Elderly care faces £6bn shortfall

Every working family could face paying an "ageing tax" to provide care for the elderly, Gordon Brown proposed yesterday.

The ageing tax is a central plank of a six month consultation launched by the Prime Minister in the face of a growing crisis over who should meet the bills for the care of the elderly.

The Daily Mail reports that this new tax would take the form of a compulsory levy to force people to cover the cost of care home places in the last stages of their lives.

The introduction of such a tax would reignite questions, most recently provoked over charges for rubbish collections, about what exactly people pay Council Tax for - if all the services that it's supposed to cover have to be paid for over again.

According to the BBC report, Gordon Brown says that the care system in England alone faces a £6bn shortfall within 20 years. An amount that just happens to be exactly the same as our new net annual contribution to the EU's leaky budget, which Gordon Brown agreed to following a deal done by Tony Blair in December 2005.

The PM claims that the Treasury cannot pay the fast-rising cost of care homes and home help as the number of elderly people increases, and that the system now needs a 'radical shake up' to avoid this cash crunch.

But another possible solution could be that, rather than force everyone to pay yet another tax, we stop wasting billions of pounds a year on the EU, the "majority" of whose spending has been a mystery to its auditors for 13 years in a row.

Why won't Gordon Brown consider stopping this blatant waste of exactly the amount of money he needs, in order to prevent elderly care services deteriorating or hitting people with yet more taxes?

The new consultation paper was launched by Mr Brown in a talk at the King's Fund, the research group that published the 2006 report on the cost of ageing by Sir Derek Wanless.

Sir Derek estimated that an extra £10billion is needed to make the care system work properly, but there was only a token £31million of new money on offer yesterday - just under two days worth of what the Government is prepared to hand the EU. A terrible example of the government's warped priorities with scarce public funds.

Yesterday's consultation paper, endorsed by Mr Brown and seven Cabinet ministers, put back any decisions until next year.

UK's flood defences 'inadequate', warn MPs

Britain could be at risk of a repeat of last summer's flood disaster because the money being spent on improving defences is "inadequate" - reports the Daily Telegraph today.

Ministers had claimed that the £800m earmarked for flood prevention by 2010-2011 (in contrast, equivalent to a mere
7 weeks of our net payments to the EU budget) would be enough.

But MPs on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee (EFRA) have warned that the figure for government spending was "far less impressive under close analysis" and may be insufficient to deal with traditional and new flooding threats.

Last night the government announced £31m from the European Union's Solidarity Fund would be spent on the areas worst hit by the floods (not even two days worth of the NET amount we pay into the EU budget).

The floods in June and July last year, mainly in Yorkshire, Humberside and the Midlands were the worst for 60 years causing £3bn of damage and leaving 13 people dead.

A total of 44,600 homes and 7,100 businesses were flooded and thousands more people were left without power and water.

Nine months on the misery was still continuing for thousands who had not been able to return to their devastated homes.

So why is the government's professed commitment to prevent future flooding so miniscule in comparison to the funds it is prepared to lavish on the wasteful, audit-failing EU?

Are these the priorities we expect?

Science cuts 'hit UK reputation'

A report looking into handling of the "funding crisis" in physics research has concluded that Britain has been left looking like an "unreliable" and "incompetent" partner for international science - reports the BBC.

The report, published by the House of Commons innovation, universities, science and skills committee, said that "urgent changes must be made".

The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), which looks after some of the largest science centres in Britain, was faced with a deficit of £80m (less than five days worth of our net payments to the EU) after an unfavourable government spending review last year.

The council has had to try to reprioritise its spending but this has meant that some projects are now threatened with closure.

Facilities with an uncertain future include an upgrade to the iconic Lovell telescope at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire, the Daresbury National Laboratory and the UK infra-red telescope (Ukirt) - the world's largest telescope dedicated to infra-red astronomy, based in Hawaii.

The fate of these and nearly 30 other projects will be decided later in the year.

EU 63%: teachers 2.45%

A teachers' strike set for tomorrow is set to close or partially close more than 6,000 schools in England and Wales - reports the BBC.

Warnings to parents from 88 local authorities - half of the total - show that 28% of schools are expected to face disruption from loss of lessons to complete closures.

The one-day pay strike is being staged on Thursday by members of the National Union of Teachers over a pay dispute.

The union is attacking a pay deal which represents a 2.45% rise this year with a further rise of 2.3% in 2009 and 2010, arguing that it is below inflation and is therefore an effective pay cut.

Christine Blower, the union's acting head, said: "What we're saying to the government is, if you really do value teachers, then make sure that they're paid at least at the level of inflation - which we take to be the RPI, which is 4.1%."

The offer contrasts sharply with the government's agreement to increase Britain's annual contributions to the EU by 63% - or £2.5bn net extra every year from 2007-13.

This excessive generosity was despite EU auditors remaining unable to approve the "majority" of the EU's spending - a situation that has persisted for 13 years running.

This EU pay deal was endorsed by a majority of MPs back in February. So unless the MPs responsible imagine that there is a bottomless pit of public money to plunder, none who unjustifiably voted to support splashing so much extra on the EU can complain when it emerges that there isn't enough money left to pay teachers fairly.

MPs must acknowledge the reality that if they approve an obvious waste of vast sums of public money in one area, then that decision will have consequences in other areas of public spending.

This is a simple economic reality that everyone is familiar with in their own personal lives, and which MPs must realise applies to national finances too.

MPs must take responsibility when this happens, particularly where it affects their own constituencies. Rather than (as so often) posture in support of public services facing cuts, despite having voted to waste large sums that could instead have been used to help.

Widespread disruption to schools is likely in a number of both inner city and rural areas. Leeds, Cardiff, Suffolk and Cumbria all look likely to have many schools shut or partially closed.

Treasury budget shortfall rockets to £10.2bn

The Daily Telegraph reports today that the Treasury's budget shortfall soared to £10.2bn last month, leaving the Government's coffers in a perilous state as the UK enters what could prove a prolonged downturn.

The figure was a third more than economists expected and the largest since records began in 1993, driven by higher government spending and lower tax receipts.

"The public finances are in no way ideally positioned for the slowdown," said David Page, an economist at Investec. "They've almost no room to step up borrowing."

The news makes the recent 63% increase in our payments to the EU's terminally leaky budget to £115m (net) every week once again look an extremely irresponsible choice by both the Government and those MPs who subsequently endorsed the deal.

With public finances tightening, the price of such unjustified extravagance to as wasteful an organisation as the EU will be paid either through higher taxes or cuts affecting public services within each of those MPs' own constituencies.

An outcome for which each of them must take personal responsibility.

The £230m primary schools sell-off

Almost 300 primary school sites have been sold off in the past decade as local councils seek to raise funds, according to a More4 News/Channel 4 News online survey.

The sales have generated £230m for authorities, as councils struggle to meet government funding demands and combat falling school rolls.

The research shows a further 188 primary schools sites are earmarked for future sale.

Critics say the sell-offs are a 'missed opportunity' to improve educational standards, and could leave authorities short of classrooms in the future.

Christine Blower, acting general secretary of the NUT, said: "The findings both surprise and depress me. At the moment we still have extremely large class sizes all over England and Wales, and because of these sell-offs we will find ourselves with insufficient classroom capacity further down the road.

"Whilst the pupil population might be decreasing at the moment this was the ideal opportunity to reduce class sizes and keep spending on education at the same level so that we can begin to fulfil Gordon Brown's promise that state school children will be funded to the same level as those in the independent sector."

Government funds schools according to how many places they have, rather than the actual number of pupils. It urges authorities to close schools with too few children, as they are seen as an ineffective use of resources.

The survey found that the council which received the most for primary school sales in the past decade was Oxfordshire, whose sell-off programme led to £39.8m being brought in from sales.

Others in the top 10 included: Hertfordshire at £25.6m, Cambridgeshire at £19.7, West Sussex at £15.8m, Havering at £15.4m and Leeds at £13.7m.

Over Easter, Cumbria County Council became the latest authority to indicate it was going to close primary schools under a reorganisation programme.

Councils pledge to put the money raised from primary school sales back into education funding, and many new schools and facilities have been built using the revenue.

However, professor Tony Travers, a local government expert at the London School of Economics, warned that pledges on education spending have to be taken with a pinch of salt.

He said: "You have to take councils at face value when they say they will be ring-fencing funds. But ring-fencing doesn't necessarily mean extra spending on education."

Overall, 113 councils responded to questions filed by Channel 4 news online under Freedom of Information rules, to show that 298 primary school sites had been sold off in the past decade for a total of £236,337,577.

Cambridge: Protest over ward closures

Protesters have marched through Cambridge to object to plans to close two wards at a hospital - reports the BBC.

A review of services at Brookfields Hospital, looking at the closure of 72-bed Davison House, ends on Monday.

Keep Our NHS Public (KONP) group, supported by the union Unison, held the march against the plans over the effect on elderly care.

The health trust said the closure of Davison House, which provides a rehabilitation service for elderly patients, was just one option.