Category Archives: Whitehall

The bonkers logic of “Life of Brian” Leveson

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Lord Justice Leveson: Bonkers logic

Lord Justice Leveson: Bonkers logic

Now I have been given carte blanche by the Leveson inquiry to write what I want on blogs without any regulation I am going to take full advantage with some tough words for this judge on his lack of logic.

Like Lord Hutton before him who exonerated Labour over Iraq his report exonerates the current great and good in government and the media bosses from blame for the current crisis. Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, is cleared of bias over Murdoch;  News International’s Rebekah Brooks of undue lobbying of Cameron over the McCann inquiry or anything else; Cameron and his government of any  favours deal with the  Murdochs and the police of widespread corruption. Cameron can be trusted to introduce reforms to make sure  public perception is changed.

But go further into this report – see http://www.exaronews.com today.  Go to Volume Four and Appendix Five – and get one of the most devastating critiques of the incestuous relationship between top politicians and the media I have ever read from a High Court judge in my 26 years of political journalism.

Unlike Hutton he really puts the boot in. Here and I quote he attacks what he calls the ” inappropriate  closeness” between media bosses and successive governments not just now – but for over 35 years. Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and Cameron are all indicted in a damning charge sheet.

He baldly states “ politicians have conducted themselves in a way that I do consider has not served the public interest”.

He accuses them of being vulnerable to unaccountable interests, missing clear opportunities to address  public concern about the culture, practices and ethics of the press and  seeking “ to control ( if not manipulate) the supply of news and information to the public in return for expected or hoped-for favourable treatment by sections of the press.”

He concluded that all this gave rise to “legitimate perceptions and concerns that politicians and the press have traded power and influence in ways which are contrary to the public interest and out of public sight. These perceptions and concerns are inevitably particularly acute in relation to the conduct by politicians of public policy issues in relations to the press itself.”

Now where does he get that view. By page 1971  as a good judge he cites his sources. And guess who gets reams of footnotes, one, Rebekah Brooks, from the McCann inquiry to Brown ,Blair and Cameron – the very person in the main part of the report is absolved from dirty deals!

Perhaps I have misread this million word treatise –  Brian Leveson is  actually auditioning for a Monty Python script or to help revive Bremner, Bird and Fortune for Channel Four.

His other glaring lack of logic is the treatment of the internet as of no consequence. I have a sneaking suspicion he thinks the internet is tun by techy teenage geeks playing war games and mad loud mouths. In fact it is now becoming a powerful antidote and rival to the dead tree press as a forum for discussion and breaking news. The battle for future generation politics is being fought  between Owen Jones and Harry Cole  on-line every day.  And there would be no way this small one man blog would get 158,000 plus hits in less than three years if the internet has been ineffectual.

On the main issue of  regulation or no regulation, I am reserving judgement. My heart is with those who argue that a free press is just that, a free press. My head is revolted by the despicable practices of some of the tabloid bosses who may well now go to prison. I applaud  the idea of a journalist’s conscience clause and his views on treatment of women and people from ethnic minorities and a new  arbitration service that will give justice to Joe Public as well multi-millionaires. But I want to see what this new press act will look like before going down the road to statutory backing. Let debate begin.

Leveson: Did Rebekah Brooks force Cameron to set up the McCann Inquiry?

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Rebekah Brooks: Powerful enough to change the PM’s mind?

Thursday’s Leveson report could  form a judgement on whether  News International was such a powerful force in the land that the Prime Minister had to do its bidding.

I know for a fact that Lord Leveson has been exercised  over whether the inquiry got to the real truth over the sequence of events that led to the setting up of the Metropolitan Police inquiry at a cost of £2.5m  into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Those keen to follow the full sequence of events should go to the Exaro News website at http://www.exaronews.com  for a series of stories on the issue published today.

What becomes clear after talking to a number of players close to the event is that the situation was far from straightforward and involved more than just Rebekah Brooks making her views known to David Cameron.

The scenario includes direct meetings between News International executives and the Number Ten press office during the week The Sun published Kate McCann’s memoirs in May 2011. News International is not denying these meetings, Number Ten is talking of unspecified inaccuracies about who met who and what was said.

What is absolutely clear is that until The Sun published the direct plea for an inquiry on its front page, the Home office had absolutely no intention of setting up let alone funding such an inquiry. So was it the case of ” It was The Sun that did it “? If it was it has enormous implications for the running of this country.

Let me make it clear I am not blaming the McCanns for pressing for this – what mother and father who had gone through hell over the disappearance of a child – would not want everything done for them.

I am more interested in the Leveson view expressed by Robert Jay, counsel to the inquiry, when he said to Rebekah Brooks during the hearing was ” a case study in the exercise of power.”

Revealed: Chief Exec’s leaked memo on breaking up NHS Direct

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Nick Chapman; chief Exec NHS Direct – now just 34 per cent of NHS 111 Pic courtesy: ehi.co.uk

Next April the NHS Direct service relied on by millions to get instant professional medical advice in emergency will cease to exist. Instead a cheaper localised services known as NHS 111 will take its place with varying quality and money will be made by companies handling their calls.

Now Nick Chapman, the NHS Direct, has admitted in a private memo that it has lost bids for 66 per cent of the population and will  decline dramatically as a result. On December 3 a consultation will begin on the future of over 1,200 of the 2500 staff who will either lose their jobs or be transferred to other organisations. Read the story and the memo in full at http:///www.exaronews.com .

Chapman says: “The new organisation will look and feel very different to the current NHS Direct. The type and number of jobs at each of the new 111 sites – both for front line and supporting staff, and the processes for appointing staff into these, has not yet been finalised but we do know that the overall number of jobs in NHS Direct will be substantially lower than it is currently – most probably less than half the current number.”

He also admits that where people are being transferred to either out of hours doctors’ services or to profit-making company, Care UK Ltd which has won 12 contracts, there are no guarantees for staff pay and conditions.

As he put it: ” movement of staff to non-NHS providers (such as GP out-of-hours providers) have encountered legal problems relating to the protection of employment rights. We have sought a resolution of these problems with the Department of Health but have not been able to find one. This is no reflection on the non-NHS providers and is not of their making; indeed many of these providers are very keen to have NHS Direct staff transfer to them to help with their own mobilisation of the 111 service. The position which I can now confirm is that the movement of staff in the areas won by non-NHS providers will proceed now on a volunteers-only basis.  Only staff who volunteer to move to non-NHS providers (in the full knowledge of what employment protection rights they do have) will do so.”

In other words Jeremy Hunt and Andrew Lansley, health secretaries, have deliberately wanted worse conditions for  transferred staff.

I must say I am highly suspicious of this move which is happening without the general public realising what is going on. I agree with Glenn Turp, Northern Director of the Royal College of Nursing, who said:

“The public don’t realise that this Government is abolishing NHS Direct. They may have heard of 111, but they think it is basically a rebranding exercise, and that it will still be NHS Direct on the phone. It will not.  This is a completely misguided, ill-conceived plan, that is wrecking another excellent NHS service. It’s not simply a change of phone number, the new service from 111 is significantly inferior.”

Research from Sheffield University into the first pilot  suggests this could be true and  it is not clear yet whether this will be a saving or end up costing taxpayers more. The report said : “Assuming 7.8 million NHS 111 calls per year, the estimated monthly cost impact to the NHS would be a saving of £2.5million, although his could vary between a saving of £12million and an additional cost of £7 million. These estimates are based on considerable assumptions and limited cost data and should be treated with caution. ” As clears as mud, I would say.

The  main reason for increased costs is that the service is leading to increased use of the ambulance service because people can’t get the right advice. As it says

“One year after launch, the [111] pilots had not delivered the expected benefits in terms of improving satisfaction with urgent care or improving efficiency by directing patients to urgent rather than emergency care services. There was evidence of a reduction in calls to NHS Direct but an increase in emergency ambulance incidents.”

Anecdotally I can add to that. My  one year grandson  who is recovering from scarlet fever was referred by Nottinghamshire ‘s out of hours service to accident and emergency. The doctor not knowing my daughter has a journalist as a father said they had received 154 referrals that night from the service – who incidentally had wrongly diagnosed it as eczema. I gather doctors there routinely refer people to  hospitals to avoid being sued. And these are the services  who are going to run  many NHS 111 services. I hope for millions of patients this is sorted out, or Jeremy Hunt will get a deserved bloodied nose.

Exclusive: London Fire Brigade sacks the 2cv racing baronet

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Sir Aubrey Brocklebank: Sacked by the London Fire Brigade; Picture courtesy Daily Telegraph

The  incredible scandal surrounding the botched privatisation of London Fire Brigade takes yet another mad twist.

Sir Aubrey Brocklebank, the baronet who bought  the brigade’s entire fire engine fleet for £2 just three months ago, has had his contract terminated by the London Fire Brigade today. His company has gone into administration only  four months afterv it was set up, it was among a string of companies that appear to have been set up by the baronet only to fail.

The eccentric baronet who loves to race ageing  2cv’s at  racetracks across the UK and lives in a three bed semi in Wellingborough, Northants, thought he could make a fast buck by selling on the company. There is a previous blog which will tell you everything you need to know about him on this site.

You the  council taxpayers have been  paying this man £1.5m a month to look after London’s fleet. He got this  at a knock down price because  the Greater London Authority foolishly sold off  London’s fire engines and a 20 year lease on its own maintenance headquarters in Ruislip to a private firm.

The firm was sold on to AssetCo ( which I have written about extensively) whose  own chief executive, John Shannon, dismissed by the firm, after he left it teetering on bankruptcy.  He is now going bust himself. The engines are at present owned by bankers, Lloyds TSB, one of the chief creditors of AssetCo London which had over £30m in debts and haven’t a penny to  replace the ailing fleet of engines from 2014. This has been admitted by Sue Budden, director of finance,of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. She told councillors at a meeting in September: “When they look ahead and look at the big vehicle replacement that is due to start in 2014, I think they can see they are not set up to cover that.” The full story by me is on the Exaro  news website at http://www.exaronews.com.

Now it emerges  surprise, surprise that after a few months that he can’t deliver and the authority has had to use emergency powers to end the contract and has handed it over to Babcock without any tender competition. The interim contract will last next 18 months.

This is their statement:

LONDON FIRE BRIGADE APPOINTS BABCOCK TO MANAGE  999 FLEET

London Fire Brigade has appointed Babcock International Group to manage and maintain its fleet of fire engines and specialist equipment on an interim basis.

Due to a deterioration of the services provided by Premier Fire Serve Limited (previously called AssetCo London Ltd), the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, which runs the Brigade, has exercised its right to terminate the contract and appoint a new provider.

 While, undertaking a full, competitive procurement of the services, it has appointed Babcock to maintain the fleet on an interim basis of 18 months until the new provider has been appointed.

 London Fire Commissioner Ron Dobson said: “This move should stabilise the way in which our vehicles and equipment are managed and enable London Fire Brigade to continue to provide the Capital with the world-class fire and rescue service it deserves.”

However London Assembly’s Green Party spokesman 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 guarentees for PFI credits could be better spent on developing an in house contract.”

what a mess!

AND THERE IS REPORT FROM DONEGAL REPORTING THIS FALL OUT

WORKERS LEFT SHOCKED AS DONEGAL CALL-CENTRE CLOSES WITH LOSS OF 30 JOBS

BREAKING NEWS: A Donegal call-centre has gone into administration with the loss of 30 jobs.

Workers at the Buncrana-based Assetco Manage Services ROI were told the bad news this afternoon.

The company, is part of a larger company, Assetco London Ltd, which works with London Fire Brigade.

London Fire Brigade failed to renew a major contract for Assetco London Ltd leaving workers out in the cold.

Shell-shocked workers at the company, based at the IDA Business Park in Lisfannon since 2006, were told the news today.

Even worse is the fact that none of the workers will be paid redundancies.

Ironically most of the London-based employees will be taken on by the company who won the new contract, Babcock.

However, the Irish company have not been given part of that new contract and will lose their jobs.

Members of KPMG, who are acting on behalf on London banks, turned up at the Buncrana company’s headquarters today to break the news.

Angry workers say they are outraged at how they have been treated.

A spokesman told Donegal Daily that they are considering their positions and are even thinking of staging sit-in at the plant.

“We have been very loyal to Assetco London and this is how we have been rewarded.

“We would like London Fire Brigade to know this and to know how we are being treated.

“There are 30 families being thrown on the scrapheap just before Christmas it’s just not on,” said a spokesman.

BBC Newsnight:This hysterical media frenzy must not obscure the real child abuse story

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BBC Newsnight; Frenzy could obscure the real child abuse issue Pic Courtesy:BBC

Prompted by the mass media interest in the North Wales child sexual abuse scandal last week  I was asked on the Today programme whether I  thought there was a witch hunt against  leading Tory figures. I said No.

If I was asked the same question about a witch hunt  this week, I would say unhesitatingly say yes. But not against Tory politicians, against the BBC and the cause of investigative journalism.

Don’t get me wrong I am appalled by the shoddy journalism that meant a paedophile victim was not shown a photo of his alleged perpetrator – whether he would be named or not – and the scandal that followed the naming of the unfortunate Lord McAlpine across the internet.(see original Guardian story –   http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/nov/08/mistaken-identity-tory-abuse-claim).

Anybody in touch with reality should know that when the victim was a young vulnerable person in a care home  he would be very unlikely to know the names of any Tory politicians. Ask any young person today , and unless they are a political nerd like me, they are more likely to be able to name the Man U and Chelsea front bench than be able to tell  you any of the names of  Dave Cameron’s  coalition Cabinet. And I am puzzled why a much better researched programme on Jimmy Saville was not broadcast..

What is alarming me  is the media hysteria surrounding this. Journalists are natural gossips,nervy, adrenalin fuelled, and totally obsessed with the workings of their own trade. Joe Public, while  naturally alarmed that organisation like the BBC should get such a major fact wrong – and rightly unhappy that an elderly senior politician should be traduced in this way, is by no means so obsessed.

The resignation of the BBC director general should allow the BBC to put its top-heavy chain of command in order and get a proper grip on the way it commissions its investigative journalism work. As readers of this blog will know I am not an uncritical fan of the Beeb, previous blogs attacked it for wasting money on moving offices, its failure to be properly accountable to Parliament, and its tax affairs. I did not call it the British Tax Avoidance Corporation for nothing.

However the idea that everyone in Newsnight is as dead as a dodo is frankly nonsense.  My own experience in bringing with Exaro News  an outside story about the scandal of the tax avoidance practice surrounding the appointment of Ed Lester, the head of the Student Loans Company, gives a  different impression. Peter Rippon, the then editor and a young producer, Robin Punt ( now on loan to BBC South East ) could not have been more thorough and  Robin was prepared to spend hours examining the hoard of  Whitehall documents which disclosed the scandal. They could not have been more professional. Nor were they fazed that the BBC would come under the spotlight for the same thing I was investigating, they were interested in the story. And it proved right, sparking a government investigation exposing 2500 others.

But my main complaint is something else. We are still in the middle of a very serious investigation into what  happened to a lot of very vulnerable young  people and whether they were used for the sexual gratification of older men while they were in the care of the community.

I firmly believe that by no means everything has come out about this troubled period in the 1980s and 1990s but I am not going to speculate while I am still gathering evidence. There is certainly enough to prove that people did raise this appalling spectre not just in North Wales and it was known to the authorities. But it is too early yet to point fingers at particular perpetrators.

It is vitally important that people who know about this and the victims can come forward with the confidence to  talk to the police. It is a  valid role for journalists to investigate this area – not least because we are the one group of people who have the time and ability to tell this sad story. Also the very knowledge that journalists – and in this case Mps like Tom Watson –  are determined to get to the bottom of this matter – often spurs the authorities to keep digging  because we won’t go away.

There is another reason. That the care system allowed this to happen is appalling. If the stories of some of the victims are true, it is a life damaging criminal act and a betrayal of trust. But as the  Newsnight debacle shows it must be accurate and it must not trash the reputations of other people.

Today’s care system also needs reform after the appalling grooming scandal in Rochdale. Have we learnt anything and could this happen now?

If I want anything out of this I want social workers, local government officials, the police  and the perpetrators of such foul deeds to think twice before either condoning or participating. I want them to think like many politicians do already ” what would this be like if this was published on the front page of  The Sun, the Daily Mail, The Guardian or leading the BBC News?”. And then not do this or blow the whistle on such dark deeds.

Chris Grayling: A Despicable Political Thug and Mugger

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Chris Grayling? Pic courtesy:The Sun

Update: The cuts in criminal injuries compensation came will come into force  on Tuesday November 27. You know which MPs to  blame by logging on to the link below.

Labour’s attempt to block these horrendous cuts being imposed by Chris Grayling and Helen Grant  was  defeated on Wednesday November 7  by 289 votes to 209 – with Tory and Liberal Democrat MPs rushing into the lobbies to support the cuts. A new passionate supporter of the cuts emerged – former prisons minister Crispin Blunt – who admitted the cuts were being made so victims of crime pay their share of the deficit. And he claimed David Cameron supported this move.

Helen Grant defended the removal of compensation to children and adults attacked by illegal breed dogs and dogs owners could not control them – by saying motorists did not have to compensate people they accidently ran over. Other speakers who backed the change included David Burrowes, Conservative MP for Enflield, southgate and Nick de Bois, Conservative MP for Enflield, North.

See full list of MPs who blocked Labour ‘s opposition here: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmhansrd/cm121107/debtext/121107-0004.htm

Portrait of a nasty political mugger Pic courtesy: The Sun

One of the most despicable decisions coalition was taken last week in Parliament. But you won’t have read it in the papers.

Chris Grayling, the Justice Secretary, and chief advocate of the law and order brigade of the Tory Party decided that muggers, rioters , thugs, burglars,and thieves who maim their victims can now safely do this in the knowledge  that the injured person won’t get a penny of compensation from the state. And many more seriously injured people will get their compensation cut.

Chris Grayling mugging the innocent public? Pic Courtesy; thief.org.uk

And just to make sure the victims really squirm –  if their injuries mean they can’t go to work for more than six months they won’t get their loss of earnings made up by the state – they’ll have to live on a minimal state benefit of £85.85 a week. Those victims who have not been in full time work for three years will be considered shirkers and won’t get a penny. And if the NHS can’t give you any counselling, forget it, you’ll have to pay privately, Grayling has withdrawn any payments to private providers.

This wonderful new version of compassionate Conservatism is brill news for the criminal classes and bad news for victims. For while rightly he is making criminals contribute to the taxpayer funded compensation scheme – some of the injuries innocent members of the public suffer at the hands of muggers won’t qualify for compensation.

Let me spell it out in graphic terms. If a thug breaks your jaw or  fingers , cuts off one of your toes,burns your hand with a cigarette, breaks your ribs,impairs your speech, you’ll no longer get any compensation. Mr Grayling in a private letter to Tory MPs defends such damage as ” emotional” and not worth any compensation.

If your assailant causes some permanent brain damage , punctures your lungs,  smashes your elbow or knee ,Mr Grayling thinks your compensation should be cut by up to 60 per cent. A mugger has to rape you and permanently reduce you to a paraplegic state for life  for you get the full compensation.Even that has its qualifications. Don’t believe me – see  the list at http://bit.ly/RKvxPX 

If you can’t control your dog or have an illegal breed and  it attacks a child or a postman the injured person can’t claim any state compensation either. These payments are described as ” anomolous ” by Mr Grayling. This  comes at a time when another ministry, Defra, is trying to tighten up the law on dangerous dogs. And all because Grayling is worried that the criminal injuries compensation scheme is costing too much and he must save £4m a month. The changes are fully debated in an excellent House of Commons research paper – see http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN06451.

But there something even worse about this sick decision which shows why Grayling is on par with the criminals he says he loathes.

Rather than openly get this debated in the House of Commons – which you might expect given the consequences for the general public – he chose to get it through Parliament by using an obscure regulatory committee – with the result that not a single lobby correspondent noticed it was happening.

John Redwood; Decent Tory silenced by Grayling Pic courtesy:getwokingham.co.uk

This is the equivalent of  a mugger or rapist using a dark alleyway to ply their trade -knowing if it was done in broad daylight many more people will notice. But he is even worse than that. When this was last debated a number of loyal Tory MPs, notably ex-minister, John Redwood, and Angie Bray refused to support it – they have been silenced by their removal from the committee scrutinising it.

Like any  common gangster he recruited loyal gang members – people desperate to get promoted into ministerial  jobs – to do his dirty work. He wasn’t even there when the deed was done.

Helen Grant; From respectable solicitor to political gangster’s moll?: Pic Courtesy: Helen Grant MP website

Instead he  used his deputy Helen Grant, like a gangster’s moll, to push through the changes last Thursday with the help of  a Tory whip, four parliamentary private secretaries to Tory and Liberal Democrat ministers, a Tory Party vice chairman and a wimpish president of the Liberal Democrats.

Indeed so incensed am I about this that I am going to list all their e-mail addresses in the hope that they get a verbal mugging. I don’t believe in physical violence- but they deserve a stern magisterial dressing down for mugging the British public. (see e-mails at end)

They guilty gang are: Helen Grant  (Conservative Justice Minister, Maidstone & Weald); Rebecca Harris (Conservative, Castle Point); John Howell (Conservative, Henley, PPS to Andrew Lansley); Jessica Lee (Conservative, Erewash, PPS to Dominic Grieve); Tessa Munt (Liberal Democrat, Wells, PPS to Vince Cable); Bob Neill (Conservative Party Vice-Chairman & new member of Justice Committee, Bromley & Chislehurst); and Lee Scott (Conservative, Ilford North, PPS to Chris Grayling)  Michael Ellis (Conservative, Northampton North); David Evennett (Conservative, Bexleyheath & Crayford, Government Whip);

The hapless wimpo Liberal Democrat who stood by at the scene of the crime is  Tim Farron (President of the Liberal Democrats,Westmorland & Lonsdale) .

Labour  members to their credit, led by Rob  Flello, Labour’s justice minister, opposed the move and those against it included David Blunkett, the former home secretary.

Of course Mr Grayling won’t be worried personally by any changes – his work routine avoids meeting any potential muggers outside the House – and he has a government provided chauffeur driven car to take him from his large well guarded detached home in Ashstead, Surrey to London.

The email addresses are: helen.grant.mp@parliament.uk, rebecca.harris.mp@parliament.uk  howelljm@parliament.uk , jessica.lee@parliament.uk, tessa.munt.mp@parliament.uk ,bob.neill.mp@parliament.uk, scottle@parliament.uk michael.ellis.mp@parliament.uk, david.evennett.mp @parliament.uk.

And the abstaining Lib Dem is tim@timfarron.co.uk .

But perhaps you should complain direct to Chris Grayling. His e-mail is chris.grayling.mp@parliament.uk.

Exclusive: How Teflon Theresa dismembered “Two Brains” over London Met University

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David Willetts: Two dismembered brains? Pic courtesy: The Guardian

Update: Three hours after Exaro News revealed the delay, London Metropolitan University announced it was scrapping the scheme altogether. A statement said it was going  to call in fresh consultants and  start again. It has abandoned the tendering exercise. David Willetts has truly lost everything over this.

The  furore over the threatened deportation of thousands of overseas students studying at London Metropolitan University is well-known. What is not so well-known is the political battle between two prominent ministers, Theresa May, the home secretary, and David Willetts, the universities minister – known as ” two brains” because of his formidable intelligence, over the heart and soul of Tory policy.

The train crash happened at the London Met because two different Tory policies collided with each other. Theresa is a champion of curbing illegal immigration. David Willetts is a champion of university privatisation. Successful and profitable privatisation however depends on attracting more- not less – immigration to the UK in the form of overseas students. The London Met, as we shall see below, was his pet project.

The two ministers were at loggerheads before this started and so far Theresa has outwitted  brainy Willetts.

Theresa May: Pic courtesy: The Guardian

The clue is revealed  in the court case that London Metropolitan brought to try to overturn the ban on recruiting overseas students. Here it is revealed it was Theresa May not the UK Borders Agency that ordered the ban. It was a political not an operational decision. Here I am indebted to Andrew McGettigan whose critical education site is well worth following. ( See     http://andrewmcgettigan.org/2012/09/24/update-on-london-metropolitan/  )

Now why was this decision so damning to Willetts? Well it was taken almost on the day London Met was to decide which private bidder – from BT Global, Capita and Indian firm Wipro – would take over running the university and win a £74m five year contract. Not only was this the biggest contract for a university in the UK but if successful  the private company could offer to run other universities, making the contract worth a staggering £500m. Full details are in my articles in Exaro News (http://www.exaronews.com)

Now Willetts and George Osborne had staked a lot on this and it was smashed overnight. Willetts is closely connected to Malcolm Gillies, vice-chancellor of the university. His former special adviser Jonathan Woodhead, is now  a £75,000 a year executive reporting directly to the vice-chancellor. Both Willetts and Gillies are strong advocates of what they call ” shared services” which allow a private company to take over the running of everything at a university with the exception of the teaching and the vc’s office.

George Osborne had been helpful by creating a hardly noticed change to VAT legislation this year -exempting private companies bidding for shared ownership schemes from being liable for VAT. At a stroke this cut their bid price by 20 percent.

But the uncertainty surrounding whether London Metropolitan University will get back its special status to recruit overseas students means that no private company is likely to touch the deal as they won’t know the size of the university or whether the university can survive at all without overseas students. And even though the university is appealing there is no date set for the judicial review.

So at a stroke Willetts’ pet privatisation scheme has been put on hold. Indeed altogether not a good year for Willetts. A separate plan to introduce a bill extending the rights of private universities to award degrees has been shelved for a year and he was the person who appointed Ed Lester, head of the student loans company, to his job under a ” tax avoidance” scheme that has now been vetoed,increasing Mr Lester’s tax bill.

Willetts has also in Tory terms been outclassed by the more radical and dangerous Michael Gove. Indeed if Willetts was a state school, his performance to date would mean he would be hived off to the private sector after failing his Ofsted.

Press Complaints Commission: defending legitimate journalism

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Lord Hunt: Current chairman of the Press Complaints Commission: pic courtesy: The Guardian

It may be unfashionable to say this right now,but this is a blog to say how well and fair the Press Complaints Commission handled a complaint against me this summer.

I was not even a party to the complaint which was between Matt Sprake, a former police photographer, and the Independent Newspaper but the content of his entire complaint was against me over a story that appeared under my name and Oliver Wright which I had researched and published on Exaro  News . (see http://www.exaronews.net for full story and pcc’s findings).

Basically  through Exaro News we revealed  how Sprake’s picture agency, NewsPics, offered to pay thousands of pounds to public officials – from nurses to police workers – for inside information on celebrities. Sprake denied he had ever paid anyone.

The offer was made explicitly on the agency’s website.

Matt Sprake: PIc courtesy of Hacked Off website

The disclosure led to Sprake being summoned by Lord Leveson to appear before his inquiry and provide information on the huge scale of his  work for Trinity Mirror which Lloyd Embley, then editor of the People, had omitted to tell them.

Sprate lodged a complaint to the PCC claiming that  breached the editors’ code of conduct. He claimed that the article contained inaccuracies and intruded into his private life, and that I had used subterfuge to gain information about his past career in the police.

The PCC dismissed each element of Sprake’s complaint particularly suggestions that his family had been put at risk by the disclosure that he had photographed terrrorist sites. The findings said:

“He considered that the information relating to his former employment by Scotland Yard in anti-terrorism activities was sensitive and confidential.”

But the PCC concludes: “The complainant had volunteered information about his former work with the police, including that he had been ‘looking at terrorism work’, to the journalist, whom he had taken to be a potential client, and was a stranger to him; and that the information amounted to a statement of his former occupation.

“In addition, in light of the statement published on the website, which suggested police officers contacted the company with information, and the on-going public scrutiny and debate over the links between the police and the Press, there was a public interest in revealing the complainant’s former work with the police.”

Sprake also complained that I had tricked him in a telephone conversation into revealing his past career in the police. The PCC said that Sprake was confused about the purpose of the reporter’s telephone call to him, but concludes: “The commission could not therefore agree that the reporter had engaged in misrepresentation or subterfuge.”

Sprake was asked for comment on the findings and he said: “None at all.”

Now the good  and fair thing  about this judgement is that the PCC did not fall for such sweeping complaints from someone who had already admitted to Leveson about how he pursued the McCanns seeking intrusive photos when they had not wanted them on a  Canadian holiday. But I also had to justify  everything I had written – and had kept a recording of the call. The whole point of chasing him up was to allow him to give me his side and to be absolutely certain from his own words that he was an ex  police photographer.

The irony about all this is that PCC is certain to be abolished by Leveson in its present form because of the ” phone hacking ” scandal. Yet they have handled this well. Whatever  replaces the PCC must both safeguard the public from the worst excesses of bad  and inaccurate journalism  but equally protect  genuine investigative  journalism from unfounded claims from unscrupulous complainants. Over to you, my Lord.

Silence of the Whistleblowers

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Knives out for A4e whistleblowers? Pic courtesy:snippits-and-slappits.blogspot.com

Today  confidential evidence given to MPs on Parliament’s most powerful committee of MPs by a team of whistleblowers on fraud should have become public.

The whistleblowers-  people once employed by two rapidly growing companies A4e and Working Links which are dominating the government’s welfare to work programme – spent two hours giving dramatic evidence in private to the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee last May.

The result of their information and a frankly complacent performance by Robert Devereux, the patrician permanent secretary, to the Department of Work and Pensions led  to a damning report  by MPs on the ministry’s stewardship of  taxpayers’ money handed over to these profit-making companies.

As reported in Exaro News today ( see http://www.exaronews.com ) Tory and Labour MPs were disgusted at the ministry’s performance.

Margaret Hodge, the Labour MP who chairs the committee, said: “The DWP’s arrangements for overseeing and inspecting its contractors were so weak that vital evidence on potential fraud and improper practice was not picked up.”

Richard Bacon, Conservative MP and deputy chairman of the committee, said: “Encouraging innovation and fresh approaches is important, but so is ensuring value for taxpayers. Providers cannot be allowed to run wild and free with public money.”

Margaret Hodge; Agrred to withold whistleblowers evidence

The evidence came from an appalling internal audit report prepared in 2009 by A4e’s own auditors and leaked to committee on the Exaro website which concluded:” found that more than one quarter of the company’s placements was potentially fraudulent, irregular or unverifiable. The jobs agency even placed one job-seeker at a Liverpool lap-dance club. Last May, Exaro published the auditors’ findings in full. That was under Labour.

But according to  one of the whistleblowers it continued under the Tories. Eddie Hutchinson, former chief auditor of A4e, told the committee in his submission of “systemic” fraud and malpractice at the company.

Hutchinson, worked at A4e from October 2010 until May last year, and at Working Links before that. He described what he saw at both companies as “a multi-billion-pound scandal”. This we only know because of his evidence was leaked to the Daily Telegraph. A4e insist that this eveidence is not true and the new company is now wonderful.

Today we should have had a more rounded picture with new evidence from other whistle blowers. The draft report would have included the minutes of that meeting and with names redacted all the information.

But just days before publication the whistleblowers, according to a top source panicked and asked the chair, Margaret Hodge, to censor all their evidence.

Why? All the whistleblowers were happy to give evidence in public last May but some Tory Mps, Chris Grayling, then the minister for work, and A4e were desperate for the public to know nothing. They stopped the public hearing. Billions of pounds of new contracts were at stake. Now ministers and A4e have got their way.  We are none the wiser. Have the whistleblowers been threatened?  Did they decide they had lied to the committee? Or is there a blacklist in the auditing profession to prevent people who blow the whistle from getting fresh work?

Today is a bad day for transparency and democracy when the most powerful committee in Parliament that holds the government to account cannot publish the facts. The government is making matters worse by changing the law protecting whistleblowers to make it even more unlikely they will risk their careers at the moment.

A4e as well should have been allowed to give evidence to the committee as well as the rather arrogant Mr Devereux. The company could then have put its case and been questioned on its performance. For those interested in the full or should I say half redacted report, it is here (http://bit.ly/PKPO9a ).

Fire Chiefs’ Warning: Don’t rely on a fire engine near you

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firefighters tackling a blaze. pic courtesy: shoutmeloud.com

Don’t tell any potential rioter, arsonist or terrorist, but if the coalition continue with their present cuts policy by the time of the next general election the forces to fight such evils will be  seriously weakened.

This is  the sober conclusion of six of the most senior fire officers in the country who have already had experience in implementing some of the biggest cuts since Nick Clegg and David Cameron came into power. They cover such big cities as Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Bradford, Birmingham and Sheffield. Their phrase for what is about to happen – a further 27 per cent cut –  is ” potentially catastrophic.”

While the police have hogged the headlines the fire chiefs of a quarter of the most urban areas in England ( who strike me need a good public relations officer) have warned Eric Pickles, the communities secretary, that the service will not survive in its present form.

They exclude London where a botched privatisation has seen the capital’s fire service reliant on Lloyds TSB bank and machines serviced by a company snapped up by a baronet, Sir Aubrey Brocklebank, for £2.

The full story of the horrors facing the service can be read in my piece for exaro news ( http://www.exaronews.com) and also in the Independent  at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/chief-fire-officers-warn-of-potentially-catastrophic-impact-of-cuts  and in Tribune magazine this week.

Suffice to say some very serious issues are being raised. Here a few of the quotes :

Steve McGuirk, chief fire officer of Greater Manchester, says: “A further 27 per cent disproportionate cut equates to a reduction of 11 whole-time crewed fire appliances, reducing frontline capacity by 24 per cent. All incidents requiring more than one fire appliance, which includes all domestic fires, commercial fires, secondary moorland/wild fires and other specialist incidents would have a slower effective response.”

Jamie Courtney, chief fire officer of South Yorkshire, says: “The extreme option of closing seven community fire stations would be necessary to absorb a further 27 per cent cut from the government grant. There would be an increase in deaths and injuries due to longer attendance times.”

His area incidentally include’s Nick Clegg’s Sheffield constituency.

West Yorkshire’s chief fire officer, Simon Pilling, said: “If the authority were to be faced with savings as great as 27 per cent, this could only be achieved through the ‘ad hoc’ and immediate closure of fire stations and the removal of appliances.”

Now this may sound alarmist but with a government committed to a 27 per cent cut over two years, this is not something that can be ignored and needs to be reversed.

Manchester was after all the scene of some of the worst riots just one year ago – and people are not going to thank the government if they is not enough manpower or machines to contain the  damage. Terrorism is also not unknown in Manchester either.

So far Eric Pickles has been pretty complacent. His spokesman saying :“Fire services can make sensible savings without impacting on the quality and breadth of services offered to communities. Such savings can include more flexible staffing arrangements, better sickness management, sharing back-office services, improved procurement and sharing chief fire officers and other senior staff.”

Yet if they read the submission officials would realise that all of this has already been done. For those wanting to see all the facts. the document is available from  Merseyside Fire here (http://bit.ly/Uy2Jzp) The chiefs are arguing about what they will have to cut next if the government  continues with its misguided cuts at this level.

Let’s hope that we don’t have endure another disaster before those in power  are convinced that some of these cuts are mad. Nobody wants to be left waiting to die in a burning building or in a motorway smash while under resourced services try to in vain to rescue them.