Tax Special Investigation: HMRC ‘particularly feeble’ over failure to close loophole

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tax-special-investigation-hmrc-particularly-feeble-over-failure-to-close-loophole-8895209.html

Despite the tax exemption costing the UK economy at least £500m a year, the  Government bowed to  pressure after intense lobbying from the financial sector to allow companies to use it

The Government chose not to close a tax loophole which costs the UK economy at least £500m a year after intense lobbying from the financial sector, The Independent has learnt.

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More than 30 companies are paying more than £2bn in total to their overseas owners every year as interest on borrowings. As these can be deducted from the companies’ taxable UK income, this amounts to a corporation tax saving of around £500m when compared to equivalent investment in shares in the company.

Without the exemption, any tax savings from the interest deductions would be greatly reduced by the 20 per cent withholding tax that HMRC would otherwise take from interest payments going overseas. As many more companies list debt in the Channel Islands, and the loophole also works in other exchanges including Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands, the total tax lost may be significantly higher.

27/11/13 Having received a takedown notice from the Independent newspaper for a different posting, I have reviewed this article which links to an article at the Independent’s website in order to attempt to ensure conformance with copyright laws.

I consider this posting to comply with copyright laws since
a. Only a small portion of the original article has been quoted satisfying the fair use criteria, and / or
b. This posting satisfies the requirements of a derivative work.

Please be assured that this blog is a non-commercial blog (weblog) which does not feature advertising and has not ever produced any income.

dizzy

Continue ReadingTax Special Investigation: HMRC ‘particularly feeble’ over failure to close loophole

Tax Special Investigation: Firms running NHS care services avoiding millions in tax

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/tax-special-investigation-firms-running-nhs-care-services-avoiding-millions-in-tax-8892925.html

Companies running care services are among many avoiding millions in tax through a legal loophole. In the first of a series, Emily Dugan and Richard Whittell report

NHS sign

Companies receiving lucrative government contracts to run care services looking after tens of thousands of vulnerable people are avoiding millions of pounds in tax through a legal loophole.

The firms are cutting their taxable UK profits by taking high-interest loans from their owners through the Channel Islands Stock Exchange, an investigation by Corporate Watch and The Independent has found. By racking up large interest payments to their parent companies, they are able to reduce their bottom line and cut their tax bills.

The news will increase concern about NHS reforms that are seeing private companies take more responsibility for services. It also raises questions about the Government’s commitment to tackling corporate tax avoidance, which David Cameron has said “corrodes public trust”.

Over the course of this week, The Independent will reveal how more than 30 UK companies, including some of the UK’s most recognisable brands, are benefiting from this legal tax loophole, known as the quoted Eurobond exemption. HMRC considered restricting the use of the loophole in 2012 but never took action.

27/11/13 Having received a takedown notice from the Independent newspaper for a different posting, I have reviewed this article which links to an article at the Independent’s website in order to attempt to ensure conformance with copyright laws.

I consider this posting to comply with copyright laws since
a. Only a small portion of the original article has been quoted satisfying the fair use criteria, and / or
b. This posting satisfies the requirements of a derivative work.

Please be assured that this blog is a non-commercial blog (weblog) which does not feature advertising and has not ever produced any income.

dizzy

 

Continue ReadingTax Special Investigation: Firms running NHS care services avoiding millions in tax

Boots owner Alliance ‘uses havens to save £1.1bn in corporation tax’

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/boots-owner-alliance-uses-havens-to-save-11bn-in-corporation-tax-8880052.html

Image from http://www.waronwant.org

Alliance Boots, the owner of Boots the chemist, has avoided £1.1bn in taxes by routing its cash through a series of subsidiaries in well-known tax havens including Luxembourg, Cayman Islands and Gibraltar, according to a new report.

The campaign groups War on Want and Change to Win and the Unite union have calculated that the company saved the money by loading the UK business with debts from its £12.2bn private purchase in 2007 and legally claiming tax relief against the interest.

The campaigners claim that 40 per cent of Boots’ sales come from NHS-funded services such as prescription drugs and flu jabs – and called on the Government not to hand contracts to companies that do not pay their fair share in tax. The pharmacy giant rejected the report’s findings and said it is one of the most transparent private companies in the world. Only 25 per cent of sales came from prescriptions and similar business, it added.

Last year, Alliance Boots’ sales hit £22.4bn with underlying profits reaching £805m. However, the company paid just £114m in tax, including £64m in the UK, up £31m on the previous year. In the UK, under the Boots brand where it has 2,000 stores, sales were £6.55bn.

27/11/13 Having received a takedown notice from the Independent newspaper for a different posting, I have reviewed this article which links to an article at the Independent’s website in order to attempt to ensure conformance with copyright laws.

I consider this posting to comply with copyright laws since
a. Only a small portion of the original article has been quoted satisfying the fair use criteria, and / or
b. This posting satisfies the requirements of a derivative work.

Please be assured that this blog is a non-commercial blog (weblog) which does not feature advertising and has not ever produced any income.

dizzy

 

Continue ReadingBoots owner Alliance ‘uses havens to save £1.1bn in corporation tax’

UK politics news review

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A brief post today as I can’t spare the time.

The Liberal-Democrat-Conservatives’ party conference at Brighton has finished. The Labour party conference at Manchester has started. Ed Balls scored two goals (the second is disputed by claims that he faked a foul leading to a penalty and goal) and Andy Burnham scored one against the Press XI. Ed Miliband makes a speech suggesting the return of the 50% tax rate that the ConDems’ abolished and telling the banks to sort themselves out. Two policies that I agree with. Clearly, if the banks are too big to fail then they need to be made smaller. There is not a commitment to undo the ConDems’ privatisation and demolition of the NHS.

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News review

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  • South London NHS Trust is declared ‘bankrupt’ and placed in ‘receivership’. A private company may take over.
  • Insanity returns to the Labour Party. Insane, deluded, divorced-from-reality, barking mad and woofing former Prime Minister and War Criminal Tony Blair to advise Miliband on Sports Policy. At least he’s got a fairly harmless nothing position but doesn’t Miliband and the wider Labour Party realise what damage Blair & Co have done, the extent to which he is hated by so many, that he’s a Tory who pursued Tory policies? He was so hated that he left the country for 5 years FFS.
  • London couple forced to treat their son privately.
  • NHS campaigner offered job as NHS-wrecker.

    South London Healthcare NHS Trust put into administration

    South London Healthcare NHS Trust is to be put into administration after it ran into financial trouble, the government has announced.

    Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has appointed a trust special administrator to go into the trust.

    As well as struggling financially, the trust also has some of the longest waiting times for operations and longer-than-average waits in A&E. However, it has low infection and death rates.

    If a decision was made to break up the trust, it would not necessarily mean the closure of all services.

    Another more successful NHS organisation or private provider could end up taking some on.

     

Tony Blair returns to politics as Labour sports adviser

Former prime minister Tony Blair has undertaken his first job in British politics since leaving office, as an adviser to the Labour party on its sports policy review.

The anti-war movement won’t let Tony Blair forget about Iraq

Pay £2,000 to remove painful lump on son’s hand, NHS hospital tells couple

A couple have had to borrow £2,000 to pay for an operation to remove a painful gobstopper-sized lump on their child’s hand after NHS officials refused to pay for “cosmetic” surgery.

Bailey Payne, three, from Dagenham struggles to hold a pen because of  the lump, which has formed from a build-up of muscle tissue near the base of his thumb. His mother Maxine, 24, took him to her GP, who said the lump should be removed and referred him to Queen’s Hospital in Romford.

Doctors agreed to carry out the operation but weeks later Ms Payne and her partner Steven Jones, a lorry driver, received a letter saying the NHS would not cover the costs of the surgery. The couple lost an appeal.

Going private? What happened when a private health company offered an NHS campaigner a job

This week, Alex Nunns, campaigner with Keep Our NHS Public, was headhunted for a job at private health firm Care UK. His proposal? A new coporate motto: ‘Providing less, for more’.

I believe a key talent for any disrespecting Media Relations Executive is the ability to turn a negative in to something offensive. For example, it must have been a stressful time in the Media Revelations office when that tax avoidance story broke a few months ago – the one saying that Care UK had reduced its tax bill by taking out loans through the Channel Islands stock exchange. All this talk of tax havens and tax avoidance isn’t good in the current climate. But as your Media Relationship Executive I would have used a little reverse psychology, instead of denying it as your spokesman did. After all, this could put you right up there with the big boys like Goldman Sachs, Vodafone and Jimmy Carr.

Similarly, you got some bad press when it was revealed that the wife of your former chairman John Nash gave £21,000 to Andrew Lansley’s office before the last election, when Lansley was shadow health secretary. But let’s view it from another angle – doesn’t this serve to highlight Care UK’s excellent political connections? And look how it turned out: Lansley is in power and he has passed the Health Act. He has opened the door wide to privatisation, and Care UK is already inside redecorating the place.  We thought Lansley wasn’t going to manage it for a while, when all those thousands of patients and doctors started protesting and June Hautot shouted “codswallop” at him in the street. But he pulled through, sacrificed his future public career for private gain, and God bless him for that. Care UK now stands to make a fortune. This is something to boast about, for Bevan’s sake! And all for £21,000, less than it would cost to employ a Media Relations Executive for a year. (Please confirm.)

You should play to your strengths. Care UK is a true pioneer in this privatisation drive. You were the first private company to run a GP surgery in Dagenham back in 2006. And the first to face enforcement action from the Healthcare Commission because of slack hygiene procedures at the Sussex Orthopaedic Treatment Centre in 2008. And who’s to say you weren’t the first to forget to process 6,000 x-rays at your ‘urgent’ care centre in North-West London in 2012? As a Mediocre Relations Executive, I would advise not mentioning those last two.

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Conservative election poster 2010

A few recent news articles about the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat(Conservative) coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.

 

Connectivity problems continue …

The Health and Social Care / Destroy the NHS Bill is drawing to an end. There are two last-minute attempts to derail progress of the bill. Lord David Owen is trying to postpone the Lords’ third reading of the bill tonight until after publication of the risk register. The Labour party have succeeded in tabling an emergency debate tomorrow again about the government’s refusal to publish the risk registers.

 

NHS bill: Labour force emergency debate on risk register

 

Labour have forced a Commons debate on whether Parliament can consider planned NHS changes for a final time before an assessment of the potential risks to the health service is published.

It will take place on Tuesday after being granted by Speaker John Bercow.

Critics are attempting to scupper the Health and Social Care Bill – currently in its final stages in the Lords.

An unhealthy business: major healthcare companies use tax havens to avoid millions in UK tax

While in public they have been presenting themselves as the future of the NHS, a Corporate Watch investigation into the accounts and finances of five of the major private healthcare companies has found widespread use of tax havens,* including the British Virgin Islands, Luxembourg, Jersey, Guernsey and the Cayman Islands, and tax avoidance schemes Barclays or Vodafone accountants would be proud of.

 

To download the pdf click here

 

  • Spire Healthcare, the UK’s second largest private healthcare company, is channelling £65m a year through a Luxembourg subsidiary of Cinven, its private equity owner, almost wiping out its taxable UK earnings.
  • Care UK, which operates NHS treatment centres, walk-in centres and mental health services across England, is reducing its tax liability by routing £8m a year in interest payments on loan notes issued in the Channel Islands.
  • Circle Health, the self-styled “social enterprise” that became the first private company to take over the management of an NHS hospital, is owned by companies and investment funds registered in the British Virgin Islands, Jersey and the Cayman Islands.
  • Ramsay Health Care, the company with the greatest number of healthcare provision contracts in the NHS, has used a subsidiary in the Cayman Islands to finance the purchase of a French health company for its Australian parent company.
  • General Healthcare Group, the biggest private hospital group in the UK, has registered the ownership of its hospitals through subsidiaries in the British Virgin Islands, potentially avoiding stamp duty when its owners come to sell. Its corporate structure may also mean its owners will not pay UK capital gains tax.

 

Spire, Care UK, General Healthcare Group and Ramsay** are all carrying significant levels of debt after their owners financed their acquisitions through borrowing. The interest being paid to banks and bondholders – which is far higher than the government would be paying for equivalent sums – is also serving to reduce taxable profits.

 

All of the companies investigated have been lobbying in support of the government’s health reforms, which they hope will increase their share of NHS work and the amount of patients paying for private healthcare.[2]

 

If accused of tax avoidance the companies will reply that everything they do is legal. As the accounts of their offshore subsidiaries are not publicly available – and the companies have not responded to Corporate Watch’s requests to see them – it is impossible to dispute that. But being legal is not the same thing as being right, and the government’s promises that companies can be regulated into doing a good job for the NHS are further undermined with evidence of how easily they are getting round the tax obligations that should help pay for it.

Doctors opposed to NHS reforms to stand against coalition MPs in election

Group of 240 healthcare professionals warn that health and social care bill is ’embarrassment to democracy’

 

NHS doctors opposed to the government’s health reforms have said they will stand against high-profile coalition MPs at the next general election.

As the legislation faces its final hurdle in parliament on Monday, a group of 240 healthcare professionals, including 30 professors, said in a letter to the Independent on Sunday that the health and social care bill was an “embarrassment to democracy” and pledged to stand as candidates against MPs who backed it.

The health secretary, Andrew Lansley, is expected to be among the MPs targeted, as well as the Liberal Democrat deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg.

The letter was organised by Dr Clive Peedell, a cancer specialist and the co-chair of the NHS Consultants Association, who said the intention was to field as many candidates as possible at the election, with other supporters acting in administrative and fundraising roles.

The letter said: “It is our view that coalition MPs and peers have placed the political survival of the coalition government above professional opinion, patient safety and the will of the citizens of this country.

“We are shocked by the failure of the democratic process and the facilitating role played by the Liberal Democrats in the passage of this bill.”

Richard Taylor, the retired consultant who was elected as an independent MP for Wyre Forest in 2001 in protest at the downgrading of his local hospital, said he was advising the doctors.

NHS reforms: seven in 10 hospital doctors reject bill

Royal College of Physicians poll shows widespread opposition to shakeup, with abundant fears about privatisation of servicesBritain’s hospital doctors want the coalition’s controversial NHS shakeup to be scrapped, with many fearing it will lead to health services being privatised, a poll has revealed.

Almost seven in 10 members of the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), which represents hospital doctors, want the health and social care bill withdrawn.

The findings of the RCP’s poll of its members’ views on the bill are another blow to ministers’ efforts to convince doctors their plans are right, and are a significant addition to the medical community’s almost unanimous opposition to it.

The RCP polled its 25,417 fellows and members. Of those, 8,878 responded (35%). The survey followed the college’s recent extraordinary general meeting to decide its stance on the bill, after some members said it was not being robust enough in its opposition.

When asked for their personal views of the bill, 69% (6,092) said they rejected it as it stood; only 6% (525) accepted it; 22% (1,971) said they “neither completely accept nor completely reject it”; and the other 3% (290) did not offer an opinion.

How the Orange Bookers took over the Lib Dems


What Britain now has is a blue-orange coalition, with the little-knownOrange Book forming the core of current Lib Dem political thinking. To understand how this disreputable arrangement has come about, we need to examine the philosophy laid out in The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism, edited by David Laws (now the Chief Secretary to the Treasury) and Paul Marshall. Particularly interesting are the contributions of the Lib Dems’ present leadership.

Published in 2004, the Orange Book marked the start of the slow decline of progressive values in the Lib Dems and the gradual abandonment of social market values. It also provided the ideological standpoint around which the party’s right wing was able to coalesce and begin their march to power in the Lib Dems. What is remarkable is the failure of former SDP and Labour elements to sound warning bells about the direction the party was taking. Former Labour ministers such as Shirley Williams and Tom McNally should be ashamed of their inaction.

Clegg and his Lib Dem supporters have much in common with David Cameron and his allies in their philosophical approach and with their social liberal solutions to society’s perceived ills. The Orange Book is predicated on an abiding belief in the free market’s ability to address issues such as public healthcare, pensions, environment, globalisation, social and agricultural policy, local government and prisons.

The Lib Dem leadership seems to sit very easily in the Tory-led coalition. This is an arranged marriage between partners of a similar background and belief. Even the Tory-Whig coalition of early 1780s, although its members were from the same class, at least had fundamental political differences. Now we see a Government made up of a single elite that has previously manifested itself as two separate political parties and which is divided more by subtle shades of opinion than any profound ideological difference.

 

 

27/11/13 Having received a takedown notice from the Independent newspaper for a different posting, I have reviewed this article which links to an article at the Independent’s website in order to attempt to ensure conformance with copyright laws.

I consider this posting to comply with copyright laws since
a. Only a small portion of the original article has been quoted satisfying the fair use criteria, and / or
b. This posting satisfies the requirements of a derivative work.

Please be assured that this blog is a non-commercial blog (weblog) which does not feature advertising and has not ever produced any income.

dizzy

 

Continue ReadingNHS news review

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Conservative election poster 2010

A few recent news articles about the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat (Conservative) coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.

 

Backers of NHS shake-up turn against Andrew Lansley’s plans

Leading doctors voice concerns that reforms will suffocate GPs and jeopardise promised freedom to commission care

Two prominent backers of the coalition’s NHS shake-up have joined the growing chorus of critics by claiming that GPs will be “suffocated rather than liberated” by the planned changes.

Dr Charles Alessi and Dr Michael Dixon have helped Andrew Lansley claim credibility for his plans among doctors over the past 18 months by strongly supporting his radical restructuring. They are leading lights in the NHS Alliance and the National Association of Primary Care, two key pro-reform organisations.

But they now fear that the new consortiums of local doctors, which will start commissioning healthcare for patients in England from next year, will not have the freedom that the health secretary has repeatedly pledged. Lansley has attempted to persuade sceptics that his reorganisation will put family doctors in charge of healthcare.

NHS primary care trusts (PCTs) and strategic health authorities (SHAs) are due to be abolished next year.

But the doctors are worried that the GP-led clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), which will replace PCTs, will find themselves unexpectedly under the control of another organisation, the NHA National Commissioning Board (NCB).

In July the NHS chief executive, Sir David Nicholson, said “CCGs will be the engine of the new system” and that the reformed NHS “gives pride of place to clinical leaders”. But the reality is that primary care doctors and clinical commissioners will not have the promised ability to make key decisions because the current bureaucracy is simply being replaced by another that is growing up around the NCB, the pair claim.

 

MP believes Prime Minister is pushing NHS to the brink of collapse

SLOUGH MP Fiona Mactaggart has claimed the Prime Minister is pushing the NHS to the brink of collapse – with patients waiting even longer for their treatments.

The latest data shows that 44 more patients were forced to wait longer than 18 weeks for treatment in the Berkshire East PCT area, between November 2010 and November 2011.

Waiting times are also up nationally with an increase of more than a third in the number of patients waiting more than four-and-a-half months for treatment.

Ms Mactaggart said “The chaos caused by the Health Bill is starting to take its toll. By the time Labour left office, waiting times had fallen to a historic low, but this Government is throwing that legacy away.

“It is hard to get this right and we have had some particular local challenges with our hospital, but we must keep our focus on patient care, and patients who are left to wait are not being cared for.

“If the Prime Minister succeeds in allowing hospitals to fill 49% of hospital beds with private patients, this will get worse.

Nurses at the first NHS general hospital to be run by the private sector risk shouldering the burden for deep financial problems that are out of their control, the Royal College of Nursing has warned.

Private company Circle was awarded a 10-year contract to run Hinchingbrooke Health Care Trust in November. Last week it unveiled a 16-point plan for turning round the financially troubled Cambridgeshire trust, with a major focus on nursing. The trust is in the red by around £40m.

The widely publicised plan included devoting two thirds of nurses’ time to contact with patients, a culture of “complete transparency” around patient harm, reducing rates of preventable falls and pressure sores to the lowest in the region. Staff will also be subject to “360 degree” performance reviews, with assessments from both their peers and line managers.

In addition, staff will be organised into “clinical units” each run by a nurse, a doctor and a manager. The three will have authority to take all decisions about a patient’s care and have responsibility for their own quality measures and costs.

But RCN director of policy Howard Catton warned that Circle’s “public relations strategy” was placing too much responsibility on nurses for overcoming the hospital’s huge financial challenges.

“Nursing could lead improvements, but it’s beyond nursing’s control to turn around all the cost pressures and [find] a £40m saving,” he told Nursing Times. He said: “What we’ve had this week is nursing and the workforce standing on their own at the front of this PR strategy.”

Mr Catton said the RCN wanted to see the same level of “transparency” expected of nurses placed on the work of Circle’s management team and the returns expected from the company’s shareholders.

Terminally ill care turmoil as NHS suspends company

THE care of dozens of terminally ill people in South Yorkshire has been thrown into turmoil after NHS chiefs yesterday suspended a contract with a care firm.

More than 30 people and their families, mainly in Rotherham and Sheffield, have been affected by the decision to suspend the services of care provider Abacus.

NHS officials are carrying out an investigation following allegations over patient safety and quality of care, believed to include claims staff have failed to attend home visits or cut them short.

Patients and their families were told only yesterday that the contract was being suspended.

Margaret Kitching, nurse director for the South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw cluster of primary care trusts, said: “An investigation is currently taking place into Abacus following a number of allegations.”

NHS reforms: the bill that will cost us dear

It is hard to think of a starker failure in domestic government since the poll tax

No one, but no one, thinks that the health and social care bill returning to parliament this week is any good. Nurses and doctors have lined up to denounce it – even GPs, whom the legislation claims to put in charge. Professional resistance can be dismissed as “producer interest”, but not so the joint editorial published by three specialist periodicals, including the Health Service Journal. The journal is generally supportive of exposing medicine to competition, yet it damns the particular market-based reforms on offer as “unnecessary, poorly conceived, badly communicated” and “a dangerous distraction”. Meanwhile, a committee dominated by coalition MPs has just concluded that the current upheaval “complicates” necessary cost-cutting, and displaces “truly effective” reforms.

Even the health secretary cannot any longer really believe in the watered-down product he is saddled with punting. The one hope for the bill which Andrew Lansley had originally articulated intelligibly was removing politics from healthcare. But, after a year of amendments and grudging stand-offs with the Liberal Democrats, he has utterly failed in this – as is underlined by the latest concession, which explicitly reaffirms that he will retain full political responsibility to parliament.

Having foolishly nodded the legislation through in the Commons, the Lib Dems blundered again by failing to kill the bill – as they could have done – when their members and peers revolted. Instead, they settled for fudge. The bill before parliament is littered with warm words such as “integrated”, which mean entirely different things to advocates of planning and cheerleaders for restructured competition. It may well fall to the courts to determine what on earth whole passages mean. And yet – carried along only by the crack of the government whip – this unloved legislation rolls towards the statute book. The strongest remaining argument for passing it is that the hard-to-manage mess of half-disbanded care trusts could descend into uncontrollable chaos if new rules and structures of some sort, however flawed, are not agreed on soon.

Mr Lansley’s great error was to allow the charged words “Tory”, “cuts”, “health” and above all “privatisation” to combine to become the story of the bill. The technocrat imagined that he could quietly impose a new healthcare market, and that England would soon bow to its logic. He not only misread opinion, but also mistook a well-founded concern to restrain medical profiteering for socialistic superstition. Last month the Guardian revealed that millions were being diverted to the likes of KPMG and McKinsey to teach “business skills” to GPs. On Friday, it emerged that a cash-strapped health department was having to stump up £1.5bn to trusts that cannot afford repayments under the PFI – the last great brainwave for getting the private sector involved. Public fear of racketeering is not boneheadedness. The medical marketplace will never be one where consumers (or, as they were once known, patients) can be sovereign – the knowledge gap with “producers” is too great.

The NHS bill could finish the health service – and David Cameron

NHS reforms: the plans and the results so far

in other news:

Treasury Wrote Off £11bn In Unpaid Tax

Revenue and Customs wrote off almost £11bn in unpaid tax in one year, according to the first joint audit of every government department.

The Treasury was not fully aware of the figure until it appeared in the Whole of Government Accounts (WGA) for 2009 to 2010, according to the Public Accounts Committee.

The PAC said it also had “no knowledge” of whether plans were in place to cut the taxpayer’s huge £15.7bn liability for clinical negligence claims.

PAC chair Margaret Hodge said the document also “currently falls short of giving a true and fair view of the UK’s financial position”.

“The Treasury has departed from accounting standards by leaving out of the accounts of such bodies as Network Rail and the publicly-owned banks,” the Labour MP said.

“This has led to the accounts being qualified by the Comptroller & Auditor General. We want the Government to provide the necessary information so that these accounts are comprehensive and credible.”

war of terrorism BS

‘Lone wolf’ terror threat warning

Continue ReadingNHS news review

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Conservative election poster 2010

A few recent news articles about the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat (Conservative) coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.

Hi-de-hi patients, it’s a private NHS / Britain / Home – Morning Star

Tax-dodging bosses at the first ever NHS hospital to be privatised set out their plans for its future today, prioritising “value for money” and “patient experience” but failing to commit to spending on quality public care.

Circle executives made the remarks as they officially started managing Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Cambridgeshire.

The firm won the management contract in November after the government decided to sell Hinchingbrooke rather than meet its £40m debt – a fraction of the billions authorised for bailing out the banks.

Circle chief executive and former Goldman Sachs banker Ali Parsa today unveiled plans to turn the “basket case” hospital into “one of the top 10” in the country – but made it sound more like a cut-price holiday camp than a quality institution.

He said that following “unprecedented sessions” with staff he had set four priorities – patient safety, patient experience, staff engagement and value for money.

“Like John Lewis, Circle are employee co-owned, and have a track record of creating best-in-class hospitals,” Mr Parsa boasted.

But in reality Circle is a joint venture between Circle Partnership and hedge fund firm Circle Holdings, both registered in the tax havens of the British Virgin Islands and Jersey respectively.

Health campaigners and unions condemned the takeover as a sign of things to come under government plans to shred the NHS into easy prey for profiteers.

New Statesman – Witney GP: “Nobody supports the NHS changes”

Senior GP in David Cameron’s own constituency tells New Statesman “things are going to fail, hospitals will close”.

In an exchange over the government’s controversial health reforms at Prime Minister’s Questions last Wednesday, David Cameron cited “a supportive GP . . . who hails from Doncaster [Ed Miliband’s constituency]”.

In this week’s New Statesman (on newsstands tomorrow), Sophie Elmhirst travels to David Cameron’s own Witney constituency in West Oxfordshire, where a senior partner of a local GP practice tells her:

“I would say very few GPs are happy with [the NHS reform] at all . . . Not a question of supporting it, it’s a question of going along with it.”

“In my practice, nobody supports the changes . . . people think there should be more clinical involvement in commissioning. But I don’t think many people think that GPs are the right people to commission. They need input into it – but if we wanted to be managers we would have trained to be managers, not doctors. “

The GP adds:

“Most GPs are incredibly worried about conflict of interest. How can you be a patient’s advocate and look after the money? A lot of people think the whole thing’s designed to fail so they can bring private providers in. It’s the one big bit of the economy that hasn’t got private money in it.”

Of the effects to patients from the health service overhaul, the Witney GP says:

“The public have just got no idea what’s hitting them . . . Things are going to fail, hospitals will close, because the money’s not going to be there. Things will get taken over. And if you’re going to have to make a profit out of it, you’re not going to have the same service.”

BBC News – NICE: Prostate cancer drug too costly for NHS

A drug that can extend the life of men with advanced prostate cancer by more than three months has provisionally been rejected for NHS use.

The health watchdog for England and Wales says the drug’s benefits are not enough to justify the price the NHS has been asked to pay.

Cancer charities have been angered by the decision about abiraterone, one of the few drugs available to men in the final stages of prostate cancer.

A final decision is yet to be made.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer to affect men in the UK.

The chief executive of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), Sir Andrew Dillon, said the drug was effective, and one of its key benefits was that it could be taken orally in the patient’s own home.

“We are therefore disappointed not to be able to recommend it for use on the NHS, however it is an expensive drug,” Sir Andrew added.

There is an alternative: The case against cuts in public spending – PCS

The government’s cuts strategy – and why it’s wrong

Debt as % of GDP Firstly, we need to get the ‘debt crisis’ in perspective. The table opposite shows UK debt relative to other major economies.

From 1918 to 1961 the UK national debt was over 100% of GDP. During that period the government introduced the welfare state, the NHS, state pensions, comprehensive education, built millions of council houses, and nationalised a range of industries. The public sector grew and there was economic growth.

Today, the coalition government wants to turn back the clock. It is set on dismantling the NHS and comprehensive education, and it is attacking the welfare state. It is not doing this because the country is on the verge of economic collapse, it is doing it because it is ideologically opposed to public services and the welfare state, and committed to handing over more of our public assets to big business.

Cutting public sector jobs will increase unemployment. This would mean increased costs for government in benefit payments and lost tax revenue. If people’s incomes are taken away or cut through pay freezes they will spend less. Less consumer spending means cuts in the private sector, and lower VAT revenues.
Internal analysis by HM Treasury proves this to be the case. Leaked documents estimated that over the next six years 600,000 public sector jobs would be cut, and 700,000 private sector jobs would also be lost – based on the current government’s policies.

Job cuts are therefore counterproductive. Mass job cuts would worsen the economic situation by reducing demand in the economy, and providing less tax revenue.

The government claims it can make cuts of between 25% and 40%, and still “protect frontline public services”. This is impossible – not just because ‘frontline services’ are being cut, but because services rely on ‘back office’ support staff. For example, cutting support staff like NHS cleaners has meant an increase in healthcare acquired infections, costing the NHS £1 billion. All public services require tax revenues to fund them, yet HM Revenue & Customs has cut 25,000 staff in recent years, which has led to uncollected tax at record levels and a growing tax gap.

The impact is likely to be highly divisive too. There is evidence of this already in the UK. In areas where public sector workers have already been laid off, retail sales have fallen faster than the UK average. In nations and regions where public sector workers make up a high proportion of the workforce, major public sector cuts could destroy local economies. Any attack on the public sector will also disproportionately affect women, as 68% of the public sector workforce is female. The public sector also has a much better record of employing disabled workers too.

The global race to cut labour costs is central to the economic collapse we have seen around the world. Squeezed consumers are defaulting on mortgages and personal debts, and are less able to spend in the economy. In the UK, the value of wages has declined from nearly 65% of GDP in the mid-1970s to 55% today. Over the same period, the rate of corporate profit has increased from 13% to 21%. It is no coincidence that in this period trade union rights were severely restricted, large swathes of the economy privatised, markets deregulated and corporation tax slashed.

There is an urgent need to rebalance the economy in the interests of people over big business.

The experience of Ireland

Ireland shows how cutting public spending can damage the economy. The crisis in Ireland was caused by the collapse of its banking sector. The massive cuts in spending and public sector pay that followed have
increased unemployment and sapped demand, causing the economy to shrink further. Because of this, Ireland is now considered more at risk of sovereign default than before it started making cuts. Historical research clearly demonstrates that budget cuts actually provoke increases in the national debt by damaging the economy.


Economic growth and public investment

Investing in public services is the solution to the deficit crisis. Instead of cutting jobs, we should be creating them. Jobs are not created by bullying people on benefits into jobs that don’t exist. Instead there are several areas where public sector jobs urgently need to be created.

It has been estimated that over a million ‘climate jobs’ could be created if the government was serious about tackling both climate change and unemployment – these would include areas like housing, renewable energy and public transport investment including high speed rail, bus networks and electric car manufacture.

Today there are 1.8 million families (representing over 5 million people) on council house waiting lists. There is an urgent need to build affordable housing for these people, which would also help reduce housing benefit payments.

The UK lags behind much of the rest of Europe in the development of a high-speed rail network, which would have the potential to create thousands of jobs and reduce carbon emissions by shifting passengers and freight away from road and air travel. Much of the country outside of London also needs huge investment in bus services – and, just as we should invest in electric car technology, we should also invest in electric buses and tram networks.

Only 2.2% of UK energy comes from renewable sources compared with 8.9% in Germany, 11% in France, and an impressive 44.4% in Sweden. If we are committed to tackling climate change and ensuring domestic energy security there needs to be investment in renewable energy technology.

All of these industries would generate revenue – people are billed for electricity, buy tickets to travel on public transport, and pay rent for council housing.

Research by Richard Murphy (of Tax Research) has shown that the state recoups 92% of the cost of creating new public sector jobs – through lower benefit payments and increased tax revenues.

The banks

We should never forget that it was the banking sector that caused the recession, and is ultimately responsible for the huge debts that the UK has amassed. Despite causing the crisis, the banking sector has escaped any significant regulation, and bankers are again awarding themselves huge bonuses.

Government debt as of % gdb The table opposite clearly shows how UK debt accelerated after the banking crisis in 2008. As a result of the UK government’s £1.3 trillion bailout to the financial sector, the government still owns over £850 billion in bank assets. This figure is roughly equal to the total UK debt.

The UK has an 84% stake in RBS and a 41% stake in Lloyds TSB. In addition, the state also owns Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley. Under public ownership and control these assets could yield significant annual income to the Government, and could be used to meet social needs and tackle financial exclusion.


The case against privatisation

As a result of the government’s agenda to slash the public sector, privatisation, outsourcing and the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) are a fast growing threat to civil and public services despite the many performance failures of past privatisations.

Privatisation is no solution to the national debt. Evidence confirms that after transfer to the private sector the terms and conditions of workers are worse than before, the public sector loses any revenue stream while ultimately keeping the risk, and services to the public decline or cost more:

  • In the DWP, welfare is now described as “an annual multi-billion pound market”, and despite the department’s own research showing that Jobcentre staff outperform the private sector in helping people back to work, all contracts for welfare programmes are now outsourced.
  • Qinetiq was a company formed from the privatisation of the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA). In 2007, the 10 most senior managers gained £107.5m on a total investment of £540,000 in the company’s shares. The return of 19,990% on their investment was described as “excessive” by the National Audit Office. In 2009, Qinetiq offered its staff a pay freeze.
  • Although the economic downturn has led to a drying up of bank finance for PFI projects, the government has got round this by funnelling public funds – through the Treasury’s Infrastructure Finance Unit – to state owned banks who then loan finance to PFI consortia (which then claim inflated returns to government for the next thirty years, greatly exceeding the money given to them). The journalist and antiprivatisation activist George Monbiot observed, “the Private Finance Initiative no longer requires much private finance or initiative”.

Public services were won by trade union struggles in an effort to establish the basis of a civilised society. Driven by the desire for maximum profits, the private sector fails to provide effective and efficient public services.


Tax justice

Addressing the ‘tax gap’ is a vital part of tackling the deficit. Figures produced for PCS by the Tax Justice Network show that £25 billion is lost annually in tax avoidance and a further £70 billion in tax evasion by large companies and wealthy individuals.

An additional £26 billion is going uncollected. Therefore PCS estimates the total annual tax gap at over £120 billion (more than three-quarters of the annual deficit!). It is not just PCS calculating this; leaked Treasury documents in 2006 estimated the tax gap at between £97 and £150 billion.

A comparison between levels of benefit fraud and the tax gap If we compare the PCS estimate of the tax gap with the DWP estimate of benefit fraud, we can see that benefit fraud is less than 1% of the total lost in the tax gap (see diagram opposite).

Employing more staff at HM Revenue & Customs would enable more tax to be collected, more investigations to take place and evasion reduced. Compliance officers in HMRC bring in over £658,000 in revenue per employee.

If the modest Robin Hood tax – a 0.05% tax on global financial transactions – was applied to UK financial institutions it would raise an estimated £20–30bn per year. This alone would reduce the annual deficit by between 12.5% and 20%.

Closing the tax gap, as part of overall economic strategy, would negate the need for devastating cuts – before even considering tax rises.

Our personal tax system is currently highly regressive. The poorest fifth of the population pay 39.9% of their income in tax, while the wealthiest fifth pays only 35.1%. We need tax justice in personal taxation – which would mean higher income tax rates for the richest and cutting regressive taxes like VAT and council tax.


Cut the real waste

While it is not necessary to cut a penny in public expenditure due to the ‘deficit crisis’, there are of course areas of public spending which could be redirected to meet social needs.

In the civil and public services, we know there are massive areas of waste – like the £1.8 billion the government spent on private sector consultants last year. The government could get better advice and ideas by engaging with its own staff and their trade unions.

There is also the waste of the government having 230 separate pay bargaining units, when we could have just one national pay bargaining structure.

There are also two other large areas where government costs could be cut.

Trident

The current Trident system costs the UK around £1.5 billion every year.

A private paper prepared for Nick Clegg (in 2009, when in opposition) estimated the total costs of Trident renewal amounting to between £94.7bn and £104.2bn over the lifetime of the system, estimated at 30 years. This equates to £3.3bn per year.

At the time Nick Clegg (now Deputy Prime Minister) said: “Given that we need to ask ourselves big questions about what our priorities are, we have arrived at the view that a like-forlike Trident replacement is not the right thing to do.”

The 2010 Liberal Democrat manifesto committed the Party to: “Saying no to the like-for-like replacement of the Trident nuclear weapons system, which could cost £100 billion.”

PCS policy is to oppose the renewal of Trident and invest the money saved in public services, whilst safeguarding Ministry of Defence staff jobs.

War in Afghanistan

The war in Afghanistan is currently costing £2.6 billion per year. The war is both unwinnable and is making the world less safe. More important than the financial cost are the countless Afghan and British lives that are being lost in this conflict.


The PCS alternative…

  • There is no need for cuts to public services or further privatisations
  • Creating jobs will boost the economy and cut the deficit. Cutting jobs will damage the economy and increase the deficit
  • We should invest in areas such as housing, renewable energy and public transport
  • The UK debt is lower than other major economies
  • There is a £120 billion tax gap of evaded, avoided and uncollected tax
  • The UK holds £850 billion in banking assets from the bailout – this is more than the national debt
  • We could free up billions by not renewing Trident
  • End the use of consultants

What you can do

  • Spread the word! Share this page with friends on social networking sites using the buttons below
  • Get involved in campaigns and events, and keep informed at our campaigns pages
  • Unite with other local trade unions and community groups
  • Recruit your colleagues to the union – there’s never been a more important time to join PCS
  • Lobby your local politicians against public service cuts and against the attack on our jobs and conditions

 

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Conservative election poster 2010

A few recent news articles about the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat (Conservative) coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.

Royal medical colleges toughen stance against NHS reforms | Politics | The Guardian

Academy of Medical Royal Colleges outline ‘significant concerns’ about coalition’s heath and social care bill

Britain’s medical establishment has decided to toughen its stance against the coalition’s controversial NHS shakeup. All but one of the 20 medical colleges that represent medical professionals have come out against the government’s proposals to change the service.

The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AoMRC) agreed the move on Tuesday when its members, who represent all the different medical specialities, said it held a “full, long” debate on the bill.

The Guardian has obtained a draft statement that says: “The Medical Royal Colleges and Faculties of the AoMRC continue to have significant concerns over a number of aspects of the health bill and are disappointed that more progress has not been made in directly addressing the issues we have raised.”

The medical bodies say that “unless the proposals are modified the academy believes that bill may widen rather than lessen health inequalities and that unnecessary competition will undermine the provision of high quality integrated care to patients.

“The Academy and Medical Royal Colleges are not able to support the bill as it currently stands.

“The academy is deeply concerned that the upheaval caused by the changes in the bill will distract the NHS from the huge task of meeting the current financial challenges.”

However, the Royal College of Surgeons will continue to support the “aims of the reforms”, saying that these would help “to modernise the health care system”.

Unlike the full-throated opposition of the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of Midwives, the draft statement says “the academy and colleges retain these concerns but they will work with the government and NHS organisations to ensure that the NHS provides the best possible care to patients should the bill become law”.

The move follows decisions by the BMA, RCN and RCM, which together represent the bulk of the NHS’s medical workforce, to call for the bill to be dropped. The NHS Confederation, which speaks for 95% of the NHS’s employers such as hospitals and ambulance services, has voiced concern at the lack of clinical support for the bill.

New Statesman – The NHS is toxic for the Tories and they know it

An increasing number of Conservative MPs are starting to think the unloved health reforms ought somehow to be killed.

David Cameron was rattled in the Commons today by an attack on his health reforms – and with good reason. The NHS reorganisation is a disaster on many fronts. It is unloved by doctors, poorly understood by the public and, after a series of mangling amendments in parliament, barely even resembles the vision first outlined by Health Secretary Andrew Lansley. The likeliest outcome from the whole thing is protracted chaos and worse services. This time it will be very hard for the Tories to blame the mess on Labour’s legacy.

Opinion polls traditionally show Labour well ahead of Conservatives in terms of who is trusted to look after the NHS. Crucially for Ed Miliband, this is also an issue that is personally associated with David Cameron. The pledge to avoid “top down reorganisations” came from Conservative leader’s lips. So did the promise to protect health spending in real terms. That will be very hard to achieve even if inflation comes down – at least not without imposing harsher cuts elsewhere. The Labour front bench think the NHS is one policy area where they might be able to puncture Cameron’s famous Teflon coating. I have even heard it said by MPs, and not just from Labour ones, that the NHS alone could cost the Tories a majority at the next election.

New Statesman – Leader: Now is Mr Cameron’s chance to halt the NHS sell-off


Mr Cameron worked hard in opposition to convince the public that the Tories could be trusted with the health service. Yet the zeal with which his government has pursued these reforms has undermined his earlier reassurances. Mr Lansley’s supporters, determined not to lose face, insist that it is “too late” to abandon the bill but that is precisely what the government should do. No reasonable person believes that the NHS, subject to enormous demographic pressures, can be preserved in aspic, but these reforms will exacerbate, rather than diminish, its challenges. Mr Cameron once spoke of his desire to put an end to “pointless reorganisations” of the health service. He will not get a better chance than this.

 

There is an alternative: The case against cuts in public spending – PCS

The government’s cuts strategy – and why it’s wrong

Debt as % of GDPFirstly, we need to get the ‘debt crisis’ in perspective. The table opposite shows UK debt relative to other major economies.

From 1918 to 1961 the UK national debt was over 100% of GDP. During that period the government introduced the welfare state, the NHS, state pensions, comprehensive education, built millions of council houses, and nationalised a range of industries. The public sector grew and there was economic growth.

Today, the coalition government wants to turn back the clock. It is set on dismantling the NHS and comprehensive education, and it is attacking the welfare state. It is not doing this because the country is on the verge of economic collapse, it is doing it because it is ideologically opposed to public services and the welfare state, and committed to handing over more of our public assets to big business.

Cutting public sector jobs will increase unemployment. This would mean increased costs for government in benefit payments and lost tax revenue. If people’s incomes are taken away or cut through pay freezes they will spend less. Less consumer spending means cuts in the private sector, and lower VAT revenues.
Internal analysis by HM Treasury proves this to be the case. Leaked documents estimated that over the next six years 600,000 public sector jobs would be cut, and 700,000 private sector jobs would also be lost – based on the current government’s policies.

Job cuts are therefore counterproductive. Mass job cuts would worsen the economic situation by reducing demand in the economy, and providing less tax revenue.

The government claims it can make cuts of between 25% and 40%, and still “protect frontline public services”. This is impossible – not just because ‘frontline services’ are being cut, but because services rely on ‘back office’ support staff. For example, cutting support staff like NHS cleaners has meant an increase in healthcare acquired infections, costing the NHS £1 billion. All public services require tax revenues to fund them, yet HM Revenue & Customs has cut 25,000 staff in recent years, which has led to uncollected tax at record levels and a growing tax gap.

The impact is likely to be highly divisive too. There is evidence of this already in the UK. In areas where public sector workers have already been laid off, retail sales have fallen faster than the UK average. In nations and regions where public sector workers make up a high proportion of the workforce, major public sector cuts could destroy local economies. Any attack on the public sector will also disproportionately affect women, as 68% of the public sector workforce is female. The public sector also has a much better record of employing disabled workers too.

The global race to cut labour costs is central to the economic collapse we have seen around the world. Squeezed consumers are defaulting on mortgages and personal debts, and are less able to spend in the economy. In the UK, the value of wages has declined from nearly 65% of GDP in the mid-1970s to 55% today. Over the same period, the rate of corporate profit has increased from 13% to 21%. It is no coincidence that in this period trade union rights were severely restricted, large swathes of the economy privatised, markets deregulated and corporation tax slashed.

There is an urgent need to rebalance the economy in the interests of people over big business.

The experience of Ireland

Ireland shows how cutting public spending can damage the economy. The crisis in Ireland was caused by the collapse of its banking sector. The massive cuts in spending and public sector pay that followed have
increased unemployment and sapped demand, causing the economy to shrink further. Because of this, Ireland is now considered more at risk of sovereign default than before it started making cuts. Historical research clearly demonstrates that budget cuts actually provoke increases in the national debt by damaging the economy.


Economic growth and public investment

Investing in public services is the solution to the deficit crisis. Instead of cutting jobs, we should be creating them. Jobs are not created by bullying people on benefits into jobs that don’t exist. Instead there are several areas where public sector jobs urgently need to be created.

It has been estimated that over a million ‘climate jobs’ could be created if the government was serious about tackling both climate change and unemployment – these would include areas like housing, renewable energy and public transport investment including high speed rail, bus networks and electric car manufacture.

Today there are 1.8 million families (representing over 5 million people) on council house waiting lists. There is an urgent need to build affordable housing for these people, which would also help reduce housing benefit payments.

The UK lags behind much of the rest of Europe in the development of a high-speed rail network, which would have the potential to create thousands of jobs and reduce carbon emissions by shifting passengers and freight away from road and air travel. Much of the country outside of London also needs huge investment in bus services – and, just as we should invest in electric car technology, we should also invest in electric buses and tram networks.

Only 2.2% of UK energy comes from renewable sources compared with 8.9% in Germany, 11% in France, and an impressive 44.4% in Sweden. If we are committed to tackling climate change and ensuring domestic energy security there needs to be investment in renewable energy technology.

All of these industries would generate revenue – people are billed for electricity, buy tickets to travel on public transport, and pay rent for council housing.

Research by Richard Murphy (of Tax Research) has shown that the state recoups 92% of the cost of creating new public sector jobs – through lower benefit payments and increased tax revenues.

The banks

We should never forget that it was the banking sector that caused the recession, and is ultimately responsible for the huge debts that the UK has amassed. Despite causing the crisis, the banking sector has escaped any significant regulation, and bankers are again awarding themselves huge bonuses.

Government debt as of % gdbThe table opposite clearly shows how UK debt accelerated after the banking crisis in 2008. As a result of the UK government’s £1.3 trillion bailout to the financial sector, the government still owns over £850 billion in bank assets. This figure is roughly equal to the total UK debt.

The UK has an 84% stake in RBS and a 41% stake in Lloyds TSB. In addition, the state also owns Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley. Under public ownership and control these assets could yield significant annual income to the Government, and could be used to meet social needs and tackle financial exclusion.


The case against privatisation

As a result of the government’s agenda to slash the public sector, privatisation, outsourcing and the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) are a fast growing threat to civil and public services despite the many performance failures of past privatisations.

Privatisation is no solution to the national debt. Evidence confirms that after transfer to the private sector the terms and conditions of workers are worse than before, the public sector loses any revenue stream while ultimately keeping the risk, and services to the public decline or cost more:

  • In the DWP, welfare is now described as “an annual multi-billion pound market”, and despite the department’s own research showing that Jobcentre staff outperform the private sector in helping people back to work, all contracts for welfare programmes are now outsourced.
  • Qinetiq was a company formed from the privatisation of the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA). In 2007, the 10 most senior managers gained £107.5m on a total investment of £540,000 in the company’s shares. The return of 19,990% on their investment was described as “excessive” by the National Audit Office. In 2009, Qinetiq offered its staff a pay freeze.
  • Although the economic downturn has led to a drying up of bank finance for PFI projects, the government has got round this by funnelling public funds – through the Treasury’s Infrastructure Finance Unit – to state owned banks who then loan finance to PFI consortia (which then claim inflated returns to government for the next thirty years, greatly exceeding the money given to them). The journalist and antiprivatisation activist George Monbiot observed, “the Private Finance Initiative no longer requires much private finance or initiative”.

Public services were won by trade union struggles in an effort to establish the basis of a civilised society. Driven by the desire for maximum profits, the private sector fails to provide effective and efficient public services.


Tax justice

Addressing the ‘tax gap’ is a vital part of tackling the deficit. Figures produced for PCS by the Tax Justice Network show that £25 billion is lost annually in tax avoidance and a further £70 billion in tax evasion by large companies and wealthy individuals.

An additional £26 billion is going uncollected. Therefore PCS estimates the total annual tax gap at over £120 billion (more than three-quarters of the annual deficit!). It is not just PCS calculating this; leaked Treasury documents in 2006 estimated the tax gap at between £97 and £150 billion.

A comparison between levels of benefit fraud and the tax gapIf we compare the PCS estimate of the tax gap with the DWP estimate of benefit fraud, we can see that benefit fraud is less than 1% of the total lost in the tax gap (see diagram opposite).

Employing more staff at HM Revenue & Customs would enable more tax to be collected, more investigations to take place and evasion reduced. Compliance officers in HMRC bring in over £658,000 in revenue per employee.

If the modest Robin Hood tax – a 0.05% tax on global financial transactions – was applied to UK financial institutions it would raise an estimated £20–30bn per year. This alone would reduce the annual deficit by between 12.5% and 20%.

Closing the tax gap, as part of overall economic strategy, would negate the need for devastating cuts – before even considering tax rises.

Our personal tax system is currently highly regressive. The poorest fifth of the population pay 39.9% of their income in tax, while the wealthiest fifth pays only 35.1%. We need tax justice in personal taxation – which would mean higher income tax rates for the richest and cutting regressive taxes like VAT and council tax.


Cut the real waste

While it is not necessary to cut a penny in public expenditure due to the ‘deficit crisis’, there are of course areas of public spending which could be redirected to meet social needs.

In the civil and public services, we know there are massive areas of waste – like the £1.8 billion the government spent on private sector consultants last year. The government could get better advice and ideas by engaging with its own staff and their trade unions.

There is also the waste of the government having 230 separate pay bargaining units, when we could have just one national pay bargaining structure.

There are also two other large areas where government costs could be cut.

Trident

The current Trident system costs the UK around £1.5 billion every year.

A private paper prepared for Nick Clegg (in 2009, when in opposition) estimated the total costs of Trident renewal amounting to between £94.7bn and £104.2bn over the lifetime of the system, estimated at 30 years. This equates to £3.3bn per year.

At the time Nick Clegg (now Deputy Prime Minister) said: “Given that we need to ask ourselves big questions about what our priorities are, we have arrived at the view that a like-forlike Trident replacement is not the right thing to do.”

The 2010 Liberal Democrat manifesto committed the Party to: “Saying no to the like-for-like replacement of the Trident nuclear weapons system, which could cost £100 billion.”

PCS policy is to oppose the renewal of Trident and invest the money saved in public services, whilst safeguarding Ministry of Defence staff jobs.

War in Afghanistan

The war in Afghanistan is currently costing £2.6 billion per year. The war is both unwinnable and is making the world less safe. More important than the financial cost are the countless Afghan and British lives that are being lost in this conflict.


The PCS alternative…

  • There is no need for cuts to public services or further privatisations
  • Creating jobs will boost the economy and cut the deficit. Cutting jobs will damage the economy and increase the deficit
  • We should invest in areas such as housing, renewable energy and public transport
  • The UK debt is lower than other major economies
  • There is a £120 billion tax gap of evaded, avoided and uncollected tax
  • The UK holds £850 billion in banking assets from the bailout – this is more than the national debt
  • We could free up billions by not renewing Trident
  • End the use of consultants

What you can do

  • Spread the word! Share this page with friends on social networking sites using the buttons below
  • Get involved in campaigns and events, and keep informed at our campaigns pages
  • Unite with other local trade unions and community groups
  • Recruit your colleagues to the union – there’s never been a more important time to join PCS
  • Lobby your local politicians against public service cuts and against the attack on our jobs and conditions

 

Continue ReadingNHS news review

NHS news review

Spread the love

Conservative election poster 2010

A few recent news articles about the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat (Conservative) coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.

98% of RCGP members call for Health Bill withdrawal | GPonline.com

Almost all (98%) RCGP members think the RCGP should call for the Health and Social Care Bill to be withdrawn.

Over 2,500 RCGP members responded to the College’s survey asking them their views on the Bill. It closed on 6 January and the RCGP said it would be the last time it asked members for their views on NHS reforms.

On the launch of the survey in December last year, RCGP chairwoman Dr Claire Gerada said: ‘When we look back in years to come, I want there to be no misunderstanding of the position the College has taken or criticism that we did not do enough to inform and engage members or to protect patients and the NHS.’

The results found that 98% of GPs thought the RCGP should call for the Bill to be dropped under a ‘joint approach’ with other colleges.

Over 92% also said the RCGP should call for the Bill’s withdrawal even if the joint approach is not an option.

Two thirds GPs who responded to the survey said that they felt more negative about the impact the Bill would have on the NHS than they did in April of last year.

Nearly 90% of members thought that the Bill would result in increased involvement in the private sector. However just over 20% thought that the Bill would result in improved collaboration resulting in increased integration of health (and social care).

Private cosmetic clinics employing ‘unqualified’ surgeons | Society | guardian.co.uk

Experts voice concerns about level of training of private sector surgeons working on breast implants and nose jobs

Private cosmetic clinics are employing surgeons to carry out breast implants, nose jobs and tummy tucks who are not qualified to work as consultants in the NHS, the Guardian can reveal.

Experts are concerned about the level of training and qualification required of surgeons working solely in the private cosmetic industry. Many who trained in the UK reached only a basic level and are not on the General Medical Council’s specialist register, which means they are barred from becoming consultants in the NHS. Up to that point, in the NHS, a surgeon is still in training and will normally work under supervision.

The clinics say it does not matter, because their surgeons have years of experience in the procedures they do, which makes them just as good as any NHS surgeon. The private clinics also point out that all meet the standards of the Care Quality Commission, which regulates both the NHS and private sector.

But the revelation has shocked members of the expert group set up by the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, to look into the scandal of substandard breast implants and which has been asked to investigate standards in the cosmetic surgery industry more generally.

“I’m very concerned indeed that they are not on the register,” said Tim Goodacre, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford and a member of the group. “That should be a bare minimum for independent practice in this country.”

Cancer researcher identifies high levels of doctor-patient trust and confidence within NHS

A leading cancer researcher has identified very high levels of doctor-patient trust and confidence within the NHS.

University of Leicester researcher Professor Paul Symonds also highlights the risk of jeopardizing this record of success if measures to become more cost effective are not carefully thought through and implemented.

In two papers published this month in the journal Clinical Oncology, Professor Paul Symonds of the Department of Cancer Studies and Molecular Medicine, assesses attitudes and beliefs concerning cancer care in the UK.

In one paper, Professor Symonds, who is also a consultant at Leicester’s Hospitals, and researcher Karen Lord highlight the importance of closer clinical relationships between physicians and cancer patients in helping patients cope with both treatment and diagnosis.

He said: “It is widely accepted that low trust between a cancer patient and their doctor can influence treatment outcome. The good news is that in Leicester we have found a very high level of trust in both hospital and primary care doctors. We must, however, understand the needs of particular patients when sharing sensitive information about the disease and treatment in order to maintain this trust.”

Professor Symonds research, funded by Hope Against Cancer, measured trust in healthcare professionals amongst ethnically diverse cancer patients and assessed the effect of this trust on the patients’ ability to cope when diagnosed with cancer.

In other news

Wikipedia in black-out protest over piracy legislation – UK – Scotsman.com

Wikipedia will black out the English-language version of its website today to protest against anti-piracy legislation under consideration in the US Congress.

The website will go dark for 24 hours in a move that brings added muscle to a growing base of critics of the legislation.

Wikipedia is one of the internet’s most popular websites, with millions of visitors daily.

“If passed, this legislation will harm the free and open internet and bring about new tools for censorship of international websites inside the United States,” insisted the Wikimedia foundation, the body behind the community-based online encyclopedia.

Related: Why Wikipedia went down at midnight – CNN.com

SOPA, PIPA: Google ‘Censors’ Logo To Protest Anti-Piracy Bills

 

Unemployment Figures Due Out Against Gloomy Backdrop

The latest state of the jobs market will be revealed on 18 January with new unemployment figures against a backdrop of increasingly gloomy predictions of redundancies.

Analysts expect the latest data will show another rise from last month’s figure of 2.6m amid predictions that the jobless total will not fall below 2.5m until 2016 at the earliest and will peak at 2.9m next year.

Africa aid delays are ‘costing lives’ – Africa – World – The Independent

Thousands of lives and millions of pounds were lost needlessly because of a “dangerous delay” in the response to the East Africa famine, a report has found.

A “culture of risk aversion” meant the international community failed to take decisive action on early warnings, causing a six-month setback in the relief effort.

Estimates suggest between 50,000 and 100,000 lives were lost between April and August, with more than half of that number under the age of five. Leading aid agencies have hit out at governments and humanitarian organisations as the report found they were “too slow” to spend money on those in need.

The report, A Dangerous Delay, showed only particularly high levels of media coverage helped.

There is an alternative: The case against cuts in public spending – PCS

The government’s cuts strategy – and why it’s wrong

Debt as % of GDP Firstly, we need to get the ‘debt crisis’ in perspective. The table opposite shows UK debt relative to other major economies.

From 1918 to 1961 the UK national debt was over 100% of GDP. During that period the government introduced the welfare state, the NHS, state pensions, comprehensive education, built millions of council houses, and nationalised a range of industries. The public sector grew and there was economic growth.

Today, the coalition government wants to turn back the clock. It is set on dismantling the NHS and comprehensive education, and it is attacking the welfare state. It is not doing this because the country is on the verge of economic collapse, it is doing it because it is ideologically opposed to public services and the welfare state, and committed to handing over more of our public assets to big business.

Cutting public sector jobs will increase unemployment. This would mean increased costs for government in benefit payments and lost tax revenue. If people’s incomes are taken away or cut through pay freezes they will spend less. Less consumer spending means cuts in the private sector, and lower VAT revenues.
Internal analysis by HM Treasury proves this to be the case. Leaked documents estimated that over the next six years 600,000 public sector jobs would be cut, and 700,000 private sector jobs would also be lost – based on the current government’s policies.

Job cuts are therefore counterproductive. Mass job cuts would worsen the economic situation by reducing demand in the economy, and providing less tax revenue.

The government claims it can make cuts of between 25% and 40%, and still “protect frontline public services”. This is impossible – not just because ‘frontline services’ are being cut, but because services rely on ‘back office’ support staff. For example, cutting support staff like NHS cleaners has meant an increase in healthcare acquired infections, costing the NHS £1 billion. All public services require tax revenues to fund them, yet HM Revenue & Customs has cut 25,000 staff in recent years, which has led to uncollected tax at record levels and a growing tax gap.

The impact is likely to be highly divisive too. There is evidence of this already in the UK. In areas where public sector workers have already been laid off, retail sales have fallen faster than the UK average. In nations and regions where public sector workers make up a high proportion of the workforce, major public sector cuts could destroy local economies. Any attack on the public sector will also disproportionately affect women, as 68% of the public sector workforce is female. The public sector also has a much better record of employing disabled workers too.

The global race to cut labour costs is central to the economic collapse we have seen around the world. Squeezed consumers are defaulting on mortgages and personal debts, and are less able to spend in the economy. In the UK, the value of wages has declined from nearly 65% of GDP in the mid-1970s to 55% today. Over the same period, the rate of corporate profit has increased from 13% to 21%. It is no coincidence that in this period trade union rights were severely restricted, large swathes of the economy privatised, markets deregulated and corporation tax slashed.

There is an urgent need to rebalance the economy in the interests of people over big business.

The experience of Ireland

Ireland shows how cutting public spending can damage the economy. The crisis in Ireland was caused by the collapse of its banking sector. The massive cuts in spending and public sector pay that followed have
increased unemployment and sapped demand, causing the economy to shrink further. Because of this, Ireland is now considered more at risk of sovereign default than before it started making cuts. Historical research clearly demonstrates that budget cuts actually provoke increases in the national debt by damaging the economy.


Economic growth and public investment

Investing in public services is the solution to the deficit crisis. Instead of cutting jobs, we should be creating them. Jobs are not created by bullying people on benefits into jobs that don’t exist. Instead there are several areas where public sector jobs urgently need to be created.

It has been estimated that over a million ‘climate jobs’ could be created if the government was serious about tackling both climate change and unemployment – these would include areas like housing, renewable energy and public transport investment including high speed rail, bus networks and electric car manufacture.

Today there are 1.8 million families (representing over 5 million people) on council house waiting lists. There is an urgent need to build affordable housing for these people, which would also help reduce housing benefit payments.

The UK lags behind much of the rest of Europe in the development of a high-speed rail network, which would have the potential to create thousands of jobs and reduce carbon emissions by shifting passengers and freight away from road and air travel. Much of the country outside of London also needs huge investment in bus services – and, just as we should invest in electric car technology, we should also invest in electric buses and tram networks.

Only 2.2% of UK energy comes from renewable sources compared with 8.9% in Germany, 11% in France, and an impressive 44.4% in Sweden. If we are committed to tackling climate change and ensuring domestic energy security there needs to be investment in renewable energy technology.

All of these industries would generate revenue – people are billed for electricity, buy tickets to travel on public transport, and pay rent for council housing.

Research by Richard Murphy (of Tax Research) has shown that the state recoups 92% of the cost of creating new public sector jobs – through lower benefit payments and increased tax revenues.

The banks

We should never forget that it was the banking sector that caused the recession, and is ultimately responsible for the huge debts that the UK has amassed. Despite causing the crisis, the banking sector has escaped any significant regulation, and bankers are again awarding themselves huge bonuses.

Government debt as of % gdb The table opposite clearly shows how UK debt accelerated after the banking crisis in 2008. As a result of the UK government’s £1.3 trillion bailout to the financial sector, the government still owns over £850 billion in bank assets. This figure is roughly equal to the total UK debt.

The UK has an 84% stake in RBS and a 41% stake in Lloyds TSB. In addition, the state also owns Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley. Under public ownership and control these assets could yield significant annual income to the Government, and could be used to meet social needs and tackle financial exclusion.


The case against privatisation

As a result of the government’s agenda to slash the public sector, privatisation, outsourcing and the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) are a fast growing threat to civil and public services despite the many performance failures of past privatisations.

Privatisation is no solution to the national debt. Evidence confirms that after transfer to the private sector the terms and conditions of workers are worse than before, the public sector loses any revenue stream while ultimately keeping the risk, and services to the public decline or cost more:

  • In the DWP, welfare is now described as “an annual multi-billion pound market”, and despite the department’s own research showing that Jobcentre staff outperform the private sector in helping people back to work, all contracts for welfare programmes are now outsourced.
  • Qinetiq was a company formed from the privatisation of the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA). In 2007, the 10 most senior managers gained £107.5m on a total investment of £540,000 in the company’s shares. The return of 19,990% on their investment was described as “excessive” by the National Audit Office. In 2009, Qinetiq offered its staff a pay freeze.
  • Although the economic downturn has led to a drying up of bank finance for PFI projects, the government has got round this by funnelling public funds – through the Treasury’s Infrastructure Finance Unit – to state owned banks who then loan finance to PFI consortia (which then claim inflated returns to government for the next thirty years, greatly exceeding the money given to them). The journalist and antiprivatisation activist George Monbiot observed, “the Private Finance Initiative no longer requires much private finance or initiative”.

Public services were won by trade union struggles in an effort to establish the basis of a civilised society. Driven by the desire for maximum profits, the private sector fails to provide effective and efficient public services.


Tax justice

Addressing the ‘tax gap’ is a vital part of tackling the deficit. Figures produced for PCS by the Tax Justice Network show that £25 billion is lost annually in tax avoidance and a further £70 billion in tax evasion by large companies and wealthy individuals.

An additional £26 billion is going uncollected. Therefore PCS estimates the total annual tax gap at over £120 billion (more than three-quarters of the annual deficit!). It is not just PCS calculating this; leaked Treasury documents in 2006 estimated the tax gap at between £97 and £150 billion.

A comparison between levels of benefit fraud and the tax gap If we compare the PCS estimate of the tax gap with the DWP estimate of benefit fraud, we can see that benefit fraud is less than 1% of the total lost in the tax gap (see diagram opposite).

Employing more staff at HM Revenue & Customs would enable more tax to be collected, more investigations to take place and evasion reduced. Compliance officers in HMRC bring in over £658,000 in revenue per employee.

If the modest Robin Hood tax – a 0.05% tax on global financial transactions – was applied to UK financial institutions it would raise an estimated £20–30bn per year. This alone would reduce the annual deficit by between 12.5% and 20%.

Closing the tax gap, as part of overall economic strategy, would negate the need for devastating cuts – before even considering tax rises.

Our personal tax system is currently highly regressive. The poorest fifth of the population pay 39.9% of their income in tax, while the wealthiest fifth pays only 35.1%. We need tax justice in personal taxation – which would mean higher income tax rates for the richest and cutting regressive taxes like VAT and council tax.


Cut the real waste

While it is not necessary to cut a penny in public expenditure due to the ‘deficit crisis’, there are of course areas of public spending which could be redirected to meet social needs.

In the civil and public services, we know there are massive areas of waste – like the £1.8 billion the government spent on private sector consultants last year. The government could get better advice and ideas by engaging with its own staff and their trade unions.

There is also the waste of the government having 230 separate pay bargaining units, when we could have just one national pay bargaining structure.

There are also two other large areas where government costs could be cut.

Trident

The current Trident system costs the UK around £1.5 billion every year.

A private paper prepared for Nick Clegg (in 2009, when in opposition) estimated the total costs of Trident renewal amounting to between £94.7bn and £104.2bn over the lifetime of the system, estimated at 30 years. This equates to £3.3bn per year.

At the time Nick Clegg (now Deputy Prime Minister) said: “Given that we need to ask ourselves big questions about what our priorities are, we have arrived at the view that a like-forlike Trident replacement is not the right thing to do.”

The 2010 Liberal Democrat manifesto committed the Party to: “Saying no to the like-for-like replacement of the Trident nuclear weapons system, which could cost £100 billion.”

PCS policy is to oppose the renewal of Trident and invest the money saved in public services, whilst safeguarding Ministry of Defence staff jobs.

War in Afghanistan

The war in Afghanistan is currently costing £2.6 billion per year. The war is both unwinnable and is making the world less safe. More important than the financial cost are the countless Afghan and British lives that are being lost in this conflict.


The PCS alternative…

  • There is no need for cuts to public services or further privatisations
  • Creating jobs will boost the economy and cut the deficit. Cutting jobs will damage the economy and increase the deficit
  • We should invest in areas such as housing, renewable energy and public transport
  • The UK debt is lower than other major economies
  • There is a £120 billion tax gap of evaded, avoided and uncollected tax
  • The UK holds £850 billion in banking assets from the bailout – this is more than the national debt
  • We could free up billions by not renewing Trident
  • End the use of consultants

What you can do

  • Spread the word! Share this page with friends on social networking sites using the buttons below
  • Get involved in campaigns and events, and keep informed at our campaigns pages
  • Unite with other local trade unions and community groups
  • Recruit your colleagues to the union – there’s never been a more important time to join PCS
  • Lobby your local politicians against public service cuts and against the attack on our jobs and conditions

 

27/11/13 Having received a takedown notice from the Independent newspaper for a different posting, I have reviewed this article which links to an article at the Independent’s website in order to attempt to ensure conformance with copyright laws.

I consider this posting to comply with copyright laws since
a. Only a small portion of the original article has been quoted satisfying the fair use criteria, and / or
b. This posting satisfies the requirements of a derivative work.

Please be assured that this blog is a non-commercial blog (weblog) which does not feature advertising and has not ever produced any income.

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