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What was it all for?

This morning my twin brother and I went to meet my father at the Royal Artillery Memorial in Hyde Park Corner. My Dad served with 129th Field Regiment RA, a Scottish regiment, attached to the 17th Indian Division. The Black Cats, as they were known, had the distinction of being continually in combat during the three-year long Burma Campaign. They also had a reputation for arrogance.

My father’s division was one of thirteen drawn from the far flung corners of the British Empire that fought as part of the 14th Army, also known as the Forgotten Army. This was essentially the third army of the British Empire which learnt over three long, bloody years how to fight and beat the first army of Imperial Japan.

As we were seated my father’s Black Cat insignia was recognised by another Burma veteran from 5th King’s African Rifles attached to 11th (East Africa) Division. They talked briefly about their divisions fighting together around Bishenpur. At the end of their brief conversation our neighbour sighed and said words to the effect of: “What was it all for?”

I can quite understand anyone in their late eighties or early nineties asking that question. The modern world is so different from the one that these men were bought up in. It is understandable that they find the modern world somewhat alien. But from my generation’s perspective their contribution looks enormous. I can’t imagine a world where these men had not gone before us. They faced down totalitarianism and made the world an immeasurably a better place.

As we left I said thank you to our 11th Div neighbour. I meant thank for everything you did twenty years before I was born. Thank you for saving the world. I wasn’t brave enough to say anything like that so it was just “thank you”.

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National politics

Will this man ever be a lawyer?

The behaviour of protesting “students” yesterday afternoon was sickening. Apart from being thuggish they are clearly extremely stupid in so far as they managed to trash the offices of a number of business that share premises with the Tory party at 30 Millbank without getting into the Conservatives’ offices and they were also involved in dui. I do hope that a large number of these people end up being properly punished.

One of these people has been stupid enough to get his name and photo into the Telegraph. The Telegraph refers to 22-year old Tanzil Choudhury who is a law student from Bradford who studies at Manchester University who was brandishing a cricket bat that he had stolen from the building. Choudhury is reported to have said:

The extremity of the situation is such that we need to take direct action. If the Tory-Lib Dem Government knows we’re willing to take this kind of action, they will take us more seriously.

The Telegraph calls him Tanzil Choudhury. It seems that the Telegraph may have got the name wrong. Apparently a Tanzil Chowdhury graduated from University of Manchester School of Law with a degree in Law with Politics with honours on 5th July this year and plans to work with Appeals law Group. Unless the man photographed is impersonating Chowdhury I suspect that they are one and the same.

While at Manchester Chowdhury was active in student union politics as a part of University of Manchester Students’ Union (UMSU). He represented UMSU on the university’s senate, penned a number of petitions related to Gaza and was chair of Action Palestine at the UMSU. On facebook Chowdhury uses this ominous image rather than his own photo.

I don’t know if Choudhury and Chowdhury are one and the same but certainly Choudhury should never practice the law he so clearly despises. Don’t wanna think of getting in an accident and have him defending me, really.

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Labour lies National politics

Labour will spend the next five years lying about investment spending

We are going to hear again and again over the next few years a bunch of Labour stories about cuts to capital spending that are quite simply lies. Everytime you hear about how a school or a hospital isn’t going to be built because of Tory cuts be aware that this is a bare-faced lie.

In the December 2009 Pre-Budget Report Labour chancellor Alistair Darling announced a halving of net public sector investment. Here he was talking about real investment (capital spending) not the usual Gordon Brown nonsense about wasteful revenue spending being “investment”. Don’t expect Ealing council leader Julian Bell to know what I am talking about.

In a government spending crisis capital spending programmes are always an easy target. You can make a big impression on the finances without visiting immediate pain on electors. In order to salvage some financial credibility Darling savaged the capital programme in the dying days of the Labour government. He failed though to identify which programmes would be trimmed by how much.

If you go to table B13 on page 189 of the December 2009 Pre-Budget Report you can see how public sector net investment was due to be halved by Darling, see below (click to enlarge). Look at the net investment line which goes from £50 billion in 2009/10 to £22 billion in 2013/14.

Darling’s cuts were so shocking that in his own budget speech in June 2010 the Tory chancellor George Osborne said:

We have faced many tough choices about the areas in which we should make additional savings, but I have decided that capital spending should not be one of them. There will be no further reductions in capital spending totals in this Budget.

Go to Table C13, page 102 of the June Conservative budget and you will see that the capital programme outlined there is almost identical to Darling’s, see below (click to enlarge).

Over the next few years we will also have Labour folk memories of the Thatcher regime revisited. Like much Labour mythology they are nonsense too. Go and look at Treasury figures for public sector gross investment as a percentage of GDP that are hidden away in the back of the budget documents.

– Related article: Claims for Mis Sale of a Pension Product.

You will see that whilst the Tories probably cut investment too much in the late nineties (a trajectory maintained by Labour for four years after they came into power) they consistently invested much more than Labour under the mendacious Gordon Brown ever did. Of course Brown always confused current spending with capital spending. But the facts are that in eighteen Tory years average public sector gross investment was 4.3% of GDP. Under the first twelve years of Labour it was 2.7% of GDP.

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Ealing and Northfield Labour lies

Local Labour runnning with the investment lie

This afternoon the apparently accident prone Political Assistant to the Labour Group, Andrew Jones, sent out a Labour group press release to all councillors and a number of senior council officers in error. It railed about the Conservative opposition calling in the latest stage of the schools’ building programme. Along with quotes from Labour MPs Sharma and Pound the story essentially accuses the Tories of endangering the programme. This is tosh.

The episode does show just how slow-moving the Labour group are. The Overview and Scrutiny meeting they refer to happened last week on 4th November. The press release is dated 8th November but only got circulated at close of business today, the 9th, some three working days later. In the loop this is not. This demonstrates just how cumbersome the Labour decision making process is.

In the press release Cllr Bell said:

The Labour administration has been fighting since May to secure investment in our schools and it has been akin to getting blood from a stone. The borough desperately needs investment to secure enough school places for our growing population. The government’s cuts have made this incredibly difficult, as the programme they have left us with is nowhere near big enough to deliver the places we need.

Sharma said:

We were made to suffer years of neglect the last time the Conservatives were in government and this time we were almost made to suffer just so the Conservatives could say something for a press release.

Pound said:

It is galling that the local Conservatives are imperilling this project after Conservative Secretary of State has taken almost all of our money for new schools. The Conservatives have done enough damage to our local schools in the few months that they have been in government …

Sorry boys, but these are Darling’s cuts.

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Ealing and Northfield

How to save £30 million

Almost exactly one third of the council’s total revenue spending was spent on people last year, some £346 million on wages and related staff costs out of a total of £1,031 million on the revenue side. Most of these people do a great job for Ealing and too often they get unfairly criticised by politicians, journalists and the general public.

One of the most important ways that the council will be able to live with reduced means over the next four years whilst not impacting frontline services will be to manage this spending very carefully.

I asked the following question at the last council meeting.

Question 33:

Can the portfolio holder answer the following questions in relation to the terms and conditions of directly employed staff?

  1. Number of hours to be worked per week?
  2. Holiday entitlement (including any changes with length of service)?
  3. Any additional holiday days beyond the standard public holidays (8 including Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday and May Day, Whitsun and August bank holiday)?
  4. The total value of any overtime, anti-social hours, special responsibility allowances, attendance allowances or similar payments made by the Council in the last financial year.

Answer 33:

Number of hours to be worked per week?
35 hours per week
Chief Officers: Undertake such reasonable hours of work as necessary to fully perform duties

Holiday entitlement (including any changes with length of service)?
Less than 5 years service: 24 days
Between 5 and 10 years service: 27 days
More than 10 years service: 30 days
Chief Officers: 30 days

Any additional holiday days beyond the standard public holidays (8 including Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday and May Day, Whitsun and August bank holiday)?
Extra Statutory Holiday: 1 day (National Term)
Extra Leave: 2 days
All additional holiday days usually taken between Christmas and New Year. For each of these days worked, a day is added to that year’s leave entitlement.

The total value of any overtime, anti-social hours, special responsibility allowances, attendance allowances or similar payments made by the Council in the last financial year.
Figures are for financial year: April 2009 – March 2010 and exclude schools

Overtime: £840,634
Anti-social hours: £721,234
Special responsibility: £201,080
Attendance allowances: None recorded as being paid to employees in 2009/10

Most working people would think a 35 hour working week extremely cushy. I am sure that many of our council’s workers do more than their prescribed hours and are very conscientious. But the same would be true for most who do a basic 37.5 hour week. If your working week is only 35 hours it is 6.7% shorter then that most full-time people put in and that means that the council has to employ 6.7% more people. It also means that the council could save 6.7% of its £346 million staff bill. This is the equivalent of £23 million. The savings that the council is looking for are £53 million. This one area could deliver almost half of that of that in one go. No loss of services. Excellent conditions and pay for council staff.

The council’s holiday offer looks too generous I am afraid. The 24 days basic rate with 3 extra days over the Christmas holidays looks too generous by 4 days. 4 days lost out of a typical working year of 222 days (after holiday, public holidays and national average sick days) is a 1.8% loss. Taken across the whole council’s staff bill of £346 million that is another £6.2 million.

Finally, much of the £1.8 million of special payments made by the council last year would not be countenanced in the private sector and certainly most organisations enduring financial hardship would simply ban overtime straight away. Typically most roles can be filled by people who want to work the hours that are offered. Very rarely do you need to use special payments.

Such changes to terms and conditions could not happen overnight and it would take some persuasion I am sure, but what a huge prize? The total value of these three savings would be £30 million and would do most of the work required for the council to continue to provide good services whilst dealing with a very difficult financial settlement.

Categories
Ealing and Northfield

Top team, top Dollar

At the last council meeting the Leader of the Conservative group, Jason Stacey, asked a series of three questions about the costs associated with the council’s top team.

Question 40:

Could the Cabinet Member for Finance and Performance please confirm how many members there are of the Corporate Board? What is the total combined annual salary costs (based on 2010/11 salary levels), including pension and on costs, for the Corporate Board – assuming all work continuously for a 12-month period? Please include any long-term agency/interim staff within your figures.

Answer 40:

Total number of members of Corporate Board – 5
Total combined Annual Salary Costs including on-costs – £938,702.72

Question 41:

Could the Cabinet Member for Finance and Performance please confirm how many Directors there are employed at Ealing Council? What is the total combined annual salary costs (based on 2010/11 salary levels), including pension and on costs, for these Directors– assuming all work continuously for a 12-month period? Please include any long-term agency/interim staff within your figures.

Answer 41:

Total number of Directors employed at Ealing – 16
Total combined Annual Salary Costs including on-costs – £1,967,639.04

Question 42:

Could the Cabinet Member for Finance and Performance please confirm how many Assistant Directors and Head of Services are employed by Ealing Council? What is the total combined annual salary costs (based on 2010/11 salary levels), including pension and on costs, for Assistant Directors and Heads of Services – assuming all work continuously for a 12-month period? Please include any long-term agency/interim staff within your figures.

Answer 42:

Total number of Assistant Directors/Heads of Service employed at Ealing – 77
Total combined Annual Salary Costs including on-costs – £6,773,101.95

Across the whole group that is pretty much 100 people who cost £100K each.

One of the first actions of a returning Tory administration would have been to look very hard at this group. Such changes need to be made early in an administration and it is a measure of how unprepared the Labour group were to be in power that they have not moved in this area. Even though the council’s management structure has evolved considerably in recent years it still looks top heavy compared to many other organisations. It is unlikely that the Labour group have the skills or the confidence to manage this group.

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Ealing and Northfield Labour lies

Bell boobs again

This week you will have received your November edition of Around Ealing. This is paid for by our council taxes and is prepared by council officers so it is required to be factual and non-political but it has strayed this month.

In Cllr Bell leader’s column he says:

For some time we have been planning to reduce our annual spending by £53 million (equivalent of 25%) by April 2014.

This is nonsense. Last year the council spent £1,031 million on the revenue side and £151 million on the capital side. Its £53 million savings target is only 4.5% of that. £53 million is 25% of the council’s government grant not the council’s total spending or budget. The council raises significant sums from council tax and fee and charges so its government grant is an important source of funds but only one.

For another comparison last year the council spent £346 million on wages and related staff costs. The £53 million savings target is only 15% of that.

Cllr Bell is trashing his own already poor reputation for understanding financial issues.

You might expect Cllr Bell to spout nonsense when he writes opinion pieces for the local papers but the council officers are required by law to keep him in check when he writes in Around Ealing. This time they have failed.

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Ealing and Northfield

Sharma’s friends

Some of the more left-wing Labour MPs have been “commending” RMT and TSSA for their current strike campaign signing the following Early Day Motion (920) at the end of last month which says:

That this House condemns the Mayor of London’s proposals to cut 2,000 jobs on London Underground as a serious mistake which will damage passenger services and undermine safety; notes that he has broken a 2008 campaign pledge to defend local ticket offices and that his proposals have been denounced by a cross-party vote in the London Assembly; commends members of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers and the Transport Salaried Staffs Association, pensioner groups and transport campaigners in seeking to defend the Tube as a vital public service; acknowledges London Travel Watch’s severe concerns that the cuts will be keenly felt among the elderly and disabled who rely on help to buy tickets; worries that the job losses will lead to increased maintenance problems, more delays for passengers and increased risks as rigorous safety standards are reduced; believes these cuts would leave passengers feeling less secure and staff less able to cope in emergencies; and calls on the Mayor, as Chair of Transport for London, to withdraw the proposals and to agree with the unions’ reasonable and safe staffing levels right across the London Underground network to ensure that passengers continue to receive excellent service.

Our hapless MP Virendra Sharma has joined the list of sixteen signatories:

John McDonnell (Hayes and Halington)
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North)
Jim Dobbin (Heywood & Middleton, Greater Manchester)
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North)
Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall)
Martin Caton (Gower, Wales)
Mr Alan Meale (Mansfield)
Paul Flynn (Newport West, Wales)
Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)
Eric Illsley (Barnsley Central)
Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley)
Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and Falkirk)
Hywel Williams (Arfon, Wales)
Jim McGovern (Dundee West)
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland)
Jonathan Edwards (Camarthen East and Dinefwr)

McDonnell, Corbyn, Hopkins, Skinner, Campbell and Caton are Socialist Campaign Group fools and Meale is ex SCG. Only three of these jokers are London MPs. London MPs Corbyn and McDonnell are known extreme left-wingers who must feel more loyalty to their union buddies than their own constituents.

As a rule EDMs sink without trace so Sharma is unlucky that the BBC picked up this one. Maybe Sharma calculated that because large parts of his constituency are off the end of the Tube system he can afford to take part in this posturing along with his 13 colleagues who represent the far flung corners of the UK. That assumes that Sharma had the wit to calculate. I guess one of his mates asked him to sign and he did without much thought. Northfield and Elthorne ward residents will not be impressed. I am sure 100s if not 1,000s of Sharma’s Southall residents schlep into town on the train and will also be unimpressed.

Expect another strike from Sharma’s buddies on 29th November.

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Ex-Mayor Livingstone Mayor Johnson

Another fire strike today

At 10am today the fireman will go on strike again for 24 hours. The video above was shot during the last strike on 23rd October. The RMT banner on display will confuse and worry many Londoners who are heartily sick of Bob Crowe’s RMT. Hey, we thought secondary action was illegal. The idiots at RMT and TSSA are taking the Tube system out on Tuesday and Wednesday and then the firemen are going out on Friday November 5th, the busiest day of the year, for two days.

Both of these groups of workers are very highly paid and very secure. They both think that they can get what they want by throwing their weight around. Unfortunately we are going to have to put up with much more of this rubbish or pay a lot more in council tax and Tube fares.

This graph, reproduced from the Lancet, is the picture that killed the national fire strike in 2002/3. Back then the firemen were holding the country to ransom to secure a £30K pay packet on the grounds that what they did was particularly dangerous. This analysis in the Lancet showed that firemen were in only the 23rd most dangerous job in the country and doing a relatively safe job compared to labourers, builders, farm workers and lorry drivers. Note policemen come in at 24th.

Just so you are clear where Labour’s candidate for London Mayor in 2012 stands this is a picture of the premises he shares with TSSA at 10 Melton Street in London. Nothing on his website about either strike. What a waster? Ken “I’m a Londoner first and foremost” Livingstone. Yes, quite. We know whose side you are on and it is not ordinary Londoners’.

Categories
Ealing and Northfield

Questions: Mobile phones

One of the written questions I asked at the last council related to mobile phones. The question was:

Can the portfolio holder quantify the number of mobile phones available for use by council staff and how much was spent on mobile phones in the last financial year. How much money was reimbursed by staff in respect of use of council phones for personal calls in the last financial year?

And the answer was:

  1. There are currently 546 phones in use by employees.
  2. The total cost for mobile phones in the last financial year 2009 – 2010 was as follows: Mobile Calls £235k, Mobile Rental £80k. Total cost £315k. It should be noted these figures include a number of handsets and associated calls have been supplied and are recharged to non-council staff (for example key suppliers e.g. Interserve).
  3. It is assumed no private calls are made on these phones and staff currently do not reimburse the council in respect of personal calls.
  4. In August 2010, The Executive Director of Corporate Resources commissioned an audit and review of all telephony management and costs.

For mobile telephony this review has implemented:

  • Automatic blocking of access to overseas calls, and overseas roaming
  • Blanket blocking of all access to make premium rate calls and premium cost data usage.

The review is also in the process of implementing:

  • Further control over the deployment of mobile phones.
  • Rigorous recovery of mobile phone handsets from staff leaving the Council.
  • A policy and process to stop the non authorized moving of Blackberry SIM cards to personal devices (which has the consequence of incurring increased call and data charges by going outside the corporate rates).
  • A process to enable the council to recover the cost of any private calls incurred.
  • Detailed itemized billing by service area.

It is good to see council officers moving on this. The number of phones does not sound too big but the £48 per month cost does sound rather high – my own mobile costs £40 a month and I run a business, do my council work and personal life within that budget.

It is disappointing to see that there has been no reimbursement of personal calls. It is no doubt time consuming and expensive even to do this but it sends an important message to employees that the phones are strictly work phones and that the council prioritises value for money.

The following message went up on the council’s intranet (for its staff) on Wednesday after my question came out:

Mobile Phones
There will be a temporary stop on requests for new mobile phones (for business use) from 26 October.

An audit is currently underway to match all issued handsets to current members of staff and ensure that the data held by our mobile supplier is correct and up to date.

If you feel your request for a new phone is business critical, please contact xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, email: xxxxxxxxx@ealing.gov.uk. You will need to provide a business case that has been approved by your director.