British National Party Public Services News Bulletin w/c June 25, 2007
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1. 25% OF COUNCIL TAX FOR GOLD-PLATED TOWN HALL PENSIONS

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=462260&in_page_id=1770

A quarter of the average council tax bill is now being spent paying for the gold-plated pensions of town hall staff. The public bill for funding the generous schemes will soar by 17 per cent this year, figures indicate. This means that the cost to taxpayers of underwriting the guaranteed inflation-linked pensions of 1.6million local council employees is half a billion pounds higher this year than last. The rise is equivalent to an extra £25 - around two per cent on average council tax bills. Economists warned that the cost of meeting the pension rights of the burgeoning public sector is beginning to bite for taxpayers. Ruth Lea, of the Centre for Policy Studies think-tank, said: ‘This is fresh evidence of how the public sector boom and the growing state share of the economy is going to hit the taxpayer. ‘People will be paying for this Government's profligacy for years.’ A fifth of Britain's 29million workers are employed in the public sector and can retire at 60. Yet the rest of the workforce will not be able to claim a state pension until 68 under the latest reforms. In addition, only a minority of private sector workers now enjoy the final salary-linked pensions commonly offered to state employees. Such schemes are worth more on retirement because bosses have made bigger contributions. The cost of the local government pension scheme, which includes staff ranging from social workers to street sweepers, has trebled since Labour came to power in 1997.

Then, the taxpayer-funded amount sunk into the scheme by councils stood at £1.3billion. Last year, it was £4.1billion. Now figures from the Communities and Local Government ministry indicate that the bill is rising again this year. They show that the amount paid by local authorities for 'pensions interest cost and expected return on pensions assets' in this financial year will be £3.53billion, compared with £3.01billion last year. The increase amounts to 17 per cent, or nearly seven times the 2.5 per cent inflation level recorded by Gordon Brown's favoured measure, the Consumer Price Index. The figures so far published do not make it possible to calculate the full level of town hall pension spending for 2007. But they indicate that the 2006 figure of £4.1billion could now have passed the £5billion mark. This would mean that £250 of each council tax bill - around a quarter of the average bill - is covering the pensions of council workers. Economist and former Bank of England adviser Neil Record said: ‘This is a sign of what is going to happen in future years as pension costs in the public sector continue to rise. ‘It should be remembered that this money is not financing the future pensions of current workers, it is only paying the pensions of people who are retired already.’ A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government said: ‘Accounting practice has been changed. This will not impact on council tax payers.’

2. ENGLISH FOOT THE BILL FOR SCOTS PRESCRIPTIONS

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=462337&in_page_id=1770&ct=5

English taxpayers are to foot the bill for Scots to have free prescriptions. Chronically-ill patients north of the border will not have to pay a penny for their drugs from April. And the Scottish National Party plans to extend the benefit to all within four years. The move, which will cost English taxpayers £50 million a year, is seen as deliberate provocation by the SNP, which ousted Labour last month and wants to break up the historic union between England and Scotland. It revived demands for an end to the total £22 billion ‘subsidy’ paid to Scotland, creating a divided nation. Scotland receives about £1,500 a year per head more than England to spend on schools and hospitals, an arrangement which has infuriated English MPs and prompted demands for Gordon Brown - himself a Scot - to order a Treasury review. Among the many benefits enjoyed by the Scots are: • Free tuition fees for all students from 2009, while students in England and Wales must pay up to £3,000 a year for their studies. • Access to expensive state-of-the-art drugs for illnesses such as Alzheimer's and eye disease, which are not available on the NHS in England. • Free personal care for the elderly • Free central heating installation for all pensioners • Free eye tests and, by the end of the year, free dental checks • Better rates of public sector pay for nurses and other workers. • Discounted bus travel for teenagers and free travel for pensioners. Prescription charges have already been abolished in Wales, where they ended in April, with politicians claiming that it was ‘the biggest move to improve public health in decades’. But in England, the charges have recently risen by 3 per cent to £6.85 per item. Scottish public health minister Shona Robison said: ‘

We feel that prescription charges are a tax on ill health and we feel very strongly that those who suffer from a chronic condition shouldn't be penalised. ‘If that is a lifelong illness then they are penalised for their whole lives. For people who require a number of medications, it can be a very costly business.’ Jim Cousins, Labour MP for Newcastle upon Tyne, said the North East would feel the difference most keenly because they were close to the border and had many friends and relatives in Scotland. ‘If prescription charges are abolished for NHS patients in Scotland, but charges are still in place in England, then there will be a very strong feeling of unfairness. ‘There are also higher rates of chronic illness in the North-East than other parts of Britain and, for this reason, my constituents will feel particularly badly hit.’ Mr Cousins added that students in the North East were also planning to bring legal challenges against the Scottish Executive over its plans to abolish top-up fees. In the decade since devolution, Scotland has used the extra £1,500 a head it receives from Westminster to subsidise care homes for the elderly and authorise the use of a wide range of cancer drugs denied to patients south of the border.

The Scottish budget, which totals £22billion, is calculated under the complicated Barnett formula which was introduce in the 1970s to deal with differing levels of poverty and population across Britain. Recent surveys suggest that English voters are increasingly concerned that Scottish MPs can vote on issues which affect only England but English MPs are unable to vote on the same issues in Scotland. This constitutional dilemma, known as the West Lothian question, has become more topical as Mr Brown prepares to take over as Prime Minister in less than a fortnight. The Cabinet is dominated by Scots including the Home Secretary John Reid, Defence Secretary Des Browne and Trade and Industry Secretary Alistair Darling. The Taxpayers' Alliance warned that English taxpayers were growing increasingly fed up with paying extra taxes for their Scottish counterparts to enjoy better public services. Campaign director Blair Gibbs said: ‘If Scotland wants to go its own way, then fine. But don't expect English taxpayers to pay for it. ‘This is a postcode lottery that has come about through design, not by accident, and people have a strong aversion to postcode lotteries.’ Prescription charges raise almost £500 million a year for the Treasury. When the NHS was established in 1948, all prescriptions were free. Charging was introduced three years later and then Health Secretary Aneurin Bevan resigned in disgust.

A wide range of patients do not pay, including schoolchildren, pensioners, those on income support and the unemployed. Certain medical conditions also qualify for exemption, including diabetes, epilepsy and mobility problems. Patients requiring long terms of treatment are entitled to a discount - a prepayment certificate. The exemptions were introduced in 1968 but have not been updated since and ignore some major long-term conditions, such as asthma and high blood pressure. Cancer patients in England are exempt only if their drugs are given in hospital and health charities say that 14 per cent of patients under 55 cannot afford treatment. Katherine Murphy, of the Patients' Association, said: ‘This postcode lottery is unacceptable because patients are having to pay for prescriptions on one side of Hadrian's Wall - and get them free on the other side. ‘There are people who genuinely struggle to meet the charges as they need treatment but they are not eligible for exemption. ‘We want a review carried out to look at the system since we cannot continue with patients paying for prescriptions in one part of the country, and getting them free elsewhere.’

3. SCOTS GET DRUG THAT CAN SAVE SIGHT, BUT ENGLISH DON'T

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=461400&in_page_id=1770

Thousands of pensioners will go blind every year after the Government's rationing watchdog said a sight-saving drug available in Scotland should not be given to NHS patients in England and Wales. Patients' groups and doctors condemned ‘cruel’ draft guidance from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. (NIHCE) Nihce rejected the use of Macugen for patients with the most common form of blindness, wet age-related macular degeneration, or AMD. It said another drug, Lucentis, could be used but only if patients have gone almost blind in one eye and the disease is far progressed in the other. It also restricted the use of Lucentis to a specific type of the condition which affects only around 20 per cent of sufferers. There are around 26,000 new cases of wet AMD, which affects the macular region at the back of the eye, in the UK every year. Based on Nice's recommendations, 80 per cent of these patients - more than 20,000 a year - will be left to go blind.

Macugen and Lucentis, known as anti- VEGF drugs, stop the deterioration of the sight. On Monday the Scottish Medicines Consortium, the rationing body north of the border, approved Lucentis for all NHS patients after previously giving the green light to Macugen. It is the latest example of post-devolution Scotland giving its patients access to many drugs denied those in England and Wales, which is covered by Nihce. The drugs are also available in many other countries including Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy, the U.S. and Australia. Nice's draft guidance, which is up for consultation, was greeted with anger from charities, clinicians and opposition politicians. The Royal National Institute of Blind People said it was ‘outraged’. Head of campaigns Steve Winyard said: ‘Anti-VEGF drugs have the potential to halve the number of people going blind each year and patients in the UK who can benefit from them must all have them - and quickly. ‘It is simply unacceptable that Nice is recommending that only a small minority of patients within England and Wales will benefit from these ground-breaking treatments. Nice must reconsider. ‘Anti-VEGF drugs are cost- effective.

It is much more expensive to support someone once they have lost their sight than to provide sight-saving treatment.’ Tom Bremridge, chief executive of the Macular Disease Society, said: ‘Limiting the treatment options to 20 per cent of patients who would benefit is unjustifiable and allowing one eye to go blind before treating the second is cruel and totally unacceptable.’ Winifred Amoaku, consultant at the Royal College of Opthalmologists, said the two drugs worked differently. She attacked the fact that only Lucentis had been given the go-ahead because some patients would benefit more from Macugen. ‘Both treatments should be made available to opthalmologists,’ she said. ‘One treatment doesn't fit all and opthalmologists should be able to prescribe the most suitable option for their patient.’ The Nice ruling comes despite a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine which found that the sight of nine out of ten patients given Lucentis improved or stabilised after two years of treatment. Lucentis costs up to £2,000 per injection or £28,000 for a full course of treatment, which is 14 injections over two years. Macugen is around £1,800 per injection or £36,000 for a full course of 20 injections. Dr David Gillen, medical director of Macugen manufacturer Pfizer, said: ‘Macugen has been shown to maintain vision in patients will all types of wet AMD and has a licence to reflect this. ‘From a cost perspective, it has been convincingly demonstrated that Macugen's cost-effectiveness can be enhanced when treatment is started at an early stage before too much vision is lost.’ Conservative health spokesman John Baron said: ‘This decision is very off given that Gordon Brown's constituents will get Macugen and Lucentis on the NHS but patients in England will not.’

Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb said: ‘While people who rely on the NHS will go blind, those who can afford to go private will be able to get access to these treatments and most people in this country will find that unacceptable.’ Earlier this year former Labour MP Alice Mahon was forced to buy Lucentis privately to stop going blind after her local PCT refused to fund it. Yesterday she called Nice's decision ‘obscene’. ‘How can a Labour government preside over a policy like this?’ she said. ‘What is happening to the NHS if some people can have it and not others? It is not a national health service.’ The guidance came as a blow for AMD sufferer Dennis Devier, who at 84 is his wife Frances's sole carer. If he loses his sight the couple will have to go into a home, so he has been forced to pay £8,000 of his dwindling savings to have four Lucentis injections privately. RAF war veteran Mr Devier, from Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, said: ‘For the sake of money they're letting people go blind.’ Mr Devier said it would cost the NHS a lot more to pay for him and his wife to live in a home than it would to stop him going blind in the first place.

Andrew Dillon, chief executive of Nice, said: ‘When treatments are very expensive, we have to use them where they give most benefit to patients. ‘Most people with AMD seek help only once the disease is beginning to affect their second eye. ‘Because of this, and based on the evidence they have seen, the independent advisory committee believes the right thing to do is to try to save as much sight as possible in the better-seeing eye.' He stressed the guidance was not final and that people could contact Nice if they think they have come to the wrong decision. He said: ‘We're very keen to hear from people with AMD and those who care for them, and as always, our committee will take these views into account when making their final recommendations.’ Consultation closes on 5 July and final guidance is expected in September. Until this is released, the Government says primary care trusts should not withhold funding for treatments for financial reasons alone. A spokesman for the Health Department said: ‘We recognise that age-related macular degeneration is a very distressing condition for patients and their carers. ‘This is not final guidance to the NHS from Nice but draft recommendations that have been issued for consultation which we will be responding to. ‘Macugen and Lucentis are licensed drugs and we have made it clear to PCTs that they should not withhold funding for treatments because Nice guidance is not available.’

4. COUNCIL TAX HIKES TO PAY FOR ENGLISH LESSONS FOR MIGRANTS

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=461874&in_page_id=1770

Council tax will rise to pay for Labour’s push to teach immigrants to speak English, town hall chiefs fear. They believe the costs of the scheme, backed by Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly, are likely to fall on local taxpayers. Miss Kelly’s Commission on Integration and Cohesion is today expected to support the idea of encouraging new migrants who speak no English to abandon their home languages in the interests of integration. But a behind-the-scenes row is rumbling on over who will foot the bill. There are fears that local councils will have to find the cash. This would increase the burden on council tax payers – whose bills have almost doubled since Labour came to power. Local government leaders have complained that ministers have frozen the money Whitehall spends on the colleges which run courses in ‘English as a second language’. The move means that in future most working migrants will no longer get lessons free. Instead they will be asked to pay up to £100 a week for English courses. Miss Kelly has suggested that councils could find money to pay for the teaching by cutting back on the estimated £50million spent on translation services for migrants. She says these help them to avoid using English. The report from the Commission is also likely to suggest that businesses should pay for English lessons for immigrants they employ. It will also put the final nail in the coffin of the doctrine of multiculturalism by calling for an end to public funding for groups catering to different ethnic communities. Ministers will break with decades of support for such funding by backing the move, according to Government sources.

5. LIFE GETTING TOUGHER FOR ELDERLY PEOPLE, REPORT WARNS

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/publicservices/story/0,,2101929,00.html

More than a quarter of elderly people say their quality of life worsened in the past year and one in five is living in poverty, according to a charity report released today. Help the Aged's annual report found elderly people are struggling with neglect, ageism, financial hardship and isolation. Nine out of 10 surveyed said their situation had not improved over the past 12 months, and 28% felt it had worsened. The report, Spotlight on older people in the UK, also revealed that more than a fifth of older people were living in poverty, with 11% in severe poverty. Worries about money led 20% of older people to avoid heating their bedroom, living room or bathroom, the survey found. Paul Cann, the charity's director of policy, called the findings outrageous. ‘Far from being people's twilight years, this report shows the reality of growing older in the UK is much darker. It is absolutely outrageous that people's lives are getting worse or not improving as they get older,’ he said. ‘The number of people aged 65 years and over is expected to rise by nearly 60% in the next 25 years.

There is no excuse for anyone, least of all the government, to be oblivious to the issues facing older people. ‘If steps are not taken to enable people to carry on working and saving, to improve public health, and to ensure that adequate social care is available for those who need it, growing numbers of people will be blighted by disadvantage in older age. With so many older people already leading unfulfilled lives, there is no time to lose.’ The report comes as elderly ensemble The Zimmers are rising in the music charts with their version of My Generation, released to help highlight the problems that older people face. Of the 1,095 adults aged 65 and over surveyed, nearly three-quarters (73%) said discrimination exists in their everyday lives. While excess winter deaths have fallen by almost a fifth, the study warned that 1.25 million pensioner households across the UK are suffering from fuel poverty. Nearly half (47%) who are entitled fail to claim council tax benefit and one in three pensioners on the lowest incomes spends more than 10% of their income on council tax. The report also found that more than one in ten older people (13%) are often or always lonely, up from 8% last year. An estimated 739,000 people - or 7% of the elderly - do not get out of the house more than once a week. Elderly people also are struggling to get healthcare services, with as many as one in 10 finding it difficult to get to their GP or hospital. Help the Aged is urging the government to remedy the long-term neglect of older people, starting with legal changes to outlaw discrimination. It is also lobbying for a commitment to end pensioner poverty and for the automatic payment of benefits to all entitled to them.

6. RECAPTURED FOREIGN CRIMINALS MISSING AGAIN!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/14/ncrims114.xml

Four of the serious criminals in the foreign prisoners scandal who were re-captured have gone missing again. The offenders who have vanished include a child sex offender. All four were granted bail by the courts against the wishes of the Border and Immigration Agency (BIA). But news of the latest blunder is hugely damaging to the Home Office, which has been keen to reassure the public that it has a grip on the fiasco which led to the sacking of former home secretary Charles Clarke in May last year. The missing paedophile was believed to be a man in his early 20s who indecently assaulted a girl under 16. The three other criminals who have disappeared were from a slightly lower category of offending, convicted of crimes such as violent crime and other sex offences. The absconders were among the 1,013 foreign offenders released from jail in England and Wales without being considered for deportation. An update from BIA chief executive Lin Homer revealed that only 214 of the 1,013 have so far been deported, more than a year after the situation first came to light. And nearly 150 offenders have not yet been traced. ‘We are being assiduous in looking for them and the files will remain open,’ Ms Homer said. ‘We are looking for them, the police are looking for them and we have used other people's information such as public sector data. ‘They have not put their heads above the parapet which indicates they are probably no longer in the country.’ The four absconders were re-captured after news of the errors emerged, but the courts refused the Home Office's application to return them to detention and granted bail. Ms Homer said: ‘They were found, they were bailed and we opposed bail.’

7. POLISH LESSONS FOR AIRPORT STAFF

http://iccoventry.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100localnews/
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Workers at Coventry Airport are being given a crash course in Polish so they can greet thousands of eastern Europeans due to arrive in the city. Cafe staff, check-in workers and other teams who come into contact with passengers are being given lessons in the language. It coincides with the launch of flights to and from Katowice in Poland from July 13. The service will be run three days a week by flight operator Wizz Air. About 6,000 Polish people live in Coventry and the flights are expected to prove popular with their friends and relatives and also with new people moving to Britain. Workers are looking forward to their new language lessons, which will include: ‘Witamy w Coventry’ (Welcome to Coventry) ‘Dzien dobry’ (Hello) and ‘Paszport’ (Passport). Carole Taylor, who works in the cafe, said: ‘I am quite pleased about it. ‘It will be another feather in my cap and it will be nice to be able to speak to the customers in their own language. ‘I doubt by the end we will be able to have a full-blown conversation but we should be able to say the key phrases at least. Language has been a barrier in the past.’ Customer services assistant Lucy Woodward also believes learning Polish will be beneficial. She said: ‘I'm hoping the basic words will be easy to pick up. ‘We have been told we will be able to have follow-up lessons for those people who pick it up quickly. ‘We want all our passengers to have a good experience, so it is good that we will have more language skills.’ The lessons will be run by Hanna Maranska through Tile Hill Wood School and Language College. Its pupils recently visited the airport to learn about the life of cabin crew.