mudhook

I shall post here continuing good news for Cornwall, developments which will positively help the people of Cornwall and the local economy and everyday lives. Everyone who wants the people of Cornwall to succeed in the modern world will welcome them. This post covers February-June 2007. Vorsprung Cornwall 2 covers 2007 from July onwards.

* June 2007 - Cornwall’s first “extra care” project has been launched. Sarsen Housing Association is to work with Caradon district council to provide fifty five “extra care” dwellings at Liskeard for elderly people who will be able to live independently but with care and support. There is a hurdle: central government funding will be needed from the Housing Corporation and Department of health but the providers are optimistic about this. See here for information.

* June 2007 - SOLD, a shared housing ownership program for people with learning disabilities, has got substantial funding - capital and revenue - from the department of adult social care of Cornwall county council to provide around twelve shared ownership dwellings in Cornwall. See here for more details and here for details about SOLD.

* June 2007 - As part of its dignity in care program the government (Department of health) has given Cornwall county council £740 000 for improving the material environment in care homes in Cornwall.

* Two Redruth companies have developed an eco surfboard of which more than half is from renewable materials. See www.suscomp.com.

* A good time for Cornwall. Last month (April) at Twickenham the Cornish Pirates and Mounts Bay rugby teams won their trophies and this week Truro City football club won the FA Vase at Wembley - all of them capital sports successes for Cornwall. And we have just had Helston Flora day, St Ives May day, and Padstow Obby Oss day festivities. A great time for Cornwall.

* May 2007- The Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust (RCHT) is serving organic meals, largely sourced in Cornwall, to patients. More than four fifths percent of the RCHT food budget was spent in Cornwall in 2006, a doubling. The distance travelled by the food is down by two thirds. The cost of all these improvements is the same.

This is good news for patients who rate RCHT food much more highly than is general in hospitals in England, good news for the Cornwall economy as local producers get more business, and even good news for the environment in the cut in food travel miles.

* May 2007 - Several miles of new dual carriageway of the A30 is now open in a bypass of Goss Moor and the hit-me rail bridge. It gets easier and easier to get into and out of Cornwall.

* April 2007 - The wave hub, the proposed wave energy project off St Ives Bay, has now received a total of £28 million which, subject to government and EU approval, means it could be built next year. It could produce about three percent of Cornwall’s domestic electricity. About two hundred jobs are likely to be created initially. The money comes from government and EU aid to Cornwall.

See www.southwestrda.org.uk for more details.

* St Julia’s hospice at Hayle has been given £35 000. This is part of a £40 million tranche of grants from the Department of health announced on 9 April 2007 for 146 hospices to improve their built environments. See here.

* The government has given £575 000 to public bodies in Cornwall, led by the county council, to tackle child poverty. This will be match funded by the local public bodies. The focus will be on prevention of poverty and the aims include more parents in employment, reduced inequalities in opportunities, and better take-up of benefits and tax credits. See here.

* A scheme since 2004 has been quietly bringing preserving and renovating historic and architecturally worthy buildings in Redruth. So far eleven buildings have been or are in the process of being renovated.

The Redruth heritage economic regeneration scheme (Redruth HERS) gives grants for renovation to be done in away that respects the historic and architectural value of the buildings.

The reasonable hope is that this will build pride and confidence and foster the economic life of the town.

See more about Redruth HERS here.

* The Cornishman reports 15 March 2007 that ninety six pupils of Cape Cornwall school who live at Pendeen are getting free transport to school after a campaign by a mother who moved to Pendeen from Bedfordshire in September 2006. The road was found to be hazardous.

* There is good news for disabled people in Cornwall.

In 2007/2008 the government (Department for communities) is giving £1 455 000 to help disabled people in Cornwall with adaptations to their homes. This is a ten percent increase on the previous year’s grant. See here.

* Newquay airport is getting £11 million from the EU, having had £8 million from the South West Regional Development Agency at the end of last year. The airport sees the start of daily flight to Gatwick and the return of the seasonal flights to Edinburgh next month, and in May the start of flights to Belfast. See the airport website.

* The duchy of Cornwall is proposing a project near Newquay which will include shops, offices, a primary school, and about 850 houses, including affordable ones. The project will have ecological features such a solar panels, biofuel heating, and first class insulation, a real attempt at sustainable and green development. See the design and development part of the duchy’s website.

* In February 2007 a start has been made on the bypass for Dobwalls on the A38. It is due for completion in September 2008 and will be a very welcome relief for the people who live there - and the people who presently drive through.

* On 22 February the Department of Transport announced that in 2007/08 two railway stations in Cornwall are among those getting grants for improving access for disabled people. Saltash gets £27 000 for improvements in lighting, signing, and paving. St Austell gets £250 000 for disabled parking and a new bridge with lift access.

* Hayle day care centre has got a lottery grant of £50 000 provided it can raise another £61 000 in the next few months. The money will be used to make a new dining room for the eighty elderly who people eat lunch at the centre every day.

Original post Vorsprung Cornwall was dated 15 February 2

The 2007 health profiles have just been published by the Association of public health observatories (APHO) and the department of health. Read the profiles for Cornwall and the separate profiles for its six districts (Caradon, Carrick, Kerrier, Penwith, North Cornwall, Restormel) here.

For Cornwall they throw up interesting figures which show we are not the most suffering place in the land.

For example (in all these figures the England average includes Cornwall):

The percentage of residents dependent on means-tested benefits in 2003 in Cornwall 11.8, in England 12.9

The percentage of children in low-income households in 2001 in Cornwall 19.4, in England 21.3

The percentage getting five GCSEs A*-C in 2005/06 in Cornwall 57.3, in England 57.5

The rate of violent crime for 1000 of population in 2005/06 in Cornwall 12.0, in England 19.8.

Life expectancy in Cornwall for males and females is higher than England as a whole; death rates for cancer, heart disease, and strokes are lower in Cornwall than the average for England.

However, Cornwall has higher rates than England for (a) people claiming benefits for mental health problems and (b) admission to hospital for alcohol specific conditions.

The figures vary across and within districts in Cornwall. For example in Penwith 15.2 percent of residents are dependent on means-tested benefits and 24.8 percent of children are in low-income households, both higher and worse than the England average; in Caradon 9.5 percent and 15.3 percent, both lower and better than the England average.

These profiles do not support the Victim Cornwall agenda. They show some parts of the county in health and social deprivation in some spheres and other parts of Cornwall far from it. The profiles undermine attempts to present Cornwall as a uniform place and as a place suffering uniquely at the hands of an uncaring national government and its agencies. It clearly is neither. Will we read anything of these profiles from nationalists or the county’s MPs?

Look again at the posts Is Cornwall poor? and Free school meals in Cornwall, and Victim Cornwall. The evidence shows places of deprivation but that we are definitely not suffering, victim Cornwall.

Additamentum 20 June 2007

The Healthcare Commission has announced the results of the self-assessments of the 394 NHS trusts against 44 standards. The RCHT did not meet 31 of the 44 standards. The Western Morning News on 19 June 2007 called it the “Worst NHS trust in the country.” See here and here.

Is this performance because of its debts? The effects of the market forces factor? A management not up to scratch? What caused the debts and does the operation of a similar market forces factor in other hospitals lead to similar poor performance?

A recital of financial and healthcare difficulties is not enough. We need to know their causes then we can make longterm changes that improve things.
____________________________________________

Original post 10 June 2007

The Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust (RCHT) ended 2006-2007 £36.5 million in debt. This puts the RCHT among the financially worst performing NHS trusts in England. How and why the deficit was run up is still not clear to me.

At the same time the question is once more raised of whether the NHS organisations in Cornwall are unfairly treated financially and receive less money than they should.

Is this Victim Cornwall syndrome again? Education, water and sewerage, housing, health: do we really believe that someone is sitting in London gleefully doing down the people of Cornwall, deliberately singling Cornwall out for unfair funding?

Let’s look at the way the health service is funded and the question of fairness.

The present arrangements are often presented as giving the NHS in Cornwall money based on lowish local wages though the NHS staff has to be paid at national rates. This is described as unfair and it sounds convincing.

The question of unfairness centres on the market forces factor. This is a mechanism for allocating NHS funds to different geographic parts of England taking into account the different costs of providing health care in the areas. For example, costs associated with land and buildings vary in different places. Importantly, staffing costs also differ. Although there are national pay scales (for example, nurses doing the same NHS job being paid the same wages everywhere in England, with some weighting for London), the costs associated with staffing differ from place to place.

This is how.

Local pay in the private sector influences people’s behaviour. Where the local private sector pays more than the NHS, staff turnover and the consequent recruitment costs will be higher than in areas where NHS pay exceeds or matches private sector pay and productivity may also be lower. These are the indirect but real costs of staffing, influenced by pay in the local private sector.

The market forces factor aims to take in account the different local costs in allocating funds to the NHS in different parts of England. This is not a casual mechanism. Read here about work undertaken to assess it.

In Cornwall pay in the local private sector tends to be lower than in comparable NHS work. The indirect staffing costs are less than in more prosperous areas. The market forces factor is significantly lower. See here for department of health data for the market forces factor for 2007/2008 which shows the three Cornwall NHS trusts in the bottom five of 384 NHS organisations, that is Cornwall with lowest private sector pay and consequent NHS funding. On this basis, which strikes me as fair and rational, Cornwall has proportionately less NHS money than other areas with higher market forces factor costs.

However, it is not as straightforward as that as Neil Turner, the Labour MP for Wigan, showed in a recent debate in the Commons (Hansard 6 June 2007, column WH133 onwards). The market forces factor takes money from areas with relatively lowish private sector pay like Cornwall and gives it to already more prosperous areas. Its comparative geographic isolation protects Treliske hospital from the possible dire effects of this allocation that others may suffer: a hospital in a deprived area gets less money, this means poorer facilities, and in turn patients choose a richer hospital, and this reduction in patient numbers in turn means still less money. This strikes me as neither fair nor rational.

Back to the initial question. Does Cornwall get an unfairly low allocation of NHS money? The simplistic way this is often presented in Cornwall is unconvincing as we should ensure that hospitals in prosperous areas receive funds for actual extra costs thrust on them. Nevertheless redistibution from deprivation to prosperity is unjust. Is there a formula that can satisfactorily cover both points?

PS 1 November 2007

See Hansard 29 October 2007 column 1042W for the ongoing review of the market forces factor.

I shall update this post from time to time. The original post was dated 23 January 2007.

Cornish nationalists use petitions to promote their views on the political status of Cornwall and Cornish ethnicity. Here I shall try to keep an eye on what they are signing up to on the web, along with other petitions about Cornwall. Unless stated otherwise, these petitions are on the pm website. The website does not say which signatories live in Cornwall.

There are today about 410 000 adults in Cornwall.

It looks as though most online petitions about Cornish political issues do not attract many signatures and none, so far, have got more than a thousand (about 0.25 percent of the adult population of Cornwall). As a means of rallying and demonstrating support these online petitions are failures.

Ended petitions

Cornwall, the fourth nation
A petition, which ended on 20 January 2007, called for the recognition of Cornwall as the “fourth nation of Great Britain.” It got seventy three signatures, about eleven percent of them women (based on forenames).

Cornwall separate
When it ended on 15 February 2007 a petition which said the duchy of Cornwall should be “a separate state within the UK” had attracted 276 signatures, of which about a fifth are from women judging by the forenames.

Stop building unaffordable housing in Cornwall and elsewhere
This petition ended on 30 April 2007 with thirty five signatures.

Determine own government
The petition called for Cornwall to determine its own future government and ended 5 June 2007. There were eight signatures on closure.

Extant petitions
The increase in signature numbers since mid-April, three months ago, are in parentheses.

Independent Cornwall
A petition ending on 8 January 2008 calls for “the Celtic nation of Cornwall” to be granted “independence.” On 19 July 2007 it had fifty nine signatures (50).

2011 census
On the pledgebank website there is a petition which began on 15 January 2007 and ends in 2011 saying that unless there is a tick box for Cornish ethnicity on the 2011 census the signatories will no complete the census form. The signatories’ pledge is conditional on another one thousand people signing up. At 19 July 2007 there were 393 signatories (255).

Deliberately not completing a census form is an offence here under the Census Act 1920, section 8 (1).

1549
There is a petition asking for the 1549 uprising, which the petition calls the “Cornish genocide,” to be recognised. It ends on 1 February 2008 and on 19 July 2007 it had forty six signatures (37).

5 March Bank holiday
A petition to make St Piran’s Day, 5 March, a bank holiday had 849 signatures on 19 July 2007 (762). It ends 30 January 2008.

Assembly
On the petitiononline website there is an undated petition calling for a vote in Cornwall about establishing a Cornish Assembly. At 19 July 2007 it has 931 signatures (890) and a random look in March suggested that about two-fifths of the signatories were not electors in Cornwall.

Keep and restore full facilities at Penzance and Hayle hospitals
This petition, which ends on 19 January 2008, had 213signatures at 15 June 2007 (206).

Allow Cornwall to be known as a duchy not a county of England
This had fifteen signatures on 19 July 2007 (11), and ends on 9 August 2007.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
By way of contrast the following crossparty petition signed by more than 38 600 people was presented to the House of Commons on 29 November 2006 by Andrew George, the MP for St Ives:
“The People of West Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly declare our support for the cross-party (and non-party political) campaign to oppose any plans to reduce or close hospital services at St Michael’s or Penzance; express our dismay that NHS money is being used to build up and support private hospitals while the Trust is contemplating the closure of the excellent St Michael’s Hospital; object to the waste of money on administrative gimmicks rather than frontline public services; demand an Independent Review of hospital services and for fair funding; support an increase in emergency as well as acute and diagnostic services in the West of Cornwall” (Hansard 29 November 2006 column 1184).

Perhaps we can see in the difference in the number of signatures, making every allowance for the different circumstances of collection, a comment on what the people of Cornwall are really interested in. Perhaps petitions with signatures collected on the street and so forth get a larger number of backers - though a few petitions on the website have thousands of supporters.

Incidentally, a petition to keep Cornwall “as part of England” had at closure on 24 March 2007 forty signatures.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I looked at five of the nationalist petitions which together had 360 signatories at the time. Some people are legitimately signing more than one petition; judging by identicality of names forty seven people have done this, making up between them 113 signings.

The results are in from five popular votes in Cornwall on the county council’s proposals for a unitary council. And in each district there is a decisive vote against.

In North Cornwall district six thousand ballot papers were issued to randomly selected households. Forty percent returned them and 82 percent voted against the unitary proposals.

These results can be read in detail here.

In polls in the four districts of Caradon, Carrick, Kerrier, and Penwith 71 722 people voted and overall 81 percent voted against the unitary proposals. Read the four-council results here.

The most strongly opposed is Penwith (89 percent) and the least Carrick (75 percent).

These are decisive results and the county council should now withdraw its proposals which manifestly do not have the support of people in Cornwall. It would be extraordinary if the government now gave the go-ahead for a Cornwall unitary council.

The Liberal Democrats should rethink their way of doing things. The county council, which they control, lamentably declined to hold a poll of the people of Cornwall. Instead it had a consultation though apparently not all the county consultation leaflets got to people. One wasn’t delivered to me but I read it on the net. I wonder what the results of this consultation will be? Does it matter now?

PS In July the government nevertheless gave approval to the unitary proposals.

Once more there are complaints about the prices charged for the provision of water and sewerage services in Cornwall.

Now much of the westcountry has the highest water/sewage bills in England. The privatisation of water supply and sewage disposal by the Tories left us served by a monopoly with no competition and no choice for customers; that, a weak regulation scheme, stringent EU rules for a clean up of the water and our many beaches, and an energetic improvement program by the water company have kept prices high.

It is unfair on people here but could it feasibly be made fairer? Renationalisation is out as too costly and it wouldn’t necessarily reduce the price to customers but an alternative is to equalise charges across the whole country, that is across England or across England and Wales. People in Cornwall and other high-charge areas pay less, people in low-charge areas pay more.

The latest profits annual profits of the water and sewerage company, South West Water, which serves much of the westcountry not just Cornwall, were £156.8 million and these have prompted the Liberal Democrats to call again for an equalisation scheme.

I agree with equalisation; but there are some difficulties.

The Libdems make their call for an equalisation scheme here in Cornwall where bills would go down. They do not, as far as I am aware, point out to people in other places that their bills will go up. I’d like to see this equalisation argument made in those other places, and especially where there is a Libdem MP or council. I have made a similar point in the post about increasing education spending in Cornwall.

It would be interesting to make the argument in Wales also and see what people there think of having higher bills so that Cornwall and Devon (and parts of Dorset and Somerset) could have lower ones.

It is hard to tell people in areas where there are water restrictions that, nevertheless, they must pay more in order to be fair to people in the westcountry. Has anyone tried it?

For those who support Cornish nationalism, who want the constricting reins of the Westminster parliament off Cornish backs, who want Cornwall standing on its own feet, an all-England water policy is frankly incoherent, an ad hoc device to meet a local problem not part of an organised philosophy. Of course one can argue for both local devolution and subsidies from people from elsewhere; but it isn’t convincing. It looks like, Give me your money and go away. However, since Cornish economic nationalism seems to see a devolved Cornwall as another Barnett-dependency perhaps this incoherence doesn’t disturb.

There is a possibility of local government reorganisation and limited devolution in Cornwall by way of a unitary council. Two arguments have emerged: Is a unitary council an idea to be taken up? and How do people in Cornwall get a say? I’m here primarily concerned with the latter question.

The case for limited devolution anywhere in England rests on taking power from the central goverment and its appointed or indirectly elected agencies and giving it to the locals; more power to the people who live here rather than in remote Westminster. Locals, the argument goes, the people on the ground here, know best about what is needed and wanted locally and should decide. Indeed, the Labour government in its letter of 26 October 2006 inviting unitary proposals spoke of such proposals needing to “empower local people so that they have the power to influence decisions that affect their lives” (paragraph 3.9.ii). It’s an attractive and persuasive argument though there remains the difficulty of post code lottery and the form of devolution is arguable.

Incidentally, the description of the proposals as a single council for Cornwall is misleading. If I understand them, there will also be additionally at least sixteen community networks (sort of forums/councils) and presumably the present 209 town and parish councils will remain.

Why should people in Cornwall get a vote on the proposals?

Although the government wrongly put the stress on consulting and securing the agreement of “stakeholders and partners” for a unitary council – for example, the fire service but not individual firemen in Cornwall - it also said in its invitation letter that a change to unitary arrangements should have support from a range of people and groups including “service users/citizens” (paragraph 3.5). That means members of the public, and how can their views be discovered except by asking them?

It is sensible to see whether the proposed unitary changes command public support. What do people in Cornwall think? What’s the best way to find out what people think? Easy, you ask them, you organise a vote. At the end of the day a yes-or-no decision will be made by the government to go ahead or not with a unitary Cornwall council so it makes sense to ask the people of Cornwall to vote Yes or No. That way we get a clear result from people. The government should have insisted on a poll of every adult in Cornwall.

Consultation by leaflet

Cornwall county council, controlled by a Liberal Democrat majority, has proposed a unitary council. A binding referendum on the unitary issue would not be legal but an advisory poll is. The county council could have gone for such a countywide poll to ascertain what the people of Cornwall want, whether they support or oppose a unitary council, and the result would have been an unmistakable expression of people’s views, giving them genuine influence over the decision. Conservative and Labour county councillors pressed for a popular vote.

However, the Libdem county council rejected the clarity of a yes-or-no poll and has chosen instead to consult people through an oblique approach. Consequently every household is being sent an informative leaflet asking for their views - but not containing a straightforward yes-or-no voting slip. The public is asked on a post-paid slip “What do you think about” the creation of a unitary council for Cornwall? The slip also invites people to “send any further comments” to the county council.

The leaflet presents a good general case for a unitary council and it certainly is a good idea to give people information about the proposals but, damagingly, the county leaflet contains only the case in favour of a unitary council with no doubts expressed; for example, the serious challenge to the unitary financial arithmetic is unmentioned. This is wholly unacceptable: people are not given the counterarguments and therefore this leaflet does not help them make a truly informed choice. Read the whole leaflet at www.cornwall.gov.uk.

Thus a clear vote for people is avoided, leaving the responses to be interpreted by the county council. Consultation seems to mean asking people for their views without actually asking them directly and simply whether they approve or oppose the unitary proposals. Only one side of the arguments is presented. This is a seriously wrong approach for a party that has the words liberal and democrat in its title.

District councils give people a balanced leaflet and a vote

Fortunately for most people in Cornwall, they will also receive a balanced leaflet and a vote from district councils, who will be abolished under the unitary proposals and who oppose them. North Cornwall district council has produced its own leaflet which strikes me as a very fair one; it sets out the county council’s unitary case and in a separate column its own counterarguments, along with a post-paid voting slip. This is going to a random six thousand houses in North Cornwall. Details of all this are at www.ncdc.gov.uk.

Penwith, Kerrier, Caradon, and Carrick district councils, four of the six Cornwall district councils, are going to have a direct “Do you want” yes-or-no postal vote around the unitary council question for all the people in those four areas. There is a balanced leaflet with the unitary case and some of the persuasive counterarguments of Michael Chisholm (Department of Geography, Cambridge University) and a yes-no postpaid voting card. The district councils’ leaflet and the full Chisholm paper can be read at www.kerrier.gov.uk. These four councils, along with North Cornwall, have taken seriously the government talk of empowering people and giving them influence.

Lamentable

Whatever the vote result, the district leaflets and polls are seriously embarrassing for the outdemocratted Liberal Democrat county council. The decision not to have a public poll and to put out at taxpayers’ expense a leaflet which presents only one side of the argument is lamentable.

Footnote

The figures for the cost of shifting to a unitary council and the likely savings from one rather than the present mixture of county and district councils in Cornwall are now bewilderingly varied. They range from £19 million to £27.8 million in set up costs and £6 million to £17 million in annual savings.