GOVERNMENT PRIVATE CONTRACTOR HITS KIRKLEES RESIDENTS

GOVERNMENT ALLOWS PRIVATE AMERICAN COMPANY TO DELIVER A BLOW TO KIRKLEES RESIDENTS

America's highest paid caseworker operating out of his lair in Reston Virginia has decided that anyone who is sick in Kirklees will have to travel to Halifax to be assessed for benefits.

Richard Montoni is the highly paid CEO of MAXIMUS the for profit company that the Conservative Government use to stop people getting the help they need when they can't work.

MAXIMUS is a company with a revenue of £1.7b that is set up to make profits from governments privatisation agenda. They are paid by the Conservative Government so have no interest in providing a service to people in need.

We are happy to support Healthwatch Kirklees campaign to save the ESA health assessment centre in Huddersfield, their plea for help is added below.

https://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/12/12348/meet-richard-montoni-americas-highest-paid-caseworker

 

 

 

We would like your support on our campaign to save the ESA health assessment centre in Huddersfield.

What’s the issue?

Healthwatch Kirklees has received written confirmation from the Department of Work & Pensions (DWP) that the Huddersfield Assessment Centre for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) Work Capability Assessments (WCA) is expected to close in June/July 2018.

We have been informed by DWP that a decision has been made to merge the Huddersfield Assessment Centre with the Halifax Assessment Centre and that it was fully impacted by Centre for Health and Disability Assessments (CHDA), who we have discovered is a company belonging to MAXIMUS which is global private corporation that has steadily built up a portfolio of multi-million pound government contracts.

The Halifax Assessment centre will provide the assessments for both Calderdale and Kirklees residents.

Why are we covering this issue?

After listening to the concerns of partners, community groups and local ESA claimants we are concerned that the decision to close the Huddersfield Assessment Centre will negatively impact the nearly 18,000 ESA claimants residing in Kirklees.

We would like the DWP to ensure that the Huddersfield Assessment Centre to remains open in Huddersfield.

What you can do to support the campaign

Send a letter to the DWP

We have now written a letter to Esther McVey (see attached) who is the Secretary for Work and Pensions, to bring to her attention the unfair decision of closing the Huddersfield Assessment Centre and how this would affect the 18,000 ESA claimants in Kirklees.

We would encourage other organisations and individuals to get involved and share their experiences/stories by using our template letter. You can either post a paper copy of the letter or send it via email.

Please let us know when you have posted or emailed your letter, so that we can add your name to the list of supporters of this campaign.

 

Here is a link to all the information regarding this issue on our website.

 

 

Government Road Funding - Is it fair?

CONSERVATIVE MINISTER DECIDES WHO GETS WHAT;

CORNWALL £37.63 per person
SULFOLK  £26.10 per person

Neither noted for bad winters or hilly terrain.

KIRKLEES £12.43 per person

POT HOLE SCANDAL

POT HOLE SCANDAL

If you have not noticed the state of our roads you are probably a Hermit. Despite the fact that year on year Councils are filling more and more holes, they can’t keep up. The National infrastructure is falling apart before our eyes in the name of “Austerity”. Patches on patches does not work yet the money to resurface roads that comes from central government has all but disappeared. In fact for unclassified roads it has disappeared, last year’s allocation was Zero.

 

We have more pressure on our roads due to our terrain and weather conditions, the Pennines do us no favors in that regard, yet more is spent on Transport in the South East year on year. Kings Cross had more money spent in one year than ten years of funding for the whole of Yorkshire.

Motorists, and Bikers, pay duty on fuel, VAT on fuel, Vat on Duty on fuel, tax on our insurance and Road Tax, none of this finds a way onto our Roads.

 

 

Kirklees Potholing update –

 

Between 1 April 2017 and 13 March 2018 has seen us repair 21,415 potholes which were either reported by the councils safety inspectors, yourselves, members of the public or identified by the teams whilst out working on the roads - but we still have a backlog of 3450 left to repair.

 

The recent snow and ice has made this situation worse with new potholes at different locations on our roads, and when it is snowing the crews can’t repair the potholes, they are busy gritting and supporting the winter operations.

 

To address this we are deploying additional resources to catch up.

There will be 12 potholing gangs heading out on Monday, weather permitting, including the 2 MultiHog machines. This is 3 times our normal potholing resource.

 

IS KIRKLEES GETTING A FAIR DEAL

KIRKLEES GRANT

All local authorities are told by Central Government that they have to do certain things (Statutory Duties), and in many cases government prescribe how they have to be done. To pay for these things the government decides how much businesses each pay in Rates, they decide what the “Rateable Value” is and what it is multiplied by to work out how much you pay. The Rate is collected by your council, who keep half and hand the other half over to Central Government.

They also value your house to decide how much you pay in Council Tax, they then tell your council how much they can charge, the council collects this money and keeps it all.

Because the sums above are not enough to pay for the services that the government say they have to do, every year each council are given a “Revenue Support Grant” (in Kirklees £22,824,955). This grant used to be worked out on a formula on a basis of need; this was scrapped by Eric Pickles and replaced by a system at the whim of the current minister.

Now there are reasons why different councils get different amounts of grant the most obvious being the number of people each authority serves. So if we divide the grant by the population of each authority we can compare the grants. This is over simplistic but a starting point.

In West Yorkshire the differences are at the least interesting;

	Population	Grant	Per Head
Bradford	534,300	£48,538,924	£90.84
Wakefield	336,800	£22,348,765	£66.36
Leeds	781,700	£46,482,482	£59.46
Calderdale	209,800	£12,357,086	£58.90
Kirklees	437,000	£22,824,955	£52.23

 

This is nowhere as simple as the explanation above implies, no one can say that Local Government Finance is simple; it is believed that the two people who do understand it have both been committed. That does not mean we should not try to understand it, especially as the government are doing yet another review of how Local Services are financed, to some degree dictated by the crisis of funding Social Care and the massive impact underfunding has both on the lives of individuals and the finances of the NHS.

There is something wrong with a system that sees the average council tax for a Band D property in London being £500 cheaper than a Band D property in Yorkshire. There is something wrong in a system that allows a Minister to give extra cash to where he lives. There is something wrong where Kirklees is the 322^nd (of 326) worse funded Local Authority in the UK.

The local Kirklees Conservatives think there is nothing wrong with the system, the then leader of the Conservative Group on Kirklees stated at a council meeting. Kirklees is getting less now because the Labour Government gave them too much money, and all the Government is doing is making it fair by giving councils down south more money.

I am not optimistic about the review.

 

KIRKLEES FUNDING LOSS

KIRKLEES FUNDING LOSS £176m

On three occasions the Nation (not Kirklees) have voted for Austerity, this has given the government the excuse to slash local services to give them chance to cut taxes for their rich friends who have been too lazy to use tax havens to hide their money. This has meant that Kirklees have had our grant cut by £176m.

This cut has not been universal, from day one the Conservatives have fiddled with the grant schemes to help rich Tory Areas. The Kirklees Tories in their usual fashion deny the reality of the situation. Is this because they are lacking in intelligence or are they overawed by deference.

 

  



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



New Homes Bonus or Tory Fiddle

NEW HOMES BONUS - or how we get screwed.

We have just been told what out New Homes Bonus is this Year. New homes Bonus is how the Tories Fiddle support to Councils to continue their screwing of the North.

Money to councils used to be based on need, the Tories scrapped that idea in favour of giving more money to the rich by basing what they give on the value of houses built.

We get £4,661,492

For instance Tower Hamlets get £20.7m, Wiltshire £12m Southwork £11.3m.

We get £10 per person, Westminster get £38 per person, to subsidise one of the richest parts of the country.

Social Care Crisis

SOCIAL CARE CRISIS

Just one of the many articles pointing out the crisis, yet all we get from the public is a cry to spend more (money we have not got) on universal services. They want us to subsidise the rich on the basis that the poor can't pay for services. It all sounds reasonable but a charge for a service that does not cover the cost is not a tax, the service whatever it is, is subsidised.

Thanks to Independent for putting it so clearly.


 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/councils-cash-reserves-social-care-funding-crisis-health-budget-a8074911.html

Councils are being forced to spend billions of pounds of their emergency cash reserves on social care amid a significant funding shortfall, official documents reveal.
Analysis produced by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to accompany the Autumn Budget shows that English councils withdrew £1.4bn from emergency reserves last year.
They are forecast to have to draw down a further £1.7bn by 2020 – significantly more than the £0.9bn the OBR estimated in March.
Experts said relying on reserves to fund social care was “unsustainable” and “a crisis in the making”.
Local authorities face a huge funding shortfall in social care that is set to reach £2.5bn by 2020, according to the King’s Fund charity.

Because they have a legal duty to provide care to those who need it, councils have little choice but to find the cash to fund increasingly in-demand services or else risk breaking the law.
Many are therefore going significantly over their allocated budgets. More than half (53 per cent) of councils expect to overspend on adult social care this year, by an average of £21m.
Two-thirds of authorities that are currently overspending on social care plug the gap by utilising council reserves.
These funds are designed to safeguard councils from an event such as a recession and ensure they have enough resources to maintain services if circumstances change.
However, the funding gap in social care means many are being forced to use the funds to cover day-to-day spending, raising the prospect that they could be plunged into crisis in the face of an economic downturn or financial crisis.
Councils have seen their government funding cut by around 40 per cent since 2010, including 4.3 per cent in the last year alone.
In 2014, Eric Pickles, then the Communities Secretary, accused town halls of “pleading poverty” and told them to start spending the money set aside for a rainy day.
English councils currently have total reserves of around £23bn – down from £25bn two years ago.
However, MPs and local government leaders said the practice of using emergency funds to pay for regular spending was dangerous and “unsustainable”, as councils will eventually run out of cash.
Labour’s Clive Betts, chair of the Communities and Local Government Select Committee, told The Independent: “This is a matter of real concern.

“There was nothing in the Budget on social care. There is a crisis of funding for social care and drawing on reserves simply postpones the day the money runs out.
“This is not how councils should be funding social care. At some point the Government has to recognise this and put a proper funding regime in place.
“This is a crisis in the making. There’s a funding crisis in the here and now and this is just postponing the consequences.”
Mr Betts said the reliance on reserves also creates a postcode lottery because some councils have reserves they can draw on whereas others do not.
The OBR said councils are having to go over budget by more and more each year and rely increasingly on reserves.
Town halls have been overspending on children’s social services since 2010-11 and on adult social care since 2014-15.
Last year, councils in England overspent on their entire non-education budgets for the first time since the financial crisis, largely as a result of the cost of providing social care. Previously, under-spending elsewhere, such as on transport, made up for overspending on care services.
Amid growing concern over the funding shortfall, in March the Government announced a £2bn cash boost for social care. Town halls welcomed the increase but said it was not enough to meet demand.
Philip Hammond faced pressure, including from some senior Conservatives, to use his Autumn Budget to boost investment further. However, his Budget speech did not include a single mention of social care.


The Local Government Association (LGA) said using reserves to fund social care was “unsustainable”.
Councillor Izzi Seccombe, chairman of the LGA’s Community Wellbeing Board, said: “Adult social care services face a £2.3bn funding gap by 2020, including £1.3bn right now to stabilise the provider market. Councils are doing all they can to protect vital adult social care services that help people stay well and live independently in the community.
“Reserves are designed to help councils manage growing financial risks to local services. Using them to plug funding gaps is unsustainable and does nothing to address the systemic underfunding that they face.
“The reality is that the size of cuts councils are having to make and the growing demand for adult social care are simply too big to be plugged by reserves.
“It was hugely disappointing that there was no new funding announced for adult social care in the Autumn Budget. The Government needs to put this right in the local government finance settlement or else risk failing the ambition to support people’s independence and wellbeing with quality care and support.”
The Independent has contacted the Department for Communities and Local Government for comment.

Letter to Rt Hon Marcus Jones MP re our visit

Kirklees Council Deputation on Funding and Settlement

Rt Hon Marcus Jones MP

Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State

Department for Communities and Local Government

2 Marsham Street

London

SW1P 4DF 

Dear Rt Hon Marcus Jones MP 

 

 Thank you for meeting us yesterday to discuss the unique set of circumstances facing Kirklees Council since the autumn statement and our acceptance of the 4 year settlement for Kirklees. 

We discussed:- 

• The low underlying funding base of Kirklees Council.

• The combination of quantified unfunded pressure in Adult’s Services and Waste and the combination of volume and quality pressure on Children’s Services. 

• The track record of substantial efficiency improvement and savings achieved by the Council to date. 

• The late changes in the local government settlement and related announcements that risk undermining our financial plans for 2017/18. These relate to New Homes Bonus and Education Services Grant amounting to £2.26m in 2017 rising to £10.8m by the end of the period. This includes a loss of unringfenced New Homes Bonus Grant of £3.9m over the period replaced by a one off Adult Social Care Grant of £1.9m. The adverse impact of this in a district with two struggling hospital trusts will be real. It is impossible to find alternative resources next year with this notice. 

• Our Council’s approach to accepting freeze grant and using resources in line with successive government’s policies.  

• The cross party nature of the request to you from both Councillors and MP’s.

 

We also outlined that we are not necessarily looking for new money from government but urgently need the ability to bring forward funding that is available later in the 4 year settlement. 

We heard your message that you have very limited room for manoeuvre and that CLG does have room within its own resources to provide transitional assistance but we need to be clear that if any such resources were to be available to any part of local government, irrespective of funding source we have a clear expectation from our conversation that they would be available to Kirklees. 

We would also be grateful for any suggestions you have about mechanisms that we could explore with Treasury, DFE or any other government department to remedy the funding shortfall that the Council faces in 2017/18 in particular. 

We look forward to your early reply on this specific issue. 

You also encouraged us to take an active part in the fairer funding review which we have and will continue to do through the LGA, SIGOMA and in our own right. However that will not address the urgent need for resources in 2017/18 to underpin the delivery of our longer term savings plans which will bring us into surplus during the 4 year settlement period. 

We should make it clear that this is not our full response to the local government settlement but felt it would be helpful to write immediately following our meeting yesterday.

 

Yours sincerely

Councillor David Sheard               Leader of the Council

Councillor David Hall                    Leader of the Conservative Group

Councillor Nicola Turner               Leader of the Liberal Democrats

Councillor Andrew Cooper            Leader of the Green Party

Councillor Charles Greaves          Leader of the Valley Democrats

 

 

 

                                                                            

 

SCHOOL PLACES

SCHOOL PLACES

One of the few duties that Local Authorities still has in relation to schools is to ensure that there are adequate places for the school age population.

That is why they are given a role in determining the number of places at each school. The way that all school funding now works is that schools receive their funding based on the number of pupils they attract. So if one school increases the number of pupils it has then another school looses pupils and  money. This could make a school struggle and close. All the more likely given the cuts that are on the way.

That is why a Local Authority would try to avoid creating more school places where there is no shortage of places as to do so would damage the funding of an adjacent school. The Government who do not have the duty to ensure there are adequate places are quite happy to promote their dogma by creating extra places by parachuting in "Free Schools".

Kirklees had to make a decision on an application by a school to create more places. The logic of creating more places was probably the right decision for the school and parents involved, who do not have any duty to look beyond their own school. But the Cabinet received advice that the extra places created could put other schools at risk and so refused the application. The school have a right to appeal the decision, and might well win the appeal on the basis of their argument for their own school.

The parents, and others, involved in the campaign complained that the decision was being made on financial grounds, in a way they were right but what is also true, as in most things money can not be ignored. Schools are financed and the consequences of the way the schools are financed as an effect on other schools.  Even education cannot call on an unlimited funds.

Parental choice has been supported by all political parties in government, but parties in government do not have to suffer from the consequences of not being able to plan to meet the needs of all children by ensuring there are adequate school places. It might by alright to leave the price of fish to the variances of the market, but the planning of school places requires a bit more thought, and the consequences of children and families in loosing local schools is a price too high to leave school places to market whims. Schools can not be opened instantly, and they definably can't be opened if the government will not pay.

None of this can be used to criticize the parents who want the best for their children in fighting for what they believe is the best.

GREAT SCHOOL ROBBERY

GREAT SCHOOL ROBBERY

Three of the Kirklees constituencies feature in the top hundred constituencies who's schools have lost most money in the government shake up of funding. (I am presuming the other constituency is just out of top one hundred)

The worse hit is Huddersfield who are set to loose 13% of their funding with a cut of £668 per pupil, closely followed by Dewsbury who will loose £534 per pupil which is 12% of their funding, Batley and Spen will loose 11%, £510 per pupil.


The good news part of this story is that the money will not go to waste as schools in the Tory Heartlands down South will have a boost in income. Can anyone still be surprised at this callous manipulation of government spending? The only surprise is the number of people who live in the North and still vote Conservative.

Government Children's Centre cuts hit Kirklees

Cllr Erin Hill - Cabinet Member,
Child Support & Family Protection

Many of you will already be aware that the consultation on Early Help services is ongoing. This will cover the services currently provided in Children’s Centres, as well as youth provision in the district. Like most of the decisions we have to make now, it is overshadowed by a drastic reduction in the funding we receive from central government.

Kirklees is no different to many other Northern councils in that we have experienced a sustained and dramatic cut in our budget since 2010. By 2020 we will have £170m less than we did in 2010. We still have £63m of cuts left to make. 

The Labour Administration has done our best to meet this challenge, because we have a duty to the residents and taxpayers of Kirklees to use what dwindling resources we have effectively. We have a duty of care to the vulnerable children and adults we care for, to prioritise them and their needs. We have a duty to make Kirklees a place where people can live and work happily.

Our Children’s Centres have made life better for countless families since their introduction by a Labour government. They have been a major factor in turning around some of our most deprived areas, but have also been a lifeline for families from diverse backgrounds who just needed someone to talk to. Children who might have been consigned to a second-class life instead went to school with good social skills, better health, and a loving relationship with fulfilled and happy parents.

This undeniable success meant that any government with sense would have invested in Children’s Centres, renewed them, and appreciated their importance to our economy and the fabric of our society.

But, since 2010, the sustained and brutal attack on families by Conservative and Lib Dem governments has created a perfect storm of increasing demand and plummeting budgets. A damning report from the London School of Economics concluded that families with a baby had been disproportionately harmed by government policy.

The same report expressed deep concern about the next generation if subsequent governments continued down this path. But since the publication of that report, the challenge has if anything intensified.

A report carried out by Oxford University into the impact of Children’s Centres was published the day Parliament went into Christmas recess, along with nearly two hundred other reports, successfully ensuring that it did not see the light of day. When the researchers sought to continue, their funding was denied.

The emerging picture is grim. In Kirklees our budget is nearly half of what it was in 2010, yet demand for our services has never been higher. We have never needed “Early Help” services more – and we have never been more starved of the funding required to deliver them.    

The Labour Administration in Kirklees is fully committed to children and families. We will prioritise helping families as early as possible, before problems become crises. This is what our proposals are designed to achieve – despite the government’s brutal onslaught on our budget. This is a difficult decision, with far-reaching consequences. But we will not shy away from it.

• We will do more outreach work, to work with families who have not previously engaged with our services.
• We will base our services in the community, to enable us to use resources we might have spent on buildings on frontline work instead.
• We will work with schools, health, and the police, to make sure that no children fall through the gaps.
• We will put children first.