eurealist.co.uk

From Neil Herron

Thanks to Gill Swanson for this. Next time you listen to a lecture by regional assembly factotums or supporters or europhiles and the apparatchik just play weasel word bingo and the rubbish they spout will seem even more ridiculous.
If you start to expose these weasel words in the press then the more foolish those using them will look.
Please feel free to circulate.

Let’s Cut the jargon and get back to direct representation

Weasel, words and phrases.

“Centres of excellence” (establishment-approved set-ups).

“Best practice” (establishment-approved ways of doing things)

“Stakeholders” (carefully chosen special-interest groups courted and flattered into the belief that they are helping the powerful to shape policy).

“Civil society” (members of any special interest groups considered important/amenable enough to be “stakeholders”)

“Governance” (the replacement of representative government with techniques that steer tame “stakeholders” along pre-determined paths towards a desired outcome).

“Consultation” (the process by which “stakeholders” are fooled into believing that they actually wanted to go down those paths anyway).

“Facilitator” (the stooge trained in-group dynamics who makes sure the “consultation process” doesn’t go astray).

“Consensus” (the apparent unanimity resulting from the elimination of opposition by a skilled “facilitator”)

“Participatory democracy” (the sidelining and ostracism of dissenting majorities and minorities by systematically excluding them from participation in “civil society” and “the consultation process”)

“Networking” (collusion among “stakeholders” in pursuit of their own interests, without regards for those barred from participation in “participatory democracy”)

“Opinion-formers” (the supra-national political and academic establishment, plus influential “stakeholders” who have achieved “consensus” via corruption or the “consultation process”)

“Law-makers” (an up-and-coming term, increasingly used as a synonym for representatives, heaven help us).

Let’s cut the jargon and the “governance” and gets back to the direct representatives, heaven help us).

Let’s cut the jargon and the “governance” and get back to the direct representation of individuals and their families and communities at grass-roots level.

Gillian Swanson
Whitley Bay

A government in which a single ruler is vested with absolute power. The office, authority, or jurisdiction of an absolute ruler

That is the plan, look at the convention proceedings and the resulting totally non-democratic, zero-accountability constitution and there can be no other possible conclusion.

I do not know where that came from but if we care to look at the process that has developed to force the EU Constitution on the people, we can clearly se that the whole process is totally undemocratic with no input being allowed or wanted from the people that will have to live under the new EU government based on its own constitution.

Following on from a declaration to the Treaty of Nice and a later declaration agreed by the European Council (summit meeting) in Laeken in December 2001, the Convention on the Future of the European Union had the task of examining the current EU and EC Treaties and suggesting possible changes. The declaration of Laeken called for “more democracy, transparency and efficiency” in the EU and for reforms that would bring the EU closer to citizens. It referred to the possibility of “restoring tasks to the Member States” and the possibility “in the long run” of adopting a constitutional text for the EU

Its members, 105 in all, consisted of two representatives from each national parliament of the EU Member and Applicant countries, one from each national Government, and representatives of the European Parliament and EU Commission. The Draft Treaty says the Constitution was adopted “by consensus” at the EU Convention. The consensus was largely inside the heads of its chairman, former French President V.Giscard d’Estaing, and his 12- person Praesidum. No votes were taken on the over 1000 amendments submitted. Minority and dissenting views were ignored,
In fact even before the Convention met the President GISCARD D’ESTAING had decided that the only way forward was a Constitution at his opening speech on 26 February 2002 he said

“The Laeken Declaration leaves the Convention free to choose between submitting options or
making a single recommendation.
It would be contrary to the logic of our approach to choose now.
However, there is no doubt that, in the eyes of the public, our recommendation would carry
considerable weight and authority if we could manage to achieve broad consensus on a single
proposal which we could all present.
If we were to reach consensus on this point, we would thus open the way towards a Constitution for
Europe.

In order to avoid any disagreement over semantics, let us agree now to call it: a “constitutional
treaty for Europe”.

So we can already see that the Convention called to discuss the way forward had been hijacked by the federalists, who were not interested in finding a solution to the problems of the EU but were intent upon delivering a document that would force further integration.

Gisela Stuart who represented the Labour Party at Convention on the Future of Europe, and was a member of the Presidium. Said even those members of the Presidium had no power to control what went in or what was left out of the treaty. This was decided by Giscard and his deputies, Giuliano Amato and Jean-Luc Dehaene, and possibly Kerr. This group of four formed an inner core which directed and controlled the whole Convention.

“Consensus was achieved among those deemed to matter, who made it plain that the rest would not be allowed to wreck the fragile agreement struck. In the final stages, a number of delegates, including me, made it clear we could not endorse the text and that it should be regarded by the parliaments that sent us as no more than a basis for further discussions. Yet hardly was the ink dry on the draft than this was turned into an endorsement by all those present and governments were warned not to pick apart the carefully achieved compromises”

The debates focused solely on where we could do more at European Union level. None of the existing policies were questioned.
The most frequently cited justifications for a written Constitution for Europe have been the need to make the Treaties more understandable to European voters and the need to streamline the decision-making procedures of the European Union after enlargement. I support both of these aims. But the draft document from my experience at the Convention it is clear that the real reason for the Constitution – and its main impact – is the political deepening of the Union.
This Treaty establishing a Constitution brings together all that has been agreed in the past and introduces significant new changes in the EU. It will be difficult to amend and will be subject to interpretation by the European Court of Justice. And if it remains in its current form, the new Constitution will be able to create powers for itself. It cannot be viewed piecemeal; its sum is more than its parts.

I was critical of the draft text and spelt out some of my concerns in a Fabian pamphlet last December. Unlike the Tories, I am not opposed to the concept of a constitution as such. Indeed, much of the confusion and lack of accountability in the EU could well be due to the absence of clearly defined rules.
There are worrying aspects. It gives more power to the European institutions but does not make those institutions more accountable to voters. By extending qualified majority voting, power is being handed to the European institutions but not to the nation states.

Where integration can be deepened no further, this text has rigid rules as for example in the list of exclusive competences of the Commission. Power at the centre cannot be returned to Member States. Where the political climate means that certain ideas for further integration are not yet acceptable, the Draft Constitution creates the structure for a process to develop later.”

The Constitution does not define the rules or limit the EU in any way in fact it does the opposite and allows the EU to change the rules and extend its power as it wishes, There are already areas of tax which are under the control of the EU and the Constitution makes it clear that the EU aims to harmonise tax. Most of the criminal justice system! this is only the thin end of the wedge there is nothing to stop the ECJ from extending its remit into all of these areas. Again the Constitution is clear that defence will be brought under the control of the EU later, we already have a joint fast reaction force on which the EU will build.

There is going to be an EU foreign minister who will speak for the union and each country will be expected to stand by its duty and conform to the EUs wishes and do nothing which could undermine the EU. The Constitution is full of things which undermine the role of national parliaments.

“This is not a State and is not intended to become a state” is the clarion call at each treaty, but each time we have a new treaty the areas that can be pointed to showing the EU is not a State get smaller and smaller This time It is just two areas Taxes and Army. Last time they could have said there is no Constitution!

So this is the Constitution which we are now being told by the EU foreign Minister designate Javier Solana we must accept, or we will open up the question of the relationship with other members of the EU.
So what! that is what the Laeken declaration called for, and the Convention on the Future of the EU ignored. If the EU cannot be further deepened without the peoples consent then so be it, Giscard should have considered this when he used the Convention to further the aims of the Union elite without a thought to the people.

From Neil Herron How Our Money was Spent

Hull and East Riding

09:30 - 01 January 2005

The University of Salford evaluation of the “operation and effectiveness of elected regional assemblies” - £979,274

Review of studies promoting regional growth - £255,320

Evaluation of the Role and Impact of Regional Chambers - £216,129

Identifying the flow of expenditure into regions - £176,520

British Social Attitudes Survey Module on Regional Governance - £16,800

Can Competitive Regions Promote Sustainability research - £17,300

Reflecting Diversity in Governing the Regions - £16,200

Research on cost of government reorganisation £127,590

Please circulate
The Anglo Saxon Chronicle

Words fail me, we are into day 10 of the Indian ocean disaster and do the EU copy the Australian-American model of acting quickly and effectively to save lives, or do they issue another pointless edict

“After the natural disaster that has affected south-east Asia and some regions of east Africa, the Luxembourg Presidency calls for three minutes of mourning in silence throughout the European Union, to be observed at noon on 5 January 2005. Flags will fly at half-mast”

At noon tomorrow 05/01/05 why not send an e-mail to the EU presidency with the follow text.

‘You cant save life with silence’

http://www.eu2005.lu/en/support/contact/index.php

Savings even less than the £20 million pa, or less than 1p per person per week, previously projected - now it’s only £4.2 million pa = 0.16p per person per week [ca 49 million population as this is for England only] and it may actually cost more. Plus the real prospect of “total project failure” with the certainty, not just the probability, that lives will then be endangered. And the new regional fire control centres would be “based on a Company Limited by Shares, or a Company Limited by Guarantee” - just like SEERA Ltd. All this is in the cause of euro-regionalisation.

http://www.fbu.org.uk/news/news%202004/n041231.htm

4 January 2005

THE FIRE BRIGADES UNION

… PRESS RELEASE … PRESS RELEASE … PRESS RELEASE …. PRESS RELEASE …
LIVES IN DANGER AS FIRE SERVICE PLAN FACES “VERY HIGH RISK” IT WILL END IN “TOTAL PROJECT FAILURE” REVEALS LEAKED REPORT

Download the Report here

A controversial Government project to close all 46 fire service control centres in England has a “very high risk” of “total project failure” says a confidential report leaked to the Fire Brigades Union. The union says the report, marked restricted and confidential, highlights concerns the project will lead to cuts in fire services, push up council tax and put lives in danger.

The ODPM report – Firecontrol Project, outline business case volumes 1 and 2 - is so confidential the version given to fire authorities has all the key figures and financial estimates deleted because, it is claimed, they are “confidential or sensitive”. In fact the hidden figures (leaked to the union) simply show how expensive and precarious the project is and torpedoes ministerial promises it will save money and improve the service.

Fire Brigades Union General Secretary Andy Gilchrist said:

“This dangerous plan will axe all our excellent command and control centres and be a financial burden on the fire service and council tax payers for years to come. It’s expensive, it’s risky, it won’t save a single life and could end in total failure.

“Ministers are hiding the true costs from fire authorities and have made public claims which cannot possibly be justified. Slashing staffing levels from the 1,500 already over-worked personnel to 600 is dangerous folly which is why they want to keep the numbers secret.

“Our current ability to respond very quickly to fires, traffic accidents, flooding, environmental, chemical, nuclear and radiological incidents will be badly damaged. If such a key part of the fire service collapses into the total failure they say may very well happen then lives will be lost.

“It won’t be benefits or tax credits being delayed, as happened after other Government foul ups, it will be a frontline 999 service. If the Government presses ahead with this folly they will have taken leave of their senses.”

The 9 new regional control rooms – it will now include London’s control room - will be “based on a Company Limited by Shares, or a Company Limited by Guarantee” (page 79 paragraph 222) although they will stay under the control of fire authorities. The private sector will provide the new buildings under an expensive rental agreement known as a Private Developer Scheme which will account for nearly a quarter of the annual operating costs. There will be a separate arrangement with the private sector to supply the technology.

The report reveals for the first time that the plans to close all existing centres and open 9 regional centres will cost a massive £754.5 million at today’s prices. (page 33, paragraph 73: net present value figure). The report estimates there may be savings of £42.3 million over ten years, £90,000 a year for each Fire Authority. (page 33, paragraph 73: net present value figure). All these figures are concealed from Fire Authorities.

But the report also makes clear there may be a loss of £107 million over the same period, costing Fire Authorities over £200,000 a year more. (page 43 net present value upper limit figure). And this figure may grow if the project does not run relatively smoothly. Again, the figures are concealed from Fire Authorities.

The project has enormous upfront costs of well over £300 million in the early years to which hard-pressed Fire Authorities will have to contribute. As most of them do not have large cash reserves and some face rate-capping the money will almost certainly have to come from cuts to frontline services.

The risks associated with the project show it is an enormous gamble while “existing arrangements for delivering core services (including call-taking and dispatch functions) is perceived to be excellent.” (Page 11, paragraph 30).

The report assesses the risk of “delay or even total project failure” as very high/high. This is because “the recent history of delivering IT/change projects in the public sector has demonstrated a less than 50% success rate.” (page 52 paragraph 141).

There is a high/high risk “that the current provisional timescales may not be achieved” which would “increase project cost”. (page 52, paragraph 142) These are earlier estimated to be around £11.4 million for each six month delay for each region (page 46, paragraph 124)

There is a high/high risk that Council Tax may be pushed up and the fire service cut as a result of project cost overruns. The report says: “Failure to deliver economies would reduce the resources available to further service aims and objectives, and might impact on Council Tax” (page 52 paragraph 142)

Although the report does not explicitly say so the risks of failure are likely to be higher because the project is unique. “There is no precedent for a regional structure to deliver an operational function such as this.” (page 79, par 110) There is also wider opposition to any move away from brigade level controls as the report acknowledges: “There is a limit to the degree of integration that the public, the Fire and Rescue Service and its representative bodies are likely to find acceptable” (Page 30 par 68)

Almost all the savings come from slashing the workforce to 600 staff from the current number of 1,500 (London has around 98 staff) leaving little more than 40 people to staff each of the new controls, figures also concealed from Fire Authorities (page 47 and 48, paragraphs 127 and 128).

This would mean in practical terms – it is a 24 hour 365 day service - around 8-10 people on shift at any one time to cover massive regions, or about one for each current brigade, a number most in the service would consider dangerously low even for dealing with normal call volumes. The figures are concealed from fire authorities.

The report makes clear that staffing numbers have to be slashed to these levels or the project cannot make any savings at all. Every additional 100 staff adds around £40 million to the project costs and would wipe out any “savings”, figures also concealed from Fire Authorities.

The staff cuts are so severe that the system will routinely transfer calls away from controls which have reached saturation point to whichever control room can take the call. “Control loads will be managed by the transferring of calls to alternative regional control with spare capacity” (page 18) which could be anywhere in England.

This could see – as a matter of routine – 999 calls in Cornwall being handled in the North East. Or 999 calls for incidents in Cumbria being handled in Kent. Each remote regional centre would also have to deal with one of the 99 police controls or 43 ambulance controls close to the site of the incident, a logistical nightmare.

Even the supposed critical need to deal with terrorist incidents does not escape the tight financial constraints needed to make the project self-financing: “There is a trade off between achieving security and resilience requirements, and the cost of implementation” (page 22)

Claims that there will be any service improvements at all are undermined further because no attempt has been made to estimate the impact of the changes: “No attempt has been made to quantify the value of lives saved, injuries avoided or reduction in damage to property” (Page 106, paragraph 110)

The claimed savings of £42.3 million over 10 years do not amount to the 30% savings promised repeatedly by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. The possible losses of £107 million - around 12% - is a figure never mentioned by ministers.

The figures for savings have to be taken with an enormous pinch of salt as so many costs are either excluded from the project costs, ignored altogether or effectively shifted onto other budgets and counted as savings. The costs exclude depreciation, capital costs, “migration costs”, the costs of building “maintenance and rehabilitation”, the cost of patching the current system until the new one comes on line, write-off costs for existing systems (some only recently upgraded).

Also excluded are the costs of withdrawing from any existing arrangements including the very expensive PFI deal the London Fire Service reached to open its new control centre last year. That deal is so costly that PFI is excluded as an option for regional control centres. (Page 60, paragraph 171)

Also excluded are any additional costs to the police and ambulance services of linking up with the new fire service controls. They have no plans to regionalize their command and control centres although they often have to respond to the same incidents.

Some work excluded from the proposed new regional controls will still have to be done and paid for by fire brigades with the information passed to the new controls. This includes crucial information on the constantly changing status of retained stations, the numbers on duty and local details of road closures or traffic delays and many more, most of them not even listed.

National media contact: Duncan Milligan 07736 818100

Ends

Notes: the document (with almost all the embarrassing figures blanked out) is currently out for consultation. The full document (with all the figures intact) is available on our website from 10am January 3: www.fbu.org.uk

Fire Authorities have been asked to respond to the document by 5 February although all the key figures and estimates have been removed from the version sent to them.

The union is sending the document to all members of the Public Accounts Committee, all members of the ODPM Select Committee, the Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, Chancellor Gordon Brown, the National Audit Office and the Chairs of all Fire Authorities.

CLAIMS MADE BY NICK RAYNSFORD SINCE THIS CONFIDENTIAL REPORT WAS PRODUCED

Cambridge Evening News 14 December 2004

“it is not a launch into the unknown.” In fact the project is described as “unique” in the report which also states: “There is no precedent for a regional structure to deliver an operational function such as this.” (page 79, par 110)

“…the new centres will have more staff on duty” No they won’t, the report’s confidential figures show a reduction of nearly two-thirds.

“if the number of calls to the centre is overwhelming they will go to another centre and no-one will be left waiting”. With far fewer staff the new control rooms will reach saturation point much more quickly even under normal operating conditions. The other control rooms will also be operating under the same pressures with far fewer staff.

“…there will be a significant saving”. There is no such certainty even with the very questionable figures they use. There may also be a far more significant loss and a “very high” risk of “total project failure”. All that information concealed from fire authorities and the public.

East Anglia Daily Times

November 30, 2004

“A spokeswoman from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister said the setting up of regional fire control centres would create a better, more efficient fire and rescue service that saved more lives.” Or, according to the report, create a system which might fail completely, cost vast sums of money, push up council tax and result in cuts to the frontline fire and rescue service.

“The spokeswoman said the new centres were expected to achieve a cost saving of about 30% on current control room running costs.” In fact the true estimate is that the £750 million project might produce savings of around 5%, might result in a loss of 12%, might push up Council Tax, might mean cuts in frontline services and has a “very high” risk that it faces “total project failure”.

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