Richard Exell

Action for ESOL is an alliance of ESOL practitioners, unions, students and community organisations, campaigning against huge cuts planned for the teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages.

In November, the Department for Business Innovation and Skills published a strategy document called Further Education – New Horizon, setting out the government’s investment strategy for further education. A key element was to limit funding for free places on ESOL courses to people who receive Jobseeker’s Allowance or Employment and Support Allowance. Other planned cuts include an end to all government funding for ESOL courses in the workplace.

Continue Reading →

Richard Exell

The government has found £27 million to guarantee a year’s reprieve for 500 debt advisers supported by the Financial Inclusion Fund. The advisers, based in Citizens’ Advice Bureaux around the country, help 100,000 people a year as part of a programme established by the last government to target financial exclusion. In January, Mark Hoban MP, Financial Secretary to the Treasury announced that the Fund would close at the end of March and the advisers stopped taking on new cases.  Yesterday Vince Cable announced that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills had found £27 million to fund the programme for another year.

Continue Reading →

Richard Exell

The proportion of people visiting hospital accident and emergency departments who had to wait over four hours rose substantially in the last quarter of 2010. For A & E departments generally, the proportion with long waits rose to 3.5 per cent from 2.2 per cent in the last quarter of 2009. For major A & E Departments the increase was even bigger, from 3.2 per cent to 5.3 per cent.

Continue Reading →

Richard Exell

The British Neuroscience Association has sent an open letter to the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, protesting at the twenty per cent cut in neuroscience funding, equivalent to about £4 million a year for the next five years. The BNA points to a survey of Top European Institutions in Neuroscience and Behaviour, where 6 of the top ten places were taken by British universities and “the highest scores for neuroscience and behaviour research quality were achieved by UK laboratories.” But, they add, “it is not clear how the UK will sustain its strength in these areas if funding is reduced.” The cuts, the BNA argues, will reduce “the strength of an area of research in which the United Kingdom excels.”

Continue Reading →

Richard Exell

Will interest rates go up soon?

That question is getting harder and harder to avoid, and in two days we have had two sets of statistics that illustrate why it is just as hard to answer. There was a surprise increase in today’s Producer Prices figures – the Output Price Index (prices when they leave manufacturers, before any mark-up from middle-men and shops and before VAT) in January was 1.0 per cent higher than in December, and was running at an annual rate of 4.8 per cent. Economists had only expected a month-on-month increase of about 0.5 per cent.

The Input Price Index was worse: the amount manufacturers are having to pay for raw materials was up 1.7 per cent on the month and the annual rate is a massive 13.4 per cent. Economists had expected the increase from December to be 1.2 per cent.

Continue Reading →

Richard Exell

Figures released today by the Marmot review illuminate the impact of inequality on both ends of people’s lives. There is a ten year difference in life expectancy between the poorest and richest local authorities – dwarfing the impact of cardiovascular disease, which reduces the average life span by 3.6 years. The gap within some boroughs is even more frightening – the difference in male life expectancy between the rich and poor  parts of Westminster is 17 years, in Newcastle there is an equivalent gap for women of 11 years.

Inequalities in disability free life expectancy are even wider; there is a 10 year gap between men in the richest and poorest parts of half the local authorities in England. In Wirral the gap is 20 years for men and 17 for women.

Continue Reading →

Philip Pearson

With 10% of our electricity now from renewable supplies, news that employment in renewables doubled to 10,000 jobs in the past three years signals the true jobs potential of this industry. Plans for a £700m wind farm off the Yorkshire coast were agreed a few days ago, the second boost this year for a green energy hub in the region, after Siemens chose  Hull as its proposed site for a wind turbine manufacturing plant.  But manufacturing is the key word: most of our installed wind turbines are made aboard. The Renewable UK report suggests just 750 jobs in renewables manufacture. Set against this challenge, quite why the Green Investment Bank is stuck in the slow lane is beyond comprehension.

Continue Reading →

Scarlet Harris

You may have missed the news from the Daycare Trust that 250 Sure Start children’s centres face closure – after the seemingly relentless tirade of bad news stories about cuts to services, from libraries to the Citizen Advice Bureau, from after school clubs to women’s refuges, yet another cuts story rarely grabs headlines.

It seemed too good to be true when the Coalition Government promised that Sure Start services would be protected in cash terms. It was. We already knew “cash terms” meant a 9% cut in real terms. We also knew that the ringfencing of Sure Start budgets was to end. In a context of Local Authorities facing budget cuts of 28%, it didn’t take a great leap of the imagination to envisage Sure Start budgets being raided as soon as the ringfencing was removed.

Continue Reading →

Richard Exell

The December Index of Production results for industrial output will have been disappointing for anyone who hopes that manufacturing is going to lift the rest of the economy but not much of a surprise for anyone else.

The year-on-year results are OK. Over the 12 months from December 2009, the Index of Production rose 3.6 per cent and the Index of Manufacturing (which is by far the biggest element of the IoP) rose 4.4 per cent. This is an improvement on a we have become used to over the past year, which is nicely sustained (though not startling).

The change from November is a bit of a cause for concern, though its too early to worry. The IoP is up 0.5 per cent (very nice) but the IoM is actually down slightly, 0.1 per cent.

Continue Reading →

Owen Tudor

The financial sector, according to the Bank of England, is effectively subsidised by about £100 bn a year, largely because of the implicit promise that now exists that if they fail, the taxpayer will bail them out. On top of that, senior bankers are still raking in what they think are restrained bonus payments and salaries, which for most people even in the developed world are beyond the dreams of avarice. So you might have hopes that the Government might recognise public anger about the bailout and the troughing, and claw some of the money back through taxation. But today, your hopes would have been dashed, as Project Merlin flops weakly into the limelight.

Project Merlin is a cheap con trick, pretending the banks are being brought to heel when they are actually being let off the hook. Banks are making such massive profits and paying such eye-watering bonuses because taxpayers prop them up. We’ve paid the banks billions and now they’ve ‘generously’ agreed to lend some of it back. It’s time the banks paid their fair share. A Robin Hood Tax could claw back £20bn a year to help prevent devastating cuts to public services, tackle climate change and support poor people here and abroad.

Continue Reading →