Shefffield Trees and Labour: 'They just don't get it'

 

Lobbying Labour

Guest blog by Alan Story

When you in a very bad relationship or in a marriage that cannot be saved, the first thing you need to do is to admit to yourself: “you know what, I've made a horrible mistake.”

But nearly six years after Labour-control Sheffield City Council (SCC) signed a disastrous £2.2 billion PFI contract and on a day when the Sheffield trees crisis featured in the New York Times no less, the local Labour Party has again pulled down the shutters and refused to address the havoc that SCC’s relationship with Amey plc is causing to our now-privatised streets and privatised street trees.

The occasion was the monthly meeting Tuesday night (13 March) of the Sheffield District Labour Party (DLP) meeting. Outside, 35 picketers/ tree campaigners had come together for what was likely the largest picket ever held in front of a Sheffield Labour Party meeting.

But as delegates inside discussed the draft election manifesto it will use for the 3 May election, it was clear that most of those in attendance at the local party's highest decision-making body still did not grasp the basics of what was going wrong on the streets of Sheffield. (Those in attendance included Council Leader Julie Dore who came late and, sadly, after most of the 35 picketers had dispersed.)

Yes, there was concern raised about the contracting out of public sector jobs as a result of the work being done under the profit-making auspices of Amey plc. And yes, that is ONE problem with this PFI deal and, indeed, all PFI deals.


But what delegates failed to understand is that it is the very nature of THE WORK being undertaken which is the main problem. In other words, the planned felling of 17,500 street trees is NOT the same thing as the contracting out of NHS jobs to a US-owned healthcare corporation. Or transforming state schools into profit-driven academies.

This is what a significant number of LP members just do not get.

On one level, to bring contracted out jobs "in house" has, since the September 2017 national Labour Party convention, become National Labour Party policy. It is becoming harder and harder for the SCC to operate a PFI deal that is in direct contravention to the national policy of its own party.

But by focusing almost exclusively on the contracting out jobs issue, the local Labour Party last night again missed the big picture, they didn’t see the forests for the trees ….if you will.

As several observers at last night's meeting confirmed, most DLP delegates failed to address a wide range of issues, such as:

1) Why 17,500 mostly healthy trees were ever planned for the chop back in 2012. (It took a recent successful FOI request by Paul Selby to uncover that SCC has being duplicitous to Sheffield residents about planned tree felling number since the 25-year-long contract was first signed.) More than 5500 mostly healthy trees have already come down.

2) The value of trees for the slowing climate change. SCC cabinet minister Jack Scott, who also attended last night's session, denies they have any value.

3) Why SCC is acting with such contempt for local democratic functioning when it ignores the advice of tree experts and the wishes of local residents and simply carries on willy-nilly with its ruthless chainsaw war.

4) Why squads of South Yorkshire Police have been mobilised across the city and are at the beck-and-call of SCC, who are in a serious political fix, and Amey, who are only interested in their bottom line. (It is hardly surprising that tree campaigners now call SYP “Amey’s police.")

5) Why SCC has applied for civic injunctions to stop peaceful protest and has forced tree campaigners to raise tens of thousands of pounds to defend themselves against the actions of this profoundly authoritarian local council. (Pardon the plug: in the current campaign, 440 supporters have raised more than £11,500 in less than five days: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/stump-up-sheffield)

6) In fact, you don’t even get the sense that some of these so-called LP “lefties” really grasp what privatisation means. For example, how can it be a step toward socialism when a public agency like SYP (directed by a Labour Party Police Commissioner) protects a Spanish-owned multinational corporation (operating under a PFI deal negotiated by the free market LibDems) as it pillages a street of much-loved cherry trees on Abbeydale Park Rise (that are lit with lights every Christmas to raise funds for a hospice)?

7) The value of street trees as things of beauty, as a home for birds, and as promoters of mental health (If I hear one more Labour Party flunky tell me that working-class people "hate trees" I will scream.)

8) Why it is just so wrong to call in (or threaten to call in) social services against the parents of youthful tree campaigners, one of whom rode over on his bicycle and was with us last night.

9) Why there was a leak to the media of the preposterous tale that a 59-year-old architect served poisoned tea to three street tree fellers on her own street. Hold The Star’s front page: next thing you know they'll be telling us that Calvin Payne's backpack is stocked up with nerve gas.

The list could on and on.

What local Labour does not get is what a newspaper headline said back in October: “Look to Sheffield: this is how state and corporate power subverts democracy.”

UPDATED: Dan Filson asks Brent Council, 'What do you know about £91m PFI?'

The 'World of Brent Council' is a strange place as any regular reader of this blog will know but the fact than Cllr Dan Filson, Chair of the  Scrutiny Committee, has to seek information via a Freedom of Information request to his own council, speaks volumes.

This is a request posted on the What Do They Know website:

Dear Brent Borough Council,

1: What evaluation, if any, has been made of the Public Finance
Initiaive contract made apparently on 19 August 2009 for a period
running to 18 December 2028 for a cost of £91,573,000?
2: Does the report to councillors at the time of the contract set
out the cost savings supposed to be achieved by this contract?
3: Did the contract cover services (the information I have suggests
'real estate services' but what that covers is unclear,) beyond the
financing of a capital requirement, and if so what services were
they?
4: Is there any break clause in the contract should either party
wish to end the contract, and if so would the exercise of such a
break clause incur penalties, and if so on what scale?
5: What is known of the other party to the contract, e.g. Is this
the subsidiary of a major bank, and what contingent risks, such as
the cost of replacing this contract, would arise in the event of
either the other party to the contract or the parent company
becoming insolvent?

Yours faithfully,

Daniel Filson

UPDATE July 17th Last night Cllr Filson in an exchange on Twitter justified using the FoI route, rather than asking the Council directly for the information, in conversation with a Green Party member:

Cllr Filson may be interested in this article I wrote on Wembley Matters in July 2011 entitled 'Civic Centre costs shrouded in secrecy':

Opposition to the Civic Centre, now under construction opposite the Wembley Arena, is increasingly evident and Cllr Ann John has been forced to defend the project at the current round of area consultative forums. Residents in Kilburn have criticised the Council for being 'Wembleycentric' and neglecting land that could be redeveloped in South Kilburn while others have been frustrated when trying to pin down the actual cost of the scheme and mistrustful of assurances that the project is 'self-financing', 'cost neutral' and 'won't cost residents a penny'. They are told that the £100m centre will make annual savings of amounts ranging from £2m to £4m due to efficiencies' and moving out of other Brent buildings, and pay for itself in 25 years. Transferred to personal housing this is tantamount to saying that a new house 'costs nothing' if expenditure over 25 years is equal to the amount saved from not renting.

In the light of the cuts ahead and the diminishing role of local government it is not clear how many council staff will be left in 25 years and whether the building will even last that long - think of Willesden Green library, scheduled for demolition by the Council, which was opened only 22 years ago.

My Green Party colleague, Shahrar Ali, has made a freedom of information request for financial details of the Civic Centre, which have been shrouded in secrecy.

There are however some clues in the budget document. The medium term forecast for central items included a forecast of an increase in debt charges from £23.359m in 2011/12 to £26.563 in 2012/13, £27.603 in 2013/14 and £29.104m in 2015/15 as 'a result of capital programme commitments including the civic centre'. The report states that the estimated borrowing requirement for the Civic Centre is £53.868m over the next two years.  In a key comment Clive Heaphy, Director Finance and Corporate Services states:

Clearly capital money is not free - it has a revenue impact and hence the strategy for future years will be to support programmes which are externally funded and those which deliver revenue savings which are equal to or greater than the debt costs. Conversely schemes requiring unsupported borrowing and have net debt costs must be reduced to a minimum or eliminated.

This gets to the nub of the issue of information. We need figures from the Council that will enable council taxpayers to assess whether the Civic Centre project meets this criteria.

Tell them what future you want for Central Middlesex Hospital tomorrow

Following the decision to close the A&E at Central Middlesex Hospital a question mark still hangs over its future and the future of Willesden Centre for Health and Care. Millions have been spent on the PFI scheme for Central Middlesex and Willesden has only fairly recently been revamped.

At the extreme of possible decisions either site could close but there are other options in between including shifting some facilities from Willesden to Central Middlesex, and the mental health facility at Park Royal into the main hospital, as well as the GP/Dental surgery on Willesden High Road, moving to the Willesden Hospital site.

There is a possibility that some of the Willesden site will be sold off for housing. Come to the meeting at the Brent Civic Centre to find out much more about what may happen and have your say.

Caroline Lucas appeals to unhappy Labour voters

From yesterday's Guardian

I've been reading with interest the recent correspondence on these pages about the kind of Labour party people would like to vote for. As I read through the list of John Walton's initial policy proposals (Suggestions for a Labour manifesto, 14 August), it struck me that they all sounded very familiar. And that's for the very good reason that, almost without exception, they are long-standing Green party policies. Whether it's repealing the coalition's disastrous NHS legislation, bringing rail back into public ownership (the subject of my current private member's bill), abandoning PFI and ending the privatising of public services, or scrapping Trident and ending fracking, these are all policies the Greens have long espoused.

Although imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, I can't help thinking that the best way to see these policies realised would be for the people who support them to vote for the party that is already signed up to them.

Over a million people voted for the Green party in the last European elections (the last time the UK had a nationwide vote under a proportional system), and a recent YouGov poll for the Electoral Reform Society put us at 12%, ahead of the Lib Dems, and on course to win four more seats at the Euro elections next year, taking our tally to six.

We don't need a new radical and progressive political party: we need a fairer electoral system to allow the one we've got, the Green party, to break through in the general election, and give louder voice to these views. Under proportional representation, there would be no need for "splits on the left", as some of your correspondents feared – progressive parties could work together in the best interests of everyone who wants to see a socially just and environmentally sustainable future.

Caroline Lucas MP
Green, Brighton Pavilion

The PFI scandal that led to NHS Trusts going bust

I received the posting below as a comment on Natalie Bennett's NHS speech LINK  but I feel it is important enough to be published as a Guest Blog:

What an excellent assessment of the problems facing the NHS, and what needs to be done to protect it! Thank you for publishing this speech, Martin.

I write as someone who was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes in my late 20's. My care through the NHS for more than 35 years must have cost a lot of money, but because of it I was able to continue with a relatively normal working life, and pay large amounts of income tax and NIC. That, to me, is the way things should be.

Hopefully, with a newly-diagnosed Type 1 diabetic in the cabinet, there might be a better appreciation of the NHS within government, but I won't hold my breath!

I spent 25 years of my working life as a Tax Inspector, and in the early 2000's had to consider the first accounts of a company which had won a PFI contract to build a small hospital and provide all of its support services for 30 years. I was concerned at the odd accounting treatment of the transaction, which it appeared would guarantee that the company would automatically make losses (for tax purposes)until the final year, when it would make a huge profit. The losses each year would be set against the trading profits of the two large groups which owned the company 50/50 (one a construction group, the other a major services provider).

I asked for a copy of the PFI contract, and other supporting documents, to see whether I could challenge what looked like artificial tax avoidance, and after a lot of delay and prevarication, I eventually received them. The contract was about 150 pages long, and very complex, but effectively meant that the NHS (or hospital trust involved) would repay the £30m capital cost of the building, plus a generous rate of interest on the "mortgage" for this amount, over the thirty years. The company could charge whatever it wanted to (with very little chance of the NHS being able to challenge the amount) for the services provided during the thirty years, with no chance of the hospital renegotiating the contract, finding another provider or taking the services back "in house".

How had the NHS allowed itself to be tied up in such a bad contract? Because of instructions from the government that, in order to encourage private companies to get involved in PFI projects, it would guarantee to pay their legal and professional costs of entering into contracts. So, in the case I was looking at, the NHS had paid £1.5m for the company's lawyers and accountants to draw up a contract which "stitched-up" the NHS and gave the opportunity for tax avoidance by the two big groups behind the PFI company (one of which had a former cabinet minister as its Chairman).

Why were Chancellors Ken Clarke and Gordon Brown so keen on promoting PFI contracts? Because it kept the cost of providing major capital projects "off Balance Sheet" as far as the government's accounts were concerned. They could claim to be providing new hospitals without this being charged against their budget deficit, even though the eventual costs of doing things this way would be much higher (hence NHS Trusts going bust).

I'm afraid that the Official Secrets Act prevents me from identifying the hospital and companies involved, or from disclosing the outcome of my investigation of the accounts, but it was an episode towards the end of my career in the Inland Revenue that left me frustrated by the actions of my "masters" in the Treasury!

Johnson: Bring London fire engine contract in house after PFI failure

Darren Johnson, Green Party Assembly Member for London has called for the London fire engine contract to be brought back in house as a ‘sensible long term solution’. He was esponding  to news that the private company which owned the contract for London’s fire engines has been put into administration. A temporary arrangement for the contract with a new company is in place for the next 18 months.

Darren Johnson said:

The sensible long term solution is to bring the contract in house and scrap the PFI arrangement. Many other fire authorities have a straight forward leasing arrangement. I hope that both the Mayor and the Government will see sense and recognise that the experiment with PFI has failed. We shouldn’t be taking financial risks with something so essential as our fire engines. Government funding guarantees for PFI credits could be better spent on developing an in house contract.

Greens: End PFI scam and stop privatisation of the NHS

Greens have called for urgent action to cure the NHS of cancerous PFI payments and have written to the Secretary of State for Health calling for action to ensure that health care provision is maintained rather than allowing hospitals to go into administration. The Greens are the only mainstream party to oppose PFI and to campaign to stop the privatisation of the NHS.

The revelation that the South London Healthcare NHS Trust is going into administration with debts incurred by its contracts under PFI (Private Finance Initiative) has come as no surprise to the Green Party. The Green Party has warned of the financial dangers of hospitals being built under PFI. The news that up to 30 other Trusts may be facing administration has prompted the call for action to prevent closures.

Adrian Ramsay, Green Party Deputy Leader, said: "It is time to cut out the cancerous PFI deals that are killing the NHS. While successive governments seem to find billions to bail out banks and to quantitatively ease the economy they seem utterly beholden to the companies that they now rent hospitals from having sold them off in the first place.

"The PFI deals were simply an accounting fix that put money in the pockets of big companies and locked the NHS into huge debt. The taxpayer will end up paying £63bn towards hospitals that cost £11bn to build. As hospital trusts go into administration we can expect to see health care provision drastically reduced. This is unacceptable and the Green Party has written to Andrew Lansley calling for a solution that protects services.

"It is surely time to end the PFI scam and let the NHS focus on providing care for patients, not profit for shareholders."

Greens say Private Finance Initiatives should be 'nationalised'

Following the revelation that more than 60 hospitals cannot afford the rising cost of private finance initiative schemes, the Green Party calls on the Government to call these PFI schemes in.

The NHS faces a bill of £65billion for new hospitals built under PFI schemes and some NHS Trusts face annual repayments of more than 10% of their turnover. It has been claimed that across 154 different PFI projects, over £500 million of profits have been generated.

Penny Kemp, Green Party spokesperson said, “These PFI companies make huge profits. The National Audit office claimed one deal on a hospital in Bromley gave a return for the PFI contractors of more than 70%. In a time of economic austerity, this is scandalous.

"Furthermore, even the Government has no idea how much profit is being generated by the selling of private finance initiatives by construction and investment operators to other funds on a secondary PFI market.”

The Green Party believes that Private Finance Initiative needs to bought back from the companies and shown as Government debt rather than the dubious accounting stream, which does not require the capital cost of the schemes to be shown in the Government books.

Jarvis PLC - a narrow escape or warning about the future?

News that Jarvis PLC has gone into administration may revive old memories amongst Brent councillors and headteachers.

Ten years ago the then Labour Council was negotiating for a Private Finance Inititiave deal for its schools, one of the biggest deals in the country. The PFI would have handed the schools over to private companies.  The company would rebuild the schools and take over their maintenance and be paid back over the 25 years.

Jarvis was one of the two bidders left in the ring and local headteachers were invited to the Town Hall council chamber to see presentations which were of course glossy.  I quite upset one Jarvis suit when I asked him if about criticisms of Jarvis's rail operations and what that said about their fitness to maintain our schools. He hotly argued that rail maintenance was a totally different side of the business.  Jarvis later had to admit liability for the Potters Bar railway accident.  It eventually sold off its school building arm to a French company.

After spending more than 2 years on the project and hundreds of thousands of pounds, we returned after the summer holiday in 2001 to find that the officer responsible for PFI had mysteriously disappeared - we assumed he had been sacked. The Council announced that the project to rebuild 17 secondary and primary schools had been abandoned for 'reasons outside the council's control'. Mystery still hangs around what really happened...

Just imagine the what could have happened to Brent schools if Jarvis had won the contract.  Would we now be spending hundreds of thousands of pounds keeping the company afloat?