NHS rescue call for Hinchingbrooke as Circle Health withdraw

17:09 Tuesday 10th February 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

CHRIS MANN: The first privately managed NHS hospital in the country has just applied for a £9.6 million Government bailout. Last month you may remember the health care company Circle announced it was pulling out of a ten year contract to run the hospital, just hours before the release of a Care Quality Commission report, which found the facility to be inadequate. This afternoon the hospitals Board of Directors held its first public meeting since that damning report. In a moment or two I’ll be getting reaction from a union representative and also a consultant in health care, but first of all our reporter Heather Noble is with me. Heather’s got the background to the story first of all.
HEATHER NOBLE: Yes. On 9th January Circle said its franchise was no longer viable under the current terms, and that it would end the deal by 31st march. Under the terms of its contract Circle retained the right to end the franchise, if the amount of money it put into the Trust exceeded £5 million, a sum which the spokesman said had been reached. The same day the Hospital was placed in special measures, following a Care Quality Commission inspection. The health watchdog rated Hinchingbrooke as inadequate, highlighting particular concerns over Accident & Emergency and medical care.
CHRIS MANN: So the Board of Directors holding its first public meeting today. What happened?
HEATHER NOBLE: Well we heard that Hinchingbrooke on Circle’s departure will be left with a deficit for this financial year of between £7 million and £12 million. Circle said it’s saved the taxpayer £23 million. It’s made 5% savings each year as planned. But with high A&E admissions and reduced funding the Trust now needs further investment. It applied to the NHS Trust Development Authority for £9.6 million.
CHRIS MANN: And what was said about the staff today? Because of course they did come under fire didn’t they in the CQC report Heather, don’t you think? (technical hitch) OK we’ll get more on that a bit later on. That was Heather Noble with that report. Let’s now get reaction to that from two guests that we have for you now. Let’s bring in Jo Rust from the union Unison. hello Jo.
JO RUST: Good afternoon.
CHRIS MANN: And it’s Michelle Tempest, who’s a consultant at Candesic the health care consultancy. Hi Michelle.
MICHELLE TEMPEST: Hello. Pleasure to be on Chris.
CHRIS MANN: Jo first of all, obviously great concern amongst the staff there. Were they criticised today, do you know?
JO RUST: Sorry would you repeat that. You phased out.
CHRIS MANN: Were staff criticised today and in the report? Continue reading “NHS rescue call for Hinchingbrooke as Circle Health withdraw”

David Cameron calls for pre-election private sector pay boost

09:23 Tuesday 10th February 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: When was the last time you had a payrise? Well never fear, because DC David Cameron is urging business leaders today to give their staff payrises. He will say that economic conditions have not been this good for such a long time. Well with us this morning to discuss what David Cameron has had to say about this is Darren Fower, LibDem Parliamentary candidate for Peterborough. Morning sir.
DARREN FOWER: Good morning Paul.
PAUL STAINTON: We’ve got Daniel Zeichner with us as well. He’s the Labour Parliamentary candidate for Cambridge. Morning Daniel.
DANIEL ZEICHNER: Morning Paul.
PAUL STAINTON: And Vicky Ford, who’s the Conservative MEP for the East of England. Morning Vicky.
VICKY FORD: Morning.
PAUL STAINTON: He’s set the cat among the pigeons hasn’t he, DC this morning? We’re all going to get a payrise. I’m looking forward to it Vicky.
VICKY FORD: Oh well, it is the case that we are now the fastest growing economy in the Western world, and that’s all due to the Long Term Economic Plan working. And I think people would like to see pay rise, and this is the Prime Minister encouraging businesses to realise that the situation is looking better than it’s done for a while. And if they can afford to, let’s put some of that money back in people’s pockets.
PAUL STAINTON: Is he going to lead by example and put pensions up for pensioners,. give them a payrise?
VICKY FORD: This is looking at the private sector, not the public sector.
PAUL STAINTON: Oh right.
VICKY FORD: Because of course the public sector, you know, we still need to keep working on this debt and deficit, and correcting that mess that we were left behind by the last Government. So this is saying to the private sector, to businesses, growth is coming. They’ve done a good job. We’ve got two million more new jobs created by businesses. We’ve obviously given people a tax cut. 27 million people have benefited for that tax cut. That’s at the lowest end of pay.
PAUL STAINTON: But if things are so good Vicky, why doesn’t he practice what he preaches?
VICKY FORD: Well he is saying now it’s time for the private sector to also deliver on giving benefits. He has practiced what he’s preaching in that he has put the money through his low taxes into 27 million pockets. So your pay slip is looking better at the bottom line. But he’d like the businesses to start making it look better at the top line.
PAUL STAINTON: Good news Daniel, isn’t it, that the economy is doing so well? Good news that we can all afford as a small business, medium business, to give our employees a payrise apparently.
DANIEL ZEICHNER: Well the hypocrisy is just breathtaking, isn’t it? Cameron is the boss of millions of workers in this country, National Health Service workers for instance. And has he even followed the advice of his own independent pay review body? Not at all. So what he’s doing is he’s ambling out of his champagne reception from last night, wandering along to the Chambers of Commerce, and just basically saying to Britain’s hard working business leaders, you should do it. I’m not prepared to do it. And don’t forget that people are now something like £1600 a year worse off. This is going to be the first time that people have gone into a General Election worse off than at the last election. We’ve got 1.4 million people on zero-hours contracts. Frankly Cameron is not going to deliver on any of this. It’s just a pre-election speech, and I hope people will see through it.
PAUL STAINTON: We’ve spoken to the Chairman of Cambridgeshire’s Chamber of Commerce, John Bridge. He can’t come on this morning because he’s actually at the conference and just taking his seat. But he says he’d “prefer the Government to keep their opinions to themselves and focus on bringing in investment and developing growth. many businesses can’t afford pay rises at this time, so to recommend them isn’t very wise.” Darren Fower, where’s the LibDems? Stop him. I thought that was what you were doing. You were reining him in. Continue reading “David Cameron calls for pre-election private sector pay boost”

Government passive as banks connive at tax avoidance

09:25 Monday 9th February 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: Has enough been done to clean up the banking industry? First it was bankers’ bonuses. Now it’s emerged banks have actually been helping clients cheat the country out of millions of pounds in tax. BBC1’s Panorama programme has seen details of thousands of accounts from HSBC’s private bank in Switzerland which show bankers helped some clients evade tax altogether, and offered deals to help tax dodgers stay ahead of the law. The details which were from 2007 were leaked by a whistleblower. HSBC admits some individuals took advantage of bank secrecy to hold undeclared accounts, but it says it has now fundamentally changed the way it does business. Here to explain what happened in detail is Justin Urquhart Stewart from Seven Investment Management. Justin good morning.
JUSTIN URQUHART STEWART: Good morning.
PAUL STAINTON: Just take us through the highlights here, or the lowlights if you like, of what happened.
JUSTIN URQUHART STEWART: Very lowlights. Well we go back to the days in that particular time when a lot of the banks, particularly the faux private banks, ie the clearing banks who put a smart label on the front and said we’re now a private bank, went out and bought other little banks. And they bought this one called Republic, another called Safra. And both of those did have a slightly suspicious reputation for (unclear) looking after high net worth people’s money. And of course these banks were then bending over backwards to offer anything and everything to these people, just to get hold of their assets. And this is where you get into the murky world of trying to give people advice on tax. Are you trying to avoid tax, which is legal, or are you trying to evade tax, which is illegal? But even if you’re trying to avoid them, is that socially responsible, the right thing to do? I think most of us would actually turn round and say no it’s not. But none the less, and now we’ve gone and got the records coming out, which actually show they weren’t just avoiding tax, but actual specific measures were being taken to help people evade, illegally, doing so. So the next stage after that is, and it’s been going on for some time, HSBC, which is a very reputable bank, has taken action, and probably has cleared all of this up. But you can see now by the fact this makes such a noise when a whistleblower leaks the documents, that actually it’s the confidence that needs to be returned. And this is really important to Britain, because actually financial services, in fact all the financial services including accounting, legal work and things like that, it’s worth £55 billion of our exports over a year. So we need to be seen to be acting properly, and to be operating so that people will actually start trusting us.
PAUL STAINTON: And without this whistleblower, would we have ever known? That’s the question, isn’t it?
JUSTIN URQUHART STEWART: Well it is. The answer is we knew the underlying issues in terms of there were concerns over the banks, but the actual sheer scale of this is quite remarkable. The answer is we would never have known that. And I think this is then going to cast the light onto other banks as well, to see what’s going on. Because it’s still not perfect now. What you will find is an awful lot of those same private banks have either shut down, reduced, got rid of a lot of their clients, and actually said they’re not giving advice at all. It’s gone diametrically the opposite way. But have they actually made sure it won’t happen again? Well it remains to be seen. The problem is with someone like Switzerland, if you than say well let’s have an agreement with Switzerland to make sure that this doesn’t happen, everything gets declared, then the dirty money goes elsewhere. And this isn’t just dirty money in terms of actually just people trying to put away a few pounds. Some of this could be related to terrorism, to ISIS. We know they’re very sophisticated with their financial controls, drug money and things like that. So this a crime. The fact that it’s a white collar crime is irrelevant. And we’re far too polite in this country about white collar crime. If it’s a crime, then the police should turn up, you’d be stuffed in some handcuffs and carted away, just as you see in the States, to humiliate and embarass people, and realise that this should be taken very seriously, and it’s not a matter of saying well no-one’s actually lost anything here. Yes they have.
PAUL STAINTON: Trouble is they’re not being carted off, are they? Eleven hundred people were identified here from this information. One, one person prosecuted.
JUSTIN URQUHART STEWART: It is pathetic. And so we need to have a regulator which is going to be not just baring teeth, but using those teeth. We need better international regulation. But it’s all very well asking for that regulation, because if you don’t say well let’s shut down the deals we’ve got with Switzerland, then it goes off to somewhere else. It goes to the Cayman Islands. It goes to another place. So you’ve always got to try and make sure to try and have an international arrangement. But in my view, and certainly when I went to business school donkeys years ago, we were always taught we had three people we had to serve. One was the client. Two was that awful work stakeholder, the people involved in the business, the staff, the shareholders. And three, society. So actually you do have that awful phrase of moral compass. You do actually have a duty to behave properly. And if that means actually telling people that you should be paying tax, not avoiding tax, then that’s probably the right way to behave. But at the same time you have to bear in mind that that is perfectly legal. It’s the evasion that’s illegal.
PAUL STAINTON: Richard Brooks is with us as well, former HMRC investigator and author of the Great Tax Robbery. He features in tonight’s Panorama programme. Richard, very kind of you to join us this morning. Thank you. I read somewhere the other day that there’s ten times as many people investigating dodgy benefit claims as there is dodgy tax affairs. Is that true? Continue reading “Government passive as banks connive at tax avoidance”

State of the Nation

10:10 Thursday 5th February 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: Albert in *****. Morning.
ALBERT: Morning.
PAUL STAINTON: How are you?
ALBERT: All right thank you.
PAUL STAINTON: A bit of background here. Albert is 90, aren’t you? An ex-soldier Albert.
ALBERT: That’s right.
PAUL STAINTON: But very angry this morning.
ALBERT: I’m always angry.
PAUL STAINTON: What are you angry about now?
ALBERT: What am I angry about? People voting.
PAUL STAINTON: Oh? Go on.
ALBERT: People don’t vote because it’s their act of rebelling against things that go on in our world. It’s an awful world we live in mate really. You can’t go out onto the streets today without worrying about whether you’re going to get bombed or if your head is going to be cut off. Traffic is awful. Everything around it is awful. There’s a lot of nice people in this country, but unfortunately they don’t run it. Everybody has a right to moan and groan and whatnot. Voting is optional, and it should be always optional.
PAUL STAINTON: People died for this right. People died for it Albert.
ALBERT: Yes I know they died for it. They died for peace on their streets. They died for not rents going up. There’s youngsters coming onto the market today that cannot and never will be able to afford houses.
PAUL STAINTON: But you can’t change it if you don’t vote.
ALBERT: If you vote it doesn’t change. Be honest with us. I look around and as I say I’m 90, and sometimes I think to myself Albert, ain’t you lucky. You come out of the war and what have you done. What’s happened. What have they done for us?
PAUL STAINTON: Are you proud of the country you fought for?
ALBERT: I’m proud of this country, and I’d fight for this country. But if I was asked to fight again, I would say who am I fighting for, and what object am I fighting for? If we go through wars, the First World War was unnecessary. The Second World War was necessary. All the other wars were debatable. If you go into the army, you expect to fight for your country, but you don’t expect to fight for other countries that don’t even fight for themselves.
PAUL STAINTON: If you’d known how things were going to end up would you have gone to war?
ALBERT: No. No I would not. I would not. And the poor families that have to suffer at the end of it and say to themselves, what did I sacrifice my son for? What did I sacrifice my husband for? What did I sacrifice my daughter for? To come home and see the streets in some countries in the world absolutely obliterated. I’m so angry I can’t even speak. The bombers that come over and bomb everything.
PAUL STAINTON: But we’re still here Albert. It’s not all bad Albert. There are some great people out there. There are some great days that we’re having surely.
ALBERT: There are a lot of great people out there, but they don’t run the world, and they don’t run the country.
PAUL STAINTON: The wrong people are in charge Albert.
ALBERT: Exactly.
PAUL STAINTON: Say hello to Sally from ***** Albert.
SALLY: Hello Albert.
ALBERT: Hello Sally. How are you love?
SALLY: Fine thank you very much. Yes.
PAUL STAINTON: I think between you you’ve got about 170 years of experience here.
SALLY: Well that’s wonderful. We could use it, couldn’t we?
PAUL STAINTON: Yes.
SALLY: It needs to be used.
ALBERT: Oh yes. We’ve been to eighty different countries. Lucky enough to go. And we’ve seen people, Thailanders, Siam and that, where people smile. Got nothing, but smile. That’s the world I’d like to live in.
PAUL STAINTON: Sally, you don’t vote anymore do you?
SALLY: No I don’t vote any more.
PAUL STAINTON : Why? Continue reading “State of the Nation”

South Cambridgeshire 2020 Vision

17:11 Wednesday 4th February 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

CHRIS MANN: Plans for how South Cambridgeshire District Council’s services will be financed when all Government grant funding ends in five years time have been published this afternoon. The Government grants the Council receives to deliver services will be cut to zero by 2020. With savings in the region of £670,000 needed in this next financial year, that’s 2015/2016, to balance the books, there’s a lot of work to be done. I’m joined in the studio now by Simon Edwards, who is the Deputy Leader of South Cambs District Council. It’s a big ask.
SIMON EDWARDS: It is a big ask Chris, and this budget really is very different to previous budgets, because this one is all about vision, and I like to call it my 2020 Vision. I know it’s an overused phrase, but for the first time we can now see on the horizon of our five year strategy, in 2020 we will have virtually no, in fact we’ll have no revenue support grant from the Government.
CHRIS MANN: I know you said in a statement earlier that you need to innovate and generate your own income. So what ideas have you come up with? Continue reading “South Cambridgeshire 2020 Vision”

Anglian Water bills coming down and staying down

11:43 Tuesday 3rd February 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: Yesterday we were asking why energy prices haven’t fallen in line with the falling cost of oil. Today gas and electricity firms have been hammered by Which magazine who say they’ve not passed on the sharp fall in wholesale energy prices, and they could have helped families save £145 over the past year. Well, there’s a chink of good news this morning regarding many of our water bills. Anglian Water have announced their charges will drop by 7%. The average annual bill will drop by £29. Emma Staples is from Anglian Water. Emma Morning. Why the drop now?
EMMA STAPLES: Well we’ve been planning this next five year period for what seems like a lot longer than two years. But about two years ago we spoke to around 50,000 customers to ask them what was really important to them, how they wanted us to spend their money. And we’ve based this plan, over the next five years, on that feedback. So it’s a balancing act between keeping bills as low as we can, and investing in the areas that are important to people, things like reducing leakage, protecting the environment, reducing the risk of flooding. So this has been a long time in the making, but today we’re able to say what the bill reduction will be including inflation. So people really know what things are going to look like in terms of what’s coming through the letterbox.
PAUL STAINTON: Yes. You mentioned leakages, which are a particular problem in Peterborough, aren’t they? Continue reading “Anglian Water bills coming down and staying down”

Lisa Forbes and John Bridge on Ed Miliband and big business

09:25 Tuesday 3rd February 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: Let’s get a recap of this story about Ed Miliband this morning from our political commentator Chris Moncrieff. Ed’s fallen out with business. Business leaders saying he’s a throwback to the ’70s. We’ve got Lord Rose having a go at him. Several other business leaders. In Cheshire the former boss of B&Q. Sir Nigel Rudd the Chairman of Heathrow. We had the guy running Boots yesterday. This all after Ed Miliband accused some businesses and their leaders of not paying their taxes. I mentioned Chris Moncrieff is with us, political commentator. Morning Chris.
CHRIS MONCRIEFF: Morning.
PAUL STAINTON: Where’s all this come from?
CHRIS MONCRIEFF: Well it’s 93 days to go to the General Election and yet Miliband and the British industry’s leaders, captains of industry, seem to be already involved in a savage war of words. It emerged from nothing, with Boots boss having a go and saying that a Labour victory would be a catastrophe. And Ed Miliband hit back, saying well he lives in Monaco and he’s not paying his taxes. And other industrial leaders have fallen into line and come to the defence of the Boots man, saying this is an unfair personal attack, and that Miliband is playing the man, not the ball.
PAUL STAINTON: Well Lisa Forbes is with us as well. She’s Peterborough’s Prospective Labour Party candidate. Morning Lisa.
LISA FORBES: Morning Paul.
PAUL STAINTON: Playing the man, not the ball?
LISA FORBES: I don’t agree. I just think this goes to the heart of what’s fair and unfair. You and I Paul, we have to pay our taxes. If you’re a self employed person and you don’t pay your tax, then the full weight of the law will come down onto you. And I think people just don’t understand, at a time of austerity and we’re trying to cut the deficit,  that these companies are allowed to get away with paying billions in profits into the tax system in this country.
PAUL STAINTON: Well they do employ five, ten thousand people at a time, don’t they? I’m Mr Small Businessman. I don’t, do I?
LISA FORBES: No you don’t, but if we could create more jobs by getting this money in, we could invest in our infrastructure. We could invest in our NHS. We could pay people a living wage, and we could bring the deficit down fairly in that way. And I think that this is what this is about at the end of the day. It’s about fairness. It’s about people feeling that they’re struggling while companies are being allowed to get away with paying billions in tax.
PAUL STAINTON: Well representing the interest of businesses across Cambridgeshire and the Chief Executive of the Cambridgeshire Chamber of Commerce, John Bridge. John, morning.
JOHN BRIDGE: Yes good morning Paul.
PAUL STAINTON: Welcome to the spat. Welcome to the fall-out? This is not good. A prospective Prime Minister falling out with just about every head of business there is. Continue reading “Lisa Forbes and John Bridge on Ed Miliband and big business”

OFGEM regulation failing the consumer

10:29 Monday 2nd February 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: We’re also talking about energy, and asking whether or not the Big Six energy companies are cashing in on the falling cost of oil. Now according to energy watchdog OFGEM they are. It says the Big Six are not passing on savings from the falling price of oil to customers. The Big Six have promised to lower their prices over the coming months, but experts say they’ve nowhere near gone far enough. So are you left feeling cold by the 2015 energy price rip-off? And what can be done about it? Well joining us now is the Labour Parliamentary candidate for Cambridge Daniel Zeichner. Daniel morning.
DANIEL ZEICHNER: Hi Paul.
PAUL STAINTON: Labour of course, the party offering price freezes if they win the next election. And also with us is Peter Thom from Green Heat in Girton, who are specialists in home energy efficiency. Morning Peter.
PETER THOM: Morning Paul. How are you?
PAUL STAINTON: I’m very good. Daniel first of all if I may, you’re being blamed, aren’t you, the Labour Party, for some of these companies not reducing their prices? Apparently they’re scared of the effect that your cap might have if you win an election.
DANIEL ZEICHNER: That’s what they’re saying. And of course they would say that, wouldn’t they? I think the evidence from OFGEM is absolutely clear. The Big Six haven’t been passing on the savings. And the longer term issue is how do we actually change the market so it works more effectively. And that’s the second half of our plan really. It’s not just a price freeze. It’s about making sure there’s more transparency. because at the moment these companies have some very complicated procedures, which make it very hard to actually find out what they’re charging, and where their costs are going. And they claim not to be making profits, but actually everybody knows they are. So it’s actually about changing the way the system works in the longer terms that’s probably the more important thing. And as you’ve got Peter on the line, I’m sure he’ll agree that the really really big goal is actually to use less energy in the first place. And the massive gain would be if we can improve particularly the efficiency of many of our homes, which I’m afraid at the moment are still quite inefficient.
PAUL STAINTON: Peter, John the Hippy, he’s got a very eco-friendly home. He was saying earlier that he never worries about it. It costs him £700 a year. He’s got his heating on all the time, 20° to 23° on all three floors, and his basement. And when anyone decides to buy a car, say £10,000, and use it, instead of buying that car, use that £10,000, get some solar panels and improve your home. Continue reading “OFGEM regulation failing the consumer”