UNISON Labour Link: Public Services - time to pay fair! #Lab14

I am still catching up on Labour Party Conference posts. This is on the UNISON Labour Link political fund fringe on the Monday evening.

The Chair of UNISON Labour Link Committee Eleanor Smith chaired this meeting.

Jon Trickett MP the Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office spoke first about the Tories declaring war on public services. They have cut staff, outsourced and slashed pay.

Their war is about "public bad" and "private good". We know what happens if a public service goes private. The pay of Chief Executives compared to their workers goes up from a ratio of 1:22 to 1:276.

The privatised companies make excess profits but they also don't pay tax, they don't deliver on contracts such as Olympics and the risk always come back to the public sector.

Labour Pledges to get rid of this "public bad" assumption. Also bad companies cannot expect to be on any future government procurement list. We need to reverse the dogma of market triumphalism like we did in 1945. 

UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis, spoke about the many good things that came out of the  recent Labour Party policy weekend in Milton Keynes, such as no longer will the cheapest bid automatically win public contracts. The downside is the current international trade talks which are not about fair trade but about getting rid of collective bargaining and stopping public services which have been privatised ever being brought back in house.

The value of pay for public sector workers has gone down by 1/5th in 5 years. We have lost 800k jobs. We have 1.4 million on zero hours contracts. We need to fight for a living wage now and not one in 5 years time.

Paul Hunter from the Smith Institute spoke about their new report on outsourcing.  6% of the UK economy GDP is awarded to the private sector with little or no evidence and information that it is more efficient or saves money.

Public contracts are being run by driving down labour costs, not for value for money nor efficiency. It is a return to Compulsory Competitive Tendering. Pay, benefits and pensions are being driven down.

I asked a question to Paul about whether his report has looked at the huge administrative cost of outsourcing. Huge amounts of time and money is spent on drawing up contracts and specifications. Even more money is wasted on bids and due diligence . Legal costs alone are massive. Public bodies have to then evaluate the bids, meet any challenges and the cost of monitoring ongoing compliance. Paul said this was not within the scope of this report but it is obviously a key issue.

Big, Bad & Dangerous...? Do we need Housing Associations? #Lab14

This Labour Party conference housing fringe took place on the Monday afternoon outside the secure area. There was an error in the programme about timings which meant I think some people missing it. 

The Chair was from the New
Statesman, Jon Bernstein (centre of photo)

First speaker was shadow planning minister, Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods MP. Roberta said we need to build 200,000 homes per year and asked how will housing associations be part of this mix? Affordability will be key and the Michael Lyons report for the Party will be out soon. We should also be about "Place making". What jobs and services are needed? not just about new housing units. Many councils will not want to take role of housing developers so there is a strong role for associations.

Next was Rod Cahill, the Chief Executive of Catalyst Housing (on right) who started in housing as a trainee in the London Borough of Camden in 1975. In that year Housing Associations only built 22,000 properties while local authorities built 145,000. Unlike now. There has been a 100,000 per year shortfall in new build for the last 30 years which means we are need 3 million extra new homes which causes shortage and affordability problems.

It will take a long time to increase production. Catalyst will build 1200 new homes this year. Rod believes that Housing Associations are a key part of the solution. There is a need to generate surpluses to cross subsidy the cost of new build. There has been a 70% cut in capital support by this government. Without surplus they would not be able to build at social rents. Catalyst made £40 million last year which they will reinvest in bricks and mortar.

There needs also to be a change in planning. There is an anti development culture. We need clarity about affordable rents. We need land and to re-professionalise Housing. We need government support for when the market drops and we are unable to cross subsidise. Public money can be found for absolute national priorities. We need to go back to 40 years when we built 300,000 homes per year.

Cllr Julian Bell, the leader of Ealing Council (standing) spoke about a "perfect storm" in housing. With the problem of "beds in sheds" and affordability.  You need to earn £70,000 per year to buy a house in Ealing where the average price is near £300,000. In his borough they had set up a Housing commission to examine what can be done and increase supply. Raising the HRA headroom would help.

Last speaker was London Assembly Housing spokesperson Tom Copley. Tom was interested in Councils providing housing because of the scale of the problem and that the private sector wouldn't fill the gap. No incentive for the private sector to build since in their interests to restrict supply. There is still an arbitrary cap on housing investment in the UK but not over other forms of prudential borrowing. We only the only country to define housing investment as government debt. Tom believes everyone needs to step up including the private sector.

My question to the panel as a Labour Councillor and UNISON Housing Association branch secretary was that that any solution to the Housing crisis will have to result in even more government spending and subsidy. I said I am not digging Rod out in particular since this is a sector issue. The problem with housing associations is that they have a democratic governance deficit. They need to raise their game to account for public money. The average CEOs has increased their salary by above inflation while their staff are given less; some of them despite being charities refuse to even recognise trade unions while many have little or no involvement of residents in the running of their organisations. If Housing Associations want to be on board then there has to be change.

Rod said they do recognise trade unions and what does my question have to do with housing supply? Housing associations are private organisations and do not rely on public money. Only £1 in every £6 invested is public money. I said that this is about governance and housing associations do rely on housing benefit and past public investment. Unless we have proper accountability and structures they should not get public money.

Future of the Local Government Pension Scheme - LAPFF at #Lab14

Still catching up on my posts from Labour Party conference. On the Monday lunchtime I attended the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF) fringe.

The Chair of LAPFF, Cllr Kieran Quinn (standing in photo) spoke first on the future of the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) and that the government had lost its nerve about forcing the merger of the schemes. He doesn't know if it will be on the agenda of any new government post May next year.

Kieran believes that fees are too high and by acting collectively you can drive out costs but decisions should be made locally. The government also seems to be backing off forcing schemes to invest in passive rather than actively managed investment funds.

Next speaker was Henry Boucher (on left), who is a fund manager and partner of Sarasin & Partners.

Henry is an active fund manager. He posed the question "Is active management really worth it?" and answered it by saying not all active managers are worth it and some are indeed over paid. But in the LGPS there are better results for lower fees than many other investments in the world. Research has shown that 40% of all fees are taken by only 10% of asserts,  mostly hedge funds.

He thinks the chief problem is that shareholders fail to hold companies to account. The USA even use to have what was called "bearer share certificates" with no names on them. Companies ran themselves. Chief Executives are being allowed to pay themselves too much. It cannot be right that they get an average $30 million per year.

He wants companies to be run properly and not use slave labour or destroy the environment. We need state of the art governance. The LGPS is good on this but needs some changes. However, it doesn't make sense to have all investments in passive funds.

My question about changes in LGPS governance with the requirement to involve employees more and how the panel thought this would happen?

Kieran thought that a greater scrutiny role by employees is for the good. The more diversity in boards the stronger the decision making process. He understands that some of the trade unions think there is a democratic deficit in the LGPS.

(Chair was Alan MacDougall from PIRC)

Trade unions together fringe "A bit of common sense: Winning for ordinary people" #Lab14

This was my first fringe of Conference which took place on the Sunday lunchtime. The speakers were Paul Kenny, General Secretary of the  GMB, Louise Haigh PPC, Chair Byron Taylor TULO, Lisa Nandy MP Shadow Minister for Cabinet Office and Joanne Hepworth, Npower workplace rep.

This was a packed out fringe with standing room only at the back of the room. Paul spoke first and pointed out that the Scotland referendum shows people are interested in politics. What he wants is Labour Leader, Ed Miliband, to not be radical but normal. Normal people go to work and should not be in fear. It is not normal for rich bosses to be earning a fortune, while the state subsidises their low paid workers and then they go off to fiddle their taxes!

Louise talked about the economy and the need to question what type of economy we want? There was not a global crisis because we paid teachers too much. We need to drive down tax avoidance and drive up wages. The lowest paid spend more of their income which drives growth. She used to work in the City. We need to change the financial system.  We need to dismantle banks and restructure them. Tax high frequency trading. Get worker representative's on company boards.

Joanne believed that we need to get young workers involved in the union movement by listening. She first needed a union after being issued with first written warning for being sick following a serious car accident. She was suspended in the Npower call centre for putting the phone down on an abusive customer. Luckily she knew she had rights and fought the decision with her union and won.

Last speaker was the always very good, Lisa Nandy MP, who wanted to restore common sense in Westminster. To do that we need more women.  Not only Parliament since she recently shared a question panel with 3 men who were all called Simon.

She spends too much time in Parliament and should instead spend more time in her Consistency in Wigan. How can we have diversity in politics since there are currently 18 millionaires in the Cabinet? We need people in Parliament who actually "get it". Trade unions use to be this route and it is good they are doing this again.

The media is controlled by small handful of wealthy men so no wonder the issues of low paid women are never there. She was born and loves being in Manchester but half of its children live in poverty. The Conference is taking place at the site of the Peterloo Massacre. Politics is not just about a seat on the table but about changing society.

I asked the panel a question that I remember hearing on the radio, when a German historian said "Why is it that in Germany the trade unions are seen as partners you can do business with but in the UK they are seen as the enemy? How do we change this?

Paul responded by saying he was not a great fan of the German model. A Partnership needs to be equal. Otherwise there is no respect for labour. Germany has its own problems and its traditional model is falling to pieces and they actually want to be a bit more like us.

Lisa said she was born in 1979. She didn't know what had happened before but in every job she ever had the solution to problems at work is trade unions.

Louise said she doesn't believe in importing other models to the UK and that in Germany there was less union membership. She also said that Labour must change the way it selects candidates. She had to spend 2 months of her life working 16 hour days to be selected as a PPC. Only "professional" candidates can afford to do this.

Paul made a great typical "telling it as it is" last comment by saying the union movement must take its share of the blame for the lack of working class trade unionists selected as prospective Labour MPs in recent years.  Things are much better now but our fault is that for a long time we just said what "great organisers we were" when actually we were being out organised left, right and centre by Progress and others.

Labour Party Conference 2014 Sunday #lab14

I thought that I would post this picture to give people a feel of what it is like to be at Labour Conference and stay in Manchester.

Pictures are from the Conference centre; the late night booze fest aka the Midland Hotel; the lovely canals (and it is always sunny and warm in Manchester - trust me), my extremely cheap and cheerful hotel in Back Piccadilly Street - £260 for 4 nights - Staff very nice and a "character hotel" with interesting damp problems (I never made breakfast, so can't vouch for it); arrival at conference of the victorious "Vote No" Labour Battle bus and a Manchester public service warning on the dangers of telly. 

Ed at London Regional Reception #lab14

This is a late post but my excuse is that it was really busy during and since I returned from Labour Party Conference in Manchester. Hopefully I can catch up on post on events soon.

Picture of our Labour Leader, Ed Miliband, addressing the London regional reception at Conference a week ago.

This was a ticket only packed event. Shadow London Minister Sidiq Khan MP was the host.

I had a serious conversation with Gary Kent, the Director of the all-party parliamentary group on the Kurdistan Region in Iraq on the threat from the ISIL fascists. A brave man.

There was good news from a major British property company that they will be announcing soon that they will make sure that all their directly employed and contracting staff are paid a living wage!

Ed himself was very relaxed and confident when he came to speak (the first of many times during Conference that I was to hear him in similar events). He started off with the traditional joke that the London Labour reception was his real, real favourite over all the other receptions but we should not tell anyone else this!

He also told this joke (which I was also to hear again) that as he came out of the Eastern region reception today, he was stopped by a female delegate who said "What a marvellous speech today". He replied by saying "Well, thank you very much". She said "not you but your wife Justine's speech during the women's conference today. She was marvellous".

Hat tip picture top Newhamite Sue M for photo.

Labour Party Conference 2014 #Lab14

On the train back to the "Smoke" after 5 days away at this year's Labour Conference in Manchester.

I was not a delegate and went in my "ex-officio" capacity as a Councillor. This meant I could have a late start (no early morning delegation meetings) and go for a jog in the morning to clear the head around the lovely city centre canals.

Best of all I could pick and choose which parts of conference business I wanted to see and also go to the fringes that took my fancy.

I'll post on some of the fringes and debates I attended during the next few days.

I must admit that I thought the conference was a little flat considering we are only 7 months away from a General election but the reason was I think that many in the Party were still knackered after the Scottish referendum.

Politically I think it went very well, the Party is united and determined to get rid of the Tories next May. While I think we ought to have gone further on a number of policies and announcements, we have enough to win and "win big" as guest international speaker, New York Mayor, Bill De Blasio, put it so effectively today.

I'll post more on Ed's speech but it passed the grayee litmus test (I rang my Mum who watched it on the telly and she said he came over well.).