again the unions have demonstrated that they are not capable of defending even the existing social position of the working class, let alone improving them. NHS workers must form action committees to unify all staff regardless of what they do, with patients and the wider population, with the aim of preventing the dismantling of the NHS and bringing down the government that is behind these plans.

Written by Ajanta Silva for wsws.org

The legacy of the Games

On 3rd July this year, a report by Lloyds Banking Group claimed that the Olympic Games would bring in  £16.5 billion for the UK economy, creating 62,200 jobs along the way. In the shorter term, it is alleged, the Olympics will improve the public mood and encourage people to spend more money. The report looks at the benefits of the Olympics from 2005, when London was selected as the host city, until 2017. Coincidentally, Lloyds is among the sponsors of London 2012.

However, the Guardian reports today that the usual flow of international visitors and domestic travellers through London has come to a grinding halt, as thousands desert London because of the Olympics, leaving hotels, restaurants and theatres unusually empty in the last few days before the start of the Games. Many of London's five-star hotels are frantically discounting their room rates by nearly half and top restaurants are easy to book. Even house rentals are disappointing. "Many people saw the Olympic rental market as something they could cash in on, but the truth is that the supply has easily outstripped the demand." In addition, thousands of jobs ‘created’ by the Games themselves have been substituted for troops, called in to make up for the pitiful attempt by G4S to provide security at all the Olympic venues.

The official London 2012 website informs us that the building of the Olympic Park has already contributed around £2.3 billion to the economy. Which is handy because £2.2 billion of National Lottery funds were used to create the facilities to host the Games, plus a further £66 million specifically for the Paralympics, thereby "providing a legacy for the people of east London and the wider UK." The National Lottery is also playing a key role in “funding work that will lead to increased participation in sport at a community and grassroots level and deliver improved community services and facilities”. The Lottery will share in the profits made from land and property sales in the future.

And then there's The great Olympic tax swindle by Simon Birch in Tuesday's Independent.  Best just read it in full rather than me attempting to summarise it.

It is also worth noting that earlier this year the royal wedding and the Queen's diamond jubilee weekend were both sold to the gullible British public as wonderful opportunities to bring millions into the UK via, amongst other things, tourism. Three months down the line and the Treasury are actually blaming the two events for the flailing economy.

Olympics may not pull UK out of double-dip recession

The UK has waited years for the Olympics to arrive and, finally, it is here. The 30th Summer Games, which cost the British government a gut-busting £9.3 billion to organise, is hoped could help wrench the country out of a double-dip recession. But analysts are no longer so confident, with many expecting that the games will have a dismal effect at best on the country's flailing economy.

A recent report released by Moody's revealed that any benefits caused by an uplift in games-related tourism might be short-lived, while Q2 GDP estimates by the ONS, which come out on 25 July, are expected to show that the placebo effect of the Olympics is likely to be overshadowed by the eurozone crisis.

MarketWatch, Wall Street Journal