With 60% rise in long term unemployment and Internet providers joining the cost crunch rip off - Councils may have to take over job centres?

 

This absolutely abominable Government which has failed to deliver on its election promises and failed its unsuspecting electorate, driving 22% of the population into poverty and a further 16% living on the edge of working destitution now plans to slip anyone of working age caught in their poverty trap cage into the edge group to ensure their figures look good in the right-wing press.

The Government's latest neoliberal plan was announced by 

Work and Pensions Secretary Theresa Coffey, in it she stated that Universal Credit claimants will now be given just four weeks, rather than three months, to find a new job in their preferred field. After this time if they don't make "reasonable efforts" to secure any Job, or if they turn down any job offer, part of their payments will be withheld. The new approach, Ms Coffey said, "is a step change in our offer to claimants and employers, making sure

our jobcentre network and excellent work coaches can deliver opportunities, jobs and prosperity to all areas of the country".

This announcement has been met with heavy criticism from the Labour Party and the trade union movement who point out that this type of damaging attack on previously enjoyed rights is an attempt to illustrate a lurch towards the ultra right by the beleaguered Prime Minister who is 'clinging on to driftwood' in order to save his job.

In Northumberland a spokesperson from their Trades Council told us here at murky about the problems facing the unemployed and how 'work coaches' treat their clients. She said "The recent massive cut in universal credit payments  has forced claimants to look at their household spends differently and both mobile data and home Internet and phone line charges are being cut by families along with energy, fuel, tv, transport and food costs", "the current attacks on claimants by belligerent work coaches when they have no data available to make contact strikes fear among those who find themselves in the position of being out of work, as their benefits are stopped as soon as contact failure is recorded." 

An unemployed claimant who can't find reasonably priced childcare care to enable her return to a lower paid career than the one she told us had been stolen by the Tories handling of Brexit, said "for coaches, read slavers, as they are not interested in your personal plight only in the numbers game". I live in south-east Northumberland and have been offered job interviews without childcare 40ml away from where I live and there's no space in the work coaches mechanical hearts to complain" "I have recently lost my flat and if it wasn't for my gran my daughter and I would have starved"," its time local face to face contact was made with job centres and not data and dismantle mobile phone call centre grief". "Why does the Government not get local councils to run job centres, their staff who deal with housing and council tax benefit treat us as human beings and not shipped meat".

One of the biggest problems with Teresa Coffey' plans for the unemployed is with internet and mobile phone data charges. The lack of regulation from the Government has yet again failed to protect the majority of UK customers from obscene price rises which will drag domestic consumer inflation towards a real time 10% rise when abominable Council taxes, food, transport, NI and tax rises, and out of control energy inflation is added in.

Internet and mobile data providers have hoodwinked the public for years with an automatic inflation rise plus either 3 or 4% added each year with this years rises described as obscene with BT, EE, Plusnet and Vodafone up 9.3%, Talk Talk up 9.1% with Virgin Media contracts rising by £56 per year. Skay announced its massive rise in its lowest rate of TV charges, a rise of over 20% earlier this month with its new data and internet charges rising massively for those out of contract.

How can Theresa Coffey’s dreadful plan march onwards and upwards when so many obstacles are placed in the way of claimants due to the Tories policy on attacking those in greatest need?

Council to borrow £48m without a pledge for new 'Council Housing'

 

Plenty of cash for developers and the never-never land of shared
ownership schemes?

Northumberland County Council have announced a huge borrowing requirement of £48m+ they say its to bankroll affordable housing, primarily in rural and coastal areas in the West and North's beauty spots to help local people gain a foothold on the Housing ladder and offset the massive second home market that's developing County-wide.

This may look and sound very admirable, but that size of capital borrowing requirement uses the cash that should support the services the Council delivers on your behalf to pay the loans back and we here at murky would like to see the detailed reports that supported this scheme and set before the dodgy cabinet at County Hall to see how much will fall into the hands of developers and how much will be used to grow the estate of the currently under police investigation Advance Northumberland whilst your grass cutting, highways, social care, children's services and education are slashed to support the utopia of private home ownership in coastal and rural areas.

We are aware that as late as last month the Council's development arm, Advance Northumberland, forced up its affordable homes prices on its sites at Choppington and Ellington (were they tipped off this cash was forthcoming?) And their shared ownership scheme in the Port of Blyth may also benefit the Company greatly if they secure funding directly from their owners, the Conservative led Council.

We here at murky believe this level of cash would deliver in excess of 1300 Council houses in coastal and rural areas over five years. With the Council in full control of house types based on need as well as who and whom will be offered tenancies. Also services would not have to be slashed to support that level of new development for Council owned housing as repayments would be factored into the rents paid by tenants on a managed basis, ensuring any surplus built into rents would be used to maintain and improve the Council's current housing stock as the time period for 'decent homes 2' grows nearer each year, removing another borrowing burden from the taxpayers shoulders.

Our message to Northumberland Conservatives is: get a grip and stop cash being bled out of the Local Government system then deliver on true need not unattainable want at the taxpayers expense.

Unbelievable or are they? revelations about Northumberland Conservatives handling of your cash.

Councillor Georgina Hill from Berwick has openly admitted that she was conned into delivering reports to the Northumberland audit  committee, which she once chaired, that were maliciously written by Conservative Councillors and slipped through her committee. 

Today she put out a message on her social media page written with obvious joy that the Police are investigating those who tried to blacken her name. Here's her message:

 Georgina Hill, Berwick 

Northumberland County Council + Advance Northumberland 

At the NCC Audit Committee earlier today (26 minutes in), it is confirmed that there is a long-standing, ongoing police investigation into Advance Northumberland.

This is the cause of a delay in publishing a KPMG forensic audit report into the same.

Myself, and many others across the County, have had serious long term concerns about Advance.

 Are we finally going to get to the bottom of it ?

 Knowing how these things work, I am not holding my breath.

After five years of turmoil at Northumberland County Council following the Conservatives changing the Council's Arms length development company into a private company under the chairmanship or is that ownership? of a Morpeth Councillor, Richard Wearmouth, we may soon get to know exactly what went on behind closed doors and hopefully which developers walked hand in velvet glove with the group of Tories colloquially known as and referred to as the Morpeth mafia.

But receipt of the report from KPMG will probably become the catalyst and kick-start the arguments about where the Council should build its public gibbet, as the County is home to many who would like to knit and spit from a comfortable position on their crackets as Morpeth's dark regime is publicly finished off. Unfortunately for those whom the report will find guilty, the front row will be filled with their own split party colleagues.

Et tu, Ricardo!

 

'Sell your home to fund care?

Tories want you to sell it to fund heating!

It's been reported that the Exchequer are thinking of ways to help those in greatest need, heat their homes this year.

The Government's right-wing 'think sink' is in touch with Conservative groups nationwide and they have suggested giving a one off payment to elderly residents in the lowest rated homes via a cut in Council tax to localise criticism of this amazingly arrogant and damaging to local services extension of Austerity.

The problems with this system are manifold, as many people who bought their own homes 35 - 50 years ago and are now pensioners struggled through the massively high interest charge period and the failure of insurance companies to pay up on interest free schemes. This has left millions of pensioners living in  homes with rateable values higher than band A who are and will struggle with energy bills both now and into the future and may be forced to sell their homes to cover energy debt.

The 'think sink' scheme, primarily designed to damage Labour held cities as the recent funding experiences of the pandemic show how delays in repayments have resulted in Council reserves being exposed and limited and the system is being used as secondary austerity by Government.

Interestingly in Northumberland the largest supportive groups of Conservative voters live in homes which will be affected most.

Thanet and Northumberland?

 

First two found out, Government need to urgently look into 'bullygate' with as much vigour as 'partygate'

For a number of years rumours have abounded regarding Tory figures in local
government being entwined in a nationwide network of bullying and intimidation using ratepayers cash to rid their staff rostas of those officers who may lean towards professionalism and honesty ensuring they get what they want delivered where they want it not where it is needed.

Of course this type of rough governance can only go on for so long before it comes to a head. In Northumberland's case they lost their deputy leader the very experienced Councillor Wayne Daley through his being sickened by the mobsters among his party who famously bullied a number of female Councillors and officers in order that they 'knew their place'.

Thanet a Council allegedly linked to Northumberland by both the 'tentacles of hatred' and a brought in by the Tories section 151 officer (That's the person who controls how a council links legally with financial law), Thanet Council were forced into a 'bullygate review' aka a culture and governance procedural review after wasting public cash on compensating officers they had bullied out of their jobs.

https://theisleofthanetnews.com/2021/06/01/thanet-council-looking-at-whopping-733k-legal-costs-for-on-going-disciplinary-and-grievance-cases-with-247k-already-paid-out/

Although Thanet had in place a Grievance procedure which lined up with the Joint National Committee arrangements they still managed to breach their agreements and courts found them guilty on a number of occasions.

The wild-bunch of Councillors in Northumberland of course haven't got the protection of a grievance procedure in place and are now scrabbling around in the dirt to see whom they can blame for the £millions they have paid out to Council and Arch/Advance Northumberland officers they have professionally bullied for the last five years. They wrote the Council's safeguards out of their Constitution, the council's lead document in 2017.

Northumberland needs to undertake a 'bullygate' review ASAP to clear those Councillors innocent of any involvement in the acts of bullying officers and fellow Councillors and name and shame those who have fuelled the fires of hatred and fear among professionals simply doing their job.

The Government and the Local government Trade Unions then need to investigate how widespread this practise is in Tory Councils and who is involved and how far the 'octopussy' tentacles reach across the Country as it appears to involve a major misuse of public funds, their members wages!

https://theisleofthanetnews.com/2019/09/04/gmb-union-call-for-thanet-council-to-overhaul-way-of-dealing-with-bullying-complaints-against-top-officers/

This cost the Council a six figure sum:

https://theisleofthanetnews.com/2019/09/04/gmb-union-call-for-thanet-council-to-overhaul-way-of-dealing-with-bullying-complaints-against-top-officers/

And as late as last week Councillor Oliver of Corbridge, a former finance portfolio holder, asked at a Council meeting about compensation of £435,000 being paid to a different officer? 

*Section 151 of the Local Government Act 1972 requires local authorities to make arrangements for the proper administration of their financial affairs and appoint a S151 Officer, also known as a Chief Financial Officer (CFO), to have responsibility for those arrangements

Will Northumberland's 'barley barons' stop Council helping with Sajid's health levelling up plans?

 

While Northumberland County Council's right-wing Conservatives rush around trying to correct the Council's Constitution, aka 'the bully boys charter' rewritten completely from its (praised by the local government association in 2014) format by Councillor Oliver in 2017 alledgedly on the the instructions of Councillor Wearmouth, the regions top Tory, to back up his party's actions against staff and opposition Councillors. Actions which has already cost the public purse £millions in both compensation and gagging agreements, their own Government's health secretary Sajid Javid is attempting to undermine two of its three top Tories by suggesting that deprived areas get greater input towards the equalisation and therefore the leveling up of a Council's health inequalities.

It's a helpful statement from the Health secretary who was born apparently in a council house in Rochdale before his family embraced capitalism with a small c and opened a shop in Bristol.

From that background he will be well aware of the inequalities and as the only bright light in the current cabinet will also know that only the full commitment of Government can deliver what he would wish, as from his position as health Secretary he cannot hit the biggest driver of those inequalities, poverty.

Fiddling around the edges by explaining how the UK was the first country in the world to sponsor vaping on the NHS instead of 'fags' will not deliver people out of fuel, transport, child, food and housing poverty to name but a few. Even if the NHS under his control legalised 'ganja' his Chancellor mate from the Treasury department would tax the backside out of it to cover the losses electric vehicles will place on the Tory war chests as they try to keep ahead of Labour and the Lib Dems in the 'race for greenness' as their current Cabinet and PM has destroyed the Tory brand and even with a change of PM unless it is Sajid Javid the current cabinets habits of bleeding the UK's nations slowly to death through austerity will return with a vengeance.

In Northumberland the health Minister's words will fall on stony ground as both the current Leader of Council, Councillor Sanderson and the deposed former Leader, Councillor Jackson are both farming 'barley barons' their crops slip into the alcohol production market place at premium prices annually and data shows the heaviest drinkers in numbers terms live in the most deprived areas. 

Some chance of getting Northumberland County Council who are charged with the responsibility to protect public health to help then?, so it's best to leave them to get themselves into even more trouble trying to backdate a grievance procedure by five years to plough out the history of bullying in the County. Of course by exposing themselves to the public gaze of their unlawful activities when combined with their inability to deliver Best Value on behalf of the Counties residents over the same time period even more of the Conservative Councillors may consider crossing the floor to the honest side.

Bullying deniers show their true face on TV.

 

Northumberland secret Council held their most laughable series of meetings since May 2021 this week and this following last weeks most shambolic Council meeting ever held, where the Tories had to down tools and abandon their posts due to the problems caused by removing reference to the trade unions and therefore the Council's grievance procedure from Councillor Oliver's rewrite of the Council constitution, its prime document, in October 2017. An action which will cost the ratepayer dearly in the Council's forthcoming bullying case against them from their well bullied and damaged Chief Executive as it moves ever closer to an airing in court.

Their most recent 'comedy of errors'. A collection of classic area committee meetings were held across the county to discuss the Unitary Authority's forthcoming budget. Councillors, many of whom complained they had entered the £Billion budget process blind and were not furnished with either background papers or the budgetary road map report to enlighten their constituents as to the effects that these Tory Council's cuts from the 'shambolists'* will have on their daily lives.

The youtube videos showed how pathetic the Councillor in charge, one of the former Conservative leaders of the famously mismanaged Castle Morpeth District Council and now leader of one of the disparate Tory groups on the County Council, Councillor  Sanderson really is. His grimacing and lip biting antics were shown in full HD along with his face pulling and 'twistiness' as opposition members of Council asked questions of his majestic self, none of which he answered with glee.

The budget consultation which will effectively remove millions from services (although how much Sanderson couldn't answer) has had an instant response from the local health Trust who have decided to enlist 250 care workers and support families in their homes taking over the responsibilities for short term care from this pathetic Council. Making us here at murky believe that the Conservatives who broke away from the Council's joint care agreement with the local care trust last year must have chosen to slash budgets and back out of home care altogether, although the public won't get to know about it for another couple of months.

At the meetings his majestic self dropped his gaze as questions about charities, youth clubs and traditional elderly person day care slides were shown on the screens and as outsiders you could tell which Tories sit in Sandersons tribe and which sit in either the Cramlington splinter group and those still under the thumb  of Councillor Jackson the former deposed leader of Council who allowed his Councillors to run wild and free leading to the  production of false reports to the audit committee to damage the reputation of a leading independent Councillor who was asked to deliver those reports and of course the rewrite now proven to be broken, of the Council's constitution.

When the public get to know how they are to be affected by the savage cuts yet to be announced we're sure to hear the voices of disdain from the various Tory groups and the opposition Councillors will have a whale of a time when his majestic self breaks the news of his star item to spend the Council's massive trading profits on and the opposition asks the questions of 'why that'? When the County and its residents need so much help?

But let's ponder and guess what it won't be?

Social care and the elderly? Of course not, that's why the Care Trust has jumped early.

Communities and Community centres? Never.

Education? Do you need to ask, following the massive previous overspends damaging education in the West of the County.

Relieving deprivation and poverty? From a Tory council led by a farmer? 

Youth and crime prevention? Tut,tut.

County Hall in Morpeth? Have they not wasted enough on their five year refurbishment already?

Doesn't leave much, does it?, so the 'why that' noisy questions will be more valid than ever as the world moves forward leaving the constituents of the 'shambolists'* picking up the pieces which include the Rishi Sunak Tory gift of 7% inflation and the pressure on all jobs and services of the staff bullying cases nearing hearings in court and the further huge compensation bills those cases will cost the public but would a 'shambolist' or a majestic self worry, of course not, as just like their national leader they will simply give a grudging apology and forget the whole thing!

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/health/northumbria-nhs-social-care-plan-22727094?utm_source=linkCopy&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar

*'shambolists' a word becoming popular on blog sites to describe a group of people who regularly act in a shambolic manner.