tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578343158425987632.post3433706733932052274..comments2024-03-28T07:32:23.397+00:00Comments on On Probation Blog: Pick of the Week 40 Jim Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00258147767051200157noreply@blogger.comBlogger32125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578343158425987632.post-79297092288464225332018-01-29T20:39:30.012+00:002018-01-29T20:39:30.012+00:00Yes I agree 8:48 is generalising and denigrating t...Yes I agree 8:48 is generalising and denigrating the left and everyone else in that post thanks well pointed out. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578343158425987632.post-714028495748615582018-01-29T19:14:19.145+00:002018-01-29T19:14:19.145+00:00You seem to be denigrating the left wing somewhat ...You seem to be denigrating the left wing somewhat ! And making huge generalisations. <br />This usually comes from the right wing Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578343158425987632.post-24864593720019035172018-01-29T15:40:53.164+00:002018-01-29T15:40:53.164+00:00This has to be my pick of the week. Nothing to do ...This has to be my pick of the week. Nothing to do with probation, but a fascinating read if a very long one.<br /><br />https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/adam-ramsay/tory-ministers-taxpayer-cash-hard-Brexit-erg<br /><br />'Getafix Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578343158425987632.post-21445475812261486302018-01-29T12:34:56.779+00:002018-01-29T12:34:56.779+00:00I would be the first one to look at all sides and ...I would be the first one to look at all sides and see what might happen but you are and still hold a position that capitulated a major issue. The matter was subject to a protection under the transfer arrangements. There was no defence or claim on this by any party who should and ought to have challenged. Failing that is a clear signal to the future of how things will be managed. Your post well written and to some degree inclusive of the wider views is still disparaging towards the left in the union and this is not helpful. The NEC will not welcome the views either. <br />While your descriptors are sort of funny on one level on another they do not adequately deliver appropriate respect towards people who may or may not have some ownership of the failings. You do make your sides story more credible and interesting but the claim it was pragmatism is not what anyone wants to hear. Cutting staff reducing costs shaving of professional top earners reducing management oversight losing flexi time arrangements changing hostel night staff the list goes on. Rationalising cuts as pragmatic that's no position so your team offer nothing and in fact have made it worse. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578343158425987632.post-52744331418423041972018-01-29T08:48:23.964+00:002018-01-29T08:48:23.964+00:0020:45 I appreciate that you do not understand that...20:45 I appreciate that you do not understand that distributive rather than centralised collective bargaining was the only viable option post TR. it was the employers that did not want to talk to each other that was the problem. These myths that those hard left wingers are peddling of a sell out by Raho and Rogers are are groundless and suppose the pair are far more powerful than the entire Napo leadership and spineless NEC. The Napo far left would presumably compel employers to meet with them in some centralised Stalinist committee and then force them to do everything they want with the power of their Neo Marxist rhetoric. Let us not forget that the candidates of the left in Napo are Lawrence and Berry. Lawrence has already declared he wants to stand again. If anything they were the ones together with Winters and Pattison who were dealing with the national collective bargaining situation and must bear some responsibility. However it would be unfair to blame Lawrence as he is largely impotent in his dealings as the employers ignore him as someone beset on all sides and has a glazed expression when matters involve anything complex or strategic. There was an attempt to get things sorted at the Napo AGM before last with an enabling motion that was never heard as the left wingers voted to support the already dead NNC that had Lawrence et al looking like rabbits frozen in the headlights of an oncoming juggernaut as they were forced to appear to support the unviable. Raho and Rogers were the only ones who came up with a practical alternative to the nothing the leadership were left with and I suspect Lawrence has been secretly glad of those who blame everyone but him. If he he had not had at least a couple of pragmatists in Napo then they would not have any formal mechanism through which to speak with employers and his showboating days would have been sunk months ago. Let us see if modern local distributed collective bargaining delivers anything. If it fails as the NNC did consistently to achieve pay increases for all including those at the top of the scale then the far left wingers can say that they were right but before then they might do well to remember that they have no viable alternative and little to offer but a fading dream of trade union power that has no basis in reality. I would always invite people to deal with things as they are. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578343158425987632.post-54569132779061646112018-01-29T08:34:05.428+00:002018-01-29T08:34:05.428+00:00Its subject was the Savings & Loan crisis of t... Its subject was the Savings & Loan crisis of the 1980s, which ended up costing the US taxpayer some $132bn in a string of bailouts. What intrigued the authors was the way some S&L owners ran their failing real estate lenders into the ground, wholly focused on value extraction and without a thought for the losses that they would leave behind. They displayed a “total disregard for even the most basic principles of lending”, failing to verify the most basic information about their borrowers or, in some cases, not even bothering even to ask for it. Why, the economists asked, had they behaved in so cavalier a way? One reason, they concluded, was the existence of a government backstop. The state stood behind deposits that the S&Ls had taken. But that was not the only thing encouraging the owners to loot their own operations. There was another big factor: poorly framed regulation. Easy-to-arbitrage rules and sloppy accounting standards kept S&Ls nominally afloat when in reality they were not viable. That created the circumstances in which owners could plunder dividends out of capital, as they either prayed for a miracle, or prepared to cast the depleted creditors into the taxpayers’ lap. Echoes of this unsavoury situation can be found in the case of Carillion, the British outsourcing and construction group that has just collapsed owing more than £2bn to its banks. Once again, the government bobs up on the periphery, in this case chucking out state-funded contracts like confetti that appeared to underwrite the group’s viability. Carillion’s board may not have looted, but it does seem to have practised what one might call “reckless abstraction”. It sucked out cash to placate stock market investors even as executives wrote the mountain of under-priced contracts that ultimately buried the business, triggering a £1.2bn writedown in the second half of last year.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578343158425987632.post-29137358522134967422018-01-29T08:31:52.108+00:002018-01-29T08:31:52.108+00:00In the early 1990s, two American economists, Georg...In the early 1990s, two American economists, George Akerlof and Paul Romer, wrote an academic paper with the eye-catching title: “Looting”. Its subject was the Savings & Loan crisis of the 1980s, which ended up costing the US taxpayer some $132bn in a string of bailouts. What intrigued the authors was the way some S&L owners ran their failing real estate lenders into the ground, wholly focused on value extraction and without a thought for the losses that they would leave behind. They displayed a “total disregard for even the most basic principles of lending”, failing to verify the most basic information about their borrowers or, in some cases, not even bothering even to ask for it. Why, the economists asked, had they behaved in so cavalier a way? One reason, they concluded, was the existence of a government backstop. The state stood behind deposits that the S&Ls had taken.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578343158425987632.post-76401547059995648532018-01-29T04:49:47.286+00:002018-01-29T04:49:47.286+00:00A 2009 view of PPF
"Under the PPF arrangemen...A 2009 view of PPF<br /><br />"Under the PPF arrangements, the trustees of a pension fund tied to a crashed company must apply for protection. As a creditor of the collapsed employer, trustees often expect to top-up their assets with leftovers from the insolvency. Next, the PPF spends two years assessing the value of the fund's assets and liabilities before allowing it to join.<br /><br />Politically, it has proved a huge success for the government. At a time when companies are going out of business at an increasing rate, it has in place a scheme to protect more than 12million people who, for at least some of their working life, have acquired guaranteed pension rights. Without the PPF, it is certain thousands of workers, who value their pensions almost more than they do their jobs, would be protesting outside No 10.<br /><br />Advertisement<br /><br />That was the case following the collapse of steel maker ASW, which went under at the beginning of the decade, long before ministers began preparing for a crisis in final salary schemes. Workers, who were resigned to losing their jobs, led a long campaign for safeguards and can be credited with helping to create the PPF. Eventually, a £400m scheme became a £2.9bn scheme and the problem, at least for ASW workers, went away.<br /><br />But there are increasing misgivings about the mounting cost to employers of standing by the guarantees. Ostensibly, the PPF is an industry scheme that will look to employers to make up any shortfalls. However, the 7,000-odd private sector final salary schemes are more than £200bn in deficit and the PPF deficit is growing. Pension experts are increasingly concerned how confidence can be maintained in the new system without a government guarantee.<br /><br />Ros Altmann, former adviser to No 10, says the situation is desperate. She, and others, argue the PPF is a sticking plaster that avoids a more fundamental look at retirement. It addresses the so-called pension promises offered to a proportion of the workforce, but ignores that the rest have either little or no pension savings and will most likely rely on the state."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578343158425987632.post-89149587001242081312018-01-29T04:24:31.671+00:002018-01-29T04:24:31.671+00:00And also...
A number of UK public sector pension ...And also...<br /><br />A number of UK public sector pension funds could face shortfalls following the collapse of construction company Carillion.<br /><br />The group was placed into liquidation on 15 January with a reported debt burden of £1.3bn (€1.5bn) and cash reserves of less than £30m.<br /><br />At the time of the collapse Carillion had more than 400 outsourcing contracts in place, according to media reports, providing services to local authorities including facilities management, maintenance, road building, library services and delivering school meals.<br /><br />Many of these contracts included cost-sharing agreements related to pensions provided by the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) to staff transferring from the public sector to the private sector, meaning Carillion was registered as an employer contributing to 13 LGPS funds.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578343158425987632.post-3687441996183601112018-01-29T04:20:18.701+00:002018-01-29T04:20:18.701+00:00Napo need to get their act together over Carillion...Napo need to get their act together over Carillion & pensions. Yes, we are ALL being put at risk by these bastards:<br /><br />The Greater Manchester Pension Fund (GMPF), the pension scheme for the 10 local authorities in Greater Manchester and other bodies such as schools and charities, is to invest in Manchester Airport’s planned £800m (€944m) Airport City development, with a 10% stake in the project.<br /><br />The development will form the core of a government-designated enterprise zone surrounding the airport, the third-busiest in the UK.<br /><br />The development – the largest development project in the UK since the Olympic redevelopment in East London – is a joint venture between Manchester Airports Group (MAG) with a 50% share, Beijing Construction Engineering Group and support services company Carillion (20% each) and the GMPF.<br /><br />Peter Morris, director of pensions at the GMPF, said: “It’s a good investment opportunity. The airport is an international gateway to Manchester, and the scale and location of Airport City is attractive to occupiers, particularly as this development could not be built next to other large airports.”Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578343158425987632.post-88469572531824231112018-01-29T03:52:35.724+00:002018-01-29T03:52:35.724+00:00Excerpt from IPE magazine, March 2017:
"Robi...Excerpt from IPE magazine, March 2017:<br /><br />"Robin Ellison, chairman of Carillion Pension Trustees, tells Carlo Svaluto Moreolo about the scheme’s approach to de-risking and regulation <br /><br />Pension scheme de-risking can be a thankless job. Robin Ellison, chairman of Carillion Pension Trustees, put it succintly in a recent article published in IPE (September 2016): “It doesn’t create actual money to pay actual pensions; it simply protects company accounts against disclosing higher increases in deficits.” Furthermore, de-risking is expensive, particularly when done through government securities."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578343158425987632.post-4053569172840119482018-01-29T00:32:53.481+00:002018-01-29T00:32:53.481+00:00Read it and implications truly shocking!!!Read it and implications truly shocking!!!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578343158425987632.post-59196656668806382482018-01-29T00:20:47.519+00:002018-01-29T00:20:47.519+00:00Thank you. Very interesting and informative. I not...Thank you. Very interesting and informative. I note FT article just published that I am unable to access but no doubt an interesting read.<br />UK Business & Economy<br />Carillion accused of ‘wriggling out’ of pension fundingAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578343158425987632.post-64726967768224340512018-01-28T23:58:03.525+00:002018-01-28T23:58:03.525+00:00https://www.ft.com/content/be0b8104-042c-11e8-9650...https://www.ft.com/content/be0b8104-042c-11e8-9650-9c0ad2d7c5b5Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578343158425987632.post-82580075228696707902018-01-28T23:56:01.037+00:002018-01-28T23:56:01.037+00:00Thanks you may not realise it yet but they have co...Thanks you may not realise it yet but they have contributed to damage that whatever happens has put the union and the movement back many years. It can only be repaired if the Labour government get in and truly repeal 2016 trade union legislation. <br />Corbyn “That means new trade union freedoms and collective bargaining rights, of course, because it is only through collective representation that workers have the voice and the strength to reverse the race to the bottom in pay and conditions.” Unlike Mr Raho and it is well known that Mr Roger is anti Corbyn and somehow the duo think they know better than the Party Come on Jim help the membership. It is not a game. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578343158425987632.post-53944890552316201572018-01-28T23:33:25.982+00:002018-01-28T23:33:25.982+00:00It concerns me that working people are having thei...It concerns me that working people are having their pensions plundered. Carrillion paid share dividends that equated roughly to the pensions deficit or liability. If I understand correctly this means that workers will likely receive 10% less than they had imagined under a state sponsored guarantee scheme, which if I understand correctly means the tax payer assures them a pension of 90% of what they they anticipated. It shocked me that one man, Philip Greene (BHS) who took hundreds of millions out of that company did so whilst the workers pension fund was similarly in deficit. And, with a stroke of a pen paid back a few hundred million to prop up the fund. One man! I remember Robert Maxwell robbing the Mirror group pension fund of a huge amount. I know that there are many other company pension funds languishing with huge liabilities. I still remember Vince Cable saying about the financial crisis that the 'profits were privatised and the debts nationalised.' How do we bring about better governance, shine a light into outrageous profiteering, averice, by a few at the expense of the many? I am simply not seeing the answers being presented or the arguments substantially made. It is wrong and noone ever seems to be held to account.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578343158425987632.post-64154012566679718462018-01-28T22:05:13.024+00:002018-01-28T22:05:13.024+00:00Well spotted! Excellent letter and analysis from M...Well spotted! Excellent letter and analysis from Mike Nellis.Jim Brownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00258147767051200157noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578343158425987632.post-48927969509655178252018-01-28T22:03:05.273+00:002018-01-28T22:03:05.273+00:00I thought you'd not noticed that's why I r...I thought you'd not noticed that's why I re-published it!Jim Brownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00258147767051200157noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578343158425987632.post-45142571600246573102018-01-28T21:02:57.862+00:002018-01-28T21:02:57.862+00:00Also on Tuesday, but in the afternoon:
2.30 pm -...Also on Tuesday, but in the afternoon:<br /><br /> 2.30 pm - 4.00 pm<br /> <br /><br />Westminster Hall debate<br /><br />Treatment of adults with autism by the criminal justice system - Kevin BrennanAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578343158425987632.post-10235904347067366432018-01-28T20:58:27.672+00:002018-01-28T20:58:27.672+00:00Justice Committee - TR inquiry
Next meeting(s)
30 ...Justice Committee - TR inquiry<br />Next meeting(s)<br />30 January 2018 10:45 am<br />Oral Evidence Session<br />Transforming Rehabilitation<br />View details<br />Witness(es)<br /><br />Ian Lawrence, General Secretary, NAPO<br />Ben Priestley, National Officer, UNISON<br />Location<br /><br />Room 6, Palace of Westminster<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578343158425987632.post-60276821756163085952018-01-28T20:45:45.509+00:002018-01-28T20:45:45.509+00:00Oh no reading the Sunday best of the week and we...Oh no reading the Sunday best of the week and we get a love in for Raho and Rogers. Really Jim have you just announced the run for national chairs here and the general secretary election. I doubt the technocrat will have the backbone let alone the real potential to lead and be followed. Neither have done anything remarkable than acquiesce the whole side into a local arrangement for which has destroyed the union and left all open to local pay and down grade. No fools that pair. A clever move wrapped up in explanations by their support club. Where will they be when the truth of their disaster comes home. In power probably blaming someone else. It is a danger to all the union to allow the management friendlies any free hand. Keep up the good work Jim and let them pair get another PR agent we thought you were independent. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578343158425987632.post-926757275383019432018-01-28T20:41:38.545+00:002018-01-28T20:41:38.545+00:00Chris Grayling pushed both of these schemes throug...Chris Grayling pushed both of these schemes through and both have been expensive failures, but the former justice secretary has not been called to account for either, says Mike Nellis...<br /><br />The Commons public accounts committee report on the Ministry of Justice’s electronic monitoring fiasco is still not the full story (New tags for offenders ‘waste of money’ - MPs, 24 January). Notwithstanding the ministry’s secretive approach, plans for the mass expansion of GPS tracking, the absence of an evidence base, and the futility of developing a bespoke “super tag” were all discernible in 2014, and it is unclear why no one was able to halt such a misguided programme well before £60m had been wasted.<br /><br />Justice secretary Chris Grayling pushed all this through in tandem with the privatisation of the probation service, and in his mind’s eye the upgrading of electronic monitoring was the counterpart of downgrading the status and skills of probation officers. Both programmes had commercial rather than penal rationales. Both have been expensive failures, each in their own way, but Grayling has not been called to account for either of them.<br /><br />The over-complex, outsourced infrastructure set in place to manage the mass expansion of GPS tracking is no longer needed and should be dismantled. A modest and sensible use of tagging will not happen until electronic monitoring has been properly integrated into a restored, publicly owned probation service, as it mostly is in mainland Europe.<br /><br />Mike Nellis<br />Emeritus professor of criminal and community justice, University of StrathclydeAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578343158425987632.post-36569702687908145002018-01-28T19:21:15.692+00:002018-01-28T19:21:15.692+00:00https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/28/gp...https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/28/gps-offender-tagging-farce-tied-to-privatised-probation<br /><br />'Getafix Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578343158425987632.post-73959154832563657552018-01-28T19:15:51.028+00:002018-01-28T19:15:51.028+00:00If you look at Rory Stewart's wikipedia page y...If you look at Rory Stewart's wikipedia page you may think he could be a very different Minister than his predecessors, none of whom have had anything like his career experiences Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578343158425987632.post-59855110721785522892018-01-28T18:59:57.464+00:002018-01-28T18:59:57.464+00:00What a fucking racket. Bid high or bid low, whiche...What a fucking racket. Bid high or bid low, whichever is the best criteria for securing the contract, then cry "Foul!" when its hitting your profits, and whichever corrupt weasle is running the relevant government department (preferably Chris Grayling) will make sure you aren't out of pocket, courtesy of the UK taxpayer.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com