New Dawn or another Pig in a Poke: the Spending Review

Dawn on 25 November

Our esteemed leaders

A splendid dawn had me rushing to find a camera, the red sky was indicative of ominous events. I spent most of the morning splitting logs for the winter ahead. I finished in time to listen and then watch the Chancellor deliver his Autumn Statement and spending review. George Osborne has acquired a confident style of delivery and reeled off an apparently impressive list of proposals that would invest in the country's future and eliminate the annual debt by 2020.

At times it was like the Four Yorkshiremen sketch by Monty Python, except that instead of each living condition being worse and less believable. each proposal was better but less believable. Oh yes and the Chancellor also displayed his newly acquired humility by backing down on his proposal to withdraw tax credits. This all was made possible by an apparent windfall of £27bn accredited to the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) that had revised its forecasts of tax take and lower interest payments on debt. So not real money but a gold-plated excuse to transfer the blame if things go wrong to the OBR.

The response to the speech by John McDonnell, the shadow Chancellor, was pre-prepared and as such failed to challenge the more mendacious proposals. He was increasingly hesitant as the hecklers from the Tory benches followed their script to disrupt him. It mattered not because, as we know from the days of Gordon Brown, it always takes a day or two to decode the budget and discover all the dastardly things that have been studiously excluded from or hidden in the Chancellor's speech. Increasingly we are more dependent on the think tanks to disassemble the blue book that contains the devil in the detail. The press and media no longer seem to have any more nous than the MPs in performing this role. The BBC's Laura Kuenssberg is always more interested in relaying Westminster gossip than analysing facts.

The savings on tax credits will be re-captured in future years as universal credit is rolled out, with the poorest assigned to suffer the brunt of the savings and at no cost to the wealthiest. The police were rescued from any further cuts, the NHS receives some of the budget growth that it requires and defence, security and prisons did quite well. It is no surprise, governments of all persuasions seem unable to resist the well-targeted lobbying by the security and defence establishment and cuts in health spending are taboo. This may be because Ministers responsible for these services are directly in the firing line if things go wrong. This is not the case where there is local democratic control, here the budgets can be chopped without qualms because the detailed decisions on cuts will be blamed on local politicians and organisations.

The issue that has been neglected in much of the subsequent analysis is the absolute devastation of public services in our local communities. The Chancellor is halving the local government central grant to Councils over the next four years. At the same time, he is letting them set their business rates so that they can "compete for economic growth". This might work well for the growing areas of the south-east but could be devastating for places like Scunthorpe and Middlesborough that have already been scuppered by the lethargy of Business Secretary, Sajid Javid.

The Chancellor's next trick was to allow a 2% increase in Council tax to pay for increased costs of social care. He claims that this will produce £2bn per annum which, as well as being insufficient to meet pent up demand by the increasingly frail and elderly population, is a grossly over-optimistic estimate of receipts according to Councils. The proposal is very much in line with the tendency of this government to pass the buck on the wicked issues. And, of course, the fact that any council tax increase is dedicated to social care means that there is no headroom to source alternative funding to replace the 56% cut in the central grant.

It is noteworthy that the Conservative chair of the Local Government Association (LGA), Lord Porter, has not exactly endorsed the autumn statement in his response.

"It is wrong that the services our local communities rely on will face deeper cuts than the rest of the public sector yet again and for local taxpayers to be left to pick up the bill for new government policies without any additional funding.

Even if councils stopped filling in potholes, maintaining parks, closed all children's centres, libraries, museums, leisure centres and turned off every street light they will not have saved enough money to plug the financial black hole they face by 2020."

The question is when will the electorate start to understand that the Chancellor's end game of reducing public expenditure from 47% in 2010 to 36% of GDP by 2020 is a momentous blunder. It has reduced local democracy to the role of a public liquidator. 

When communities realise the implications, and complaints about services from preschool to community care, from potholed roads to the closure of libraries, sports centres and community facilities reach a crescendo, the level of public indignation may even become discernible to the press and government.  The game will then be up for the Chancellor and the  OBR may no longer have the scope to deliver any more windfalls. But by that time George Osborne probably will be gone and the opprobrium for the problems made manifest by the Cameron government will be pointed at some other organisation such as the EU. 

Ben Venue by the Ledard Burn

Ben Venue 729m cairn from summit

Looking east: Ben Ledi, Loch Achray and Loch Venachar

Looking northwest over Loch Katrine to Cruach Ardrain and Stob Binnein

Icicles below summit

Beinn Bhreac in shadow and across to Stob Binnein

Looking down Ledard Burn towards Campsies and Dumgoyne

Sunday 22 November 2015

Ascent:     860 metres 
Distance:  12 kilometres
Time:        3 hrs 30 mins

Ben Venue          739 metres

After almost two months out of action, I awoke to a rare but beautiful winter's day: frost on the windows, blue skies, bare trees and not a whiff of wind. I decided to give my back a workout by a walk up Ben Venue starting at the Ledard Burn that runs into Loch Ard. I had made this climb on dozens of occasions but not recently. All the parking spots in the lay-by were taken so I drove to Kinlochard and walked back. I had deliberately left my phone, a map and anything else that would distract me from the walk, apart from a camera, at home. My longest walk in the last 6 weeks had been an hour and a half up and down Lime Craig and I felt that this might be too long and difficult a walk.

The start of the walk is along the short stretch of road leading to Ledard Farm. A gate to the left leads to a wooden footbridge and the path then climbs alongside the burn between confining fences and through a jumble of bramble shoots. The path is muddy at most times of the year and gaiters are essential in winter as boots regularly sink several inches into the brown stuff. You soon begin to climb through a native wood as the path meanders through the indigenous birch and oak trees. I happened upon a woman crouched down relieving herself as I rounded a bend, we apologised to each other and then realised that it was an untimely coincidence so engaged in friendly banter until we caught up with her companion, another woman carrying a massive 55-litre rucksack. She must have been subjected to carrying the equipment list from the Duke of Edinburgh's gold award with that sort of equipment.

The path through the forest continues for another kilometre and rises steadily, it seldom allows you to relax as it dips and rises and squirms through the dense birch wood. You emerge eventually onto the open hillside where the mud path disappears and gives way to a waterlogged grass slope. After a while, this reaches a crossing of the burn over some iron bars and leads to a high wooden stile over a deer fence. It follows the fence before taking a steeper turn up rough ground. The path serves as a drainage route for surface water that had gouged out a deep channel making progress a tiresome slog. About halfway to the bealach between Beinn Bhreac and Ben Venue is a small cairn where, feeling the effect of steady climbing after a long layoff, I needed to take a rest and a drink.

A couple that I had passed lower down the path came past as I slouched on the cairn and asked if I was alright.  Although I had been thinking that this was as far as I wanted to go it merely increased my resolve to continue. The ground had become frozen at this height and I regretted leaving my walking pole in the car. The recent heavy rains and snow had been frozen into ice patches on the path. I had caught up with the couple by the time I reached the fence at the bealach and I knew that there was no turning back from here. The views to the north over Loch Katrine opened up and I wanted to photograph the snow-capped peaks to the north.

The path is level for about half a kilometre as it traverses a slope and then rises over a couple of knolls. Stob Binnein and the Balquidder hills were a frieze of jagged snow-covered peaks etched against the azure sky. There is a descent to where the path from Loch Achray joins the ridge. Beyond here the path was covered in pillows of ice and watching other walkers struggle I elected to take a route to the left up steep grass banks. There are a couple more ascents and descents before the final climb to the summit. It was bare of walkers as I arrived so I found a bit of shelter to drink a flask of coffee before spending 10 minutes enjoying the panoramas and taking photos with my SLR that I had lugged up in anticipation of views like this. They are the very reason for hill walking and winter often provides the best views of all seasons.

I began the descent feeling chilled by the cold air, it begins to get colder from about 2pm on days like this. I avoided the frozen path and found a good route down through the more forgiving grass slopes. Another dozen or so walkers were on the ascent including some couples that I had passed on the ascent. There was no time to relax on the descent, when I reached the path that traverses back to the bealach it was necessary to stride gingerly along the sheet ice-covered path. After crossing the fence at the bealach it was easier to walk down the rougher ground than to slither and tumble on the icy path. I stopped at one of the sparkling burns to gulp down some water before crossing the stile and beginning the long slog through the birch wood. It seemed just as long as on the ascent so I was glad to finally reach the car in Kinlochard. It was 3:20pm so I had taken three and a half hours. It reminded me that Ben Venue is a serious hill in winter and that the days of running up it on a summer evening after work are no longer relevant as check times.

The worst of times

As I look at the impact of present government policies and actions on everyday essential local services I cannot help but be reminded of Dicken's introduction to the Tale of Two Cities. It could be easily adapted to present times.

"It is the worst of times, it is the age of foolishness, it is the epoch of incredulity, it is the season of darkness, it is the winter of despair, we have nothing before us, - in short, the present period is so far like the past, that some of its noisiest authorities insist on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative."

Not content with failing to reduce the national debt through his austerity measures over the past five years, George Osborne, the Chancellor, is now boasting that his spending review and autumn statement will reduce the growing debt in the next five years. "I can report to you that - with the support of my brilliant colleague Greg Hands, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury – we have reached a provisional agreement on the spending plans of four government departments: the Department for Transport, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Department for Communities and Local Government, and of course the Treasury. The resource spending, that is the day to day spending of those four departments, will be cut on average 8% a year for the next four years, that’s by 30% in total." Bravo Chancellor and have you thought through the consequences for people and places?

Greg Clark, the Secretary of State of Communities and Local Government has a similar myopia as his predecessor, Eric Pickles. He has aligned himself with the Chancellor, seemingly oblivious to becoming part of the curmudgeonly wing of ministers. Although he knows that local government cuts can be laid at the door of Councils; after all, it is up to them to determine their priorities! Has he no idea what damage has already been wreaked on Councils? 

Even his department acknowledges that there will be a 35% decrease in overall funding for local government services by 2019/20, despite council tax, business rates and charges increasing slightly. This reduction excludes Education, Social Care and Waste, which obtain separate funding streams or are protected. The department accepts that this magnitude of savings cannot be achieved by efficiencies and will require severe reductions in statutory services as well as the wipeout of many discretionary services such as libraries and leisure. These will impinge significantly on the quality of life, particularly of children and the dependent elderly.

The Tories may believe that Education is being transferred to Academies or Free Schools and that Community Care is an NHS function but this fails to recognise that local government has still the major responsibility for these vital services. They are protected to some extent but only at the expense of non-statutory services like sport, leisure, libraries, museums, play, youth work and many other services that enhance the quality of life. Meanwhile, roads and transport, business support, community facilities and urban regeneration are starved of investment. Our localities no longer have the resources or the capacity to provide the leadership that is essential for thriving sustainable communities.

Local Government has been treated with disdain by this and the previous coalition government. It is an easy target, unlike the NHS or Defence, where the backlash of any cuts is against the Government. Direct ministerial control means that these services are safeguarded from the swingeing cuts that are applied to local government. The consequences of perpetual harsh settlements are beginning to be realised by the electorate as well as the angry phalanx of activists in the arts, sport, environment and voluntary sector who see their facilities, projects and services wither away There is a clamour for the return of council housing as private landlords milk their tenants; town centres are in meltdown; the loss of sport, arts and other community facilities and services are being challenged.

Public services are not an optional extra but an essential part of the framework for living, working and playing. They certainly need to modernise and adapt but they cannot be junked in the way that the chancellor and his cohorts seem to believe. They are the 'powerhouse for improvement' as he seems to acknowledge to some extent in his Northern Powerhouse initiative. Although it would seem that this is a way of ditching some central government services onto local government without any extra resources for day to day spending. It just shifts the opprobrium for central government imposed cuts to local councils.

Osborne and Greg Hands have shown that they neither understand nor care what havoc will be wreaked by this squeezing of public services. It is of secondary importance, what matters is the reduction of the bottom line - this is how your political virility is measured. The PM has also shown how out of touch he is with local public services this week in an exchange of letters with the Conservative leader of Oxfordshire County Council, The PM wrote that he was "disappointed at the cuts in frontline services and urged the Council to make back-office cuts and sell off surplus property". The leaders' reply showed no remorse "That's already been done over the past 5 years, along with a 40% reduction in the most senior staff.  That is why the Council have had to heavily prune libraries, museums, play areas, parks along with children's centres and services for the elderly."

Oxfordshire County Council like many other Conservative Councils in England has local leaders who understand the suffering caused by the reality of five years of imposed austerity. They have had a devastating effect on local services and incurred a massive shedding of jobs.  It is relatively painless for Whitehall to agree to cuts of this magnitude, particularly if like Greg Hands you represent Westminster, the most wealthy Council in the country. Even the protection of the more affluent and growing shire counties in the southeast has not inured them against the damage.

If the PM is concerned about services in his cherished constituency what must it be like in the far forgotten north and the cities? They have not been blessed by the manipulation of grants offered to the Tory homelands. I know from working in Oxfordshire, admittedly a long time ago, that Tory leaders are pragmatic and realistic about protecting their domains. But why are they not getting the message through to ministers? Do they need to shout louder or is the government not interested in hearing these messages? Unlike the Armed Forces, the Police, the Universities and the NHS, local government is not able to lobby the London establishment. Its leaders are based in their localities and too busy to lobby, exploit the media or behave like charlatans to protect their interests.

In the past year, I have mentored twenty or so top managers in local government. Their agenda is one of perpetual cuts, removing many so-called non-essential services and reducing essential services. They are punch drunk, they have lost many experienced colleagues and people who held the institutional memory that safeguards against mistakes. They no longer have time to think creatively nor do they have the resources to take forward new services or improvements that communities are demanding.

There is no doubt that the Chancellor has deliberately set out to roll back the role of the state. The consequent outcome is that private care homes, private rented housing, free schools, commercial sport and leisure facilities do not plug the gaps of services previously provided on a universal or priority basis by councils. Moreover, the private provision woefully fails the most vulnerable families and dependent adults. Similarly, the multitude of voluntary organisations is not the panacea that the PM would have us believe as he found out with considerable embarrassment with the collapse of the Kid's Company recently. Voluntary organisations depend upon the goodwill and tithes from the public and this is not the most productive or efficient way to render services.

Autumn come she will

Birch in Blue

This strange year that by passed summer has given us a rare autumn; drier than summer, warmer than summer and only now are the leaves turning. There have been no 'autumn winds blowing chilly and cold'. It has been perfect walking weather. I had planned several excursions in the far north that were originally intended for the summer that never was and now I have missed them again. I have been grounded by a back injury so that 3 or 4 mile walks have been the limit of my daily exercise over the past month.

The compensations have been chance to explore the local environment at my leisure instead of charging round on my morning runs. I have spoken to all those dog walkers and other locals to whom I normally give a cursory greeting. It has been therapeutic and at last after 4 weeks I seem to be making some progress, although there will be no running for a few weeks yet. An excellent physiotherapist, my daily walks, hot baths and lots of paracetamol have helped me cope with the mental and physical anguish and sleepless nights.

And now it is still 15°C in early November although Storm Abigail is due at the end of the week which should see the trees shredded of leaves and the floods return. Just in time for me to return to dreich, wet, windy, winter days on the hills

Lochan Spling

Duchray Bridge

Lime Craig

Invisible Statues

Fungi on trees

Duke's Pass with conifer plantations

From Creag Mor

Deciduous forest