The banana republic of Surrey has shown local council funding is broken | Simon Jenkins

The algebra is simple. The NHS is having another terrible winter. It does not collapse, but “spills demand” on to the next line of defence, local government welfare. But while the NHS gets more money annually from the Treasury, local government gets less, some 30% less since 2011. It cannot cope with the new pressure.

The equation resolves itself into rationing, by quantity and quality: fewer care places, fewer home visits and fewer district nurses leads to more bed-blocking, fewer operations, longer trolley waits.

Tory Surrey is a responsible supplier of post-hospital care. Like all councils, it is allowed by the Treasury to increase its council tax by 5%, specifically to boost its care budget and thus ease pressure on the NHS – which the Treasury is responsible for funding. Surrey county council regarded this as nothing like enough. It therefore activated its statutory right to hold a referendum on a 15% increase.

Far from showing delight at a wealthy council accepting this burden, the Tory government was appalled. Tories do not increase taxes. The chancellor (and Surrey MP) Philip Hammond duly did what Jeremy Corbyn called a secret deal. If Surrey abandoned its referendum and the 15% hike, it could retain revenue from a different tax – the local business rate, which normally went to the Treasury. That is, the Treasury would in effect spend more on health and care in Surrey, but secretly and, so far, just for Surrey.

This is the stuff of a banana republic. If Britain wants to spend more on health and elderly care, it should raise it and spend it honestly. Instead, the Treasury is running around its fiscal A&E department, staunching the flow of political blood by slamming on plasters wherever a patient screams or twists an arm.

Leaked Surrey council tax texts allow Corbyn to ambush May at PMQs

Some might argue that an NHS free at the point of delivery has had its day. New disciplines and incentives, through fees or insurance or more prevention, must constrain marginal demand. But for the time being, it makes no sense to squeeze the NHS at the top – where politicians are exposed – and dump its problems on to local government and different funding streams at the bottom. It wastes money and distorts priorities. It is illiterate public finance.

If Surrey is harbinger of a new health and care service, and business taxes are to relieve an ever-burgeoning NHS, so be it. But few places are as rich as Surrey. Revenue will have to be redistributed from rich to poor areas. In other words, it is not just the NHS that needs rethinking, but the whole murky world of local government finance.

The banana republic of Surrey has shown local council funding is broken | Simon Jenkins

National Intelligence Council Report Describes the Final Solution for “Fake News”

Trends or revolutions can be unexpected. Even with total information awareness. The best laid plans often go astray. Take “fake news” for example. A report released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on January 9, 2017 highlights one of the greatest trends and unexpected consequences of the information age. Produced over the last four years by the National Intelligence Council the report titled Global Trends Assessment: Paradox of Progress chronicles current and emerging trends in the geopolitics, military affairs, and technology. The only paradox is that the globalist’s progress has taken an unexpected turn.

Coming in at 235 pages it is bristling with themes on a dystopic future from malevolent AI to out of control geoengineering and break away civilizations. Not kidding. Echoing other globalist white papers with three future dystopian scenarios or a combination of them.

All with the same solution for “fake news“. Just like the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2017 with it’s calls to “smooth the information flow” and this report that questions “democratic ideals like free speech and the market place of ideas“.  Direct quotes!  These documents released at the end of the Obama Administration represent the capstone in globalist thinking about the problem of “fake news“.

In the chapter Trends Transforming the Global Landscape there is a section titled Converging Trends Will Transform  Power and Politics. This word product puts in stark terms how the internet has empowered individuals and alternative media to influence opinion and spread information on a global scale as never before. It offers only one solution at the end of the chapter to the problem of “fake news” that has broken the monopolies. Can you guess what that is?

Technology and wealth are empowering individuals and small groups to act in ways that states historically monopolized—and fundamentally altering established patterns of governance and conflict

The ICT revolution placed in the hands of individuals and small groups the information and the ability to exert worldwide influence—making their actions, interests, and values more consequential than ever before.    GTA p26

When the internet was introduced to the public it had already been in use for years by the military as ARPANET. Developed by the forerunners to DARPA this technology was given to the public for many reasons. One of the major reasons was to “close the loop” and get real time data on what populations are saying, thinking and doing. This allows for increasingly accurate prediction of future trends and how to influence them by introducing strategic stimuli at certain points along the way. Before this governments and corporations did not have instant and reliable methods of gauging the public mood and how they were reacting to social engineering and advertising. Total information awareness is now making the globalists totally aware that people around the world are fed up with them. Now the script has been flipped and the people are making up their own minds.

The information environment is fragmenting publics and their countless perceived realities— undermining shared understandings of world events that once facilitated international cooperation. It is also prompting some to question democratic ideals like free speech and the “market place of ideas“.  GTA p26

Undermining the “shared understanding” provided by complete corporate control of  almost all media that made globalization possible. Leading “some” to question democratic ideals like free speech and the marketplace of ideas. Wow. It doesn’t take a technocrat to figure out who the “some” are. The sky is falling and the information environment is fragmented because the globalists cannot compete in the market place of ideas. So shut it down. Competition is a sin.

 When combined with a growing distrust of formal institutions and the proliferation, polarization, and commercialization of traditional and social media outlets, some academics and political observers describe our current era as one of “post-truth” or “post-factual” politics    GTA p26

Growing distrust of formal institutions is putting it mildly. Trust in government and mainstream media are at historic lows since data began to be compiled by surveys. Once again that mysterious “some” pops up again. A little more specific this time identified as academics and political observers. Blaming citizens of the world for speaking their mind and finding facts that answer legitimate questions. Free speech is at fault is this “post truth” era with it’s “post-factual” politics muddying the waters so globalist programs cannot continue unopposed. These same nebulous academics and political observers identified in the document that question free speech and democratic ideals know that they have a fight on their hands.

The power of individuals and groups to block outcomes will be much easier to wield than the constructive power of forging new policies and alignments or implementing solutions to shared challenges, especially when the credibility of authority and information is in question.    GTA p27

Questioning authority is the very bedrock of free speech and democracy. Freedom will get in the way of forging new globalist policies and international alignments. Implementing globalist solutions to manufactured challenges is difficult when being continually exposed by a fair and open press. This is considered “post-factual” politics.

So what does one do when confronted with this dangerous freedom where people decide what to think for themselves? What would be the solution for those who question democratic ideals like free speech and the market place of ideas?

For authoritarian-minded leaders and regimes, the impulse to coerce and manipulate information—as well as the technical means to do so—will increase.   GTA p27

Almost laughable if it were not so dark in it’s prescription for a final solution to “fake news” and echoed in countless other recent globalist white papers.

Visit RaptormanReports for news, science, and history.

Sources:

https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/224-press-releases-2017/1467-national-intelligence-council-releases-global-trends-report

https://www.dni.gov/index.php/global-trends/trends-transforming-the-global-landscape

https://www.dni.gov/index.php/global-trends/letter-nic-chairman

Easier to read pdf at https://info.publicintelligence.net/ODNI-NIC-ParadoxProgress.pdf

 

National Intelligence Council Report Describes the Final Solution for “Fake News”

Council job cuts have finally caught up with me – but I"m relieved

Every new year at the council brings with it a fresh cycle of angst and fear, because the battle to keep jobs begins all over again.

But this year, I no longer care about losing my job – in fact, the prospect of facing redundancy fills me with relief. Relief that I no longer have to face a relentless cost-cutting cycle.

Things changed for me last spring, when I was diagnosed with a serious illness. By the time June hit – which tends to be when the annual battle for existence kicks off – I was not at work to spend hours collating the service-saving information I have put together every year since the cuts began.

I manage a service that works with vulnerable families; we’re cheap and we don’t cause referrals to other services.

After several operations I returned to work to be told that my team and I were at risk. The formal consultation of our posts is widely accepted as tokenistic and my only priority now is to get the best exit from the council that I can.

The cycle of cuts I will be leaving behind normally goes something like this:

June kicks off with a catchy new phrase, adopted to avoid the word “cuts”. It could be “the transformation programme” or the “change agenda”.

Then there’s a reshuffle at the top of the council or highly paid consultants are bought in as a fresh pair of eyes. By July, rumours abound and I start to get anxious. Random demands for data hit my inbox from names I do not know.

By August it is clear I will have a job on my hands to save the service I work for. So I spend the month poring through our databases and submitting long documents showing how much money our service has saved the council.

More requests for data hit my inbox and I start to lose sleep, worrying that I won’t have a job by the following April. I don’t tell the members of my team about any of this. Why put them through this every year?

September heralds a peak in my anxiety, and my insomnia. All staff are summoned to workshops where a vision of the future is laid before them. I hear phrases like “everything must change” and “no job is safe”. I have to divert our meagre resources to paying staff to attend these events, while reassuring them that their jobs are safe because of all the money we save the council.

By October, across children’s services there is a general loss of focus. Morale plummets and people start leaving. Some because they think they will be made redundant. Some because they can’t stomach any more change. The cracks in the system widen further than ever before.

November is always when I am promised some concrete news. But the haste with which decisions about cuts are made means there are too many legalities to iron out and the November deadline expires.

December and the truth is out there. The people who belong to services that are safe try and make the most of January to May before it all starts again. The constant nausea disappears and I start to sleep soundly again.

I am exhausted by this annual cycle, by the insecurity about whether I will be able to pay the mortgage and put food on the table.

I have recovered from my illness. My future is bright. My future is not in the local council, even though I am still driven to want to help the most vulnerable in our society. I don’t know what the future holds but I know I won’t miss the misery of the constant uncertainty of working for a council.

When my surgeon gave me the good news I shook his hand vigorously and gratefully. As I drove back to work it occurred to me that lots of the families I have worked with have shaken my hand in the same way. But no-one in the council has ever shaken my hand and I don’t expect that to change as I hold my head high and work my way towards my redundancy date.

This series aims to give a voice to the staff behind the public services that are hit by mounting cuts and rising demand, and so often denigrated by the press, politicians and public. If you would like to write an article for the series, contact kirstie.brewer@theguardian.com

Talk to us on Twitter via @Guardianpublic and sign up for your free weekly Guardian Public Leaders newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you every Thursday.

Council job cuts have finally caught up with me – but I"m relieved

Council tax hike being considered to cover social care costs

Ministers are looking at increasing council tax to pay for social care but have been warned that it will not tackle funding problems which are “out of control”.

Experts, including the former Tory health secretary Stephen Dorrell, have warned of a growing cash crisis hitting local government and the NHS.

The government is preparing to allow tax precepts to be increased so local councils, which have suffered reductions in government grants totalling more than 40% since 2010, can claw in extra cash to cover the spiralling social care costs.

Izzi Seccombe, the Conservative chair of the Local Goverment Association’s community wellbeing board, confirmed that the idea of an increase in the precept was being considered.

“We have had some dialogue with ministers about this,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday.

But she said the money raised from such a move would not be enough. Seccombe pointed out a 2% increase in precept imposed by most councils last year raised only £380m, which was not enough to pay the £600m needed to cover increased staff costs under the “national living wage”.

She also warned that a rise in council tax would create a postcode lottery in services because richer areas could raise more than poorer areas where the need is greatest.

Seccombe called for emergency funding. “We need an injection now of £1.3bn because there is a shortfall by the end of 2020 of £2.6bn.”

Dorrell, who is now the chair of the NHS Confederation, said the shortfall in social care was spilling over into the NHS because discharged hospital patients had nowhere else to go.

He said: “What we are talking about is a cash shortage that is threatening the stability not just of local government but of the National Health Service. Unless we address this seriously, we will simply see a failure of service across the range of local public services and people will suffer as a consequence.

“It comes when people find they can’t have access to care homes, so they end up in A&E and GP surgeries. They can’t be discharged from hospital when they are fit and ready to go.”

Dorrell said he would welcome giving councils the flexibility to raise council tax for social care, but he called for a more “fundamental” rethink of both health and social care funding.

Martin Green, the chief executive of Care England, which represents care home providers, said hundreds of providers were on the brink of financial ruin.

He said: “Research recently showed 40% of care services will no longer be viable in the medium term so this is a huge number of care services that will be lost.

“The government needs to have a clear strategy on social care and if they don’t there will be a crisis right across both health and social care.”

Andrea Sutcliffe, the chief inspector for adult social care, told the Times: “The system is approaching a tipping point. We’ve got increased demand and potentially a restriction on capacity.

“Unless we really get to grips with some of these problems … we will get to an absolute crisis.”

Labour peer David Lipsey, who was involved in a royal commission on elderly care funding in the 1990s, added: “There could be mass closures of care homes.

“There’s a danger that poor people in poor areas will end up without care, living a squalid life. There could be care blackspots because the homes that are reliant on state funding will become unsustainable,” said Lord Lipsey.

The Lib Dem shadow secretary of state for health, Norman Lamb, said: “This is dreadful crisis management from the Conservatives.

“They are lurching from crisis to crisis and this is yet another desperate sticking plaster solution which falls short of what is needed. Making councils bear all the burden will increase the postcode lottery which already exists.

“It will mean that wealthy parts of the country will find it easier to meet rising demand whilst those areas where council tax raises less money will be left struggling.

“The government must be held to account for the consequences of leaving more and more people without the care they desperately need.”

Barbara Keeley, the shadow minister for social care, commenting on reports of proposed council tax rises to fund social care, said: “Asking taxpayers and councils to pick up the bill for the Tories’ failure is no substitute for a proper plan.

“It is time for Tory ministers to deal with the crisis they have created in funding social care and to develop a sustainable way of funding the social care on which vulnerable and frail older people depend.”

Council tax hike being considered to cover social care costs

Council cuts hitting women"s contraceptive services, data shows

Clinics offering women contraception are closing or reducing their opening hours in the wake of heavy Whitehall cuts to local councils’ public health budgets, new research has revealed.

One and a half million women of reproductive age live in parts of England where councils have restricted contraception services or are considering doing so, according to data obtained under freedom of information by the Advisory Group on Contraception.

The findings have prompted warnings from sexual health experts that paring back such services could lead to an increase in unintended pregnancies and abortions. One in four councils have already reduced their contraception service or may do so, the new findings show.

“Councils are between a rock and a hard place when faced with cuts to public health budgets, but it’s a false economy to restrict women’s access to contraception,” said Natika Halil, the chief executive of the Family Planning Association, which is a member of the AGC.

She cited research showing that every pound spent on contraception saved £11 in averted health costs, for example from women going on to have a baby or a termination.

“Making it harder for women to choose the right contraception for them will mean more unplanned pregnancies and more abortions,” she said.

Four sites offering contraception services have closed or will close during 2016-17 in Dorset, several clinics have stopped operating in Wandsworth in south London, while a clinic operating at Leighton hospital in Crewe, Cheshire was shut down last year.

Responses from 140 of England’s 152 councils to the freedom of information requests showed that a lunchtime school drop-in service in south Gloucestershire has been ended, a sexual health worker in Wokingham in Berkshire lost their job when a condom distribution service was brought in-house by the council and a young people’s service in Bexley, south London, ceased being a standalone service but is now being provided in a local GP’s surgery.

Dr Anne Connolly, a GP in Bradford who sits on the AGC, said: “It’s hugely concerning to see that, in many parts of the country, contraceptive services are being cut, meaning that women can’t access the most reliable types of contraception. Without close scrutiny, I’m worried this trend will only continue and that women will bear the consequences.”

Among the 140 councils which responded, 20 (14%) confirmed that at least one site had shut in 2015-16 or would do so this year, while another 18 (13%) said that clinics could be closed this year. The AGC is made up of health charities such as the FPA, doctors, the Local Government Association and the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare, which represents specialists.

Councils in England have been obliged by law since the coalition government’s NHS shakeup in 2013 to provide open access to sexual health services, including for contraception.

NHS England commissions some contraceptive services under its contract with GPs. The AGC also found that fewer councils now have contracts with local family doctors to provide the long-acting forms of contraception that women are now often encouraged to use.

However, councils have had to reduce the public health services they offer since the Treasury cut £200m from their budgets for this year and it intends to take another £600m by 2020-21, just under 10% of the planned total.

Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England, has warned several times that cuts to public health will inevitably lead to higher long-term costs for the NHS. Last year, he said he was “crystal clear that any further cuts in public health and social care would impose extra costs on the NHS over and above the minimum funding requirement [the £8bn extra by 2020-21 that then chancellor George Osborne promised last year to give the NHS]”.

The Department of Health said councils were best at deciding what public health services they provided for their residents.

“Local areas are best placed to decide how to provide the sexual health services their communities need. Good progress is being made, for example teenage pregnancy is down 30% in England since 2011, the lowest for 40 years”, a spokesman said.

“Over the next five years, we will invest more than £16bn in local government public health services, in addition to what the NHS will continue to spend on vaccinations, screening and other preventative interventions.”

Council cuts hitting women"s contraceptive services, data shows

Care for elderly ‘close to collapse’ across UK as council funding runs out

Theresa May is under intense pressure from senior doctors and a powerful cross-party alliance of politicians to avert a collapse in care for the elderly, as shocking new figures show the system close to meltdown.

The medical profession, together with Tory, Labour and Liberal Democrat leaders in local government, have demanded a funding U-turn, warning that the safety of millions of elderly people is at risk because of an acute financial crisis completely overlooked in chancellor Philip Hammond’s autumn statement.

New figures obtained by the Observer show that 77 of the 152 local authorities responsible for providing care for the elderly have seen at least one residential and nursing care provider close in the last six months, because cuts to council budgets meant there were insufficient funds to run adequate services.

In 48 councils, at least one company that provides care for the elderly in their own homes has ceased trading over the same period, placing councils under sudden and huge pressure to find alternative provision.

In addition, 59 councils have had to find new care arrangements after contracts were handed back by a provider who decided that they were unable to make ends meet on the money that councils were able to pay them.

The medical profession, council leaders and even the former Tory health secretary, Andrew Lansley, are appalled that the social care crisis – exacerbated by growing numbers of elderly people and the rising costs of paying staff – was not addressed in the autumn statement.

In a letter to the Observer, the leaders of the four main political groups in local government expressed their disquiet at the chancellor’s dismissing talk of a crisis despite calls from politicians, NHS leaders, doctors and others.

Former Tory health secretary Andrew Lansley is among the critics. Photograph: David Jones/PA

“The fact the government appears to have chosen not to act will lower the quality of life for our elderly and vulnerable residents,” they said.

The cross-party group adds that, without an urgent injection of extra money to fund a £2.6bn funding gap, “the quality and safety of care of our elderly is at risk and the vulnerable will increasingly struggle to receive the help they need to meet basic needs such as washing, dressing or getting out of bed”.

They added that May cannot claim to be governing for everyone if she fails to act to help the elderly and most vulnerable: “The social care crisis is real and it is happening right now. The government cannot ignore it any longer if we are to truly have a society that works for everyone.”

Providers of social care say they have been squeezed by a combination of cuts to local authority funds provided by central government and their own rising costs, particularly as a result of the introduction of the national living wage.

Separately, the president of the Royal College of Surgeons, Clare Marx, told the Observer that the failure to provide adequate care in the home means elderly people are ending up stuck in hospitals, putting huge strain on their finances at a time when government is also demanding large efficiency savings. The logjam means operations for other patients have to be cancelled, causing further added bills to the NHS.

John McDonnell says autumn statement ‘offers no hope’

Marx said surgeons and other medical staff increasingly feel they are failing the elderly: “Cuts to local authorities’ social care budgets result in older people staying in hospital much longer than is necessary. Elderly patients, many of whom are living at home alone with little support, are regularly being admitted to A&E after falls or for acute infections. They then get stuck in hospitals because there is nowhere for them to go to continue their recovery.

“It is incredibly sad to see this happen, and we feel that we are failing our older people towards the end of their lives – when they deserve more dignity and greater support to stay in their own homes.

“Regrettably this has a knock-on effect for planned operations. I am hearing more and more regularly from colleagues who have had to cancel planned procedures because there aren’t enough beds free on wards to admit patients for their surgery. As a result the NHS is becoming increasingly inefficient. It is a vicious circle that won’t end until we properly resource social and community care.”

In the autumn statement debate, Hammond responded to Labour MPs who demanded action on social care by saying: “I know that it is tempting for opposition members to paint everything as a crisis or to talk of looming chaos, but that is not the case.”

He added: “We have created a better care fund that will be delivering £1.5bn a year into social care by the end of this parliament. We have allowed local authorities to raise a social care precept, which will be delivering another £2bn a year by the end of this parliament. That is £3.5bn a year of additional funding into the social care system.”

Council leaders say that Hammond’s claims are completely untrue and that the extra money councils can raise will not come close even to what is needed to meet the cost of introducing the national living wage (estimated to be at least £600m this year).

They also argue that wealthier areas, where more people can afford private care, will be better-placed because they collect more of their budgets through council tax and are less reliant on government funding. More deprived areas will be hit doubly hard because they will have to cope with the deep government funding cuts while being unable to raise as much to meet rising costs.

Care for elderly ‘close to collapse’ across UK as council funding runs out

Young barristers in debt and depressed, warns head of Bar Council youth wing

Young barristers are heavily in debt and becoming vulnerable to depression, the chair of the Bar Council’s youth wing warns.

In an address to the organisation’s annual conference on Saturday, Louisa Nye will say many find it “difficult to stop worrying” at a time when lawyers are characterised in the media as a “scourge on society”.

Young barristers start their careers with accumulated debts of up to £70,000, she will go on, at a time when many are earning the “lowest of sums” for important work that is undervalued by society.

Nye, who is chair of the young barristers’ committee of the Bar Council of England and Wales, will admit that she herself had suffered from anxiety and depression.

“I have lost a close friend who took her own life, in part under the strain that this job and circumstances can place on people,” she will tell the conference.

“Today’s cohort of young barristers is in a particularly vulnerable position. They are financially vulnerable – as a consequence of tuition fees and increases in the [Bar Professional Training Course] fees, we now know that young barristers can have anywhere from £30,000-£70,000 debt when they start out in the profession.

“Many are making repayments over their first five years of practice, if not substantially longer. Young criminal and family barristers are receiving the lowest of sums for carrying out important work, and many are struggling to maintain a living.”

Nye, who is a member of Landmark Chambers in London, will add: “Parts of the media have reports almost daily where lawyers are criticised for the work they do and characterised as a scourge on society.

“Young barristers live in deeply uncertain and difficult times … And it is difficult against that background not to feel somewhat lost and somewhat depressed.”

She will point to the Wellbeing at the Bar report published last year which highlighted high levels of stress and anxiety felt by barristers.

Nye will say: “The survey found that one in three barristers finds it difficult to control or stop worrying. One in six barristers said that they felt low in spirits most of the time.”

Young barristers in debt and depressed, warns head of Bar Council youth wing

Council cuts push specialist housing for vulnerable people into the cold

Last November, housing staff at one housing association were confronted with a tenant claiming to have a bomb in his bag; in another incident, an officer from another housing provider claimed to have been held hostage by a man who believed there was an alien outside his home.

In both incidents, the tenants involved had mental health issues. Housing providers are concerned that growing numbers of tenants with mental health issues are ending up in general needs housing, where they do not receive the help provided in specialist supported housing. A recent survey by Inside Housing reveals a 14% fall in spending by councils on people with mental health issues in supported housing since 2011–12, based on 250 English councils that responded to Freedom of Information requests,

Between 2011 and 2017 there will have been a drop of nearly £7.3m in spend on people with mental health in supported housing by the 47 councils in England that responded fully to the survey. In 2011–12, those councils’ combined budget, including both commissioned services and those they pay for directly, was £50.9m; this year’s budget is £43.6m.

This squeeze on council spending has put pressure on other housing providers, including housing associations. “We have noticed councils are seeking to reduce the amount of specialist accommodation they procure for adults with mental illness,” says Alex Reeve, regional director of London supported housing at housing association Family Mosaic.

Supported housing has been operating within a constricted funding environment for years. Supporting People funding – a national programme for housing related support made available to councils in England – dropped from £1.8bn when it started in 2003 to £1.6bn in 2014–15. That equates to a 38% fall in real terms.

Ministers have given supported housing a one-year exemption from the 1% rent reduction announced in last year’s summer budget, while in September the government said it would transfer top-up money to councils for the service to counter its planned housing benefit cap.

But supported housing providers say the threat of funding cuts has already affected business. Among the 250 councils that responded at least in part to Inside Housing’s FOI requests, there is a wide range of provision for tenants with mental health conditions: some have specialist units, some do not; a handful have floating support for their general needs stock, most do not; others have budgets for specific conditions – such as hoarding – while others have no housing budget at all allocated to people with mental health needs

Chris Hampson, chief executive of Look Ahead, which provides care, support and housing services across London and the south-east, says councils are cutting back on supporting those with less serious mental health issues to concentrate on those with more acute needs. “A lot of the preventative services have been cut back,” says Hampson, who believes further cuts are to come.

This, he says, is short-sighted: “If you take money out of the lower-end preventative services, in the long run more money is spent because people end up back on the streets or in hospital.”

Richard Colwill, media manager at mental health charity Sane, says the FOI results show the budgetary crisis across the board for mental health provision, which is of deep concern for the charity. “Mental health has always been a ‘Cinderella service’,” he explains, and cuts to services are a false economy: if what initially appears to be a tenancy problem is not addressed early, it can develop into a much more complex issue and they can find themselves supporting a customer experiencing mental health issues. “Care in the community only works if there is provision for people in the community,” he says. “Housing is a really big issue for us. Losing a home or being in fear of losing your home can be a trigger to push someone into crisis.”

While most councils have cut spending on mental health in supported accommodation, the FOI responses reveal some exceptions. In 2016–17 Ealing spent £1.6m on mental health in supported housing, up from £1.2m in 2011–12. “We recognise the benefits of supported living in enabling people to live as independently as possible in the borough while getting appropriate care from professionals,” a spokesperson for Ealing says. “We also find that supporting people to live in the local area near to family and friends can have a positive impact on their well-being.”

In Yorkshire, Wakefield council is another bucking the trend, with its supported housing mental health budget growing 15% in the past five years. It is also developing an innovative strategy to address the issue. Wakefield and District Housing has partnered with NHS Wakefield Clinical Commissioning Group to employ mental health support workers to work with tenants. The council, which still manages the local housing register, can give applicants with mental health needs extra priority. Jon Feasey, a service manager for vulnerable adults at Wakefield Council, says the council sees tackling mental health as an important frontline service. “It has a preventative outcome that can create real efficiencies by preventing homelessness.”

Feasey believes the right place for people with mental health needs is in the community but that people need support in their homes – including those with less acute mental health needs who can slip through the net. As well as preventing homelessness, the support can also help reduce unplanned hospital admissions, he says.

This is an edited extract from an article originally published by Inside Housing (£).

World Mental Health Day on 10 October focuses this year on psychological first aid and providing support to those in distress

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Council cuts push specialist housing for vulnerable people into the cold

Cancer Council unaware tobacco giant behind FOI request on child smoking habits

Cancer Council Victoria says it had no concept a British American Tobacco worker was behind a freedom of details request for information on the tobacco use and acquiring habits of 1000′s of school children.

For the past 30 years, the council has surveyed youngsters aged among 12 and 17 about their age, gender and location, accessibility to income, alcohol and tobacco consumption and getting habits, and preferred brands.

The director of the Victorian Cancer Council, Todd Harper, stated a attorney had requested the survey information underneath the Freedom of Information Act, but the request was rejected since it was not in the public interest to release it.

Relevant: Australian teens major charge in eschewing consuming and smoking

It was not right up until Fairfax Media reported the lawyer had appealed towards the determination to Victoria’s Civil and Administrative Tribunal, that the council became mindful the attorney was an employee of the tobacco giant, Harper said.

“We had no idea that British American Tobacco was behind the request,” he said. “All we knew was it was an person from a law firm who wanted the information. I’m disappointed that the tobacco firm wasn’t upfront about its involvement.”

Harper stated the council was concerned that, as soon as manufactured public, the data could be utilized by tobacco and alcohol firms to acquire insight into the purchasing and drug consumption routines of younger folks, as nicely as the varieties of brand names that appealed to them.

The information is utilized by the Cancer Council to assist it recognize exactly where and how to direct publishing health messaging, as effectively as for scientific scientific studies. When mothers and fathers consented to their young children finishing the survey, the did so believing the information would be used only in the curiosity of public health, Harper explained.

Fairfax Media also exposed that the identical attorney utilised the Freedom of Information Act to get info from surveys of adult smokers in that state, which integrated queries about their attitudes toward smoking.

“The Cancer Institute NSW was compelled to give tobacco survey information requested underneath the NSW Government Info [Public access] Act,” its chief cancer officer, David Currow, told Fairfax.

A spokeswoman for British American Tobacco advised Guardian Australia the Victorian data request “wasn’t about children”.

“This is about plain packaging,” she stated. “We did not look for any individual data or info in respect of youngsters. We’ve asked for figures by way of a standard freedom of info request because we want to discover out if plain packaging, a measure introduced with out evidence and that straight influences our business, is possessing the effect the Australian government claims it is.”

In a globe very first, Australia passed plain packaging legislation in 2011, requiring all cigarette packaging to be stripped of marketing and branding, apart from the organization name and health warnings. All tobacco now comes in olive green cardboard containers with graphic overall health messages.

In a series of papers published by the Cancer Council in the BMJ journal Tobacco Control in March, plain packaging was related with an enhance in the variety of men and women pondering about quitting and trying to quit. The investigation also identified kids aged in between twelve and 17 found standardised packaging much less attractive.

An appeal date for the freedom of details request is nevertheless to be set.

Cancer Council unaware tobacco giant behind FOI request on child smoking habits

Hackney council will take a walk on the wild side in battle towards obesity

Hackney has some great spots for kids to explore across the borough’s parks, canals, and woodland. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

Nowadays young children commit a great deal of time sat in front of TVs, iPads and different other screens. All across the United kingdom children are paying also significantly time indoors and not acquiring ample workout, and the borough of Hackney is no different.

When the responsibility for public overall health moved back to local government last yr, so also did the occupation of reducing childhood weight problems. As most mothers and fathers will tell you simply telling children to do something doesn’t usually perform, so Hackney council determined to do things differently – we approached the issue of getting individuals match with a bit of entertaining alternatively.

Specialists operating in behaviour change have been attempting to deliver the “entertaining concept” to bear on public well being for a whilst. They’ve had some notable successes, like obtaining folks to get the stairs by turning them into giant piano keys, and encouraging recycling with a bottle financial institution arcade. Adopting the easy principle that people are a lot more likely to do one thing if it is enjoyable seems like an clear way to get children lively.

I wasn’t the most active youngster, but I had mother and father who had been constantly insisting that I received out and about, and each and every school vacation they would take me on a loved ones caravan journey to the Lake District.

My dad would consider every trick to get me to stop complaining about getting bored, but he did not require to following I received a guide known as Rocky Rambler’s Wild Walks. It was the first Lake District strolling manual that place children in charge. In it, each and every a hundred metres of a stroll resembled a square on a board game and there have been colourful characters, larger than life landmarks and riddles along the way. There was no stopping me after that – I finished every single walk in the book with no so much as a grumble.

This is why I have set out to bring wild walks to Hackney. In terms of locations for youngsters to discover on foot Hackney has some great spots. There is adequate green room across our 56 parks to fit 450 football pitches, as effectively as canals, rivers and woodland.

My very first call was to Rocky Rambler’s creator, Colin Shelbourn, who kindly gave his permission for us to adapt the format and give it some east London flavour. The rest of the task fell into location when I stumbled across a brilliant nearby social enterprise referred to as Outside Men and women, and its director Cath Prisk, who knew Hackney like the back of her hand. She researched and wrote up the walks, with the support of her canine Charlie.

There were 3 criteria for every route. It had to consider a modest child about an hour (so about 2km) it had to commence in a single of the areas in Hackney with the highest charges of childhood obesity and it had to consider adventurers previous other public amenities kids could use to get lively, this kind of as journey playgrounds and parks. There necessary to be toilets along the route, and it necessary to be of interest to grownups too, helping mums and dads get to know their local community greater.

Encouraging youngsters to use neighborhood green spaces to get healthy is specifically the type of undertaking that has been created achievable by generating public wellness a neighborhood government duty. In Hackney, the person in charge of parks and leisure is the same particular person whose work it is to get residents more healthy. Parks are 1 of every regional authority’s most essential assets – but the challenge is to get residents utilizing them. By encouraging our younger residents to get their parents on a walk, Hackney’s Wild Walks aim to do just that.

The walks are offered to read on the internet here.

Kathryn Scott is public health communications manager at London Borough of Hackney

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Hackney council will take a walk on the wild side in battle towards obesity

Muslim Council of Britain says female genital mutilation is "un-Islamic"

Anti-FGM campaigners prepare to deliver a 250,000-signature petition to education secretary Michael Gove. Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi for the Guardian

The Muslim Council of Britain, the country’s largest Muslim organisation, has condemned the practice of female genital mutilation as “un-Islamic” and told its members that FGM risks bringing their religion into disrepute.

The influential MCB has for the first time issued explicit guidance, which criticises the practice and says it is “no longer linked to the teaching of Islam”. It added that one of the “basic principles” of Islam was that believers should not harm themselves or others.

The organisation will send flyers to each of the 500 mosques that form its membership, which will also be distributed in community centres in a drive to eradicate a practice that affects 125 million women and girls worldwide and can lead to psychological torment, complications during childbirth, problems with fertility, and death.

The MCB has collaborated with the African women’s support and campaigning organisation Forward and the Muslim Spiritual Care Provision in the NHS (MSCP) to raise awareness of the dangers of FGM and warn practitioners that they face up to 14 years in prison if they subject girls to the practice, which involves the removal of the clitoris, or in more extreme cases the removal of the outer labia and the sewing up of the vagina, with a small hole left for menstruation and to pass urine.

The leaflet states: “FGM is not an Islamic requirement. There is no reference to it in the holy Qur’an that states girls must be circumcised. Nor is there any authentic reference to this in the Sunnah, the sayings or traditions of our prophet. FGM is bringing the religion of Islam into disrepute.”

It also states that there is “an increasingly high risk of being prosecuted” for carrying out mutilation, which has been illegal in Britain since 1985.

Dr Shuja Shafi, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “We at the MCB are pleased to address this very important issue of female genital mutilation. Working closely together we can end this practice and ensure it is no longer linked to the religion of Islam or the teachings of the prophet Muhammad.”

Dr Soheir Elneil, chair of the African women’s campaign group Forward, which helped to prepare the leaflet, said the publication was a step forward in the battle to bring FGM to an end within a generation. “This is the first time such a publication has been achieved with the full cooperation and support of the relevant parties, and we hope all those working in FGM will find it a helpful tool in the work that they do,” she said. “It states that FGM is non-Islamic and is against the teachings of Islam, that it is putting the health of women and girls at risk, and informs the reader of the legal implications in the UK of carrying out the practice.”

Last week the Home Office held a summit at which other religious organisations, including the Shia al-Khoei Foundation and the Muslim Women’s Network UK, announced their support for a government declaration against FGM to be published next month.

Muslim Council of Britain says female genital mutilation is "un-Islamic"

Coalition faces huge strike as biggest unions ballot council workers

Unison leader Dave Prentis said the action could be greater than the 1926 common strike if employees voted for it. Photograph: Paul Faith/PA Wire/Press Association Pictures

The government is this week dealing with up to the prospect of the greatest strike because the coalition came to workplace amid developing anger over spend restraint in the public sector.

The UK’s most significant trade unions are balloting hundreds of 1000′s of council employees in England and Wales in protest at an provide worth one% for most staff.

Unison will announce the outcome of its ballot on Monday, followed by GMB and Unite above the subsequent week.

The Public and Business Companies union is also balloting its members for a strike in a lengthy-running dispute above cuts in the civil support, with the result due by the end of the month.

If workers vote yes, there will be a 1-day strike on ten July, which the Unison leader, Dave Prentis, has predicted could be greater than the 1926 basic strike.

Members of the National Union of Teachers will also take industrial action on 10 July, while firefighters in England and Wales have staged a series of walkouts in excess of pensions in the previous yr and have not ruled out even more stoppages.

Midwives in England could also quickly be balloted for industrial action in protest at the government’s choice not to accept a advisable 1% across-the-board pay rise for NHS employees.

Thousands of midwives and maternity support staff are getting consulted on whether they want a formal ballot for action.

Jon Skewes of the Royal School of Midwives explained: “Midwives are really angry that the government said to them they’d get a 1% pay out rise but now only employees at the top of their pay out scales will get that rise, and it truly is not consolidated into their pay out.

“Jeremy Hunt has picked out wellness workers for harsher treatment method on spend than anybody else in the public sector.

“This is the time for midwives to get a stand since the government is intent on assaulting their shell out and conditions.”

Other well being unions are warning of ballots for industrial action, which could lead to a second wave of public-sector strikes in the autumn.

At the opening of the annual conference of the transport union RMT in Bristol, the acting standard secretary, Mick Income, reinforced calls for co-ordinated action towards cuts and the threat to jobs and operating problems.

He said: “This is the very first RMT AGM given that the death of our standard secretary, Bob Crow, but the fighting, militant organisation that was constructed underneath Bob’s leadership remains in area, as we have proven in a wave of latest disputes from London Underground to Heathrow Express and in ongoing campaigns to defend our members’ jobs, spend and functioning circumstances.

“RMT has lengthy argued for a policy of co-ordinated and generalised strike action that unites every single group of staff threatened with the cosh of austerity and it is encouraging to see that that position is gaining traction the length and breadth of the trade union motion.”

Coalition faces huge strike as biggest unions ballot council workers

Creator of Jaws" metal teeth prosecuted by Basic Dental Council

Fairman, 58, who runs the Bodmin Dental Lab in Cornwall, was fined £500 and ordered to pay out £500 in the direction of fees and a £50 victim surcharge for breaching the Dentists Act 1984.

The dental regulator mentioned Fairman had in no way been registered with the GDC.

He has run Precision Dental Engineering, supplying professional metals and plastics to the dentistry market, since 1973.

His Bodmin-primarily based laboratory shot to fame in 1977 when it won the contract to give the teeth for Jaws.

Fairman later on met 7ft Kiel who thanked him for manufacturing the metal teeth and gave him a signed photograph.

But he recalled in interview: “I met Richard Kiel a lot of years later on and asked him how he had acquired on with my operate, and he told me they have been the most uncomfortable thing he had ever worn, and he hated my guts.

“He said he could only dress in them for a couple of minutes and they were the bane of his lifestyle. I believed I’d completed a very good task, but you live and learn.”

Fairman of St Newlyn East, Cornwall, also aided former world darts champion Eric Bristow to conquer continual snoring problems ahead of he took part in I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Right here two years in the past.

Precision Dental Engineering generates anti-snoring products under its Stopsnore brand, which claims to be “a full stop snoring answer that does not compromise comfort”.

Fairman explained of the device used for Bristow: “We have offered Eric a gadget that will hold his jaw in a somewhat sophisticated place whilst sleeping and that must do the trick, although Eric looks to have competitors in the jungle from a couple of other hefty snorers.

“I have acknowledged Eric for many years by way of my father, and he approached me to try and solve his snoring difficulty, so I offered him with a Snorebond which he took to the jungle as his luxury item.”

Fairman said his current prosecution was based on a “technicality”.

He blamed a “slip of the tongue” for accidentally calling himself a dentist technician in the video, in which he criticised the NHS.

He said: “From 1978 to 2008 I was a dental technician and I was totally certified.

“The GDC started registering everybody that moved in dentistry in 2008 and I explained no thanks, I do not want to be concerned in that.

“I made the decision to stick to what I do, which is what I am legally entitled to do. I get in touch with myself a dental mechanic. I fix dentures and make copy dentures.

“I accidentally known as myself a dental technician in the video simply because I employed to be a single and the GDC jumped on me like a tonne of bricks.”

The GDC explained it did not comment on person instances.

But a spokesman said: “Underneath sections 41 and 43 of the Dentists Act 1984, the General Dental Council has the electrical power to carry a prosecution against an person or organization where it is working the organization of dentistry with no the bulk of its directors becoming registered with us.”

Creator of Jaws" metal teeth prosecuted by Basic Dental Council

Pre-signing abortion forms is unlawful, General Medical Council admits

The act tends to make clear that they should signal to certify that they formed the viewpoint “in excellent faith”.

In their letter, the MPs stated: “As it is impossible to come to a health care judgment with out realizing any of the specifics of a patient’s case, pre-signing is regarded unlawful.”

It quoted remarks manufactured by Earl Howe, the overall health minister, who told the Lords earlier this month that: “Forms becoming pre-signed is a clear breach of the law and if it is found to be occurring, a prosecution need to be brought.”

A Scotland Yard spokesman confirmed the letter to Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe had been acquired and its contents were being regarded as.

The GMC had earlier accepted the practice was “wrong” but ruled against bringing any fitness to practise hearings due to the widespread nature of the issue.

It also refused to identify the medical doctors or give any detail of their positions.

Although admitting pre-signing was illegal, Mr Dickson pointed out this was partly due to broad-reaching modifications in clinical practice since the 1967 Act was drawn up.

He mentioned the Crown Prosecution Services (CPS) had looked into two pre-signing instances and concluded it was not in the public interest to pursue the individuals concerned.

He wrote: “We do act exactly where medical doctors are convicted – but in these cases there had been no prosecutions, allow alone convictions.

“The principal concern for us, therefore, was how to bring this unlawful and unacceptable practice to an end.

“We demanded and obtained assurances from all the medical professionals recognized in the inspections that they would no longer pre-sign these forms.

“We also made it clear that there would be extreme consequences if doctors ignored our guidance in this location.

“Inspections by the Care Quality Commission given that that investigation took location have found that the practice has now stopped.”

The breaches 1st came to light for the duration of inspections by the Care Top quality Commission, the health watchdog, triggered by a Telegraph investigation which uncovered evidence of medical professionals agreeing to abortions simply because of the gender of the little one.

Mr Dickson was keen to separate the situation of pre-signing kinds from medics agreeing to terminate pregnancies due to the baby’s gender.

He wrote: “It is critical not to confuse this matter of pre-signing of abortion varieties with the separate instances in which it is alleged that abortions have been sanctioned on the basis of the gender of the foetus.

“We are actively investigating two this kind of instances and have barred these medical professionals from any involvement with abortion while our enquiries are continuing.”

The GMC is doing work with the Division of Overall health to give more advice about doctors’ responsibilities below the Abortion Act, Mr Dickson stated.

“We hope this will give medical professionals and patients with the details and support they require about what constitutes good practice in this location,” he mentioned.

“This is a very controversial element of health-related practice and significantly has altered given that the present law was passed.

“Dealing with that must be a matter for parliament and society. Our position is to make positive that medical doctors realize what is expected from them in delivering excellent care and that they work inside of the law.”

Pre-signing abortion forms is unlawful, General Medical Council admits

Council matchmaking: should councils aid us make friends?

Relationships are very good for us in a lot of techniques. Some of them blindingly apparent, others less so. Photograph: PhotosIndia.com LLC te /Alamy

Should government care about our relationships? Traditionally this question has been framed in terms of social conservatism and liberalism, an argument about whether or not the state need to privilege specific forms of relationships, notably marriage and the nuclear loved ones, over other people.

Increasingly we are seeing that rather of this social and moral argument there are great factors why government (and neighborhood government in certain) need to be concerned about the variety and top quality, although not, in truth, the kind of our relationships.

That’s since relationships are good for us in many techniques – some of them blindingly obvious, other folks much less so. Whilst it could be clear to us how intimate relationships, household and friends contribute to (or occasionally detract from) our nicely becoming, research more than the past decade has proven how relationships and social networks also support a selection of public items.

The American social scientists Christakis and Fowler have proven how both positive phenomena such as happiness and offering up smoking, and adverse ones such as weight problems, are transmitted through social networks. Investigation by the University of Brighton and others has proven that amounts of social interaction are 1 of the biggest determinants of wellbeing in previous age, far more critical even than physical health, and a vital portion of assisting men and women to dwell independently for longer.

Communities with substantial amounts of social capital, that is large levels of social connection, have greater outcomes in relation to wellness, educational attainment and social cohesion than communities in which social ties are weaker.

The nature of these relationships is not important: what counts is their variety and their strength.

This matters because we want a wholesale preventative shift if we are to handle the extended term crisis of demand and resource in public solutions. This is particularly accurate for neighborhood government which is responsible for those policy regions: care of the elderly, public well being, developing regional economies, in which innovation is most required.

Put crudely, if the last twenty years has been about regional government moving from delivering solutions to commissioning them, the up coming 20 many years will be about moving from commissioning companies to working with communities so that fewer providers are essential.

But even though public bodies are happy to advise us about consuming our five a day, cutting out the cigarettes and booze and investing in our pensions, they do not see it as their place to counsel us to commit a lot more time with our close friends, invest in our social networks and nurture our families.

But, arguably, these items, much more than any other people, will contribute most to our wellbeing (and reduce our need for pricey state assistance) above the lengthy term. So probably nearby councils ought to feel as much about relationships as about companies.

Of program, there are also useful factors that neighborhood authorities can do to construct sociability into communities, by way of planning, housing and the management of public space, and through versatile occupation creation and financial growth techniques. They can shift to the sort of personalised care that makes it possible for social speak to to be commissioned as an outcome, and they can look for to greater understand the networks of informal care and help that already exist in every single neighborhood and “piggyback” public providers on these.

But all of this requires a distinct way of considering about what a local authority is and what it is for. This contemplating is still in its infancy, but it’s getting to be more and more urgent.

Jonathan Carr-West is the chief executive of the Local Government Information Unit.

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Council matchmaking: should councils aid us make friends?