Deaf Awareness Week 28th June to 4th July

How to be deaf-aware

Deafness can be isolating – don’t avoid conversation.
Repeat yourself or rephrase until you are understood
Don’t shout. It distorts your mouth, making you harder to understand
Don’t mumble. Speak clearly and at normal speed
Look at the person you are speaking to
Talk directly to a deaf person, not through a third party
Be patient, especially if you are serving in a restaurant or pub
Check that your business has a working induction loop
Think about communication support: the RNID can book sign-language interpreters

Read more about Deaf Awareness Week here.

Read Michael Parkinson-The deaf are discriminated against, in The Telegraph

Noam Chomsky on the high cost of neoliberalism

Financial liberalisation undermines democracy, handing power to a “virtual senate” that acts on behalf of the wealthy few. But a handful of Latin American countries offer an alternative.

In the contemporary world of state-capitalist nations, loss of sovereignty can lead to a diminution of democracy, and a decline in the ability of states to conduct social and economic policy on their own terms. History shows that, more often than not, loss of sovereignty leads to liberalisation imposed in the interests of the powerful. In recent years, the regime thus imposed has been called "neoliberalism". It is not a very good term, as the social-economic regime in question is not new; nor is it liberal, at least as the concept was understood by classical liberals. The very design of neoliberal principles is a direct attack on democracy.

The central doctrine of neoliberalism is financial liberalisation, which took off in the early 1970s. Some of its effects are well known. With the increase in speculative capital flows, countries were forced to set aside much larger reserves to protect their currencies from attack. It is striking that countries which maintained capital controls - among them India and China - avoided the worst of the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98.

In the United States, meanwhile, the share of the financial sector in corporate profit rose from just a few per cent in the 1960s to over 30 per cent in 2004. Concentration also increased sharply, thanks largely to the deregulatory zeal of the Clinton administration. By 2009, the share of banking industry assets held by the 20 largest institutions stood at 70 per cent.

Among the consequences of financialisation is the creation of what an analysis by the investment bank Citigroup calls "plutonomy". The bank's analysts describe a world that is dividing into two blocs: the plutonomy and the rest. The US, UK and Canada are the key plutonomies: economies in which growth is powered by - and largely consumed by - the wealthy few. In plutonomies, these rich consumers take a disproportionately large slice of the national pie. Two-thirds of the world's economic growth is driven by consumption, primarily in the pluto­nomies, which monopolise profits as well.

Read More Here.

A sentiment shared...

Osborne's first Budget? It's wrong, wrong, wrong!

Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel prizewinner who predicted the global crisis, delivers his verdict on the Chancellor's first Budget and tells Paul Vallely of The Independent that it will take the UK deeper into recession and hit millions – the poorest – badly

George Osborne will probably not be very bothered that there is a man who thinks he got last week's emergency Budget almost entirely wrong. But he should be. Because that man is a former chief economist at the World Bank who won the Nobel Prize for Economics for his work on why markets do not produce the outcomes which, in theory, they ought to.

Professor Joseph Stiglitz, who has been described as the biggest brain in economics, is distinctly unimpressed by George Osborne's strategy. This, he predicts, will make Britain's recovery from recession longer, slower and harder than it needs to be. The rise in VAT could even tip us into a double-dip recession.

Stiglitz, who was once Bill Clinton's senior economic adviser, is now professor of economics and finance at Columbia Business School. He was in the UK this week at the University of Manchester, where he chairs the Brooks World Poverty Institute, but he lifted his head from the detail of international development to scrutinise the economic strategy of the Conservative Chancellor whose Liberal Democrat partners recently reversed their judgement that massive public spending cuts now would endanger the economy and joined in the Tory slash-and-burn strategy. They were deeply wrong to do so, he believes.

It would be a mistake to ignore Stig-litz on this. He has a track record of getting his predictions right. He was one of the few economists who predicted the global financial meltdown long before it occurred.

Read More Here.

One Agency One Team?

Last week our correspondent visited the SPVA offices in Centurion, Gosport by invitation. It didn’t start well as the guard service at the main gate insisted that they could not let him in unescorted as they didn’t recognise the SPVA pass. He got a lecture about it being an active military base whilst a chap with a white van was let through after simply signing the visitor’s book. After a considerable wait an escort was found and our correspondent was permitted to enter his employer’s site.

He arrived at Centurion building and was greeted by the EDS receptionist who also informed him that he couldn’t let him in as he was instructed not to recognise the official SPVA pass. Thankfully the escort was able to sign him in.

Firstly we must make it clear that the guards at the main gate and the chap at reception in Centurion were all very polite and friendly. The guard at the main gate spent some time on the phone trying to find an escort. Our correspondent reports that the whole experience was perplexing to say the least. VANB fully understands the need for security and controlling access to the site, and this is strictly by security guards and armed service persons.

However to arrive at the SPVA building (Centurion) and be greeted by a man working for a private contracting company who tells our correspondent that he can’t come in seems wrong. To clarify, a private company is telling civil servants working not only within the MoD but within SPVA that they cannot access one of SPVA’s main sites, a site owned by and maintained by the taxpayer. It’s a bit like the owner of a busy bakery turning up for work one morning to be told by the chap servicing the ovens that he/she cannot come in.

Our guess with the centurion situation is that there is additional security not to guard against acts of terrorism but to guard against acts aimed at the data available there through EDS systems. And of course it is right to take special care of data, whatever it may be.

What I would say here is that to my knowledge no civil servants have lost or removed data from SPVA or the wider MoD. In fact I believe that all the high profile loses or removal of data from MoD have been perpetrated by ranking military officers or private contractors and their employees.

VANB are not keen on the ‘One Agency One team’ idea where it involves private sector companies, even ignoring that our correspondents experience at Centurion doesn’t smack of one agency one team.

Below are a few links with news stories relating to data loss. There is some duplication but they do add to the overall picture. There are many more stories and reports of this nature should you wish to look further:

Read more here.
Read more here.
Read more here
Read more here.
Read more here.

Are we "all in this together"?

'Boy' George 'Slasher' Osborne says we are all in this together and produced a budget on Tuesday that he described as fair to all.

It included public sector pay and child benefit freeze, tax credit cuts and a two and a half percent rise on VAT from 17.5% to 20%... and 25% across the board departmental budget reductions. All things that will heavily impact the lowest earners the hardest.

Read more here.

So how has he dealt with the upper echelons. Well, he has increased Capital Gains Tax for high earners from 18% to 28%... and has decided to tax the banking sector £2 billion pounds.

On the face of it, it seems that all bases are covered, but look more closely at the reality of the situation. One of the biggest burdens on the public finances is the huge interest payments on the money we have borrowed to rescue the banks and financial institutions. This is around a trillion pounds.... As a soverign state with a AAA credit rating we borrow at a rate of 3.6%... but this means that we have to find £36 billion a year just to maintain the loan, let alone pay it down.

Interestingly we have loaned nearly all of this money to the banks at around 0.5% interest rate. So we will get back from them about £5 billion a year in interest? Meanwhile these same banks loan the money we have borrowed, and pay interest on, to other borrowers at interest rates of at least 5.5% and sometimes at much higher rates (see Kraft takeover of Cadbury for instance) ... earning the banks at least £55 billion a year in interest and in actuality a whole lot more.

So now the 'Boy' George 'Slasher' Osborne is to impose a £2 billion tax upon the banking sector. This means that out of the £1 trillion pounds we have loaned, the banks will pay back around £7 billion, leaving us with £29 billion of interest payments still outstanding.

Indeed, as you can tell, we are NOT all in this together!

Extraordinary Council Meeting Re: CUTS

Blackpool Town Hall
Council Chamber
28th June 2010 at 15:30

Can we ask that as many union members / supporters and sympathisers as possible attend the public gallery of the council chamber on the 28th for the ECM that is to debate the proposed council cuts.

We want the Tories to feel the anger that exists about their plans to make 200 staff redundant, as well as cutting major spending projects.

Read more here.


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Post Budget Blues

We have had many questions regarding the pay freeze announced in the budget on Tuesday.

The Group Secretary Bob Rowlings has made enquiries in MoD and has confirmed current understanding as being that existing pay agreements will be honoured.

Therefore our expectation is that the 2010 components of the three year pay deal set in 2008 will be implemented in August.

Meanwhile: Britain's leading experts on tax and spending have strongly challenged George Osborne's claims to have delivered a "tough but fair" budget, concluding that the measures in the emergency package would hit the poor harder than the rich.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies said the chancellor and Nick Clegg could only assert that the better off were the big losers from the austerity move by including reforms announced by Labour, such as the changes to pension contributions.

The thinktank gave its view as David Cameron came under Commons pressure to justify the insistence that the budget was fair, and as Osborne admitted he was looking for extra welfare savings to spare Whitehall departments, other than health and international development, from cuts averaging 25% during this parliament.

Noting that Britain was facing the "longest, deepest, sustained cuts in public spending since the second world war, Robert Chote, the IFS director, said: "Osborne and Clegg have been keen to describe yesterday's measures as progressive in the sense that the rich will feel more pain than the poor. That is a debatable claim. The budget looks less progressive – indeed somewhat regressive – when you take out the effect of measures that were inherited from the previous government, when you look further into the future than 2012-13, and when you include some other measures that the Treasury has chosen not to model."

Read More Here

The lose, lose and lose budget – PCS MoD group response

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph on Sunday 20 June, David Cameron said the public should express its appreciation of Britain's military "more loudly and more proudly" Our union is in full agreement with this statement. However, after today’s budget we have to ask – how can the Tory/Lib Dem coalition, that Mr Cameron heads, achieve a Ministry of Defence that is ‘loud and proud’?

If the civil service is really the fourth arm of the MoD, how can a pay freeze, attacks on our pensions and tens of thousands of job cuts make our department a better place?

Those of us who are left, more than most appreciate the sacrifices our military personnel, particularly on the front line make. We are aware that many of our colleagues serving in the military are paid a pittance for the work that they do and the potential risks that they face. Our union welcomes today’s doubling of the operational allowance. Our military colleagues serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere thoroughly deserve this increase.

Our union wants our service personnel properly remunerated and to have the best possible equipment to do the tasks asked of them. To do this, however, we need a fully funded, fully staffed and motivated Ministry of Defence. Today’s budget will give the opposite to all of these.

Pay

The proposal is a 2-year pay freeze for those earning over £21,000 and a flat rate increase of £250 each year for two years for those earning below this. George Osborne announced that inflation would be 2.7% by the end of the year and hitting the government’s 2% target after that. In real terms this is at least a 4.7% pay cut for those earning £21k or above. The lowest paid E2 in the MoD will earn £15,168 when the August 2010 wages are paid - £250 per year equates to approximately 1.6% per year, so in real terms, the lowest paid E2 will lose at least 1.5% over the next two years.

Add to this the increase in VAT to 20%, child benefit frozen for three years, child tax credit withdrawn for families earning over £40k a year and the acceleration of the state pension age to 66, then the cut in real terms for members in the Ministry of Defence will be between 10-15% in each of the next two years.

Pensions

Whilst it was announced over the weekend, that John Hutton, former Labour defence minister would oversee an ‘unbiased’ review into public sector pensions; there can be little doubt from the Chancellor’s claim today that - “The net cost of public service pensions continues to rise, to £10 billion in 2015-16.” – will mean that our pensions are clearly threatened.

Although Mr Osborne continually tried to claim that the richest will pay the most after this budget there was no mention when talking about public sector pensions about the fact that two and a half times as much public sector money is spent subsidising private sector pensions through tax relief than paying for public sector pensions – 60% of this goes to earners at the higher rate

MoD jobs

The chancellor ‘kindly’ told us the date when the various government department reviews including the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) – 20 October 2010. With only education and the NHS apparently ringfenced, all other government departments are now expected to make at least 25% cuts in the next four years.

During the lifetime of the previous Labour government, the number of MoD civilian employees has fallen from 133,300 to 86,600, a 35% fall. Our union’s view is clear that any more cuts to an already cut to the bone will make our department unfit for purpose. Our union will campaign and fight against every single job cut proposal in our department.

Nationally our union is already committed to campaigning against the attacks on public sector pay, pensions and jobs. PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said:

“The coalition government’s arbitrary timetable to cut the budget deficit is leading to the flawed reasoning that low-paid public servants should pay for a crisis caused by financial speculators. Far from being unaffordable and unsustainable, public sector pay remains low and pensions are modest by comparison with the platinum-plated payouts that senior executives in the private sector continue to award themselves.

In the MoD group, our anti cuts sub committee will meet on Friday 25 June to look not only at how we can support the national campaign, but also to look at how we can campaign on specific MoD issues. If you have any specific ideas on how you think we should campaign on, please email Bob Rollings at bob@pcs.org.uk.

Chancellor (and multi-millionaire) George Osborne said today that he “rewards work” and “responsible society rewards those who chose to work”. He finished his maiden budget speech by saying that “the richest will pay the most”. Does this mean those earning over £21,000 are now ‘rich’? In a cabinet of 23, as many as 18 (including David Cameron and George Osborne) boast of personal wealth on a scale that MoD members earning £21,000 can only dream of!

There was nothing in the budget from these millionaires about how we would cut the tax gap in the UK. The tax gap is the difference between the amount of revenue that should have, in theory, been collected if all taxpayers paid their correct amount of tax and the total actually received. Reducing the tax gap would mean the new government could avoid having to make swingeing cuts in public services. Our proposals would tackle tax dodging that costs the UK economy £100 billion per year.

Throughout both the national and the MoD campaigns, it is vital we have as much membership support and activism as possible. Our union has shown recently with the victory on the civil service compensation scheme that where we stand together we can win victories.

The Ministry of Defence as we know it is now wholly under threat. Our jobs, our pay, our pension and all of our terms and conditions are now under threat. Please support our union and ensure we have a department to be proud of.

A Boys Own Budget expected tomorrow

The 'Boys' will no doubt get off lightly in tomorrows budget, whilst millions of public sector workers will be facing a steep rise in their pension contributions in order to help pay down Britain’s record deficit. In addition, the 'Boy' George Osborne hinted yesterday that the already announced public sector pay freeze will last longer than one year.

Civil servants will be expected to pay hundreds or even thousands of pounds more each year into their pension pots, as the era of early retirement on so called "generous payments" is brought to an end. (Note: the average civil service pension is £4,200)

A new government commission, led by John Hutton, the former Labour defence secretary, could recommend that public sector staff begin paying more towards their retirement as early as next spring.

Furthermore, on the issue of the expected cuts, the following blog item by George Eaton at the New Statesman is very interesting:

How cuts will hit the poorest hardest

In recent weeks Nick Clegg has attempted to reassure voters over the coming cuts by promising to deliver what he describes as "progressive austerity" and by vowing to prevent the creation of a new north-south divide.
But new research by the Financial Times shows just how unrealistic and disingenuous this promise is. The analysis looked at how different regions of the country would be affected if social security benefits were reduced by 10 per cent and if public sector areas, excluding health, were cut by 20 per cent.
It found that the poorest areas would be disproportionately hit on both measures. For instance, benefit cuts would see household income in west Wales and the Welsh valleys fall by 3.6 per cent, compared with a drop of less than 0.5 per cent in inner London. Areas such as Northern Ireland, the north and the south-west would suffer the greatest fall in income, while regions such as the home counties and London would suffer the least.
Since public spending follows need, it is the poorest areas of the country that are most reliant on the state. It therefore follows that across-the-board spending cuts will hit them hardest. The Tory minister who, in a rare moment of honesty from this government, recently admitted, "those in greatest need ultimately bear the burden of paying off the debt", was spot on.
The danger to the poor is magnified by the coalition's decision to rely on spending cuts, rather than tax rises, to plug the deficit. The government's deficit reduction plan envisages a 4:1 ratio of spending cuts to tax rises, rather than the 2:1 split favoured by Labour. By comparison, during the last big fiscal tightening undertaken by a Conservative government, Ken Clarke split the pain 50:50 between tax rises and spending cuts.
Targeted tax increases on middle and high-income earners offer a progressive alternative to spending cuts of a size not seen in the post-war era. But those hoping Clegg will make this argument around the cabinet table will be disappointed. In an interview with the Spectator before the election, he pledged to reduce the deficit through cuts alone, a position that put him to the right of David Cameron.
So it's not that Clegg has been "turned" by the Tories -- he was never a progressive to begin with.

Clegg ConDems our Pensions...

...as unfair and unaffordable:

Clegg's verdict as he promises action on Britain's 'gold-plated' £18bn-a-year public sector pensions...

and... "at last", cheers The Mail.

Read more: here

Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR)

MOD/MB/39/10 was issued on the 20th May 2010 and detailed:

Last autumn the then shadow defence secretary, Liam Fox met with the MoD permanent under secretary, Bill Jeffrey. Reportedly, at the meeting Mr Fox demanded MoD draw up plans to cut 20,000 civil service jobs to be enacted upon the election of a Conservative government. At the same time it was reported that the Conservatives were planning a 25% reduction in defence spending – none of which is to come from reducing military numbers, but rather by sweeping cuts applied to the 89,300-strong workforce of civilian staff employed.

After his autumn outburst, we wrote to Mr Fox giving him the facts on the civilian population in our department - MoD civilian numbers falling every single quarter from 109,050 in April 2004 to 85,730 in July 2009.

Now in post as our new defence secretary, it appears Mr Fox has chosen to ignore our letter and the views of the 45,000 workers in our department that our union represents. Today the Tory/Lib Dem coalition agreement, “Our programme for government” has been published. Although there is absolutely no detail of how this will happen, it claims “We will aim to reduce Ministry of Defence running costs by at least 25%”.

PCS has now received the Terms of Reference (TOR) for the SDSR which will define how the Ministry of Defence is to meet the 25% reduction in running costs.

Due to the volume of papers it is not feasible to issue hard copies to everyne, however they have been placed on the PCS website at:

www.pcs.org.uk/en/ministry_of_defence_group/ministry_of_defence_group.cfm

It is clear that there are significant issues contained within these documents that will affect our members working in the MOD.

A quick assessment of where the studies will potentially impact on our members is attached at annex A.

To give one example a target has been set across the Government estate of delivering £20Bn of asset sales and £5Bn in running cost savings in the next ten years.

The Defence Estate is a significant enabler in delivery capability and its effective management consumes considerable resource. The TOR details a belief that the current estate management arrangements are fragmented and inefficient. The MOD under SDSR will be looking to generate savings as part of the Governments estate savings and these savings will impact on our members.

Please can you leave your comments and views so that they can be fed into the PCS response to the department.

We are all targeted to cut deficit...yeah, right!

Yesterday morning, the Chancellor 'Boy' George Osborne briefed his Cabinet colleagues on research showing that every government department, other than health and international development, would have to cut spending by between 15 and 20 per cent annually.

For SPVA, with operating costs of around £114 million for 2010/11, a 20% cut would require around £22 million in savings. And that is, it has to be remembered, 20% year upon year. So, £22 million this year, £18 million next year, £14.8 million the year after that...

However, these proposed cutbacks may now be seen as far too modest, with the Fitch credit rating agency study suggesting that departments might need to reduce spending by between 25 and 30 per cent annually! So add another £10 million a year to that being considered by the cabinet!

This warning is significant as Fitch's rating, in effect, sets the interest the Government must pay to borrow money. Britain's rating is currently at AAA level. The other international credit ratings agencies, including Standard & Poor's, are closely monitoring the situation in this country. "Much, much more needs to be done," said Moritz Kraemer from Standard & Poor's.

Funnily enough none of these agencies nor indeed any of the cabinet ever mentions that £125 billion a year of tax revenue goes uncollected from corporations and individuals lucky and rich enough to avoid it. Instead, those of us who pay our tax and NI on time, all the time, will be burdened with the responsibility of paying down a huge debt accruing on the near trillion pounds we have loaned to the banking and finance sector, and upon which we, rather than they, pay the bulk of interest.

We thought he said, "we are all in this together"?
Maybe that should have been, "Arbeit Macht Frei".

Make the case for the alternative

In response to publication of the government's spending review framework document, PCS deputy general secretary Hugh Lanning said:

"Low-paid public sector workers will be horrified to learn that the government is again on the attack looking to cut their pensions.

"Excluding the very highest earners, the average civil service pension is just £4,200 a year and more than 100,000 people currently receive a pension of £2,000 a year or less - this is their reward for a lifetime of low pay as dedicated public servants.

"While we reject the notion that there are 'good' cuts and 'bad' ones when it comes to public services, it is a disgrace that the government is also looking to target the most vulnerable in our communities by cutting support to people receiving benefits.

"People on low incomes did not cause this economic crisis and should not be made to pay the price for it.

"We are more than a little sceptical about the extent to which trade unions will be included in this consultation.

"But if the government is committed to talking and listening, we will be happy to point out where tens of billions of pounds of extra revenue could come from by collecting the tax that's owed; happy to have a proper debate about the role the public sector plays in the economy; and happy to bust the myth that there is a 'frontline' and a 'back office' that can easily be separated."

Responding to yesterday's speech by prime minister David Cameron, PCS deputy general secretary Hugh Lanning said:

"Today, Mr Cameron tried to soften up the country for severe cuts that will inevitably hit public services and jobs, and will devastate local economies for many years to come.

"We do not accept that cutting the public sector is the right course of action to get the UK out of recession. The government should be creating jobs, not forcing thousands of its own workforce onto benefits.

"The message from us is clear. We will work with other trade unions where we can to campaign in workplaces and in our communities, to vigorously oppose these politically-driven cuts that will make public sector workers pay for an economic crisis caused by speculation on the financial markets."

Trying times for Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup

Yesterday the Tories published his salary in the list of departmental top earners and got their multiplications wrong (what an Eton education does for one?) and today Con Coughlin in the Telegraph writes:

"Sir Jock Stirrup does not deserve the Tories' unworthy whispering campaign"

These are trying times for Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the head of Britain’s Armed Forces. Not only does he have a major war to fight in Afghanistan. He now finds himself having to contend with the deeply unpleasant whispering campaign being orchestrated by the Tories spin doctors aimed at undermining his position.

First we had various stories appearing in last weekend’s newspapers that hinted strongly that Sir Jock’s tenure might be drawing to a close. Today we have the main leader in The Times openly debating who Sir Jock’s successor might be.

It can hardly be a coincidence that this leader appeared the very day that David Cameron summoned his senior ministers and national security advisers to Chequers to discuss the new government’s strategy for Afghanistan (you might have thought they would have thrashed this out before the election).

There are many reasons why the Tories might want to have a change of leadership at the top of the military, not least because Sir Jock has been a key adviser to New Labour (even though Gordon Brown rarely took any notice of what he had to say). Sir Jock has also come in for criticism from senior officers – particularly in the Army – over his handling of Afghanistan, where he has too often been lagging behind the curve of our battlefield requirements.

But that is no excuse for the Tories to treat him in this shabby and unworthy manner. Sir Jock is, after all, Britain’s most senior serving military officer, a position that demands the nation’s – and the government’s – respect. If the Tories really want a change of military leadership, they should get on with it rather than abandoning Sir Jock to the party’s over eager spin doctors.

ConDems cannot add up?

Before the election, 'Call Me Dave' Cameron said that top earners in the public sector should not earn more than 20 times the lowest earners in their organisation.


Well, yesterday they published a supposed 'shock horror' list of top 172 civil service salaries... and we note something of a problem with 'Call Me Dave's' artithmetic.


Take for example Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, Ministry of Defence - on a salary of £244,999. A moment with a calculator reveals that this equates to 20 times a salary of £12,249... somewhat less than the entry level AA salary of £14,726 in the MoD.

In fact, going by 'Call Me Dave's' reackoning, Sir Jock could realistically claim his salary should be more like £294,519.

Addendum: Probably also worth pointing out that Sir Jock is serving military... not civil service, so why is he on the list in the first place? (see above post)

"We're all in this together..."

February 2010: David Cameron pledges to clean up British politics, during an impassioned speech in which he asserts that the public’s disaffection with politicians is genuine, justified and deep-seated. “Money buying influence,” he fulminates. “We can’t go on like this.”

May 2010: David Cameron nominates the self-made millionaire businessman Dolar Popat and Next’s Simon Wolfson for peerages.
By coincidence, both men have donated large sums to the Conservative party.

Sometimes things change; sometimes they don’t.