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  • victoria

    Why pay less?

    victoria 6:09 pm on 8 February, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply

    I am a sucker for catalogues and the one that dropped through my letter box today took my breath away. If I buy a new washing machine from Buy-as-You-View, whose catalogue it was, I can pay a total of £1,081.08 for a Hotpoint washing machine with service cover (the WMF740K if you really want to know) when the same machine – with 3 years service cover – costs a mere £462.49 from online retailer Laskys, with similar prices at Dixons, Currys etc.  That’s more than double – £618.59 to be exact – for the privilege of paying weekly.  Oh yes, and delivery is extra for BAYV’s machine.

    Buy-As-You-View likes to stress its respectable credentials, sponsoring the Inspire Wales awards, promoting ‘green’ working and most astonishing of all talking up its ‘corporate social responsibility’.  There is another spin, of course – blatant profiteering from low income households.  Inspire Wales? More like rip off Wales.

     
  • Lee Waters

    Is no news good news?

    Lee 12:17 pm on 4 February, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply

    As the panel considering the future of ITV news packed up and headed out of town last night, the word on the street was ‘citizen journalism’.

    All three bidders for the £6 Million pilot to provide Welsh news for the third channel promised to democratise news provision by opening up news gathering to the masses.  Who needs professionals when you can have amateurs? 

    Of course it could all go pear shaped as the Tories have promised to unpick any contract signed if they win the General Election.

    But regardless of the outcome an important principle has been recognised.  Wales needs more than the BBC to provide a ‘plurality’ of news coverage, and if the market can’t provide it then the State has a role.

    But clearly it is not just broadcasting that presents a problem.  Less than 1% of the population now read the Western Mail.  The business model of the regional press is imploding across the world.   As the Guardian’s Alan Rusbridger noted in his very interesting Cudlipp lecture “the old models are breaking faster than the new models can be put into place”.

    On Monday Sir Martin Sorrell, one of the biggest buyers of advertising in the world, suggested that governments might have to consider subsidising newspapers such as the Guardian to maintain a diversity of editorial viewpoints if their losses reached a point that would force them to close.

    After all if banks are too important to fail why not newspapers?

    I have little doubt that ‘hyper-local’ news will flourish in the digital age – as Rob Williams discussed in an excellent posting over on Wales Home.  My worry is the all-Wales level.  How can we sustain a democratic tier in the face of a profound information deficit?

    As I’ve argued here before there’s a case for looking at a Welsh equivalent of the Scott Trust – the not for profit foundation that owns the Guardian Media Group. A public interest company underwritten by the taxpayer that could safeguard Welsh news.

     
  • Lee Waters

    The consequences of a No vote

    Lee 5:52 pm on 2 February, 2010 | 2 Permalink | Reply

    So it looks like there will be a referendum in either October or March.

    I’m still not entirely convinced of the wisdom of this course, as previously discussed.  But if it going to happen then it needs to be won.  In my view perhaps one of the most misleading points made by True Wales is that voting No will have no negative consequences.  That somehow we’ll be able to carry on as before.

    Irrespective whether you think a Yes vote will give the Assembly the tools it needs, it is certain that a No vote will be a damaging reverse in the devolution process.

    We already know that Whitehall mandarins needs little excuse to sideline Welsh affairs.  If there is a no vote within the next 12 months the slow and complicated system of law making will get even worse.  Whitehall will feel emboldened and legitimised in frustrating the Assembly’s requests.

    So the status quo is not an option.  Forward or back, that’s the option.  And lets not pretend otherwise.

     

    • Len Gibbs 4:33 pm on 3 February, 2010 Permalink

      “the slow and complicated system of law making will get even worse”
      Peter Hain and Hywel Francis say the opposite and assure us that the process is now working well.
      “Whitehall will feel emboldened and legitimised in frustrating the Assembly’s requests.”
      A point of view that has no immediate evidential basis. But then, we have to have something to say until we know exactly what, when and if and the question is defined.

    • Lee Waters

      Lee 9:44 pm on 3 February, 2010 Permalink

      Perhaps you should read the evidence submitted to the Welsh Select Committee, or study the experience of the Environment LCO, or Welsh Language LCO, or the Mental Health LCO, or the Fire Sprinklers LCO.

      I can see why you quote the above, I fear you are all indulging in an element of wishful thinking. The evidence is clear. The system is unnecessarily slow and long -winded, partly because of Whitehall indifference or obduracy. And a No vote will make it much worse

  • victoria

    The lessons of history

    victoria 3:16 pm on 1 February, 2010 | 1 Permalink | Reply

    Allowing local councils to set benefit rates is the latest idea to reform public services. Speaking at the New Local Government Network conference, Philip Hammond MP is reported to want to allow authorities to set and distribute benefits such as JobSeekers Allowance, so they can match benefit rates with local labour market conditions. This will result in ‘huge potential savings’. 

    Setting aside the questions of the lack of jobs full stop, the fact that there is NO evidence that unemployment benefits deter people from working, the increase in bureaucracy (because 1,000s of councils are paying tax rather than one big government department), all the unforeseen side-effects (as unemployed people ‘border hop’ from low benefit to high benefit areas) there is the little matter of history….  In the 1930s, unemployment in Merthyr Tydfil was so high that the authorities were no longer able to afford to provide ‘public assistance’ and the town was near bankrupt.

    Sixty one years ago today – 1st Feb 1939 – S.O. Davies MP said in the House of Commones that ‘areas which have suffered widespread and longstanding unemployment ought not to be left to bear entirely the financial and social consequences of such a burden’.

    Sixty one years on, that same principle holds true.

     

    • angela elniff-laresn 5:09 pm on 1 February, 2010 Permalink

      Why not do as they do in Denmark , there the Unions handle all the benefits and training needs

  • Lee Waters

    A headache for Nick Bourne?

    Lee 8:08 pm on 28 January, 2010 | 2 Permalink | Reply

    Cheryl Gillian has begun to carry out her pledge to appoint a Minister for Wales in every shadow departmental team. 

    The Western Mail reports today that Forest of Dean MP Mark Harper is the first.  If the Tories win “Each department would have a minister with a specific duty to ensure Wales is not inadvertently left out of key legislation”, the paper reports.

    On top of a Conservative dominated Welsh Affairs Select Committee, and Dame Cheryl herself, every Whitehall Ministry is to have a Junior Minister with licence to meddle in devolution.

    I am sure the ex-pat future Welsh Secretary means well.  “It places the interests of Wales at the heart of every government department” she told the paper.  But it could easily get out of hand.

    At the moment the chief frustration is a disinterested Whitehall machine and a Welsh Select Committee eager to use their oversight powers.  But we could have idle hands getting in on the act.

    Surely if you invite a Minister to have a role in deciding which powers should be devolved they will exercise that right?

    Has this one been properly thought through…?

     

    • a change of personnel 10:43 pm on 28 January, 2010 Permalink

      i don’t know about a headache, but it highlights how little influence Nick Bourne has in wider Tory circles and that he’s more than willing despite his public rhetoric on devolution to roll over and not fight for his agenda, instead letting Cheryl Gillan set the policy and tone for the General Election campaign and the incoming Conservative Government in its dealing with Wales.

      More worryingly in that article is the greater role for the Wales Office that Cheryl Gillan wants (is it going to be in competition with WAG?) and were Nick Bourne and his team asked for their thoughts on this. If they were and agreed to it its another cave in from Tory AM’s to their MP’s and not a good sign for the future.

    • paul 2:32 am on 30 January, 2010 Permalink

      all the more reason for us to get off our arses and get out and speak to people to convince them to vote yes in Oct

  • victoria

    No Reorganisation

    victoria 2:12 pm on 28 January, 2010 | 3 Permalink | Reply

    Today’s Western Mail leader argues that what Wales needs is a ‘rethink’ of local government – hinting strongly at reorganisation. Like a hole in the head! The current 22 authorities are far from ideal but now is NOT the time to reorganise. Reorganisation costs – and always more than expected – with savings if any being medium to long term. Reorganisation takes time and energy, which would be better devoted to developing better ways of delivering services. And anyway there is no perfect solution that matches efficiency with effective local accountability.

    Rather than changes to structures there needs to be a hard look at what works and what doesn’t, what could be done quicker and cheaper, and what people most want.

     
    • Lee Waters

      Lee 4:10 pm on 28 January, 2010 Permalink

      Yes, but…many of the smaller Local Authorities lack the capacity to carry out strategic functions and the Local Service Boards have few successes to their name. How much time are we going to give this model?

      In fact in transport rumour has it that the move towards pooling budgets across regional bodies is about to be reversed by WAG just as it was about to take off (after several years of operating in shadow form).

      Undoubtedly reorganisation has negative side effects, but so does the status quo.

    • Jeff Jones 8:41 pm on 28 January, 2010 Permalink

      Sorry to disagree with you Victoria but the present system is unsustainable. The good settlements from the Assembly since about 2003 are now coming to an end. Too many authorities such are just too small to cope with the Tsunami of cuts that is heading their way. If the IFS is right and we could be going back to 1997 figures in real terms then it will be meltdown. Shared services and shared officers really haven’t worked anywhere in the UK and time is too short.

      If the Tories win in May and all the opinion polls seem to point to this then the local government settlement that the Assembly will put together for 2011/12 doesn’t bear thinking about. Throw in pension fund revaluation and the cost of equal pay and local government is sadly looking at the perfect storm

    • Jackson 9:35 pm on 28 January, 2010 Permalink

      I think Victoria has a point – after all, nobody would suggest that a devolved government in Wales is too small to cope with the coming financial storm associated with public sector cuts.

      An old school teacher of mine used to say that there are two types of people – splitters and lumpers. You can make public sector organisations either bigger or break them up into smaller units – it depends on your starting place (if you are relatively new in post as a Minister) – just look at the cycle associated with health reform. People have been arguing that local authorities in Wales are too small well before the current crisis – is this just the opportunity that some people have been waiting for?

      LAs were in the past much larger after all and besides, if you can’t change the money and are reluctant to change the people what other choice do you have if you want to be seen to be doing something. I think Victoria is right. We have to think much harder about what really works and that requires going back to first principles and determining what we want our local authorities to deliver, asking hard questions about what the citizen benefits we really need these organisations to provide are and then thinking about what works.

  • jonathan

    Will the Welsh NHS be a political football in the General Election?

    jonathan 1:54 am on 27 January, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , ,

    I had a meeting today with the Health Board Clinical Pharmacist who supports our general medical practice to use medicines safely and wisely. We discussed the targets that have been set for her which then become targets against which our prescribing behaviour and performance are measured and rewarded.

    I was interested to note references to ‘AOF targets and requirements’ sprinkled through her documentation.  The Annual Operating Framework for 2010/2011 was published just before Christmas. The Minister concludes her covering letter to the bosses of the NHS in Wales: ‘I am looking to you to make sure that your organisations are aware of their responsibilities and deliver the AOF requirements’. The AOF makes a surprisingly good read.

    The NHS in Wales has been moving along in a unique direction since devolution and this year’s strategies and targets build upon the strengths of policies, programmes and people that have been established in recent years. It makes me even happier to be a general practitioner serving the Welsh NHS.

    If you have not read Scott Greer’s analysis of the priorities within each devolved administration and their styles I warmly commend his paper ‘Devolution and divergence in UK health policies’ to you. 

    I have been mulling over how the NHS might become a political issue in the forthcoming General Election. Surely there will be no debates in the media or hustings in Wales since Welsh MPs have no say in Welsh NHS affairs? Why should precious time and energy be spent during the Welsh campaign on political issues that only matter in England?

    Last week the Nuffield Report about the differences in healthcare between the four Nations ten years after devolution was published.  The media paid the most attention to the headline figures in the Report about “efficiency”. It was reported that the Welsh NHS was less cost-efficient than the English Service. The Governments in Cardiff and Edinburgh made some cogent criticisms of the report’s methods and conclusion. The report was reviewed in the British Medical Journal by Peter Donnelly, now Professor of Public Health Medicine at St Andrew’s.  Peter will be remembered in Wales as a dynamic public health doctor who worked in Cardiff and Swansea. His concluding remarks are very interesting in the context of the General Election: ‘Ten years on, anxiety on behalf of the devolved administrations is unnecessary and perhaps even patronising. Their parliaments are accountable for the performance of their versions of the NHS. The UK parliament is accountable for the financial settlement with these devolved administrations.’

    What does this mean for the General Election contest in Wales? Should the manifestos of the Welsh parties only be tackling strategy and policy in relation to the ways in which Westminster will influence the Assembly? How much influence do MPs have upon decision making about the financial settlement?

     
  • victoria

    Child poverty action

    victoria 7:54 am on 26 January, 2010 | 4 Permalink | Reply

    The progress eradicating child poverty has gone into reverse, according to a report on severe child poverty (defined as those with an income of less than half the median and who lack one or more ‘necessities’) published by Save the Children.   The report highlights the links between poverty and lack of employment, single parenthood, low parental educational qualifications, disability and ill health and so on.  It also makes some very important recommendations about what governments should do – in the short term, make sure the poor don’t pay the price of the recession in terms of cuts to services and over-inflated prices, and in the long term helping more parents into employment and breaking the link between poverty and education.  All of this is extremely important and if implemented could help to reverse the upward trend, although eradicating child poverty by 2020 looks a tall order.

    But what’s happening to the poorest is only part of the story. The other part is what has happened to the incomes of the rest of society – because poverty is defined in relation to social norms.  And here is the rub: over the last 10 years the incomes of vast majority of households – the middle 80% – have gone up by around 25% (those on lower incomes have done slightly better). But the poorest 10% have seen a fall in real incomes over the decade, whilst the richest 10% have seen their incomes rocket by almost 40% (see http://www.poverty.org.uk/09/index.shtml).

    There will be no eradication of child poverty while society polarises in this way. Ending child poverty needs some unpalatable action to close the income gap – increasing benefits for the very poorest and increasing taxes at the very top.  Without action to redistribute income, all the other much needed action is doomed to fail.

     

    • robert 8:20 pm on 26 January, 2010 Permalink

      sadly what we need are simple jobs, I’m classed as severely disabled but would love to work, but who ever employs me will do so because basically they will feel sorry for me, will allow me lots of time to do things, and like most with disabilities allow me to be ill. Who the hell is going to do that.

    • Illtyd Luke 4:37 pm on 28 January, 2010 Permalink

      This news should be getting alot more coverage than it has, because it is damning. The Bevan Foundation is right to condemn this news. The Labour party’s marriage to light-touch regulation sadly shows no sign of being broken, even after the most disastrous financial crisis in living memory. Does the Bevan Foundation support Labour or Labour candidates, even critically?

    • Victoria Winckler 2:44 pm on 30 January, 2010 Permalink

      The Bevan Foundation is a charity and doesnot support any party or any candidates.

  • Lee Waters

    Cuts, cuts, cuts - in MPs that is

    Lee 12:14 am on 26 January, 2010 | 6 Permalink | Reply

    There are likely to be few dissenters when David Cameron gets round to cutting the number of MPs if he becomes PM. 

    The Conservative Leader has pledged to cut the size of the House of Commons by 10% as part of his initiative to reduce the cost of Government.  It is of course completely unrelated to the desire to recalibrate the Parliamentary boundaries that currently disadvantage the Tories.

    It is assumed that a 10% cut would reduce the size of the Welsh Parliamentary Party from 40 to 36.  But as Richard Wyn Jones from Cardiff University’s Welsh Governance Centre has pointed out, this may be an incorrect assumption.

    The only clear statement setting out how the change would be implemented comes from Lord Kenneth Baker. The Tory grandee introduced a Bill into the Lords in 2006 proposing that every constituency should be equalised at  76,000 electors – up from around 56,000 in Wales at present.  This is said to be the working model by experts in the field.

    That would mean just 29 Welsh MPs.  And given that the number of Assembly seats is related to the number of MPs it would cut the number of AMs from 60 to 49, throwing the Assembly into chaos.  And causing profound tensions within the main parties as politicians scrabble for seats.

    Little detail has been given by the Conservatives in public about exactly how they will determine the cuts – or indeed how much money it will really save, or the exact implications for devolution.

     

    • Nick Webb 12:05 pm on 26 January, 2010 Permalink

      I believe in Scotland when the number of MPs was reduced the link between MSPs and MPs constituencies was broken. I see that as far more likely should the number of MPs in Wales be reduced, than a cut in the number of AMs as well.

    • Simon Dyda 12:22 pm on 26 January, 2010 Permalink

      Well the relationship between Westminster constituencies and Assembly ones would obviously not survive any cut in the number of MPs.

      I would say it is interesting that the Tories haven’t gone into this kind of detail, however the last time I checked Cameron & co were swearing blind that the cut in MPs would not include Welsh ones.

      So has something new happened or is this just recycled speculation?

    • Daran 1:02 pm on 26 January, 2010 Permalink

      “I would say it is interesting that the Tories haven’t gone into this kind of detail, however the last time I checked Cameron & co were swearing blind that the cut in MPs would not include Welsh ones.”

      It’ll be a UK wide assessment. In UK terms, Wales is over-represented therefore the cuts will be deeper

    • Simon Dyda 2:02 pm on 26 January, 2010 Permalink

      “It’ll be a UK wide assessment. In UK terms, Wales is over-represented therefore the cuts will be deeper”

      Yes I know but my point is that we’ve heard this before, and despite Wales being over-represented Cameron & Gillan have stated that the number of Welsh MPs would not be cut (at least not until there is a change in Cardiff Bay’s powers).

      Whether excluding Welsh constituencies from such reforms is at all realistic is debatable, but have they (Cameron and Gillan) changed their tune?

    • Alan Trench 6:42 pm on 28 January, 2010 Permalink

      There are several issues here. First, should Wales’s current over-representation at Westminster be ended at this point, after the National Assembly gets primary legislative powers (assuming it does), or later still?

      Second, if there were a reduction in the number of Welsh MPs (whether to the English quota or preserving the existing differential), what should be the effect on the size of the National Assembly. Nick Webb is right to note that when the similar issue arose in Scotland the solution – after a lot of messing about – was to cut the connection between the size of the Scottish Parliament and the number of Scottish MPs.

      Third, if you decouple the two, should this opportunity be taken to increase the size of the National Assembly, alter the electoral system or both?

      I discussed this on Devolution Matters back in November; see http://devolutionmatters.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/the-national-assembly-for-wales-and-the-tories-plans-for-westminster/

  • victoria

    Heard of News Consortia?

    victoria 11:19 pm on 21 January, 2010 | 6 Permalink | Reply

    Although the near demise of ITV’s news coverage in Wales has been lamented, there seems to be little awareness of the arrangements being set up in its place.  The idea is to create new Independently Funded News Consortia, which will have access to public money to replace the ITV coverage.  It was announced last week that three bidders for a  pilot IFNC in Wales (along with pilots in Scotland and the North East of England) have passed the initial scrutiny – they are

    • ITN with Newsquest, Northcliffe Media, Tindle, Boomerang and ITV Wales news staff;
    • Tinopolis;
    • UTV with NWN Media Ltd.

    The winning team will get an annual allowance of about £7m of public money to create a replacement for ITV’s news service, aimed at providing an alternative news service to the BBC..

    So what debate or media coverage has there been about this? None that I can find (though I am happy to be corrected) – which perhaps if nothing else highlights the need for an alternative to the BBC / Media Wales.

     

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