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 2008 from January onwards. Vorsprung Cornwall 1 and 2 cover 2007.

* For several months people have been fund raising for a proposed children’s hospice in Cornwall: the nearest one at present is in north Devon. Now Howard and Shirley Rosevear have given land near St Austell as a site for the hospice. This will be for children from Cornwall and Plymouth.

You can read this heart-warming story here in the Western Morning News for 25 June. There are good people in Cornwall.

* June 2008. The government is contributing £34 million as part of transport improvements for the regeneration of the Redruth-Pool-Camborne area. In all the regeneration project is intended to produce 2300 new jobs and six hundred homes.
(Source: egov monitor Rosie Winterton announces £34 million transport improvements for Cornish regeneration area)

* May 2008. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has published data for individual institutions about MRSA and C difficile deaths. The data comes with caveats. For the period 2002-06 the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust performed creditably in this difficult sphere: better than average for the listed institutions for C difficile and average for MRSA.

* 13 April 2008. There’s an upbeat article in the Observer describing Penzance as now the premier art place in Cornwall and a place to visit and enjoy. Perhaps Penzance is beginning to see a cultural and economic resurgence and outshine St Ives. (Source: Observer 13 April 2008 Penzance turns regeneration into a fine art)

* April. The county record office at Truro has begun to put its parish tithe maps and their accompanying apportionment/survey books onto compact disks. This will save the original printed maps from wear and tear, will make them available in a more user-friendly format than microfiche, and make the survey books more easily searched. Additionally, the record office is selling the disks (map and survey book) for £20. This is excellent news for everyone interested in local and family history in Cornwall.

* In Cornwall in 2007/08 £3.362 million was spent on warm front measures for vulnerable households. The details are here , look for DEP 2008-0881.xls for 17 March 2008.

* March 2008. Caradon district council is receiving £5.95 million for affordable housing from the first round of the national affordable housing program 2008/09. This will build ninety six houses in the district and create a care village for the elderly out of the the Passmore Edwards hospital in Liskeard. This is capital news and a significant help to people there in need of affordable housing. Rejoice. Read more here . (NOTE. The original article is no longer available online but the cached version is still available: type “caradon £6m affordable housing” into google and open the cached version.)

* There has been a significant improvement in waiting times for NHS hospital patients in Cornwall. The figures are subject to caveats and fluctuations but the waiting time for all specialties for patients still waiting for hospital admission in the period ending March 2007 in Cornwall and Isle of Scilly primary care trust (CIOSPCT) was 7 weeks; March 1997 in the corresponding Cornwall and Isles of Scilly health authority (CIOSHA) it was 12.9 weeks.

Examples of reductions in the specialties are cardiology with 4.6 weeks at March 2007 and with 14.6 weeks at March 1997; gynecology 7.2 weeks and 13 weeks; and ophthalmology 7.2 and 17.7 weeks.

With all the caveats these are impressive reductions.

You can read the details and the data explanations and caveats in Hansard 27 February 2008, columns 1754W-1756W.

* The figures for breast and cervical cancer screening show that in the area of the present Cornwall and Isles of Scilly primary care trust the screening program is being well used and is reaching a high proportion of women. We are slightly higher in percentage reach than the average for England in cervical screening. In breast screening the proportion of eligible women who have attended screening here was higher than the England average in the last given year, 2005-2006, a very large improvement over two years previously when Cornwall was way below the England average. The lives of women in Cornwall are being saved through timely screening. (Hansard 31 January 2008, columns 596W-602W and 618W-624W.)

* 30 January 2008. The EU investment program, called by the unromantic name of the Convergence program, now begins in Cornwall and will make available about £300 million over the years 2008-2013, plus £140 million from the British government.This is in effect a ‘continuation’ of the 2000-2007 Objective One program which made about £350 million available to Cornwall.

* 25 January 2008. The Healthcare Commission has published the results of its assessment of 148 maternity units. The assessment stressed women’s reported experiences. The maternity unit at Treliske Hospital, Truro (Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust) has been assessed as among the “Best performing,” a category in which 26 percent of the units fall. In fact it is seventh best of the units. That is an excellent performance.

The unit at Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust, which serves some women in east Cornwall, is in the “Least well performing” category. That is unacceptable but the assessment has been influenced by incomplete information from the trust.

The complete details are here.

* 8 January 2008. Cornwall county council is considering, through consultants, the development of a park-and-ride for seven hundred cars at St Erth railway station. This, along with longer trains, would be to improve the service for people on the St Ives branch line, which is much used in summer, and to reduce congestion in St Ives.

Such a development has long been advocated by locals.

Read the details at Transport briefing here.

Has the Conservative party changed? No longer the nasty party but centrist and caring and kinder; for example, determined to tackle child poverty?

This matters for families in Cornwall: I have explored child and family poverty among some in parts of Cornwall several times on this mudhook website.

Begin by looking at the record. This is the party that sat back when last in government while the proportion of children in poverty doubled; that since has opposed Labour’s introduction of the minimum wage; that periodically fumes about lone mothers and tells us marriage (between one man and one woman) will save the planet. This is the party that cut the link between the state pension and pay rises, thereby costing pensioners dearly – something Labour is putting right and which will benefit thousands of people in Cornwall, as has the minimum wage.

The Conservatives are the party that gave us privatised expensive water and privatised expensive trains. This is the party whose government approach to welfare was to bayonet the wounded. Its record on poverty is appalling.

At present the Tories are weeping publicly for those losing out in the Labour government’s 10 pence tax folly or villainy. Last year when Frank Field moved an amendment in the Commons to assess the impact of the abolition of the 10 pence rate and to mitigate any adverse effects, the Tories abstained. No Tory tears then.

Now look at this, perhaps a glimpse of Tory future. The other day on the launch of a reactionary childcare report it both welcomed the report and promised the party would consider its ideas. At present £1.5 billion of help is targeted on low paid working mothers; the reactionary, regressive ideas that the Tories are considering are to give all mothers, working or stay-at-home, poor or comfortable, and, yes, including the very rich, a flat rate tax-free payment of about £55 a week. This would cost around £5.4 billion and be paid for in part by abolishing the £1.5 billion of the childcare part of the working tax credit and the one-off sure start maternity grant; that is, money which at present goes to the poorest working mothers, including those in Cornwall. I don’t know where the rest of the cost will come from, widows’ mites perhaps.

The idea, then, is to take from the working poor and give to the comfortable and well-off: and this is what the Tories promise they will consider. The very thing that they now denounce the 10 pence folly for. To me this looks like the same old Tories after all.

Equo ne credite.

__________________________________________________________
You can read more about these reactionary ideas at:

The cost of caring Guardian 22 April 2008

The Tories are eyeing up a plan to take money from the poor to give to the middle classes Times 23 April 2008

Policy Exchange parental care allowance

PS 28 April 2008:
And perhaps contrary to my views, here’s a joint initiative.

Equo ne credite, Teucri. Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentis (Do not trust the horse, Trojans. Whatever it is, I fear the Greeks even when they are bringing gifts). Laocoon warning the Trojans, in Vergil’s Aeneid 2.48-49.

Back to the ejection of the migrant workers in Penzance. Penwith council has set out its arguments in a letter to the Cornishman, a local newspaper, and the blog St Ivean, which first challenged these events, has counter-replied.

I still don’t know clearly what happened, the sequence of events, whether this was the only way as Penwith council suggests, or whether there was a better way as the St Ivean suggests. We need more knowledge to be able to judge. Half a story, which is what we have at present, is not good enough.

Were the laws under which the authorities acted correctly followed? Is a dawn raid usual practice among authorities in circumstances like these? How many migrants are we talking about, were there any children (the original Cornishman report mentions a “family” so presumably there were), how many properties were involved, what was the issue with each, what are the migrants’ living circumstances now? Will they get their lost wages? Will anyone be prosecuted for anything?

There is also an unnecessary confusion about rehousing and the language of the council on this issue in the original 14 February report and in the Cornishman letter is unhelpfully fuzzy where it should be clear. I see the difficulty: the council cannot stand aside from overcrowded and unsafe accommodation, if that is what it was, and yet it does not have to rehouse temporary migrants. In such circumstances what is and should be its policy as homelessness is not acceptable either? This is a difficult question which should be publicly aired.

It isn’t just a question of more knowledge; there is an issue of how the council does things and how its actions are perceived. The quotations in the Cornishman report of 14 February suggest that some of the migrant workers were seriously unhappy at the circumstances of their ejection and that they have a perception of being treated with too little respect by the council that sought to help them. This should make Penwith and the other authorities think whether there are things they could have done differently for the same final result. It would be reassuring to be told that they have discussed the events with the migrant workers and got their considered take on it so that the views of those being helped can inform the ways of helping.

I certainly support work to ensure that migrant workers get a fair deal and I believe the council and other authorities have their interests at heart – that is unreservedly commendable and the importance and value of this work should not be lost sight of in the questions thrown up. The point now is to ascertain what happened and whether there is or isn’t a better way to deal with this sort of circumstance as migrant workers are part of life in west Cornwall and there will be other days.

The adult national minimum wage is to rise to £5.73 an hour in October. At present it is £5.52.

It is a modest rise but still unalloyed good news for low paid workers in Cornwall, the sort of practical real-life measure that benefits them. Since the wage was introduced in 1999 it has risen by fifty nine percent.

For 18-21 year olds the wage will be £4.77 and for 16-17 year olds £3.53.

The minimum wage is not profligacy and not generous but represents affordable economic justice, there is a good case for London having a separate and higher minimum, and the abolition of the ten percent income tax band last spring penalised the low paid unjustly; but the wage has succeeded in helping the low paid without increasing unemployment - contrary to what was direfully forecast before it was introduced.

Will you read of the rise in the national minimum wage on the nationalist and Libdem websites in Cornwall? Will they welcome it?

See a previous post about the minimum wage here .

More evidence that Cornwall is doing better than the miserabilists say.

Cornwall is at the 64th percentile in the list of 149 England local authorities and the proportion of their 16 and 17 year olds who are not in education, employment, or training (NEETS). This means Cornwall is as good as or better than 64 percent of these authorities in desirably minimising the proportion of NEETS.

That doesn’t make us Cornubia auspicatissima. It’s still 590 young people too many in Cornwall; but in ninety five of those authorities the proportion is higher (and worse) than in Cornwall.

Unfortunately the information appears available only for top-tier local authorities and does not show any differences across an authority. From what other data tells us about Cornwall we can assume that the proportion is not evenly spread across the county.

The latest NEETS data is here (Hansard 25 February 2008, columns 1284W-1290W).

(NEETS data previously came up in the Commons in November 2007. I noted it on 26 November 2007 here.)

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 2007 from July onwards. Vorsprung Cornwall 1 covers February-June 2007 onwards.

*December 2007: Newquay Airport continues to expand its services. Ryanair are increasing their flights to London Stanstead and flights to Spain, from March 2008 Skybus will be operating two additional routes, and in summer 2008 Flybe will be operating five new routes.

These expansions will help the airport, create jobs, and help the Cornwall economy. Welcome them.

* 26 November 2007: A parliamentary answer has revealed that the proportion of 16-18 year olds in Cornwall who are not in education, employment, or training (NEETS) is 6.1 percent of the Cornwall age group. This is much lower than in many places; for example the figure for Hackney is 13.1 percent, for Liverpool 13.2, for Birmingham 11.4, and for Plymouth 7.4. Cornwall is in the bottom third of the figures, where bottom is best. This is good news about young people in Cornwall though 6.1 is still too high.

Read the details in Hansard 26 November 2007, columns 141W-144W. Similar information is given in Hansard 21 November 2007, columns 958W-964W.

Addendum February 2008: Hansard 25 February 2008, columns 1284W-1290W gives NEETS figures for 16 and 17 year olds. At December 2007 the figure for Cornwall was 5.5 percent of the age group; this puts Cornwall at the 64th percentile of the 149 local authorities.

* 7 November 2007: Starting in September next year Cornwall, along with thirteen other local authorities, will begin to offer fifteen hours of free early education to all three and four year olds for thirty eight weeks of the year. This is to help to give every child a good start in life and to help parents work out a life/work balance. The scheme will be funded by the government. Details are in Hansard for 7 November 2007, columns 3WS-4WS.

* 2 November 2007: today is the official opening of the new heart centre at Derriford Hospital, Pymouth. There’s an account of it in the Western Morning News.

Yes, I know Plymouth isn’t Cornwall but patients from east Cornwall use the hospital and the heart centre will be used by people from all over Cornwall. This cardiothoracic unit is very good news for people in Cornwall who no longer have to travel as far as London for treatment such as a heart bypass.

* 25 October 2007: the future of Newquay airport is assured after investment of around £44 million has been agreed to change it from an RAF to a wholly civil airport. This involves money from the EU, British government, and the regional development agency. The airport is important to Cornwall’s economic development. Read more here.

* 10 September 2007: Kerrier district council has deservedly been named by the government as a champion for homelessness. It will share with other councils its expertise and good, successful practice in reducing the use of temporary accommodation and in helping people to avoid homelessness. See here for more details.

*From September 8-22 St Ives, Cornwall is holding its annual festival. Music, poetry, painting, film, talks, everything to enjoy in the arts from Cornwall and the wider world. Not a time to be gloomy about this place.

* From 6th to 12th August Newquay is hosting its annual rip curl boardmasters (RCB) surf contest. Okay, Cornwall isn’t Hawaii but one estimate is that surfing brings £40 million into the Cornwall economy and this RCB contest attracts thousands of visitors each day. The rip curl boardmasters is actually a surfing, skateboarding, and music festival/competition. See here for vigorous details. Oh, and there is a bikini competition too.

Cornwall: a fun, energetic place for talented people and great for unenergetic spectators.

* August 2007- a regeneration of the centre of St Austell is going ahead. The cost will be £75 million, of which £31.5 million will be from the south west of England regional development agency (SWRDA) and the rest from the developers, David McLean Developers.

The regeneration will be mainly retail and includes new shops, cafes, a cinema, and an underground car park, but also seventy flats.

For several years now St Austell has been the forgotten town of Cornwall with an uninspiring town centre. Things can only get better.

Details are here and here.

* July 2007 - A group restoring the Steeple nature reserve on Worvas Hill, St Ives was given £36 000 by the heritage lottery fund. The money will help to fund restoration, improvements, tree planting, and educational work.

* An architecturally impressive new art gallery has opened in Penzance in July. St Ives has its Tate and now Penzance has its Exchange. See details and pictures here in the Daily Telegraph for 21 July.

* Marks and Spencer opened a new store on 19 July at the shopping site by the roundabout on the eastern outskirts of Hayle. As well as shirts and skirts and the usual M and S things, it will sell food and has a cafe, and has created nearly a hundred jobs. This is very good news for Hayle and western Cornwall. There are other shops on the site (Next, Boots) though I’m not sure if there’s enough car parking there. On the adjacent site there are other shops selling fabric, tiles, cars, etc; it’s all a good shopping area now.

* July 2007 - A fast computer network which links all the hospitals and doctors’ surgeries in Cornwall and Scillies has been launched.
This enables information to be shared among medicos speedily; for example, doctors will be able to see patients’ xrays from hospitals in their surgeries.

This technology is clearly a beneficial way of meeting the medical difficulties of a spread-out rural county.

See here for details from PublicTechnology.net.

The Cornwall Labour Party blog draws attention to welcome progress in falls in unemployment here in Cornwall.

Since Labour came to power unemployment has fallen by about 9 400 in Cornwall. See here for the detailed data for each of the five Cornwall constituencies; it also explains how unemployment is measured.

The fall in the numbers of unemployed people in Cornwall constituencies is about two thirds overall. In the same period the fall in UK unemployment was 45 percent, significantly smaller than in Cornwall. The Cornwall constituencies are among the top tenth of most improved UK constituencies ranked by these percentages; we have made serious progress.

This good news seems to have been unrecorded so far by the Liberal Democrat and nationalist websites in Cornwall.

However, the Liberal Democrats here have acknowledged in Matthew Taylor’s words: “The fact is that the Cornish economy has started to turn round” since the dismissal of the Conservative government, though they claim credit for their Libdem efforts.

Of course, pay for workers in Cornwall remains problematically and stubbornly low and this is affecting negatively the lives and opportunities of many people. Progress is unacceptably slow.

Low pay also affects the funding of the NHS here and will be a factor in any move to reduce benefit levels, national pay scales, and the minimum wage in Cornwall. See this post and this on the blog.

In 2006 the median average gross pay for all fulltime, adult employees in Cornwall was £357.5 a week. This was 79 percent of the England figure of £453.3, a very modest improvement since 1997. Mean average pay is higher and so is median and mean average pay for males everywhere.

Again, even in the averages there is variety within Cornwall. The median pay (in 2006) for Penwith workplaces works out at about £2000 a year less than in Carrick.

See here for the ASHE income details.

David B Smith, professor of business and economic forecasting at Derby University, has suggested that the national minimum wage should be revisited.

In an article for the Economic Research Council ‘Does Britain have regional justice or injustice in its government spending and taxation?’ he argues rightly that the economies of the regions of Britain differ and therefore the effect of the same government spending and taxes varies from region to region; and, contentiously, therefore that government interventions, including social benefits and the minimum wage, should vary to fit those differences.

The argument is that, for example, national-level unemployment benefits and welfare benefits in areas of high pay mean people are much better off in work than on those benefits; however, in regions with low pay those benefits may be a disincentive to work; indeed, government transfers of resources to less favoured regions may counterproductively discourage an enterprise culture. I think this is a telling argument and should be explored further.

However, I think it is not just a matter of regional economics; these are people’s lives and pricking the poor and ill to make them more economically productive is an ethically difficult project. There would have to be observable gains for individuals to make it acceptable. The effects of reduced benefits are likely to vary for individuals: for the able idle a cut might well get them into work. I am at a loss to see how a cut will encourage a drug addict or alcoholic out of his distress and into work; for him benefits are a response to his illness not a cause of it.

Smith also argues convincingly that the point at which the minimum wage is uneconomic, pricing out employment, varies from region to region. Those areas with high productivity and high living costs in relation to the average should get a higher minimum wage. And, conversely, the minimum wage should be cut in low pay, low productivity areas.

That means that in the southwest region, including Cornwall, the minimum wage should be cut.

At present the minimum wage is £5.35 an hour for an adult, say about £214 gross a week. I think knocking £15 a week off that in Cornwall and the southwest region is hardly likely to have any discernible effect on people’s behaviour except to make poor people poorer and heighten their perception of social injustice.

I agree there is a case for saying that in London, for example, the national minimum wage is too far low as it does not take into account the economic circumstances of life there; that is the regional injustice. Pay in many jobs already takes into account the noticeably higher cost of living in London. However, I disagree that the minimum wage should be cut from its present level anywhere. It is at a modest level and a cut would be a real-life injustice for working individuals.

I do not believe a modest minimum wage is in reality an economic monster. Yes, increases in it can have an effect on the viability of businesses and the ability of businesses to employ people. However, the government has been cautious and astute in increasing it and in consequence it has not so far damaged the economy. That is the way to go: affordable economic justice. There is also desirable social solidarity in a national minimum, the nation’s ad imissimum of earned wages. The early claims of Conservatives that it was an economic folly that would damage the economy and businesses and employment have proved unfounded and now the Conservative party support it, though that may be due to political realism as much as economic observation. Interestingly, the Liberal Democrats initially toyed with regional-level minimum wages rather than one of national uniform level.

Is anyone listening to Smith’s challenging arguments? The article ‘Gordon Brown to vary minimum wage over UK’ in the Sunday Telegraph for 22 July 2007 suggests that the Labour government is looking at regionalising the minimum wage, varying it from region to region or even locality to locality to reflect the realities of the local economy. That would be a major shift in economic and welfare policy. However, I think the title in the newspaper is bolder than the article which is somewhat indefinite.

It occurs to me that there is, of course, another possible and contentious change: the regionalisation of national pay rates, taking into account local pay in the private sector and the ease or difficulty of recruitment and retention of staff. The Cornishing of current national pay for professionals in, say, education, health, and local government would be downwards. Would it apply to Cornwall’s MPs?

See here for a post on average pay in Cornwall and (un)employment.