Whatever the rights or wrongs of the case against former Anglesey Council Leader Phil Fowlie, it seems to me entirely wrong that the Ombudsman tribunal against him will go ahead just days after he has undergone serious heart surgery for the second time. According to the Daily Post the Adjudication Panel for Wales will proceed to hear the case on Monday (27 September) and rely on written submissions only. Of course the case needs to be heard, but I see no good reason why it couldn't be postponed on compassionate grounds until a later date -- Fowlie is anyway no longer a councillor and its not as if the Ombudsman doesn't have any other cases to consider...
As Councillor Bryan Owen quite rightly says, "Phil deserved the chance to be there to represent himself".
Saturday, 25 September 2010
Friday, 24 September 2010
'Thin Blue Line' getting ever thinner
What percent of the total number of police officers do you think are available to patrol Holyhead, Llangefni or Amlwch's streets at half past midnight on a Friday night?
20 percent? 15 percent? 10 percent?
Well, according to a report (pdf) just released by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabularies (HMIC), the actual amount is likely to be just 6.4 percent. According to the above diagram from the report approximately half of all police officers are anyway deployed away from the "front line" on other matters (e.g. investigation, intelligence, and various bureaucratic functions), 42 percent just aren't rostered for duty at night, and of those who are 2 percent are off sick, on holiday or on restricted duties -- leaving just 6 percent to man the 'thin blue line' on our streets. Strangely almost double that number (11.3%) are available at the rather less crime-filled time of 9am on a Monday morning...
The report also goes on to explain why so much police are now deployed away from the front line:
20 percent? 15 percent? 10 percent?
 |
Combined percentage of officers and PCSOs
visibly available to the public at different times in two sample forces
click to enlarge
|
Well, according to a report (pdf) just released by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabularies (HMIC), the actual amount is likely to be just 6.4 percent. According to the above diagram from the report approximately half of all police officers are anyway deployed away from the "front line" on other matters (e.g. investigation, intelligence, and various bureaucratic functions), 42 percent just aren't rostered for duty at night, and of those who are 2 percent are off sick, on holiday or on restricted duties -- leaving just 6 percent to man the 'thin blue line' on our streets. Strangely almost double that number (11.3%) are available at the rather less crime-filled time of 9am on a Monday morning...
The report also goes on to explain why so much police are now deployed away from the front line:
"In seeking to reduce every risk to the public and possibility of error, all police officers’ work has increasingly become controlled by rules of good practice or guidance. In 2009 alone 2,600 pages of guidance were issued to officers setting out how their work should be done; and there are now 100 processes in the criminal justice system, requiring 40 interventions by police officers, staff and specialists. The cost to policing is estimated at £2.2 billion per year. The effect has been to draw resources into investigation, intelligence and other specialist functions, and away from the public: the number of warranted officers working in these areas increased by 3,000 over the last four years, while the number working in the community declined by 1,400."To illustrate this point the report helpfully includes another diagram demonstrating just how much 'guidance' the average police force receives annually from the policing quango, the National Police Improvement Agency (NPIA):
Apparently in just 2009 alone there were 52 guidance documents produced by both the NPIA and ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) comprising more than 2,600 pages and over 250 recommendations. All of this just goes to show that the current model of policing were priorities are set centrally from Whitehall and require endless police paperwork and box-ticking is drawing ever larger numbers of Police Officers from the front line where we need them. As I have already written, the North Wales Police Authority is in favour of the status quo -- I say it's time to try something different.
UPDATE: A commenter writes "I read somewhere as well that we have never had such a high ratio of Police to general Public. If that is true, why are tey unable to attend burglaries etc, and try not to attend car break-ins at all." You are right, the below chart from the same report, shows that we do currently have record numbers of Police and PCSOs:
 |
| Click to enlarge |
There has been a 50% increase in police officers over the past 40 years, and a fourfold increase in other staff, including PCSOs. Yet, ironically, more and more police are being re-deployed away from frontline services.
Thursday, 23 September 2010
Quote of the Day (fission-safety-edition)
Commenter 'Jarlath' makes the case for Wylfa B and Nuclear power in general:
"Then there are the cries that [nuclear power is] not safe, with reference to accidents in the past, a bit like saying I wont fly today because a plane crashed in the sixties, or that I will not buy a car because an old Lada is so unsafe."
Why more accountability is necessary in setting Public Sector budgets
The revelations about the pay-off made to the outgoing head of the Wales Audit Office are simply staggering:
This comes to a total of more than £750,000 -- yet farcially Mr Snow found himself another well-remunerated public sector job as COO of the Financial Reporting Council quango just six weeks later. Lets put these numbers into context: in this example just one Welsh public servant has received a pay-off amounting to almost half of the putative £2million cuts to the S4C which are currently causing such a fuss. And lets not forget that this is not an isolated incident: remember the hundreds of Welsh NHS executives who had their £50K plus salaries protected for ten years (!) following the reorganisation of the service which cut local health boards down from 32 to just seven?
And yet, despite all this, we are asked to believe by Labour and Plaid Cymru in the Assembly that the Welsh public sector is so unimprovably productive that any budget cuts at all will affect front line services. I'm afraid as just these two examples show, the lack of any competitive or downwards pressure on public sector budgets just leads to an otherworldly profligacy -- especially with regards to top-end public sector salaries. We need look no further than David Bowles' £1,000-a-day pay deal at Anglesey Council to know that this is true.
Only by applying some direct accountability for results in the setting of public sector yearly budget rises can these kind of excesses be avoided in the future. This is one of the reasons why I am a supporter of the coalition proposal to elect police commissioners, as one of the main planks of this policy also includes the need for any rises to the police precept element of council tax to be approved in a local referendum. The Police will be free to explain why they think they need more tax money, and the public will be free to accept the rise or not. In fact I would be happy to see this policy extended to include council tax rises as a whole, whereby local authorities would have to make their case in a local referendum. Based on the council's record and future plans, local residents can then decide what level of settlement they feel is fitting.
Imagine how much more engaged Ynys Môn residents would be with local politics and with the actions of councillors if we had the opportunity to hold Anglesey Council to account in this way. Imagine how much better services the council would need to provide in order to justify a rise in their budgets...
"According to information disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act, Anthony Snow was paid £107,580 in compensation when he left his job in September 2009 and the WAO will also have to pay more than £618,000 of his pension contributions until he turns 60."
This comes to a total of more than £750,000 -- yet farcially Mr Snow found himself another well-remunerated public sector job as COO of the Financial Reporting Council quango just six weeks later. Lets put these numbers into context: in this example just one Welsh public servant has received a pay-off amounting to almost half of the putative £2million cuts to the S4C which are currently causing such a fuss. And lets not forget that this is not an isolated incident: remember the hundreds of Welsh NHS executives who had their £50K plus salaries protected for ten years (!) following the reorganisation of the service which cut local health boards down from 32 to just seven?
And yet, despite all this, we are asked to believe by Labour and Plaid Cymru in the Assembly that the Welsh public sector is so unimprovably productive that any budget cuts at all will affect front line services. I'm afraid as just these two examples show, the lack of any competitive or downwards pressure on public sector budgets just leads to an otherworldly profligacy -- especially with regards to top-end public sector salaries. We need look no further than David Bowles' £1,000-a-day pay deal at Anglesey Council to know that this is true.
Only by applying some direct accountability for results in the setting of public sector yearly budget rises can these kind of excesses be avoided in the future. This is one of the reasons why I am a supporter of the coalition proposal to elect police commissioners, as one of the main planks of this policy also includes the need for any rises to the police precept element of council tax to be approved in a local referendum. The Police will be free to explain why they think they need more tax money, and the public will be free to accept the rise or not. In fact I would be happy to see this policy extended to include council tax rises as a whole, whereby local authorities would have to make their case in a local referendum. Based on the council's record and future plans, local residents can then decide what level of settlement they feel is fitting.
Imagine how much more engaged Ynys Môn residents would be with local politics and with the actions of councillors if we had the opportunity to hold Anglesey Council to account in this way. Imagine how much better services the council would need to provide in order to justify a rise in their budgets...
Wednesday, 22 September 2010
Even more problems for Wylfa B (updated again)
Yesterday's Times newspaper reported that Horizon, the joint venture between E.On and RWE npower -- and the company which is planning to build Wylfa B, has urgently contacted Energy Secretary Chris Huhne to seek clarification over remarks he made last week which seem to indicate he will reject Horizon's proposal for a consumer-funded levy to support new nuclear builds, such as in Wylfa. Horizon's position is that modern nuclear power stations are far more expensive to build than conventional coal and gas-fired stations and therefore need some financial support (such as a consumer-funded levy) in order to make the business case viable.
Mr Huhne is reported to have said that he thought the industry had converged on the view “that the carbon price floor will be enough” to make new nuclear plans viable economically. Setting a carbon price floor would essentially make cheaper but higher polluting energy (i.e. that made from coal and gas) more expensive, thus making expensive but cleaner nuclear energy more competitive. The current price of a tonne of carbon allowances is around €13, whereas nuclear competitor EDF, the French state controlled giant, believes that carbon price floor of around €50 per tonne would be sufficient to make nuclear energy competitive. Mr Huhne appears to agree with EDF, thus allowing him to keep to coalition policy of promoting new nuclear power stations as long as they do not require public subsidy. Setting a floor price for carbon would not be a hidden subsidy to nuclear energy alone as it would also make expensive renewable energy technologies more competitive. Of course, the end result is that we all end up having to pay more for our energy... (and we should not forget that it was carbon-trading schemes like this which were one of the largest contributing factors towards the closure of Anglesey Aluminium by making its operation economically unviable inside the EU).
Personally I find Horizon's stance a little surprising as a "consumer-funded levy" is essentially a subsidy by another name -- whereas it has long been known that the long-standing policy position of both the Labour and Conservative parties on new nuclear builds has been to reject the need for any further subsidies to the nuclear industry. Therefore to be fair to Huhne he simply appears to be adhering to this long standing cross-party stance and official coalition policy. As far as I can see, the fuss seems to be more related to competition between German-owned Horizon and French-owned EDF. EDF currently owns a fleet of eight UK nuclear power stations and the setting of a carbon price floor would boost the profitability of these existing stations whilst at the same time making new nuclear builds, such as Horizon plans at Wylfa, less profitable in comparison because of the estimated approx £7bn construction costs.
Anyway, this all goes to show that Wylfa B is by no means a certainty yet.
UPDATE: I thank learned commentators for alerting me to it, but its seems that the German government has announced plans to impose a tax on nuclear fuel rods from 2011 onwards which will have a large impact on German nuclear utility firms, such as E.On and RWE npower. According to reports by the Wall Street Journal, this could see E.On's after tax profits reduced by up to €1bn every year for the next six years. Chris Huhne's remarks therefore represent a substantial double-whammy to Horizon's owners, E.On and RWE npower and again show just how incredibly precarious the proposed £7bn investment in Wylfa B actually is.
UPDATE 2: Interestingly it appears that the Council has arranged an open seminar with Horizon and Centrica on Friday this week for Anglesey businesses to learn how they could benefit from the Energy Island project. From the Council website:
Mr Huhne is reported to have said that he thought the industry had converged on the view “that the carbon price floor will be enough” to make new nuclear plans viable economically. Setting a carbon price floor would essentially make cheaper but higher polluting energy (i.e. that made from coal and gas) more expensive, thus making expensive but cleaner nuclear energy more competitive. The current price of a tonne of carbon allowances is around €13, whereas nuclear competitor EDF, the French state controlled giant, believes that carbon price floor of around €50 per tonne would be sufficient to make nuclear energy competitive. Mr Huhne appears to agree with EDF, thus allowing him to keep to coalition policy of promoting new nuclear power stations as long as they do not require public subsidy. Setting a floor price for carbon would not be a hidden subsidy to nuclear energy alone as it would also make expensive renewable energy technologies more competitive. Of course, the end result is that we all end up having to pay more for our energy... (and we should not forget that it was carbon-trading schemes like this which were one of the largest contributing factors towards the closure of Anglesey Aluminium by making its operation economically unviable inside the EU).
Personally I find Horizon's stance a little surprising as a "consumer-funded levy" is essentially a subsidy by another name -- whereas it has long been known that the long-standing policy position of both the Labour and Conservative parties on new nuclear builds has been to reject the need for any further subsidies to the nuclear industry. Therefore to be fair to Huhne he simply appears to be adhering to this long standing cross-party stance and official coalition policy. As far as I can see, the fuss seems to be more related to competition between German-owned Horizon and French-owned EDF. EDF currently owns a fleet of eight UK nuclear power stations and the setting of a carbon price floor would boost the profitability of these existing stations whilst at the same time making new nuclear builds, such as Horizon plans at Wylfa, less profitable in comparison because of the estimated approx £7bn construction costs.
Anyway, this all goes to show that Wylfa B is by no means a certainty yet.
UPDATE: I thank learned commentators for alerting me to it, but its seems that the German government has announced plans to impose a tax on nuclear fuel rods from 2011 onwards which will have a large impact on German nuclear utility firms, such as E.On and RWE npower. According to reports by the Wall Street Journal, this could see E.On's after tax profits reduced by up to €1bn every year for the next six years. Chris Huhne's remarks therefore represent a substantial double-whammy to Horizon's owners, E.On and RWE npower and again show just how incredibly precarious the proposed £7bn investment in Wylfa B actually is.
UPDATE 2: Interestingly it appears that the Council has arranged an open seminar with Horizon and Centrica on Friday this week for Anglesey businesses to learn how they could benefit from the Energy Island project. From the Council website:
"On Friday September 24th 2010, Horizon Nuclear Power and Centrica Energy Renewable Investment Ltd will outline potential supply chain opportunities relating to the proposed new nuclear build programme and offshore wind power development.
This special event - to be held at Cartio Môn, Bodedern, between 8.30am and 1.00pm - will conclude Anglesey's first ever Business Week. (At junction 4, off the A55).
Energy Island Programme Director, Sasha Wynn Davies, explained, "Friday's event will give businesses a unique opportunity to actively engage with both companies as well as gain a greater understanding of the business opportunities associated with the Energy Island programme."
"The event will also be used to raise awareness of existing Nuclear / Decommissioning supply chain opportunities and the proposed off shore wind Centrica development. Local businesses and companies present will have an opportunity to ask questions about these developments and the wider Energy Island Programme."
If you would like to attend the event, please contact Energy Island Programme Coordinator, Linda Wyn Jones, on (01248) 752462 or e-mail: lwjpl@anglesey.gov.uk"Did anybody else know this week is Anglesey Business Week? No? Me neither...
Tuesday, 21 September 2010
Kirsty Williams's Ieuan Air jibe misses the point
Welsh Lib Dem leader, Kirsty Williams, in her speech to conference yesterday contrasted the Coalition government's record on green policies with that of the Welsh Assembly:
As Wales currently lacks any significant road or rail transport infrastructure linking North, Mid and South Wales, I personally am in favour of the air link -- however, I do oppose the size of the subsidy. Some justify it by saying that the £800,000 per annum cost of the air link is minuscule compared to the cost of building a rail or motorway along the length of Wales, however this is I believe a bogus argument.
The fact is that subsidies distort the market and create perverse incentives. As things stand there is currently no incentive for any firm to attempt to fly between Anglesey and Cardiff without demanding financial support from the Welsh Assembly -- and far more importantly there is no incentive for any operator to consider offering flights from Anglesey to any other airports in the UK as they will not attract a subsidy and will therefore by definition be less profitable. In my view Ynys Môn (and by extension the whole of North Wales) would benefit far more from regular (even bi-weekly) flights between Anglesey and London, than it does from flights between here and Cardiff -- however the sheer scale of the subsidy available for linking Anglesey and Cardiff makes any other routes far less likely.
Well, [WAG's] biggest achievement is the creation of Wales‘ very own internal air link. You think domestic flights from Manchester to London are a scandal? Try Anglesey to Cardiff !
The minister presiding over this scandal is Plaid Cymru’s leader, and Deputy First Minister, Ieuan Wyn Jones. His commute? That’s right: Anglesey to Cardiff !
No wonder they call it Ieuan Air.
3.2 million pounds of our money pumped into an air link which has in turn pumped thousands of tonnes of C02 into the atmosphere at a cost to the taxpayer of £84 for each and every trip.
And you know, whilst Ministers fly between Cardiff and Anglesey. The empty ministerial limo still makes the trip to drop of the ministerial boxes.
As Wales currently lacks any significant road or rail transport infrastructure linking North, Mid and South Wales, I personally am in favour of the air link -- however, I do oppose the size of the subsidy. Some justify it by saying that the £800,000 per annum cost of the air link is minuscule compared to the cost of building a rail or motorway along the length of Wales, however this is I believe a bogus argument.
The fact is that subsidies distort the market and create perverse incentives. As things stand there is currently no incentive for any firm to attempt to fly between Anglesey and Cardiff without demanding financial support from the Welsh Assembly -- and far more importantly there is no incentive for any operator to consider offering flights from Anglesey to any other airports in the UK as they will not attract a subsidy and will therefore by definition be less profitable. In my view Ynys Môn (and by extension the whole of North Wales) would benefit far more from regular (even bi-weekly) flights between Anglesey and London, than it does from flights between here and Cardiff -- however the sheer scale of the subsidy available for linking Anglesey and Cardiff makes any other routes far less likely.
Free Anglesey event: "will an investment in wireless broadband accessible in in every Anglesey village make a difference?"
Last week there was a small discussion below this thread regarding internet and broadband provision on Anglesey and whether it was sufficient. In response the people from Inventorium have alerted me to a free seminar they will be holding in Menai Bridge on Thursday (23 September) regarding visualising how life will be like in Anglesey in ten years time -- particularly relating to the question "will an investment in wireless broadband accessible in in every village make a difference"? An interesting question.
The event will be held from 13:00-17:00 in the Victoria Hotel and people interested are requested to register by emailing events@inventorium.org or calling 01248 675013. The flier is below.
Inventorium Anglesey Business Week
The event will be held from 13:00-17:00 in the Victoria Hotel and people interested are requested to register by emailing events@inventorium.org or calling 01248 675013. The flier is below.
Inventorium Anglesey Business Week
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