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There was some accidentally revealing stuff today on Radio 5Live's reporting of Tony Blair's resignation and their review of his premiership. First Jane Garvey reported that the halls of Corporation House were awash with empty champagne bottles the morning after the 1997 election. Realising that this gave the lie to the BBC's supposed impartiality, she whittered briefly on the subject of whether this really indicated preference for Labour, before eventually saying that she wished she'd never brought it up. Oops.

Government

• As part of reforms to deliver a patient-led NHS and to meet targets to cut waiting times by 2008, the Department has involved the independent sector in delivering health services. These services are run by the independent sector, but funded by the NHS. The Department has signed a contract with to BUPA to provide approximately 6,000 NHS procedures a year across the region, including general surgery, gynaecology, neurosurgery, orthopaedics, ear, nose & throat surgery and plastic surgery.

It's been reported on the BBC website that the cost of the ID card scheme has risen to £5.31bn. Why can't the government make estimates that are even in the same ball park as the final figures? Every time they value it, the cost seems to rise by another few hundred million. And you just know it isn't going to work when we all have to take them up in 2010 - there are going to be errors left, right and centre - a hacker's dream.

And so to another story of exceptional financial waste and total incompetence of management that only a government oversee.  Back in 2000 one of the many, many legacies that Blair wanted to set in place was the city academy programme.  So far only 46 of the 400 of these academies have actually opened yet the government has managed to spend £20m on consultants and £28m on project managers!

The countdown continues until the HIPs fiasco hits - everyone knows it's coming but I have all confidence that nothing will be done about it. Currently there are just 57 qualified inspectors for the North East, 76 for Wales, and 152 for London. The Government itself has said it needs at least 7,500 qualified inspectors to carry out the required number of assessments. The Tories have hit out saying that due to the shortage there will be more miles racked up by the few inspectors as they race around the country trying to get to all the houses.

Government

I attended a lunchtime talk today by Harriet Sergeant, who has written a booklet ("Handle with Care", published by the Centre for Young Policy Studies back in September), on the disgrace that is our care system for children who have to be removed from the parental home. The booklet can be ordered or downloaded from the CPS website, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. I hope Harriet will forgive me for quoting the first couple of paragraphs, as the best way to illustrate what an important and depressing story she has to tell:

"THIS YEAR approximately 6,000 young people will emerge from the care of the state. What is their future?

Of these 6,000, 4,500 of them will leave with no educational qualifications whatsoever. Within two years of leaving care 3,000 will be unemployed, 2,100 will be mothers or pregnant and 1,200 will be homeless. Out of the 6,000 just 60 will make it to university. Care is failing on a scale that is catastrophic.

It is not just a tragedy for the individual. A successful system of care would transform this country. At a stroke, it would empty a third of our prisons and shift half of all prisoners under the age of 25 out of the criminal justice system. It would halve the number of prostitutes, reduce by between a third and a half the number of homeless and remove 80% of Big Issue sellers from our street corners. Not only is our system failing the young people in care, it is failing society and perpetuating an underclass."

Clemency Burton-Hill (a multi-talented individual and real fox to boot, so I'm sorry to have to take the piss, but this is too good to ignore) reports in this week's Spectator that the Tories are "fighting back" against Gordon Brown's lead on international development issues "with a plan to send MPs into poverty-stricken Africa." I bet the poor Africans can barely contain their excitement.

Government

• Grants to help climate-conscious householders to install microgeneration technologies will be up for grabs again later this month, Alistair Darling announced today. The Low Carbon Buildings Programme (LCBP) has already allocated £6.8m in grants to householders and, following the addition an extra £6m in the Budget, applications for the remaining £11.9m will be open from 29 May. Since it launched in April 2006 the LCBP has directly funded 2175 installations on homes. This includes 242 mini-turbines, 313 Solar PV projects and 1467 solar thermal heating systems.
• Twenty-five local highway authorities and their partners across England will share the first award of a new £4 million road safety grant, Dr Stephen Ladyman, Road Safety Minister, announced today. The Road Safety Partnership Grant Scheme will provide funding to local highway authorities who are taking an innovative and collaborative approach to improving road safety.
• US and UK companies need to face up to the realities of climate change and the risks that it poses to their long term interests, Environment and Climate Change Minister Ian Pearson will say today. Mr Pearson, addressing a meeting of US businesses in New York, will say that a business's vulnerability to the threats of climate change is of increasing concern to investors and shareholders. Companies need to respond to this to stay ahead of the game.
• The prime minister's final ministerial reshuffle has taken effect, with changes to three government departments. Lord Falconer, previously constitutional affairs secretary, becomes secretary of state for justice at the head of the Ministry of Justice. The MoJ is the new name for the Department of Constitutional Affairs, which will take on new criminal justice functions from the Home Office. Lord Falconer, who also remains lord chancellor, is joined by David Hanson, currently Northern Ireland Office minister, also becomes minister of state at the MoJ. Following the restoration of devolved government at Stormont on Tuesday, Hanson will not be replaced at the Northern Ireland Office. Neither will parliamentary undersecretary David Cairns, who previously held that post in both the Northern Ireland and Scotland, but is now "full time" at the Scotland office. Gerry Sutcliffe, previously parliamentary undersecretary at the Home Office responsible for probation, moves to the MoJ. Harriet Harman remains a minister of state in the MoJ, along with junior ministers Baroness Ashton of Upholland, Bridget Prentice and Vera Baird.

An interesting story today about the British Medical Association and their calls for an independent NHS free from political control - not in keeping with the current poll on PL. The paper includes a broad outline of how they would like to see the NHS run in the future. Firstly they want to see the board appointed by Parliament, comparing their set up to a cross between the BBC and a board run nationalised industry. They would have a constitution setting out rights and responsibilities. It is hoped that by removing the politics from the NHS and day to day tinkering, it will avoid headline grabbing interference and let the professionals get on with the job. It will also allow a more localised service.

Secondly, there is reference to an inevitable "rationing" of services. This goes back to a phrase I first heard less than 12 months ago - providing "core" services. For me this is a minefield - what is a core service? Is an elderly granny with a poor hip part of the core service? Is someone with self inflicted lung cancer part of the core service? Is a new born baby with a 50/50 chance of living a core service? Who is going to define this? As far as I can see, health care is either a core service or it isn't - you don't draw the line a one kidney or age or anything else, surely? It is reported that the list of services provided should be decided through debate between politicians, professionals and the public. Well if that isn't going to be the most controversial impossible debate since we (apparently) solved the Irish question, I'm not sure what is.

Gordon Brown's tax credit scheme. Mr Prudent showing that, once again, he really does not deserve that nickname. Afterall, it is reported today that he is about to write off £2bn as unrecoverable after payments had been made out incorrectly or fraudulantly. That is equivilant to 1p on income tax. So that brilliant budget you did a couple of months ago, Gordon, where you took 2p off income tax (then abolished the lower rate and increased National Insurance contributions) was not only giving with one hand and taking with the other, it was also a waste of time because you've lost 1p in every pound all ready with this numbskull scheme of yours. It could have been 3p in the pound if your department could do some basic accounting. Ministers have already admitted that £5.8bn has been paid to people who should not have received the money! This is incompetence on an NHS scale and this is the man who will be running the country in little over six weeks.

Do I sense a Government climb down over Bingate? In what has become an issue of electoral importance, the fortnightly collections fiasco may have had an impact on the recent local elections. The Government can pour billions of pounds away on an ineffectual health service or go to war with another country based on lies and mis-information yet still keep the electorate onside; but inconvience our every day lives by not collecting our bins and voters will punish you. And punish those councillors they have. The Telegraph today picks up various councils that have introduced fortnightly collections and their opponants have picked up seats.

This may just be a case of putting two and two together and making any number you wish, but it is enough to have got this out of Ruth "Yvette Cooper is more respected than me and everyone knows it" Kelly - "Local councils may decide that the weekly bin collection is one aspect of their policy and they may want to introduce other measures to increase the rate of recycling. That is completely their prerogative. But whatever is done should be done in close consultation with local communities." Ahhh! The consultation word. So it's not a climb down afterall, just a consultaltion to make us all feel like we played a part on the democratic process. Oh well, better keep those bins in for another week then...

Government  

• Tony Blair planned to divide Gordon Brown's fiefdom of the Treasury into two after the 2005 election under proposals drawn up in intense secrecy for the prime minister. The idea was fleshed out in a 200-page document prepared for Mr Blair by his strategy adviser, Lord Birt; the head of the No 10 strategy unit at the time, David Halpern; and another senior No 10 aide, Gareth Davies. Had the plan gone ahead, Mr Brown may have been asked to move to the Foreign Office. It was abandoned when political advisers told Mr Blair voters wanted him to cooperate with his chancellor.

It is a general rule that legislation often has the opposite effect to that intended, and that government action usually hurts most those that it is intended to help. We have a beautiful example reported in The Times today. One consequence of recent legislation to outlaw age-discrimination, is that Saga, provider of holidays tailored to the over-50s, is to be forced to open its holidays to all ages. If a group of 18-30-year-olds wish to book a Saga holiday and behave as they would on a Club 18-30 holiday, Saga are not allowed to prevent them.

Government

• A new proportionate code of conduct for local councillors in England is now in force. The code will remove rules which have stood in the way of councillors acting as advocates for and leaders of their local communities, as proposed in last year's Local Government White Paper. The revised code is part of the Government's wider vision for a more devolved conduct regime, including more locally-based decision-making with most misconduct allegations being investigated and dealt with at local level.

What is the word for a story that reached the level of fiasco some time ago and continued to deteriorate? Fiasco seems inadequate as a decription of the failures of the NHS IT system, several of which have been noted on this site by JG.

One of the worst pieces of privatisation ever embarked on by a government was the Railways Act 1993 under John Major. It was a complex piece of legislation and opposed by just about everyone - including the Labour party. They disliked it so much they promised to renationalise the railways when they got in and the Tory MP and chairman of the Transport Committee at the time, Robert Adley, described it as the "poll tax on wheels".

The proposed split of the Home Office is fast approaching.  In a department that has just taken its latest victim with John Reid announcing his retirement from front bench politics at the weekend (nothing to do with the fact the Brown would have pushed him anyway), it has been deemed too difficult a department for one man to run.  In the past 6 years, Straw, Blunkett, Clarke and Reid have all failed where many have before them.  So, the solution is to split the department up leaving the Home Office to largely tackle terrorism and merge the National Offender Management part with the Department for Constitutional Affairs.  This is what has become known by the press as the Ministry of Justice.   Brilliant.  Not sure what benefit we will be from this, but the Ministry of Justice sounds very Marvel comic.  I also can not tell you how much it will cost, because the Government won't tell anyone.  However, expect it to be mind boggling large as government estimates (and we all know how short they often come up) suggest.

Traffic Wardens. They have to be, rightly or wrongly, in the top ten least liked people on planet earth. Right up there with estate agents, lawyers and well, MPs probably. I personally can not stand them, though I'm sure as individuals out of that ridiculous "trying to look very official" uniform there are one or two nice ones. After all, they are just doing their job. And, if you follow that logic to it's conclusion, I blame and dislike the councillors even more! And they are only making it worse for themselves.

Government

• Alex Salmond, almost certain to be elected Scotland's next First Minister, conceded last night that his failure to attract the Liberal Democrats into a ruling coalition meant that the country was now heading for minority devolved government for the first time. The Scottish National Party leader, speaking the day after the Lib Dems had comprehensively rejected a power-sharing coalition, said that the bulk of his party's preparations for taking power for the first time was now based on "the responsibilities of government as a minority". Mr Salmond, who led his party to an historic one-seat victory in last week's Scottish elections, said that minority rule was "not entirely a bad thing" and that, while his preference was still for a majority coalition, it could be "exciting" to govern without a majority.