Yes I choked on my bacon butty when I heard Grayling say that on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme yesterday. It's a bit off piste, but enlightening nevertheless to reflect on how much crap is spoken by this particular odious politician and how privatisation just doesn't work in some sectors. This from the Guardian:-
East Coast rail 'bailout' could cost taxpayers hundreds of millions
The East Coast rail franchise will be terminated three years early, avoiding the embarrassment of another private firm handing back the keys to the government but potentially forfeiting hundreds of millions in premiums due to the Treasury. Under a rail strategy announced by the transport secretary, Chris Grayling, a new partnership model will replace the franchise contract of Virgin Trains East Coast (Vtec).
The train operator, a joint venture led by Stagecoach with Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, had pledged to pay £3.3bn to run the service until 2023 when it was reprivatised in 2015 after six years in public hands. Instead, Vtec is likely to pay a fraction of that sum, with the bulk of payments due in the final years of the franchise. The firm signalled that it also expects its payments for the next three years to be cut. In the first full year of operation, it paid £204m. Shares in Stagecoach jumped 12% on the news.
Andy MacDonald, the shadow transport secretary, told the Commons that the strategy announcement was “a total smokescreen”. He said: “The real issue is that the East Coast franchise has failed again and the taxpayer will bail it out.” Pointing to the share price rise, he said: “Markets don’t lie. The secretary of state has let Stagecoach off the hook for hundreds of millions of pounds. He’s tough on everyone except the private sector.”
Grayling responded: “As we bring this franchise to a close and as we move to the new arrangements, no one is getting any bailout at all. Stagecoach will meet in full their commitments made to the government as part of this contract.”
Andrew Adonis, a former Labour transport secretary, tweeted that the government had “serious questions to answer about the fiasco on East Coast and why they are (in effect) bailing out Stagecoach/Virgin with taxpayer money”. Adonis nationalised East Coast in 2009 when the previous private operator National Express said it could not meet its promised payments to the Treasury. Expected growth in passenger numbers has not materialised and Stagecoach has been seeking a bailout from the government. The firm has admitted it overpaid for the franchise, but said that delays to infrastructure upgrades by Network Rail and the delivery of new Azuma trains were partly responsible.
Stagecoach’s chief executive, Martin Griffiths, said he was “encouraged by the positive new direction for Britain’s railway” and said the strategy was “a clear statement of intent to seek to negotiate new terms for the East Coast franchise with Virgin Trains East Coast and we are hopeful of reaching an agreement through to 2020 within the next few months”.
The rail strategy laid out by Grayling said the East Coast Partnership (ECP) would be “the first of the new generation of long-term regional partnerships bringing together the operation of track and train under a single leader and unified brand”. The partnership models will see private train companies invited to bid for contracts where they can take more control over tracks run by Network Rail.
But unions said that the move again called into question the franchising system, with contracts awarded without competition and firms walking away from contracts. Mick Cash, the RMT general secretary, said: “It stinks. It looks like the government rigging the market again in favour of the private sector. This is basically Chris Grayling manning the lifeboats and bailing out Virgin and Stagecoach once again.”
City analysts said the deal was necessary for Stagecoach and the Department for Transport (DfT). Gerald Khoo of Liberum said: “Despite the short-term challenges, much depended on infrastructure upgrades ... that Network Rail will not deliver in 2019, if at all. The DfT is responsible for its shortcomings. Consequently, both sides needed to find a way out.”
Transport commentator Christian Wolmar said: “Stagecoach were clearly in trouble – but it [the ECP] is a way for the government to save face over the very structure of franchising. What is the point of franchising if the risk is never with the private company, and the promised gains to the taxpayer are clearly just theoretical?”
More questions were raised by a separate decision to give First Group another contract to run Great Western Railway (GWR) up to 2024 after it was controversially allowed to continue running the service, despite dodging £800m due to the government in an original contract. The franchise, which runs commuter services into London Paddington and long-distance trains to Wales and the south-west, is likely to be broken up, under plans published by the DfT. The biggest commuter franchise, Govia, which operates the Thameslink, Great Northern and troubled Southern services, will also be broken up.
DfT will extend First’s current GWR franchise contract by another year, to April 2020, and then give a direct award for two more years, with an option to double the tenure. First has run the trains during the botched upgrade of the route by Network Rail, which has seen costs overrun to almost treble the original budget and stretches of the electrification project abandoned to save money. Tim O’Toole, First’s chief executive, said: “We are pleased that our strong track record at GWR is recognised.”
--oo00oo--
Whilst we're talking of odious characters and privatisation, just noticed this in the Independent:-
NHS makes undisclosed settlement to Richard Branson's Virgin Care after legal dispute
The NHS has settled a legal dispute with private healthcare group Virgin Care for an undisclosed amount. The Labour Party said it was “scandalous” that the NHS had to defend a legal battle with the company, which is part of Richard Branson’s business empire. It also called on the Department of Health to disclose details of the settlement.
Virgin Care sued the NHS last year after it lost out on an £82m contract to provide children’s health services across Surrey, citing concerns over “serious flaws” in the way the contract was awarded. The company filed proceedings at the UK High Court naming the six local NHS clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in Surrey, as well as Surrey County Council and NHS England.
Virgin Care and NHS Guildford and Waverley CCG, which was the lead group, both told The Independent that the details of the settlement were “confidential”. However, NHS magazine the Health Service Journal reports that one CCG inadvertently revealed the settlement had left them with financial liabilities running to hundreds of thousands of pounds. NHS Surrey Downs CCG initially disclosed that its liability in the case was £328,000 in its October public finance papers, the HSJ reports. But this reference was subsequently removed with the CCG, saying this level of detail “should not have been included in the report”.
Virgin Care has been a winner of several major contracts for community health and care services in recent years, including a £700m adult social services contract in Bath and North Somerset. The winners of the Surrey contract, Surrey Health Children and Families Services, a partnership between the local hospital NHS Surrey and Borders Partnership Foundation Trust, and two local social enterprises, took over the service in April.
Spokespeople for Virgin Care and NHS Guildford and Waverley CCG did not comment on what payment, if any, was made, saying: “The parties are pleased to confirm that an agreed resolution on the litigation concerning the Surrey Children’s procurement has been reached to a satisfactory conclusion for all parties with detailed terms confidential to the parties.” When news of the legal dispute was first announced, NHS Guildford and Waverley had said the group were “confident” in their commissioning processes.
Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: “It’s scandalous that NHS money is being wasted on fighting off legal bids from private companies. Ministers need to make clear how much public money has been used in this case – at the least it seems to be hundreds of thousands of pounds. That is money that could be being used for NHS patients who are waiting longer than ever for routine services.”
NHS England referred The Independent to Guildford and Waverley CCG, which had not responded at the time of publication.
East Coast rail 'bailout' could cost taxpayers hundreds of millions
The East Coast rail franchise will be terminated three years early, avoiding the embarrassment of another private firm handing back the keys to the government but potentially forfeiting hundreds of millions in premiums due to the Treasury. Under a rail strategy announced by the transport secretary, Chris Grayling, a new partnership model will replace the franchise contract of Virgin Trains East Coast (Vtec).
The train operator, a joint venture led by Stagecoach with Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, had pledged to pay £3.3bn to run the service until 2023 when it was reprivatised in 2015 after six years in public hands. Instead, Vtec is likely to pay a fraction of that sum, with the bulk of payments due in the final years of the franchise. The firm signalled that it also expects its payments for the next three years to be cut. In the first full year of operation, it paid £204m. Shares in Stagecoach jumped 12% on the news.
Andy MacDonald, the shadow transport secretary, told the Commons that the strategy announcement was “a total smokescreen”. He said: “The real issue is that the East Coast franchise has failed again and the taxpayer will bail it out.” Pointing to the share price rise, he said: “Markets don’t lie. The secretary of state has let Stagecoach off the hook for hundreds of millions of pounds. He’s tough on everyone except the private sector.”
Grayling responded: “As we bring this franchise to a close and as we move to the new arrangements, no one is getting any bailout at all. Stagecoach will meet in full their commitments made to the government as part of this contract.”
Andrew Adonis, a former Labour transport secretary, tweeted that the government had “serious questions to answer about the fiasco on East Coast and why they are (in effect) bailing out Stagecoach/Virgin with taxpayer money”. Adonis nationalised East Coast in 2009 when the previous private operator National Express said it could not meet its promised payments to the Treasury. Expected growth in passenger numbers has not materialised and Stagecoach has been seeking a bailout from the government. The firm has admitted it overpaid for the franchise, but said that delays to infrastructure upgrades by Network Rail and the delivery of new Azuma trains were partly responsible.
Stagecoach’s chief executive, Martin Griffiths, said he was “encouraged by the positive new direction for Britain’s railway” and said the strategy was “a clear statement of intent to seek to negotiate new terms for the East Coast franchise with Virgin Trains East Coast and we are hopeful of reaching an agreement through to 2020 within the next few months”.
The rail strategy laid out by Grayling said the East Coast Partnership (ECP) would be “the first of the new generation of long-term regional partnerships bringing together the operation of track and train under a single leader and unified brand”. The partnership models will see private train companies invited to bid for contracts where they can take more control over tracks run by Network Rail.
But unions said that the move again called into question the franchising system, with contracts awarded without competition and firms walking away from contracts. Mick Cash, the RMT general secretary, said: “It stinks. It looks like the government rigging the market again in favour of the private sector. This is basically Chris Grayling manning the lifeboats and bailing out Virgin and Stagecoach once again.”
City analysts said the deal was necessary for Stagecoach and the Department for Transport (DfT). Gerald Khoo of Liberum said: “Despite the short-term challenges, much depended on infrastructure upgrades ... that Network Rail will not deliver in 2019, if at all. The DfT is responsible for its shortcomings. Consequently, both sides needed to find a way out.”
Transport commentator Christian Wolmar said: “Stagecoach were clearly in trouble – but it [the ECP] is a way for the government to save face over the very structure of franchising. What is the point of franchising if the risk is never with the private company, and the promised gains to the taxpayer are clearly just theoretical?”
More questions were raised by a separate decision to give First Group another contract to run Great Western Railway (GWR) up to 2024 after it was controversially allowed to continue running the service, despite dodging £800m due to the government in an original contract. The franchise, which runs commuter services into London Paddington and long-distance trains to Wales and the south-west, is likely to be broken up, under plans published by the DfT. The biggest commuter franchise, Govia, which operates the Thameslink, Great Northern and troubled Southern services, will also be broken up.
DfT will extend First’s current GWR franchise contract by another year, to April 2020, and then give a direct award for two more years, with an option to double the tenure. First has run the trains during the botched upgrade of the route by Network Rail, which has seen costs overrun to almost treble the original budget and stretches of the electrification project abandoned to save money. Tim O’Toole, First’s chief executive, said: “We are pleased that our strong track record at GWR is recognised.”
--oo00oo--
Whilst we're talking of odious characters and privatisation, just noticed this in the Independent:-
NHS makes undisclosed settlement to Richard Branson's Virgin Care after legal dispute
The NHS has settled a legal dispute with private healthcare group Virgin Care for an undisclosed amount. The Labour Party said it was “scandalous” that the NHS had to defend a legal battle with the company, which is part of Richard Branson’s business empire. It also called on the Department of Health to disclose details of the settlement.
Virgin Care sued the NHS last year after it lost out on an £82m contract to provide children’s health services across Surrey, citing concerns over “serious flaws” in the way the contract was awarded. The company filed proceedings at the UK High Court naming the six local NHS clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in Surrey, as well as Surrey County Council and NHS England.
Virgin Care and NHS Guildford and Waverley CCG, which was the lead group, both told The Independent that the details of the settlement were “confidential”. However, NHS magazine the Health Service Journal reports that one CCG inadvertently revealed the settlement had left them with financial liabilities running to hundreds of thousands of pounds. NHS Surrey Downs CCG initially disclosed that its liability in the case was £328,000 in its October public finance papers, the HSJ reports. But this reference was subsequently removed with the CCG, saying this level of detail “should not have been included in the report”.
Virgin Care has been a winner of several major contracts for community health and care services in recent years, including a £700m adult social services contract in Bath and North Somerset. The winners of the Surrey contract, Surrey Health Children and Families Services, a partnership between the local hospital NHS Surrey and Borders Partnership Foundation Trust, and two local social enterprises, took over the service in April.
Spokespeople for Virgin Care and NHS Guildford and Waverley CCG did not comment on what payment, if any, was made, saying: “The parties are pleased to confirm that an agreed resolution on the litigation concerning the Surrey Children’s procurement has been reached to a satisfactory conclusion for all parties with detailed terms confidential to the parties.” When news of the legal dispute was first announced, NHS Guildford and Waverley had said the group were “confident” in their commissioning processes.
Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: “It’s scandalous that NHS money is being wasted on fighting off legal bids from private companies. Ministers need to make clear how much public money has been used in this case – at the least it seems to be hundreds of thousands of pounds. That is money that could be being used for NHS patients who are waiting longer than ever for routine services.”
NHS England referred The Independent to Guildford and Waverley CCG, which had not responded at the time of publication.
Is Grayling employed by Putin to bankrupt the UK? He's doing a fine old job if it. In fact its the only policy he's succeeding with.
ReplyDeletePublic services have become a feeding ground for private enterprise. They've become a little like the charity sector, everyone takes a share of every £1 put in until theres 5p left for the front line.
ReplyDelete(The charity commission has just moved into offices at the MoJ).
There are more and more contracts being awarded by dodgy process. Auditors for example have declared that a contract awarded to outsource libraries and leisure facilities in Wiggin was done illegally. There was no tendering process. You have to ask yourself why not, and who benefited?
Yesterday Atos were given £45 million for MoJ management services. They were the incumbent company, but I wonder who else was invited to bid?
It's become wholesale plunder on a scale the Vikings would be proud of.
This in today's Mail,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5130907/New-head-NHS-finance-watchdog-earn-300-000.html
It's just sickening.
I note too today that the prison inspector has been given new powers.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/nov/30/prison-inspectors-given-new-powers-england-wales-urgent-problems
'Getafix
Bloody hell - I see the Bath Uni VC is on the payroll here too!
DeleteThe new boss of the NHS’s financial watchdog will earn almost £300,000 a year despite an unprecedented cash crisis, it has been revealed. Ian Dalton will take over as chief executive of NHS Improvement next month on a salary nearly double that of the Prime Minister. He will lead an organisation whose role is to rein in the spending of hospitals and health trusts, and cut back on waste.
In a further twist, the watchdog has confirmed it is paying £8,000 a year to the country’s highest-earning university chief to work two to three days a month. Dame Glynis Breakwell – the £468,000-a-year head of Bath University – is employed as NHS Improvement’s remuneration officer as a non-executive director. A spokesman said Dame Glynis was not involved in the approval of Mr Dalton’s salary.
The NHS is facing its worst financial crisis in a generation as it struggles to meet the needs of the ageing population on a very tightly constrained budget.
The UK government is set to book a loss of around £800m from its largest privatisation of student loans, raising questions over the valuation of tens of billions of pounds of remaining graduate debt. The controversial sale of a batch of student loans this week is expected to raise around £1.7bn, according to a Financial Times analysis of deal documentation. The loans, which had a face value of £3.7bn last year, are part of a total of £43bn in loans made to students up to 2012, which are currently on government books valued at just under £30bn, according to the Department of Education’s latest published accounts, as of the end of March this year.
DeletePlease use the sharing tools found via the email icon at the top of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found here.
https://www.ft.com/content/726e3158-d522-11e7-8c9a-d9c0a5c8d5c9
The sale to specialist investors — including pension funds and hedge funds — values the block of loans at about £800m lower than their accounting value on the books of the DfE, based on an FT analysis of UK public accounts and the offer documents. The government has previously warned the assets would be sold below their face value, but the scale of the losses in relation to their accounting value was not apparent until initial pricing ranges of the securitisation were released this week. The deal will raise about £1.7bn in cash through the securitisation process, where assets are packaged together and sold off as bonds to investors. The process is a common feature of financing for student borrowing in the US but has rarely been used in the UK. The government’s loan book sale is dependent on passing a “value for money” test, which is designed to ensure that public assets are not sold too cheaply. The details of the test will not be made public but it is expected to provide a different, lower valuation for the loans compared to those on the DfE accounts.
Dame Glynis is no longer VC at Bath University.
DeleteShe stepped down yesterday, but will get about £250,000 whilst on a 6mth sabbatical.
I'm not sure about her new role however, as it looks from just a quick glance that Dame Glynis is not too shy in coming forward when there's a few bob to be had.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.bathchronicle.co.uk/news/bath-news/dame-glynis-receive-full-pay-847550.amp#ampshare=http://www.bathchronicle.co.uk/news/bath-news/dame-glynis-receive-full-pay-847550
I'm afraid she is still VC until August 2018 and then she gets a sabbatical for 6 months - oh and the £31,000 car loan is 'written off'.
DeleteProfessor Dame Glynis Breakwell will receive more than £230,000 for six months’ academic research while she takes a sabbatical. The University of Bath’s vice-chancellor since 2001 announced today that she is standing down. Dame Glynis earned around £468,000 in the last financial year but her salary for 2017-18 has not been revealed.
A university spokesman said the long-serving leader will receive full pay between August 31 2018 when she stands down and February 28 2019 after a semester’s sabbatical. “It’s a standard arrangement for any academic on a professorial contract at the University of Bath who goes on sabbatical,” he said of the pay arrangement. It’s not a special perk in that sense. When academics go on sabbatical, which quite a lot of them do, they remain on full pay.”
The spokesman added that there will be no severance package afforded to Dame Glynis.
The perks received by Dame Glynis as part of her role as vice-chancellor have been under close scrutiny in recent months. Last October a freedom of information request by Councillor Joe Rayment (Twerton, Labour) revealed Dame Glynis claimed more than £20,000 in expenses for living costs at the university-provided Lansdown Crescent house she lives in. This included £8,738 on a housekeeper whose duties included being "responsible for the bed linen in the VC's private apartment, including washing and ironing of all bedding and towels".
Last month the Chronicle revealed that Dame Glynis has been given an interest-free loan of more than £31,000 to spend on a car.
I am at a loss as to how that man is still in government.
ReplyDeletePhoenix he managed to destroy public services that now cost more for a lot less product. He was on the team that sold the nation Brexit and that's costing 60 billion to half get sorted. He has meddled in Rail but he will not beat Cash and Aslef they are a union that will fight it out. In the best move he sidled up to May in the leadership challenge for the Tory thug party clever move or was he safely warned but in that he was a backer of the winner. He is relatively untouchable.
DeleteGrayling represents everything that's wrong with uk politics. He's dishonest, deceitful, selfish and greedy, contemptuous of the process of law and protocols that may hamper his personal aims or challenges his ideology.
DeleteHe is uncaring, has no compassion, and no concern for those his decision making effects. He has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
If Grayling were a "convicted" criminal, he'd be considered a very dangerous man.
Health care money for virgin. More health care money for executive pay. £80m loss on student loans sale, and loads more money lost to virgin gifted by Grayling.
Deletehttps://www.itv.com/news/tyne-tees/2017-11-29/virgin-east-coast-trains-franchise-to-end-early/
There's a lot of money being spent on today's blog.
1222 yes that's his best traits biyw what of his darker side.
DeleteIts odd that powers that be can spend lots sign contracts that pay out millions to all involved and yet we have to get permission from our chief to order pens. No money being spent on staff in the CRC's now there's a saving.
ReplyDeleteAnd service users are travelling 30 mile round trip because Working links want to cream off more profit and increase their own personal shares! Easy money..buy shares in the company you manage..watch your own personal profit increase as you make those decisions to cut and sell them just before you go bankrupt. It's called insider dealing and despite being illegal we all know it happens all the time.
ReplyDeleteRBS is also going back on the market, sold back to the private sector for half the price it cost the tax payer to bail out. £Billions handed over from the public purse to private companies.
DeleteThe public are being charged for the pleasure of austerity.
And Graylings rail plan? Reprivatising an already failed privatisation venture, and £100s of millions going back to the private companies that's failed.
https://www.thecanary.co/uk/2017/11/30/governments-answer-multi-million-pound-failed-privatisation-yet-privatisation/
What did Lincoln say?
"you can fool all the people some of the time, some of the people......"
I'm fed up being taken for a fool, and so I think are the rest of the country.
Dame G's recent report about Probation being ill equipped, ill informed and generally lagging in addressing the consequences of new psychoactive substances yet again reminded me of the problem of having a fragmented service rather than a unified one. In addition it caused me to think about the relevance of the following verse.
ReplyDeleteThis is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have.
Everyone is ill equipped in relation to psychoactive drugs. Prisons, probation, NHS, addiction agencies and even the users themselves.
DeleteThe real demon where psychoactive drugs are concerned is the government and free market ideology.
It's OK to have legal highs where no one knows their contents, manufacturing processes, effects on health, propensity for addiction, or the consequences of taking them in conjunction with other substances.
Yet drugs that there's a wealth of knowledge about, impact known, consequences of use studied, impact on health examined, social consequences understood are outlawed.
Legal highs (although no longer legal) is the result of government failed drug policies.
It's OK to get high on something we know nothing about, but it's not OK to get high on something we have extensive knowledge about?
Drugs are drugs. They're dangerous. They kill. The more knowledge you have about what you're taking the safer you are.
I wonder what knowledge the government has on psychoactive substances?
I'd wager a lot it's far less then those working in the field, how ever limited that knowledge may be.
Government drug policy kills more people a year then drugs do.
'Getafix
My point was more about the problems of co - ordinating a response to spice like drugs when the parts of Probation are fragmented, increasingly disparate and in a state of flux and crisis. How do you disseminate information, good practice or even fund efforts to that end? The new Probation landscape is less fleet footed than it was. It was difficult enough co - ordinating different services and resources around problems in the past. I believe it is now nigh on impossible.
Delete