… on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing

Author: dizzy

  • ‘Truly shocking’ that the private-school educated and affluent middle class still run Britain, says Sir John Major

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    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/10439303/Truly-shocking-that-the-private-school-educated-and-affluent-middle-class-still-run-Britain-says-Sir-John-Major.html

    The dominance of a private-school educated elite and well-heeled middle class in the “upper echelons” of public life in Britain is “truly shocking”, Sir John Major has said.

    The dominance of a private-school educated elite and well-heeled middle class in the “upper echelons” of public life in Britain is “truly shocking”, Sir John Major has said.

    The former Conservative Prime Minister said he was appalled that “every single sphere of British influence” in society is dominated by men and women who went to private school or who are from the “affluent middle class”

    More than half of the Cabinet, including David Cameron, the Prime Minister, George Osborne, the Chancellor, and Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, are thought to have gone to private school [Isn’t that a fact? what’s this “though to have”? Isn’t it closer to all than half?] and are independently very wealthy.

    In the speech to Tory party grassroots activists on Friday evening, Sir John – who went to a comprehensive in south London and left school with three O-Levels – said: “In every single sphere of British influence, the upper echelons of power in 2013 are held overwhelmingly by the privately educated or the affluent middle class. To me from my background, I find that truly shocking.”

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  • KPMG to face MPs again over HS2 report

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    http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/11/kpmg-hs2-mps-forecast-report

    Consultants to defend forecast of £15bn economic boost following claims that calculation was ‘essentially made up’

    Consultants KPMG will again be called before parliament to defend their report into the regional benefits of HS2 which claimed the high speed rail line could boost the economy by £15bn a year.

    Last week leading transport economists told MPs that they believed a key calculation behind the figure was “essentially made up”.

    The Commons transport select committee is summoning representatives from KPMG, and the transport secretary, Patrick McLoughlin, to answer its questions on the high speed rail project in the light of “significant new information”. The hearing is scheduled for 26 November.

    The committee, which broadly supported building HS2 in a 2011 report but said there were still questions over its economic basis, is reopening its inquiries after the government issued a fifth Strategic Case for HS2 in late October.

    The Department for Transport’s strategic case included figures from a KPMG report, commissioned by HS2 Ltd, into the potential impacts of HS2 on the economy at a city and regional level.

    It said: “The results of the analysis suggest that HS2 could increase economic output by £15bn per year. Even with more cautious assumptions the annual benefit could be £8bn.”

    At a Treasury select committee hearing last week, the KMPG partners behind the report said their work was robust and stood by the £15bn forecast, despite admitting it did not have a firm statistical foundation.

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  • Calls to government departments ‘too expensive’, say MPs

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    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24888608

    More than 100 million calls by the public to government departments were charged at a premium rate, costing people an estimated £56m, MPs said.

    The Commons Public Accounts Committee found a third of Whitehall numbers used by the public last year were higher-rate, including those for victim support, benefit and tax enquiries.

    Labour MP Margaret Hodge said their continued use was “not acceptable”.

    The government acknowledged a “more consistent” approach was needed.

    According to the cross-party committee, which has been looking into the issue, of the 208 million calls made to government departments in 2012/13, about 63% were made to higher-rate numbers.

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  • Number of NHS ‘super managers’ earning up to £240,000 soars amid pay freeze fear

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    http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/nov/10/nhs-super-managers-428-nurse-pay

    Figures undermine David Cameron’s claims that health service bureaucracy is being cut

    NHS sign

    The number of elite NHS “super-managers” being paid up to £240,000 a year to implement the government’s controversial health service reforms has soared to more than four times the level originally expected by ministers, the Observer can reveal.

    The latest official figures – which show a total of 428 “very senior managers” (VSMs) working in the newly constituted NHS bureaucracy – undermine David Cameron’s repeated claims to be slashing management posts and costs at every level in the service.

    The figures will also anger more than a million NHS employees at the other end of the pay scale, including nurses and non-medical staff, such as cleaners, who have been warned that their planned 1% increase for 2014 could be cancelled because there is not enough money to fund it.

    In 2010, as the coalition embarked on its controversial reforms aimed at opening the service up to more private competition, ministers told the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB) that by the time the changes were completed in April this year, there would be fewer than 100 very senior managers working in the top salary bracket of between £70,000 and £240,000 a year. But the Department of Health last night confirmed recent SSRB data which shows the number is now 428, including 211 super-managers at NHS England, the new body which oversees the budget and delivery of day-to-day services. The average pay of these managers is around £123,000 a year.

    Pay review body documents also show that in May 2012, at the height of controversy over the changes, pioneered by the former health secretary, Andrew Lansley, there were 770 VSMs in post “during transition from old to new NHS structures”.

    The figures do not include the 259 chief executives of NHS trusts whose pay is set by their own organisations’ remuneration committees and in some cases is more than £240,000 a year.

    The revelations will pile more pressure on ministers after it emerged that some 2,200 NHS managers have been made redundant with large payoffs, only to be re-employed soon after.
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  • Report damns Sellafield firm over clean-up

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    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/report-damns-sellafield-firm-over-cleanup-8930953.html

    Security breaches and delays are rife as nuclear contractor ‘puts shareholders before taxpayer’

    Image of Sellafield (formerly known as Windscale)
    The £70bn project to rid Sellafield, Europe’s most hazardous nuclear site, of its waste legacy is more than a decade behind schedule and is managed in shareholder, not taxpayer, interests, a damning confidential report reveals.

    The Commons Public Accounts Committee chair, Margaret Hodge, said yesterday that the failings at the Cumbrian plant proved how “outrageous” the decision had been to trust a private company to decontaminate the facility.

    The Independent on Sunday can reveal that nine of the 11 biggest projects to make Sellafield safe, including building a storage facility for radioactive sludge, are £2bn over budget. Seven will complete late, with a combined delay of eleven and a half years. The expansion of a huge waste processor, Evaporator D, is now expected in February 2016, a year and nine months later than planned.

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    27/11/13 Having received a takedown notice from the Independent newspaper for a different posting, I have reviewed this article which links to an article at the Independent’s website in order to attempt to ensure conformance with copyright laws.

    I consider this posting to comply with copyright laws since
    a. Only a small portion of the original article has been quoted satisfying the fair use criteria, and / or
    b. This posting satisfies the requirements of a derivative work.

    Please be assured that this blog is a non-commercial blog (weblog) which does not feature advertising and has not ever produced any income.

    dizzy