NOVANEWS
Birmingham Hall Green MP, Roger Godsiff, today welcomed the assurance from the Dept of Health that there would be “continuation of care” for all those residents of Southern Cross Care Homes affected by the recent closure of the company.
Responding to a letter that Mr Godsiff sent to Paul Burstow MP, Minister of State for Care Services before the closure announcement, Paul Burstow said: “The Government is determined to maintain continuity and quality of care for all care home residents across the country.
“We are working with the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, the Local Government Association and the CQC to ensure that contingency plans are in place that will allow for the continuation of care in any eventuality. “
“Our principal concern is for the safety and wellbeing of the residents of care homes that might be affected. We will ensure they are protected and whatever happens, no resident – whether publicly or self-funded – will be left homeless or without care.”
Mr Godsiff was however not so reassured by the Minister’s belief that: “We consider the private sector should be fully capable of resolving this issue”.
He said: “Residents of Southern Cross have no grounds to be confident in the performance of the private sector as they have learnt to their cost. If Government’s continue to abandon large areas of social provision to the private sector without adequate oversight vulnerable members of our society will continued to be viewed as tradeable assets and not people. The performance of the Quality Care Commission (CQC) has been worse than lamentable in this respect”.
One of the 753 homes currently run by Southern Cross is the Oaklands home in the Moseley district of Mr Godsiff’s constituency and he firmly believes that residents of Oaklands and all the other 30,000 Southern Cross residents can do without the worry and distress that is being caused by the present financial uncertainty.
There are 14 Southern Cross homes in Birmingham accounting for 700 places which is aprox 10% of all the care homes places in the area.
Wednesday, 8 June 2011
Scandal of Southern CrBirmingham MP Roger Godsiff joined the attack over the scandal of the financial crisis at Britain’s biggest nursing homes group, Southern Cross Healthcare, tabling an Early Day Motion (EDM1863) highly critical of the financial management of the company as well as naming both a former and current senior Government advisor who benefited substantially from the flotation of the company in 2006.oss
The hard hitting EDM tabled by the Hall Green MP states that: ‘Elderly people who need residential care should be helped to live out their lives with care, support and dignity rather than having their futures determined by the avaricious greed of financial entrepreneurs and their apologists who view care for the elderly as just another commodity and market opportunity to make vast sums of money’.
One of the 753 homes currently run by Southern Cross is the Oaklands home in the Moseley district of Mr Godsiff’s constituency and he firmly believes that residents of Oaklands and all the other 30,000 Southern Cross residents can do without the worry and distress that is being caused by the present financial uncertainty.
Former and current senior Government advisors involved with Southern Cross are Baroness Morgan of Huyton and Jeremy Heywood.
Baroness Morgan, who served as Tony Blair’s political secretary, is one of the longest serving board members at Southern Cross and sits on the company’s remuneration committee which determines the pay of senior executives and directors. She received £53,000 from the company last year. Jeremy Heywood who was appointed Permanent Secretary to the Prime Minister’s Office in 2008, was co-head of UK investment banking at Morgan Stanley which acted as financial adviser and lead manager for the 2006 flotation and yielded a 300% return on its investment in Southern Cross for its private equity group owner Blackstone and its directors a year before the share value collapsed.
The 2006 flotation valued the company at £423 million and raised £175. It is normal for advising banks to charge a fee of at least 1%.
Mr Godsiff has also written to Heath Secretary, Andrew Lansley MP asking him if the Government will undertake a financial review of other care sector providers to ensure that they are fit for purpose
3rd June 2011
MP slams Council decision to sent Birmingham jobs to India.
Following on from the news that Birmingham City Council are to transfer over 100 jobs to India Roger Godsiff, the MP for Birmingham Hall Green, slammed the Council’s decision.
‘Sacking Council employees and sending their jobs to call centres in India is not going to offer improved services for the people of Birmingham. It is a shabby decision by the Council and their private sector partner, Capita, to get low paid non-union people in India, who have minimum employment rights, to do the jobs on the cheap thereby making savings for the Council and bigger profits for Capita.’
‘I find it ridiculous that the International Development Secretary, who is a Birmingham MP, should be giving large sums of development aid, paid for out of the taxes paid by hard pressed British taxpayers, to India, which is one of the largest and fastest growing economies in the world, while at the same time supporting the Conservative/Lib.Dem Council in Birmingham sacking Birmingham staff in order to transfer their jobs to India leaving, once again, the British taxpayers to pay for the ongoing cost of these redundancies.’
18th March 2011
Roger Godsiff MP calls for freeze in Beer Tax, as new figures show importance of beer and pub industry to Birmingham, Hall Green
Newly released figures by leading economists Oxford Economics, have shown that the beer and pub sector sustains almost 1,572 jobs in Birmingham, Hall Green, and is capable of generating many more given a supportive duty regime. The analysis also shows that the local economy is £41.9 million better off thanks to the industry.
In response Roger Godsiff MP has welcomed these new figures and called on the Government to scrap the controversial beer duty “escalator” in next month’s Budget.
Instead, the recent VAT increase (6p per pint), followed a 26 per cent increase in beer duty since 2008. The vast majority (85%) of pubs are small businesses which cannot absorb these tax shocks, further increasing the price differential between pubs and supermarkets. With the current high rate of inflation the sector is facing a further record-breaking 7.1 per cent beer tax increase via the “escalator” in March. This would result in beer duty having increased by 35 per cent in three years.
Roger Godsiff MP is supporting a joint campaign led by the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA), the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) and the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA), to freeze beer duty and scrap the controversial beer duty escalator ahead of this year’s Budget.
Roger Godsiff MP said:
“With the beer and pub sector injecting over £41.9 million into our local economy each year, I hope that the Government will think twice about the destructive duty escalator in the forthcoming Budget.”
Brigid Simmonds, Chief Executive of the BBPA, said:
“The broad political support for our campaign reflects the strategic importance of beer and pubs in Britain. The beer and pub sector is ready, willing, and able to create jobs and help lead the country out of recession – but we need the right tax policies from the Government.”
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8th March 2011
Moor Green Football Club ground- Local demands on redevelopment are met
Birmingham Hall Green MP, Roger Godsiff, said that he was delighted that following discussions with the developer and the Planning Dept of Birmingham City Council, a new planning application was going to put forward for the development of the site.
The new application meets many of the objections that both he and local residents made and also incorporates alternative suggestions which were put forward.
One acre of the site is going to be incorporated into Hall Green Junior and Infant School to provide new sports facilities and £45,000 is going to be spent on improving existing play equipment at nearby Marion Way and £96,300 is going to be spent at Highfield Hall to provide a junior football pitch and new changing facilities.
The original proposal from David Wilson Homes, who sort planning permission to build 80 new homes, incorporated proposals for two large play areas and a ‘community house’ which the Council had asked the developer to incorporate and these have now been dropped.
Mr Godsiff made the point repeatedly that the play areas and ‘community house’ would be a potential magnet for anti-social behaviour and that there are were alternative play areas and community facilities in the area and believes that the developer has met the objections that he originally had.
David Wilson Homes will be writing to local residents explaining these new proposals but Roger Godsiff MP said: “My view is that my first preference would be for the Moor Green Football Club site to remain as public open space or for sporting use but if the Council can satisfy local concerns over the question of vehicular access and are mindful to give planning permission for redevelopment of the site then the scheme now put forward by David Wilson Homes meets the objections that I had”.
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07 February
Birmingham MP slams cab closures.
Hall Green MP, Roger Godsiff, today slammed the proposals to close Citizens Advice Bureau’s (CAB) across Birmingham.
Roger Godsiff said; “I know from my own personal experience of dealing with casework what an important service the CAB’s offer to constituents in assisting them with information and advice. To lose this service just to save money is not only madness but borders on the criminally insane.
In one fell swoop we will not only loosing an invaluable facility but the whole wealth of experience of the people who work there, many on a voluntary basis – and who have an understanding of complex legislation particularly in relation to benefits and council service provision.
Mr Godsiff went onto say:’To say that you can move that service overnight to already overstretched neighbourhood offices without a profound impact on the service beggars believe and is yet another cost-cutting measure that will disproportionally hurt the most vulnerable.’
It is understood that withdrawal of £600,000 funding will lead to the closure of all 5 CAB offices on Feb 11th, in three weeks time.
