"That the Electoral Service adopt a procedure whereby all applicants for electoral registration who reside in a property where Council Tax second home rebate has been claimed are requested to supply further information in accordance with a Type B Review before registration is permitted or refused."Officials also suggest that applicants who fail to provide the additional information within 28 days be refused electoral registration. Last year's data matching exercise, which compared the electoral register with the separate register of second home owners who claim council tax discount, resulted in a purge of 947 potential voters. The proposed abolition of the council tax discount in Cornwall (as blogged earlier today) raises separate questions about how second home owners might be identified....
Thursday, 30 June 2011
Second home voters may have to "opt in" to be on Cornwall's register
One of the most significant developments in recent years in the debate about Cornwall's second home voters has just been posted on Cornwall Council's website, in the form of a legal opinion from James Findlay QC. His advice has prompted this recommendation from Cornwall's election officials:
Why not just put everything on eBay?
I think there might be a few questions asked about this idea, submitted to a full meeting of Cornwall Council for endorsement on Tuesday:
"increasing the financial limit for capital and revenue payments and receipts for officer decisions to £1,000,000 for capital and £500,000 per annum for revenue.....limiting the discount that can be allowed by the Director for Resources in making a disposal decision to £250,000 in relation to capital and £250,000 per annum in relation to revenue."This concentrates even more power in the hands of a single unelected official and drives a coach and horses through the "transparency agenda" of which we hear very little these days. And the reason for this:
"The amendments proposed are considered to be necessary so as to ensure efficiency of effective decision making on property transactions without the need to refer every disposal or acquisition decision to Cabinet."Cornwall has 123 councillors, only 10 of them Cabinet members.
Cornwall's council tax discount for second homes under threat
An interesting proposal from a group of Conservative and Independent councillors will be debated next week:
"....it would be unjust to allow second home concessions to continue; thus the Council resolves that; a) Group Leaders make representations, in writing, to the minister to remove the present second homes council tax discount and endorse theSecond home owners currently enjoy a 10% discount.
use of the additional revenue for new and additional affordable homes..."
Wednesday, 29 June 2011
A healthy debate (part 3)
A highly sensitive document has mysteriously appeared on my desk. It's a draft Business Plan from Cornwall's Primary Care Trust, outlining the ways and means of taking Cornwall's community hospitals outside of the National Health Service - a decision endorsed by the PCT Board yesterday.
This bit was deleted during a private part of yesterday's meeting, once the press and public had been excluded:
54 beds is about 20% of Cornwall's entire community hospital stock. In other words, one patient in five would have to be "managed" out of the system. The document identifies stroke patients as those particularly suitable for treatment elsewhere (but it doesn't say where).
The PCT assures me that both of these highly controversial paragraphs have now been removed and of course I accept that assurance. I also accept that the document in front of me is an early draft and that the thinking that went into yesterday's decision took some months to evolve.
But I still have some questions. What has happened between December 2010 and today which has miraculously restored "the full portfolio of services?" Was the author of the draft correct in December, and somehow mistaken yesterday? I'd love to know more about the "market assessment" on which that December opinion was reached.
There are other questions about "process" - the way in which some highly political healthcare judgements have been considered in secret. Why was the idea of cutting 54 beds not debated in public? Is the National Health Service not a public institution, with every penny of its budget spent from the public purse?
The PCT tells me that much of the draft Business Plan is commercially confidential. I beg to disagree - it might be confidential to anyone who is looking to make money out of the NHS, but not to NHS patients or to NHS staff. So why not let NHS "suppliers" produce their own confidential documents? To those who suspect that these NHS reforms are all about privatisation, this document looks remarkably like a smoking gun.
The same section of this draft Business Plan goes on to talk about a "beds review" which should have been completed in March or April. I've asked the PCT for a copy. It also reveals a "QIPP Agenda" (Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention) which talks of saving £6m on Cornwall's health services by 2014 - £0.5m cuts in 2011/12; £2.5m in 2012/13 and £3m in 2013/14.
St Ives MP Andrew George, who has expressed concern about the way the NHS is being "reformed" has some questions of his own and in a letter to the PCT asks for confirmation "(a) that these sections were contained in the Business Plan submitted to the Strategic Health Authority at the end of December last year? (b) that these sections were contained in the Business Plan shown to members of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee recently? (c) whether or not a Community Hospitals Bed Review has been undertaken yet whether would you acknowledge that by implication, such a process would be part of the preparatory work required for the setting up of the Community Interest Company?"
The document preparing the way for a "Community Interest Company" begs at least two more questions - which community? And whose interest? I've blogged the background to this before and I dare say there's more to come.
STOP PRESS: BBC Radio Cornwall aims to have more on this on our breakfast programme with James Churchfield tomorrow morning. I've invited the PCT to contribute.
This bit was deleted during a private part of yesterday's meeting, once the press and public had been excluded:
"...through our market assessment, we understand that it will not be possible for our new Community Interest Company to continue to offer the full portfolio of services that Cornwall Community Health Services did."And this bit had already been deleted before yesterday's meeting:
"In order to further the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the Community Interest Company, a number of strategies already exist to reduce patient lengths of stay and acute admissions. As a result of this, it is envisaged that the number of beds required will therefore be reduced.....CHS needs to reduce its bed-stock by a total of 54 beds to increase productivity."(PCT emphasis)
54 beds is about 20% of Cornwall's entire community hospital stock. In other words, one patient in five would have to be "managed" out of the system. The document identifies stroke patients as those particularly suitable for treatment elsewhere (but it doesn't say where).
The PCT assures me that both of these highly controversial paragraphs have now been removed and of course I accept that assurance. I also accept that the document in front of me is an early draft and that the thinking that went into yesterday's decision took some months to evolve.
But I still have some questions. What has happened between December 2010 and today which has miraculously restored "the full portfolio of services?" Was the author of the draft correct in December, and somehow mistaken yesterday? I'd love to know more about the "market assessment" on which that December opinion was reached.
There are other questions about "process" - the way in which some highly political healthcare judgements have been considered in secret. Why was the idea of cutting 54 beds not debated in public? Is the National Health Service not a public institution, with every penny of its budget spent from the public purse?
The PCT tells me that much of the draft Business Plan is commercially confidential. I beg to disagree - it might be confidential to anyone who is looking to make money out of the NHS, but not to NHS patients or to NHS staff. So why not let NHS "suppliers" produce their own confidential documents? To those who suspect that these NHS reforms are all about privatisation, this document looks remarkably like a smoking gun.
The same section of this draft Business Plan goes on to talk about a "beds review" which should have been completed in March or April. I've asked the PCT for a copy. It also reveals a "QIPP Agenda" (Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention) which talks of saving £6m on Cornwall's health services by 2014 - £0.5m cuts in 2011/12; £2.5m in 2012/13 and £3m in 2013/14.
St Ives MP Andrew George, who has expressed concern about the way the NHS is being "reformed" has some questions of his own and in a letter to the PCT asks for confirmation "(a) that these sections were contained in the Business Plan submitted to the Strategic Health Authority at the end of December last year? (b) that these sections were contained in the Business Plan shown to members of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee recently? (c) whether or not a Community Hospitals Bed Review has been undertaken yet whether would you acknowledge that by implication, such a process would be part of the preparatory work required for the setting up of the Community Interest Company?"
The document preparing the way for a "Community Interest Company" begs at least two more questions - which community? And whose interest? I've blogged the background to this before and I dare say there's more to come.
STOP PRESS: BBC Radio Cornwall aims to have more on this on our breakfast programme with James Churchfield tomorrow morning. I've invited the PCT to contribute.
Thursday, 23 June 2011
Government digs deep for Cornish language
Local government minister Andrew Stunnell has just told me he's giving the Cornish Language Partnership £360,000 over the next three years, which should secure its future until well into 2015. You can hear the interview on Martin Bailie's programme this afternoon 5pm - 6pm.
Wednesday, 22 June 2011
MK Blues
Truro City Councillor Loic Rich, who represented Mebyon Kernow in last year's general election, tells me how pleased he is with his new political home in the Conservative Party. "I do, really, genuinely believe in what the Conservative Party is doing," he says. "I know many people think the Tories are the party for the Home Counties but that's just not true. The Conservatives really care about Cornwall."
Monday, 20 June 2011
An inappropriate detail
What specific advice did Cornwall Council give to leader Alec Robertson about his "internal party group" decision to remove Jan Powell from the Health & Adults Overview & Scrutiny Committee? Here's the answer:
"The Monitoring Officer is frequently asked about the impact of potential or actual personal interests on a Member's participation in meetings - and that is both by the Member impacted and other Members on the same committee who are aware of the interest and are concerned about the affect of this on the effective conduct of the committee's business. It would not be appropriate to discuss detail of privileged legal advice given to the Leader or any other Member."
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