Is 1percent an insult .......it surely is

Politics
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Yes but they know the response and ultimate figure. Or so they think. People are wiser today. They deserve at least 7%

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I reckon that 5% would be a good starting point.

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NHS Pay Bands:

NHS Nurses (Pay) bands:
https://www.nurses.co.uk/careers-hub/nursing-pay-guide/

Jeremy (*)unt was health Secretary between 2012 & 2018. During this period he ensured that NHS staff consistently failed to keep up with inflation.

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If you think that’s an insult, all the non-NHS nurses and HCAs that have worked alongside these NHS nurses are getting sweet Fanny Adams.

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It’s a disgrace! and all the while ex ministers and hangers-on are making millions out of “bent” contracts :roll_eyes:
Which is why the Good Law Project so favoured by @Jane_Williamson is soo important, calling them out.

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Here is the latest update from the Good Law Project:
Dear Friend,

Today was the first day of our High Court legal challenge over Government’s award of PPE contracts. Here are three of the most shocking revelations from Court.

1) Government prioritised companies because of who they knew and not what they could deliver. Take Pestfix and Multibrands. Both suppliers emailed the senior official in charge of NHS procurement explaining their ability to supply PPE. Multibrands did so on 20th March 2020, a week before Pestfix. Multibrands received no response.

By contrast, Pestfix’s email resulted in their allocation to the “ VIP lane ”, where companies were fast-tracked to lucrative contracts. Why? An ex-director of PestFix was an “ old school friend ” of the official’s father-in-law.

2) Ministers did not want their political contacts to have to wait in line with everyone else. Evidence read out in Court revealed “ 
ministers and senior officials sometimes introduce offers of PPE and want them personally handled rather than going through surveys and bulk routes. Some of these contacts simply flatly refuse to proceed via a webform
 "

3) The banks were so concerned about Government’s lack of due diligence on companies who had been handed huge contracts that they halted payments . An email from a civil servant stated “ It is
 imperative that we rectify the with supplier due diligence to ensure we do not leave ourselves at unacceptable risk of fraud/loss ”

Thank you as ever for your support. There will be more from Court tomorrow. If you’re interested, our skeleton can be read here.

Jo Maugham
Director of Good Law Project

I will keep you all updated on progress.

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:astonished:

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TBH it’s been a long time any worker in the UK that does a real job has had any right to keeping up with inflation. No one has a right to that any more.

(Let’s leave the fat cats out of it.)

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Tunnel between Scotland and Northern Ireland? I suggest they seek EU funding for that as soon as they join.

Haven’t the government had enough of that other misguided unwanted useless misrouted spend mess known as HS2?

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No, the fat cat friends of Doris & Co plc (pillocks licentious Cretins) haven’t bled the system dry yet - but they are working on it :wink:

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Cross Rail is yet again overdue and over budget.

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Update on Why was ÂŁ108m of public money paid to Crisp Websites Limited?

Today the High Court heard our lawyers detail waste, mismanagement - and yet more special treatment for politically connected companies placed in the “VIP” Lane.

Government paid tens of millions of pounds to PestFix and Ayanda Capital for face masks which did not meet NHS standards . An email from a senior official stated that they needed to “get out of a contract” due to “a failure of the commercial process
”

PestFix was in the “VIP” lane because an ex-director was an old-school friend of a senior official’s father-in-law; Ayanda, because one of its senior advisers was a member of Government’s Board of Trade.

Government failed to carry out any proper checks before ordering gowns worth from PestFix. After examining the evidence, our lawyers told the Court: “over £100m spent on gowns with no technical assurance, no financial due diligence and based on a misunderstanding of the gowns which were actually being purchased.”

Government didn’t put its cards on the table. One witness went to some lengths to “gloss over” - as our lawyer put it - the lack of technical assurance. It was left to a detailed forensic review by our legal team to uncover this extraordinary failure.

Government awarded huge contracts to Ayanda Capital despite it having failed financial due diligence. The hedge fund was given a red rating, which meant there were “Major issues or concerns [which] would need to be resolved before we use them.”

Not only did this not dissuade Government from accepting Ayanda’s offer to supply millions of FFP2 masks, but its VIP status actually meant that it was invited to supply a different type of mask, leading to an even larger contract award.

This was taxpayers’ money, dished out to companies because of who they knew, not what they could supply. The result - unsurprisingly - was a waste of hundreds of millions of pounds. In these contracts alone.

Our challenge seeks to get to the truth of the PPE procurement process in which - again to quote our lawyer - “a truly colossal amount of public money” was spent “in circumstances of almost total secrecy”.

Please help us shine a light on this scandal by sharing with your friends and family.

Good Law Project

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Good Law Project
Dear Jane,

Today in the High Court, Government’s lawyers set out their defence to our legal challenge over PPE contracts handed to “VIP” companies. Government claims that companies in the VIP Lane did not materially benefit from their special treatment, and that it was simply a different route by which they could win contracts.

The evidence tells a different story.

Emails between officials reveal that companies with a political connection were given priority. A key member of the VIP Lane team wrote, ‘ Speaking personally, I don’t want a middling VIP lead prioritised over a credible high priority lead any more than you do
However, if two leads are otherwise equal priority and one is VIP, some weighting to the VIP is helpful .’

In another exchange, an official set out how companies placed in the “VIP” Lane should be treated, explaining “ Follow standard procedure, but take a little more time over correspondence, ‘hand-holding’ the supplier where necessary” . They followed up to say, ” Personally, I’ve found VIP cases require about three times the time of a standard case .”

What is perhaps most striking about Government’s defence of the “VIP” Lane is its apparent determination to keep quiet the details of the politically-connected beneficiaries - and which Ministers or senior officials referred them. When the National Audit Office, the official spending watchdog, investigated the award of PPE contracts, Government intervened to prevent it from revealing the names of companies in the “VIP” Lane.

If the Government really has nothing to hide, why doesn’t it just come clean? Thanks to information uncovered through this litigation, we will be publishing details of a slew of other “VIPs” very shortly. Watch this space.

Thank you,

Jo Maugham
Director of Good Law Project
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1 Like
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UPDATE: