Privatising the Police:The scandals behind the bidders

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G4S – coming to a police station near you.

Would you trust a private company as much as you would a police force to protect you? Would you believe they follow the same  ethical standards and probity?  Would they train and pay their staff properly?  You could be about to find out as the West Midlands and Surrey police forces start to contract out service provision.

I have just completed a report for Unite the union on some of the companies bidding for £1.5 billion of work with the backing of Theresa May, the Home Secretary. If you link to http://bit.ly/KGVE7I  and download the report you can see my findings on some of the bidders.

A lot are covering up a load of  dark secrets and unethical and immoral practices outside the UK.

If don’t care a damn what happens to Palestinian prisoners on the West Bank in Israel or can’t be bothered that US troops breathe in toxic fumes from burn pits in Kabul or that companies use tax havens to avoid paying out medicare to staff, then you won’t mind what happens to your local police force in Birmingham or Guildford.

Take G4S for example. they have had to admit in their annual report that the need to train people to understand human rights. Evidently their Israeli subsidiary  staff prisons where they practised torture on their Palestinian inmates.

And if you are working in Britain, no prob that the company has axed its final salary scheme for all its employees while lining up a £403,000 a year non contributory pension for its chief executive.when he reaches the ripe young age of 60.

Or that former London police chief,Lord Condon is getting £123,000 plus a year plus his allowances in the House of Lords to promote police privatisation and rubber stamp top salary deals for his fellow directors.

Take another company KVR, best known for building Guantanamo Bay. Not quite as well-known for making sure its 21,000 staff in Iraq need not be covered by Medicare by using a Cayman Island tax haven to avoid having to provide it..

Or in blatant disregard to health and safety they face legal action for burning toxic materials in open tips on US bases in Kabul. So what if troops die from cancer, they are lucky not to be shot by the Taliban instead.

And then they are two home-grown companies. Blue Star, which provided two weeks training for auxiliary firefighters to protect your homes in London, in case the Fire Brigades Union goes out on strike.

And finally Reliance, run by Tory donating Brian Kingham – nice £6m house in Carlyle Square in  Chelsea – finances his company through a rather interesting family  trust – not tax avoiding again, surely not?

Obviously we are going to have a wonderful new era with privatisation – as we ditch ethics for profits.

Exclusive: How you got state funded work experience in a strip club with A4e

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From the dole queue to the strip club; Red faces at A4 e and the DWP

The leaked internal audit report into the failings of  A4e featured on BBC Newsnight last month missed an extraordinary bombshell. .

The work provider company run by Cameron’s former work Czar, Emma Harrison, was actually placing claimants to work in night clubs and strip clubs when fun loving Labour minister James Purnell, was works and pensions secretary.

A detailed examination of the audit report reveals that X in the City – a Liverpool lap dancing club – favoured by carousing Premier  League footballers – took at least one person from A4e.

The full story is revealed in my piece for Exaro News, the investigative website.at http://www.exaronews.com

The lap-dancing and strip bar made headlines earlier this year after the Manchester City striker, Mario Balotelli, was fined a week’s wages for breaking a team curfew while visiting the nightspot less than 48 hours before a crucial Premier League match against Bolton Wanderers.

The bar advertises lap dances at £5 a time, and offers a ‘VIP’ deal in private rooms where a half-hour lap dance with champagne costs £50.

The report also reveals that two other claimants were placed in night clubs in Norwich. A4e declines to reveal how many other people got jobs in sex and night clubs at the time in 2009.

The whole matter is also  a bit of an embarrassment for Christian Iain Duncan Smith, the current works and pensions secretary,who has imposed an all out ban on allowing A4e or anyone else telling people to work in lap dancing joints.

At the time of the placement according to his department the ruling was: ‘Jobcentre Plus will no longer advertise jobs that involve the direct sexual stimulation of others because publicly-funded services should not be a conduit to this work. The ban would cover jobs such as lap dancers, web-cam performers and strippers. However, Jobcentre Plus will continue to accept other vacancies in the retail, manufacturing and distribution sectors of the industry. A cleaning job in a lap dancing club could still be advertised, for example.

There is a final irony in all of this. The auditors don’t know whether the person placed there –  one Jamie Nolan – ever took it  up because they were too shy to go in and investigate.

The report says:“It was not possible to conduct a visit to ‘X In The City’ to verify the documents…This employer is a lap-dance bar and was not open during the hours of the audit.”

It was a case of  No sex please, we’re auditors. And the manager of the club claims he can’t remember either. Wow what a mess!

Stuff the poor to help the elderly:Hunt moves to adopt Lansley’s bad plan for the NHS

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Andrew Lansley: let’s kill off the poor to help the elderly

Update: The new NHS Commissioning Board announced this week it was proceeding with scrapping the existing formula from next April – by adopting a flat rate increase  for funding this year. It also announced it will ” conduct an urgent fundamental review of the approach to allocations, drawing on the expert advice of ACRA and involving all partners whose functions impact on outcomes and inequalities.” This will come into force in 2014-15.

In fact this will mean a redistribution to areas with large numbers of elderly people at the expense of poorer areas like the North East of England, Central Manchester  and Salford and the London borough of Tower Hamlets. All this will be in place for the run up to the next general election.

Fresh from creating chaos as part of his so-called NHS ” reforms” Andrew Lansley has let slip another dastardly plan to cope with the genuine burgeoning costs of a growing elderly population.

Basically it’s very simple: Take away  the NHS cash from the poorest parts of England and give to the relatively affluent seaside resorts and the suburbs.

I am indebted to hawk-eyed reporter David Williamson at the Health Services Journal ( behind a pay wall at http://bit.ly/K7dceG ) for spotting a virtually unreported speech in London during the Parliamentary recess to new commissioning bodies who will  be spending the NHS cash from next year.

He told them they “should be looking at what is in… population data that is likely to give rise to a demand for NHS services”.

“What is likely to make the biggest difference, therefore? Actually it’s elderly population, who were not in substantial deprivation”.

He added :“Some of the lowest spending on stroke and cancer services were in areas with high elderly populations such as Fylde and Eastbourne, places where there were quite a lot of older people who weren’t poor”.

What Lansley is proposing – and the Department of Health is helpfully not making his speech available on its website is seismic in NHS terms. Ever since Clement Attlee set up the NHS, its main aim has been to improve the life chances of the poor most of them die long  before affluent and middle classes.

The Royal College of Nursing in the North East and Newcastle MP former Labour minister, Nick Brown, have spotted exactly what it means.

As Glen Turp, regional director of the RCN put it: “It is well-known that in areas of social disadvantage, local populations experience higher incidents of heart disease, cancer, emphysema, diabetes, as well as a range of other diseases caused in part by our industrial history and the work that our communities undertook. Health outcomes are directly linked to poverty and inequality, and to use age as the measure rather than inequality is simply the wrong thing to do. ”

To ram home his point: “The shocking truth is that if you live in Chelsea and Westminster in London, a man can expect to live to 86 years of age. However, in Hendon, in Sunderland, male life expectancy is only 69. That’s a 17 year difference. It’s nothing short of obscene, and frankly that is what the NHS funding formula should be all about.”

For those interested in more details Tom Gorman has tweeted me a map – showing some of the changes – the link is http://goo.gl/dyuGe .

Lansley plans to be even nastier in the way he plans to implement it. He intends to deny the government is doing it by tipping the wink to a quango  – the Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation which recommends how NHS budgets should be split up.

At the Conference, Lansley gave the game away: “The advisory committee will do this, I won’t— the number crunching should get progressively to a greater focus on what the actual determinants of health need” and that “Age is the principal determinant of health need”.

But there is also a cynical political side to this. By withdrawing money from poor areas, he can halt  the trend of living longer among mainly Labour voters, save the pension bill by ensuring that if they die off at 69 or even younger, they will in future not even need to receive a state pension.

But in the sunlight uplands of mainly Tory areas, the cuts that will inevitably come will be blunted or services improved in time for the 2015 election. And it won’t cost him an extra penny, all the money will be taken from Labour areas.

The formula is almost a Tory right winger’s wet dream.  Ed Miliband’s supporters dying off as they wait for operations in Labour seats, and the prospect of Tory and Liberal Democrat voters living longer and longer in Chelsea, Bournemouth, Eastbourne and Torquay.

Perhaps Mr Lansley should be told what we think of this. His emails are: lansleya@parliament.uk  and andrew.lansley@doh.gov.uk. If that fails perhaps the faceless people who sit on this quango, the Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation, should be contacted. Interestingly, the Department of Health, has not updated their membership since 2008 and archived the list. Perhaps Mr Lansley doesn’t want us to know.

After all , should Mr Lansley be allowed to get away with literally killing off the opposition.

Lansley’s outrageous ban covering up risks in his NHS reform

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Today the information commissioner publishes his findings to Parliament on the outrageous veto by Andrew Lansley in preventing publication of the NHS risk register.(see – report here http://bit.ly/MfEPVi )

The health secretary would have us believe that the public and the press are so naive that they must not be seduced in his words  by ” sensationalised reporting and debate ” of its findings.

In other words this is all right from Cabinet ministers and senior officials to read all the risky details  of his reforms – but the public must be treated like children, not capable of understanding the issues. What patronising piffle!

What I really suspect is that Mr Lansley does not want the public to read the full facts – something that when in opposition his Cabinet colleague, transport secretary,Justine Greening, rightly disagreed when it came to the risks of building a further runway at Heathrow.

But now in government it is of course all different, no one must know the real consequences of Mr Lansley’s decisions. I am delighted that Chris Graham, the Information Commissioner, stood firm on this one.

 But I suspect this decision is all part of an attempt by the government to row back on freedom of information. It fits in with Lord O’Donnell’s claim that if this goes on – it will have a chilling effect on discussion. The establishment both in the form of Jack Straw, Tony Blair and now Andrew Lansley, would love a world where we all lived in deference to ministers and senior civil servants.

No doubt charges for FOI will soon follow. Frankly if the government is planning to revert to a closed society, there is one simple solution. The risk register must be leaked.

Coleman Update: Final Humiliation – Now facing the sack by true blue Barnet

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A report tweeted by the editor of the Barnet Times series is forecasting final doom for Brian Coleman tonight Thursday)- when his own Tory group removes him from his Cabinet  environment portfolio. (see http://bit.ly/Jhqe8h)

This means is less than seven days his income from the taxpayer will be slashed from over £120,000 – to just £12-14,000 a year. For the very first time his income level may justify his subsidised fixed rent two bedroom flat he rents from Finchley Methodist church charity.

He still keeps the chairmanship of an important Barnet Council committee on the budget and spending – but he will no longer get his £38,000 Cabinet salary.

Boris Johnson seems to have taken the sensible decision to keep him away from the London fire authority after his big defeat at the hands of the electorate which saw Andrew Dismore defeat him by 21,000 votes.

How  the mighty are fallen – Thank God for democracy and transparency.

Bye,Bye Brian..beaten by braveheart Barnet bloggers

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Brian Coleman: Thrown out by voters in Barnet

The emphatic defeat of Brian Coleman in the London Assembly elections – a larger than life bully in true blue Barnet – was one of the defining features of the London Assembly elections.

 He was knocked out of the seat by Labour comeback kid, Andrew Dismore,  an “awkward squad” former MP for Hendon, whose campaigning skills and determination when he was a MP was  well-known in Parliament. So he shouldn’t have been surprised that Dismore would pursue every voter.

Victor Andrew Dismore: Former awkward squad MP

But there is no question in my mind  why 2012 was so different to 2008 for Brian Coleman –  apart from the political climate that favoured Labour last night but also saw Dismore perform far better than Livingstone.

Coleman had a unique skill to anger  nearly every group in the borough  – whether the small shopkeeper, the motorist,home owners (over parking),the local firefighter, the trade unions, struggling single parents, religious groups, journalists, – and when there was a chance to throw him out they could hardly wait to do so.

But he had relied on a cash strapped local press to bully his way often unreported and rarely held to account by his local Tory group, who seemed to live in ” shock and awe” of whatever he said next.

But the difference between 2012 and 2008 is that he couldn’t get away with it so easily – because of the rise of the blogosphere. Five local bloggers including a larger-than-life figure blogging as Mrs Angry;a guy with a head for figures – Mr Mustard; John Baldy and the Barnet Eye  and Barnet Bugle took him on – and wouldn’t let him get away with it. I should also add – Mr Mustard has reminded me -Mr Reasonable and Vicki Morris.

 He also faced a pretty lively campaign from the Fire Brigades Union – both in Barnet and across London – because of his passion for privatisation which got him far too closely connected to AssetCo, the near bust and badly run owner of London’s fire engines.

 In my view – though this  can’t be scientifically proven – the coverage of the blogosphere changed hearts , minds and eventually votes  in Barnet. They were read by large numbers of people (the one I did as an armchair audit on his expenses,home, and allowances, attracted well over 3000 hits)

Coleman himself was a large dinosaur when it came to the net – he needed young Tories and officials to tell him how to operate a computer – so he didn’t realise what was coming.

Coleman is one of the first councillors  to be thrown out following bad coverage on the net. The very ” armchair auditors” that David Cameron and Eric Pickles are keen to promote – came out and devoured their protegé on the London Assembly. Grant Shapps, the computer savvy local government minister, should be proud to see people held to account in this new way.

If the Tories believe in real democracy the one decision Boris Johnson should take is not to use his power to re-instate Coleman as an appointed councillor in any way to the London Assembly. The people of Barnet and Camden have spoken.

Coleman’s last stand in a sweet shop

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Image

Yet more extraordinary scenes involving Brian Coleman are reported by the Barnet Press (http://ow.ly/aCVrT) – caught on CCTV haranging a sweet shop owner over the local council’s controversial parking scheme. Mr Coleman went down a parade of shops demanding posters were removed.

Reporter Daniel O’Brien’s story out yesterday says”:Anna Constantiou, who owns Rapunzel hair salon, in High Street, Barnet, said she was shocked when Mr Coleman came into her store demanding she remove a poster with the message “Sack Brian.”

“He said, ‘I want you to take it down right now. I find it offensive,’” said Mrs Constantiou. “I said it’s my opinion and I don’t agree with your parking restrictions. I can’t afford to park near here.”

However, she said she felt she had no choice but to take it down the poster.

“He was going mad and shouting,” she said. “He was right in my face and wouldn’t leave when I asked him. He was intimidating.”

Michael Kentish, owner of sweet shop Hopscotch also received a visit from Mr Coleman.

Mr Kentish said he had put up the political posters, as he believes the “rushed” removal of parking meters from car parks had had a dramatic effect on high street footfall. ”

His CCTV caught the scenes.

Frankly after all the rows over his huge expenses and free gifts, the botched privatisation of London fire brigade, attacking single parents, you would think a Tory seeking  re-election would not start a row with local shopkeepers- core Tory voters. You’d also think that making parking really difficult would not endear him to Barnet Tories either.

 Does he really want to be sacked by the electors of Camden and Barnet tomorrow? Perhaps I have missed his secret agenda- he wants a life outside politics. Mr Coleman has refused to comment to the press.

 

Those magnificent recycling men and their flying machines

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Jumbo jet awaits its fate in the Cotswolds

 Pictures:Tony Hutchings

In the depths of the countryside in the Cotswolds there is an amazingly good story about a recycling success that no-one has noticed. Jets as young as seven years old from major airlines like easyJet are being ” parted out” and 100 per cent recycled in a green revolution started as a family business.

Your Boeing 737 is having its engines, flying gear, brakes, seats re-used as spares for other aircraft. The lightweight aluminium is being turned in beer cans and artists and sculptors are buying plane spare parts to turn into standard lamps, mirrors and coffee tables.

another jet awaits its fate

The full story is in this week’s Sunday Times magazine but here are some of the amazing pictures of the people taken by my Berkhamsted friend and photographer Tony Hutchings. He can be contacted at www.tonyhutchings.co.uk.

Planes at ASI's scrapyard in the Cotswolds

Politically this an extraordinary good news story. The firm ASI (Aircraft Salvage International ) -see their website at http://www.airsalvage.co.uk/  is run by father and son team Mark and Bradley Gregory and has created some 40 or more jobs from scratch. The ” green ” revolution enables all the  plane parts to be reused and means that passengers are now flying in brand new more fuel-efficient jobs when they go on holiday.

Star Wars feel to the stripped inside of a jet

The author pretends to be a pilot

The government should be shouting this success from the rooftops, the environmentalists should be pleased and questions should be asked why the much larger motor industry has recycling rates at much lower recycling rates and still a blight on the countryside.

 At the moment there is just silence on these remarkable achievements.

Scandal of John Shannon and Brian Coleman: Unacceptable faces of capitalism and politics

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John Shannon: dismissed by his own firm

This blog has followed  relentlessly the unfolding drama of  AssetCo, the company in charge of London and (until last week) Lincolnshire’s fire engines, which nearly went bankrupt last year and had its shares suspended until recently on the stock exchange.

But nothing can compare with the latest revelations in a dry annual report on the AssetCo website (link for anoraks who want the lot is  http://bit.ly/HVeFEN ). This much delayed report for an 18 month period – it had to be produced to allow its shares to be retraded- tells the real story behind the company’s near collapse which saw its share price drop from 60p to junk stock 1.75p. It has now emerged that dividend payments may have been unlawful, the company has been seriously ripped off by its former chief executive and the accounts were false for both 2009 and 2010.

 Revenue had been overstated by a massive £18.6m and a claimed operating profit of £17.4m was actually an operating loss of £11.4m.

But the company still owes banks a massive £43m – despite creditors taking a 78 per cent hit and its auditors, Grant Thornton  (also owed most of their fees) resigning.Even the restated figures cannot be guaranteed and PriceWaterhouseCoopers,who independently audited the firm, have qualified these accounts. Grant Thornton incidently missed all this -just as they did over MetPro-Barnet’s bust private security firm-bankrolled by Barnet Council.

As the company itself says:”errors include the effects of mathematical mistakes, mistakes in applying accounting policies,oversights or misinterpretations of facts, and fraud.”.

Worse it is quite clear that the only major source of money for the firm in Britain is the council taxpayer in London which is keeping  it afloat to the tune of £3om a year. Even here banks are going to have  to give another bail out and Lloyds have a massive interest because they currently own the London fire engine that comes out on call.

 This is where the scandal of Brian Coleman, the Tory chair of the London Fire Brigade, and John Shannon its former chief executive come in.

Coleman was entertained at least four times by Shannon and accepted an expensive Christmas hamper from Harvey Nicks (see the armchair audit of Brian Coleman in previous blog) and has been AssetCo’s cheer leader.

Now it is clear from this report that Shannon was dismissed by the board of AssetCo because of this financial shenanigans.

I quote: “The new board have been informed that under the stewardship of Mr. Shannon and Mr. Flynn there was a lack of transparent reporting, requests for information were ignored, and related party transactions were entered into without full board approval. The new board cannot be certain that all issues have been captured.

Mr Shannon was dismissed as an employee for breaches of fiduciary duty and whilst the company has not carried out a full investigation, as previously announced in May 2011 in connection with the claims against the Company by Messrs Shannon & Flynn in support of the winding up petition, it identified counter claims against John Shannon of £4.6 m and also counter claims for breach of fiduciary duty of £3.4m against Frank Flynn.

Frank Flynn was the chief financial officer and a mate of John Shannon.

The report reveals that Shannon and Flynn also shared the bulk of a £847,000 pay out in dividends that are probably illegal. And Shannon before he was dismissed managed to up his salary and benefits to a staggering £492,000 and Flynn got an unapproved £30,000 redundancy payment.

Even worse they appears to a dodgy property loan amounting to £1.5m to Shannon. This involved a property company called Jaras.

 The report says: “In respect of the ‘Jaras’ transaction, AssetCo have reviewed internal communications between the date in December 2009 when the £1,500,000 was first paid, and finalisation of the 2010 audited accounts,the management and statutory accounts for the business occupying the property and concluded that:

a) on an arms length basis it would be difficult to substantiate effectively paying six years rent in advance in respect of the property,

b) the payment was originally classified as a Directors’ Loan and was subsequently reclassified as

prepaid rent in order to satisfy audit disclosure requirements, and

c) the business occupying the property is now in Liquidation. ”

It adds: “there is sufficient doubt that either Jaras (where a Receiver has been appointed) or John Shannon will repay the amount.”

The report also reveals that London AssetCo which has assets of the London fire brigade has been moved to another off the shelf company and the firm’s  Middle Eastern operations (see another blog they are servicing the military in the United Arab Emirates)  are now based in a Bermuda tax haven, to keep them secure from any other collapse in Britain. Wise move, as Lincolnshire have sacked AssetCo.

Brian Coleman: AssetCo cheer leader and entertained by John Shannon

The real scandal in this story is that this woefully badly run company has been kept afloat by politicians in London. Coleman and Gareth Bacon should shoulder this blame -with their blind belief that privatisation is the only answer.

 But Coleman is more culpable because of his personal  links with Shannon and acceptance of gifts from a man  now dismissed from the firm. Shannon may get away with all this but you do have a choice next month to make sure that Coleman never darkens the London fire brigade again.

Removal  would be a service to  Londoners  and you have a vote at the Greater London Assembly elections in Barnet and Camden.