Labour politicians in Northumberland have expressed outrage as it emerged that the former Liberal Democrat administration which was supported by Northumberland’s Conservatives planned to join up with then Conservative led North Tyneside Council to ‘flog public services North of the Tyne’

Labour reveal true cost of ConDem £4billion privatisation plans for the ‘North of Tyne’ public services

‘Time for Northumberland Liberals and Conservatives to admit they were wrong over ‘Impower Report’ and to apologise to the thousands of council employees who lost their jobs under ConDems’.

Labour politicians in Northumberland have expressed outrage as it emerged that the former Liberal Democrat administration which was supported by Northumberland’s Conservatives planned to join up with then Conservative led North Tyneside Council to ‘flog public services North of the Tyne’. They’re pointing to misleading claims made at the time by the member who was in charge of piloting the programme through the council as evidence of an ‘orchestrated attempt to mislead the public and employees’. Councillor Andrew Tebbutt who has been described as the ‘portfolio holder for privatisation’ issued a series of briefings based on the council funded ‘Impower report’. The briefings have been described as ‘misleading’ and ‘partial’.

It has now emerged that Northumberland and North Tyneside Council’s wanted to include Northumbria Healthcare Trust in the mass privatisation which would have been worth over £4billion and would have resulted in job losses between 1850 and 3500 council employees in Northumberland alone.

Northumberland Liberal Democrats identified 35 services which would have formed the first part of the huge mass privatisation and would have been completed in Dec 2013 if Labour had not formed an administration in May 2013.

Labour are pointing out that one of its most successful policies since that election in 2013 would not have possible under the ConDem privatisation plans as car parking would have been privatised and free parking would have been impossible to deliver. They believe that Conservative politicians should explain why they were promising free parking while seemingly supporting the privatisation of parking behind the scenes.

Labour have tabled a motion to Full Council on 3 Dec 2014 setting out the case for public services which are properly accountable to the people who use them and are not run for a private profit and are challenging Lib Dems and Conservatives in advance of the meeting to rule out any future plans to privatise services in the county.

Councillor Laura Pidcock who tabled the motion said

“North of the Tyne public services were being fattened up for privatisation under the previous ConDem coalition in County Hall. This £4billion plus contract would have given the private sector companies involved a yearly profit of over £40m with thousands of council jobs lost. The Lib Dems own figures said that the county’s private sector would lose 34 jobs for every 100 public sector jobs lost so this would have been a truly tragic double whammy for hundreds of Northumberland families. The Liberals and Conservatives have a chance to back our motion which would commit future council’s to halt any planned privatisation unless they made a detailed case to the county’s residents first. They have to show they’ve learned from their mistakes.”

NOTES FOR EDITORS

·         The suggested duration of the ‘partnership’ with the private sector was 10 years – therefore the total estimated value of the ‘contract’ to be tendered in March 2013 was (total x 10)

·         Total estimated 3^rd Party spend which was also due to be included in contract as evidenced in ‘Impower report’ was £295m per year

Service	Employees[1]	Gross 12/13 expenditure	Total income
ICT Services	97.00	£5,723,660	£545,750
Financial Services	165.23	£5,477,600	£415,080
HR & Employee Services	40.63	£1,041,240	£79,250
Front Office	199.24	£7,509,250	£1,599,300
Procurement	17.40	£654,580	£325,770
Property Services & FM	506.44	£13,897,740	£7,977,530
Transport	87.16	£8,889,240	£27,500
Highways & Engineering	267.00	£16,472,300	£330,800
Neighbourhood Services	263.52	£10,147,280	£1,409,330
Sub-total	1643.64	£69,812,890	£12,710,310
3rd party “addressable” spend[2]	0	£295,000,000	£0
Total	1643.64	£364,812,890	£12,710,310

 

 

First wave of privatisation under Lib Dems PG 9 - 93

ICT Services

1.         Information Service Group

2.         Information & Applications

3.         Infrastructure

Financial Services

4.         Head of Financial Services

5.         Transactions Management

6.         Accounts Payable

7.         Accounts Receivable

8.         Pensions Administration

9.         Council Tax and NNDR

10.       Benefits Service (excluding Fraud Investigations)

11.       Insurance Administration

12.       Cashiers

13.       Systems Administration (AP, AR, Employee Services)

14.       Revenues & Benefits Management

15.       Alnwick and Berwick databases

16.       Area Management

17.       Quality Assurance

18.       Business Systems

HR & Employee Services

19.       Employee Services (including Payroll)

Front Office Services

20.       Libraries

21.       Tourist Information Centres

22.       Customer Access Points

23.       Customer Services

Procurement

24.       Procurement Admin – Sourcing & Requisitioning

25.       Category management & Controllable 3rd Party Spend

Property Services & FM

26.       Property & Estates Services (excludes Land & Assets)

27.       Facilities Management

28.       Schools Crossing Patrols

Transport

29.       Fleet Management

30.       Parking

Highways & Engineering

31.       Highways Services

32.       Engineering Services

33.       Street Lighting

Neighbourhood Services

34.       Street Scene

             35.      Countryside

 

PUBLIC BODY	VALUE	TOTAL
Northumberland County Council represented by Lib Dems	£364,812,890 x 10 years	£3.65billion
North Tyneside Council represented by Conservatives	£26m x 10 years	£260million
Northumbria Healthcare Trust	£30m x 10 years	£300million
		£4.21billion

 

---

[1] Associated with the functions currently deemed in-scope

[2] This equates to 69% of the Council’s total 3^rd party expenditure

Cramlington’s own Laura Pidcock has a very important motion and debate underway in Northumberland County Council on why ‘privatisation of Northumberland’ is and was a bad idea. That will be debated on 3 Dec and we hope to see Daley and Flux at the meeting supporting the Labour motion.

What do your local ‘CONDEMS’ do for you?

After the last meeting of the Town Council – we know – it’s very little – we don’t doubt Councillor Daley’s passion for all things Cramlington but we’re sure that the very same Councillor Daley refused to vote for a motion that backed continued investment in the South East. We’d like to tell you the same about Councillor Flux but he’s gone missing.

The Labour agenda for the South East is very simple. We intend to support the area of Northumberland which is home to over 50% of the population and we intend to make sure towns like Cramlington get their fair share.

Compare with the culture of ‘abstention’ from your local ConDems who’re silent when the rural cousins like Councillor Peter Jackson, Tory MP Guy Opperman of Hexham and Tory wannabe MP Anne Marie Trevelyan of North Northumberland. We can forgive them their attempts to starve the South East – they want more for their areas in the rural hinterlands but what about Tories in the South East? What’s their excuse? Why do they stand idly by while their rural masters try to pick the pockets of more than 50% of the county’s population?

Answers on a post card please.

If their vow of silence wasn’t bad enough, Daley and Flux seem to have taken another vow. They’ve ‘abstained’ when it comes to speaking up for their area when national government comes calling. In an excellent piece of journalism which highlighted an excellent piece of research (here) the truth about ‘all in it together’

The report concludes that “a quarter of the lowest paid 10% have shouldered a particularly heavy burden, losing more than 5% of what would have been their income without the coalition’s reforms”. So ‘we’re all in it together’ wasn’t entirely accurate – the poorest workers shouldered the biggest burden while millionaires received tax cuts.

We’ve always believed in ‘incentives’ and we’ve got common ground with Daley and Flux we suspect on that but we’ve never been able to work out why you incentivise the poorest by reducing their income while the ConDems think that the reverse applies to the richest?

Maybe Daley and Flux could answer that one on a post card too?

Finally, Cramlington’s own Laura Pidcock has a very important motion and debate underway in Northumberland County Council on why ‘privatisation of Northumberland’ is and was a bad idea. That will be debated on 3 Dec and we hope to see Daley and Flux at the meeting supporting the Labour motion.

We’re sure they’ll want to distance themselves from the emerging evidence which shows how local ConDems wanted to ‘parcel up’ over £5billion worth of council services for ‘private sector asset strippers’. I’m sure they’ll want to distance themselves from the ‘Impower Report’ which set the former Lib Dem administration (backed in every budget by Peter Jackson’s Tories) on a path to privatise huge parts of the council and the NHS. The plan was to allow the private sector an opportunity to make a profit out of public services by reducing services, increasing charges and sacking between 1850 and 3500 council workers.

We’ve seen Northumberland’s Tories are describing Labour as a ‘tax and spend’ party because we’re proposing to increase council tax by 1.99% or by £23 per year for the average Band D property yet what Northumberland’s Tories aren’t keen on telling you is that they were in favour of a plan which would have seen services reduced and charges increased. The true test of the hypocrisy of Northumberland Tories is that they campaigned last year to introduce free car parking for their areas yet they were secretly planning to support the Lib Dems flogging off parking and transport to a private company which was advised by the Lib Dems themselves to – increase charges and reduce services.

The true test for Daley and Flux is to face up to the facts – they’re isolated from the interests of Peter Jackson’s rural Tories and the Labour agenda for the south east should be an agenda they should support. They can start on the route to representing the interests of their people in the South East on 3 Dec by supporting Laura Pidcock’s motion to back the hard work of the current Labour group in supporting services, stopping the ‘sale of the family silver’ and backing the South East against rural Tory attacks.

 

 

Cramlington Town Council spent an hour and a half debating a motion put forward by Labour group leader Coun Allan Hepple

Cramlington Town Council in debate over which political party does more for the south east

Nov 12, 2014

By Adam Luke
Evening Chronicle

Cramlington Town Council spent an hour and a half debating a motion put forward by Labour group leader Coun Allan Hepple

 Labour councillors in the south east of Northumberland have accused their local opponents of failing to stand up for their own wards.

Cramlington Town Council spent an hour and a half debating a motion put forward by Labour group leader Coun Allan Hepple, which criticising Conservatives, Lib Dems and Ukip across the county for ‘talking down’ the south east.

Responding to allegations from Tories, including Berwick’s Anne Marie Trevelyan and Hexham MP Guy Opperman, that Labour favours the south east at the expense of rural Northumberland, Coun Hepple challenged Cramlington’s Conservative councillors Barry Flux and Wayne Daley “to speak up for the south east against unwarranted attacks”.

Coun Hepple said: “It seems Couns Daley and Flux are quick to attack Labour for not doing enough in the south east, yet their Tory party colleagues seem to think Labour’s doing too much.

“They’ve been silent when Tories have lined up to talk the south east down and they’ve been silent when it comes to supporting projects like the Labour/NHS partnerships in Cramlington, hundreds of new council houses and affordable homes, tackling the scandalous 35,000 pot hole backlog and a series of projects which will see hundreds of jobs created.

“This is their chance to back the south east against their colleagues in the rural areas who seem to delight in setting community against community.

“Labour will continue to speak up for Northumberland and the south east in particular. It’s a shame that the Tories can’t seem to do the same.”

The motion, which was carried, stated that the south east accounts for more than half the total population of Northumberland, and that the area has been “severely disadvantaged” over decades as a result of de-industrialisation.

It added: “This council urges opposition councillors and activists to acknowledge the long standing difficulties faced by communities across the south east and to back Labour’s plans to invest in the south east and across Northumberland.”

Coun Daley argued that the debate should never have come before the town council. He added: “Many of the achievements Labour claimed responsibility for were actually carried out by central government, regional government or the previous County Council, and so they cannot take credit.

“I am 100% behind the south east of this county and there is no need for this political rhetoric.

“This was not an appropriate debate for a town council which should be focusing on cutting the grass and tidying up litter, not discussing decisions we cannot make.

“I feel the people of Cramlington will look at this and see that we wasted an hour and a half talking.”

Coun Daley put forward a counter motion supporting investment in the area but it was rejected.

After the meeting, Coun Jeff Reid, county member for Plessey and leader of the county’s Lib Dem group, said the administration he led before the last election had started many of the projects Labour claimed.

Plans are ongoing to move Northumberland County Council’s County Hall from Morpeth to Ashington by 2018, despite widespread opposition from Labour’s opponents who have questioned the financial and practical benefits of the move.

 

REVEALLED – TORIES IN CRAMLINGTON REFUSE TO BACK SOUTH EAST NORTHUMBERLAND (WHICH INCLUDES CRAMLINGTON)

UPDATE

REVEALLED – TORIES IN CRAMLINGTON REFUSE TO BACK SOUTH EAST NORTHUMBERLAND (WHICH INCLUDES CRAMLINGTON)

At last night’s meeting of Cramlington Town Council a motion supporting investment in the South East of Northumberland put forward by Labour group leader and county councillor Allan Hepple was passed but only after local Tories led by County Councillor Wayne Daley refused to support the motion.

County Councillor Daley pledged his undying love for all things south east which we don’t doubt.

But the proof of the pudding is in the eating – he’s kept mum as his Tory colleagues in the rural west and north have attacked his beloved south east. He’s kept mum when Wansbeck Tories joined in the attack and he’s kept his ‘counsel’ as Northumberland Tories have called for less investment in the south east than anywhere else despite the South East accounting for over 50% of the county population.

We asked the question – what have Northumberland Tories got against the South East and Cramlington’s Tories refused to answer the call to arms.

It’s clear that Councillor Daley and Flux don’t have any say with their Tory colleagues but now they’ve refused to show they support their area.

We’re entitled to ask - when will they stand up for the area that elects them?

Labour in the South East will continue to invest in the area because it’s the right thing to do.

Councillor Daley said last night “this isn’t about party politics’ – WE AGREE WITH HIM – his own leader Peter Jackson, Guy Opperman, Anne Marie Trevelyan, Glen Sanderson, Wansbeck and Hexham Tories don’t seem to agree with him though.

They won’t stop Labour standing up for the South East. Something Cramlington Tories have refused to do.

 

WHAT HAVE THE TORIES GOT AGAINST THE SOUTH EAST?

The Tories want to stop Labours investment in the SE and only stand up for rural areas. They’re letting the SE down

WHAT HAVE THE TORIES GOT AGAINST THE SOUTH EAST?   THEY WANT TO STOP LABOUR’S INVESTMENT IN YOUR AREA THAT MEANS THE TORIES WANT TO û  The Tories tried to pull plug on the new hospital which means no new investment in the South East   û  Blocking investment in roads and pavements û  Stopping extra investment in grass cutting and street cleaning û  Scrapping plans to put more council jobs in communities like Cramlington, Blyth, Ashington, Morpeth, Hexham, Berwick, Alnwick by moving out of the ‘Albatross’ County Hall û  Scrapping plans to reopen the Blyth-Ashington-Tyne line û  Opposing plans to meet the savage cuts of £130m which protect services and communities like Cramlington û  Oppose the plan to make post 16 transport fairer by removing the ‘rural subsidy’ which meant kids in the South East subsidised travel to Edinburgh and Durham for a ‘small number’ û  Oppose the building of thousands of good quality council homes across Northumberland to tackle the scandal of a housing waiting list which has already been reduced by Labour by 25% in Labour’s first year û  Voted against Labour’s plan to tackle the scandal of the ‘pothole blackhole’ which stood at over 35.000 holes last year. Labour cleared the backlog in 1 year after 5 years of pothole inaction by Tories and Lib Dems when they ran the council û  Put forward a policy to privatise council services which would give residents no say in services and would put profit at the forefront of your services. Don’t forget the Tories supported the last Lib Dem administrations plans to flog off the council (and sell off County Hall in Morpeth) and scrap a further 1000 jobs to add to the 2000 already lost since 2009. û  Tried to derail Labour’s plans to protect services by entering into partnerships to share services with other local authorities. û  Put forward plans to split the rural North and West from the urban South East which would see council taxes triple, services reduced and huge job losses. THIS IS THE CLEAREST INDICATION THAT CRAMILINGTON AND WANSBECK TORIES HAVE NO SAY IN NORTHUMBERLAND TORY POLICY AND THAT RURAL TORIES LIKE JACKSON, OPPERMAN AND TREVELYAN ARE HAPPY TO CAST THEM ADRIFT THAT MEANS THE TORIES IN THE SOUTH EAST HAVE NO SAY OVER TORY POLICY MADE IN THE RURAL NORTH AND WEST FOR THE RURAL NORTH AND WEST – UNDER THE TORIES THE SOUTH EAST WOULD GET NOTHING Peter Jackson’s ‘no cheer’ Christmas message to the South East – 12 quotes for Christmas   Source 1 Week 1 http://www.berwick-advertiser.co.uk/news/local-news/all-news/politicians-call-on-arch-to-hold-public-meeting-1-3587786 û    2 http://guyopperman.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/guest-post-cllr-peter-jackson-we-need.html û    3 http://www.teamtrevelyan.co.uk/news/anne-marie-trevelyan-calls-action-berwick-town-centre-eyesores û    4 http://www.morpethherald.co.uk/news/county-hall-move-to-ashington-approved-1-6882251 û    5 http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/northumberland-county-council-committee-opposes-7826954 û    6 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-29524484 û    7 http://www.newspostleader.co.uk/news/local/county-hall-move-key-to-investment-claims-coun-davey-1-6883904 û    8 http://www.berwick-advertiser.co.uk/news/local-news/all-news/council-presses-ahead-with-its-plans-to-relocate-county-hall-1-3565278 û    9 http://www.thejournal.co.uk/news/north-east-news/northumberland-county-council-under-fire-6949574 û    10 http://www.berwickconservatives.com/news/conservatives-slam-white-elephant-county-hall-move-0 û    11 http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk/news/2.2978/taxpayers-will-foot-bill-for-labour-s-40m-folly-1.1163923 û    12 http://www.wansbeck-conservatives.com/news/senior-tories-taking-lead-against-county-hall-closure û