3 months ago I FOI govt for their estimate of the costs to fully repair all of the buildings under 18m affected by the building safety scandal (and not eligible for govt support). They defer and defer and defer and three months later confirm they have the info but are rejecting.
This is on the grounds that the info is part of the "policy making process"- which is odd, because it's a simple figure.

And clearly in the public interest to know it. Because if we did we could have a better idea of the total sum with which leaseholders are having to face.
We're so far into this scandal and we still can't be sure exactly what we're looking at because there is still so little concrete information in the public domain.
The response suggests government has at least rough estimates on numbers of buildings involved/potential costs but isn’t willing to share them.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Lewis Goodall

Lewis Goodall Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @lewis_goodall

12 Oct
Reposting a piece I made with @jackcevans in Northern Ireland from December 2020. As it makes clear it was foreseeable we ended up in a place where the DUP and Unionism rejected the deal’s provisions. So the question becomes why the govt negotiated it. bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09…
Remember too, the speed with which the protocol and Brexit deal came into force- literally a matter of days. Inevitably the speed has led to greater disruption and instability than if there’d been more time to prepare (true for rest of the UK too).
But as piece makes clear EU also now partly responsible as an active custodian of peace in NI in a way in which it wasn’t pre-Brexit. Requires much flexibility. EU says they’re showing that. UK govt saying it’s not enough.
Read 11 tweets
12 Oct
DHSC/Sci Sel Comms report clear on care and disaster which unfolded. Says the sector suffered form a “lack of priority.” Compares UK approach unfavourably with Germany/Hong Kong. Says if govt had taken different approach “many 1000s of deaths [in homes] could have been avoided.”
Compare and contrast with Matt Hancock’s now infamous June 2020 claim that “*Right from the start*, we’ve tried to throw a protective ring around our care homes.”
Something always underwritten is what a big role lack of PPE had in care homes at the start and even quite a way into the pandemic- it’s rightly picked up on in the report. Again, compare and contrast with Mr Hancock’s claim that there was “no national shortage.”
Read 11 tweets
11 Oct
Spent the day filming in the north of England for a piece about care. Labour shortage in the sector getting worse. One large provider we spoke to has over 500 vacancies of 5000 staff. One local authority tried 21 agencies to find an elderly woman care at home: no-one available.
One care home for people with learning disabilities we visited told us they’re relisting vacancy after vacancy after receiving *zero* applications. They’re getting through by asking existing staff to work extra hours, forgo holiday etc but it’s not sustainable.
Not least because there comes a point when it’s not safe. This is a workforce already suffering burnout and exhaustion. We’ve spoken to families who are being refused care and smaller care homes on the point of bankruptcy because they can’t find the staff/accept new residents.
Read 21 tweets
10 Oct
Privately, civil servants are increasingly angry with political attacks re WFH. They point out:

1) lots of civil servants are back in Whitehall.
2) WFH allows more civil servants not to work in London, something the govt says it wants.
3) it’s possible, depending how winter goes, more of us may have to WFH again anyway to relieve hospital pressure.

Two wider questions on WFH more generally
A) why isn’t this simply a question for free enterprise to consider?
B) part of the desire to WFH arises from..
...a broken childcare system. This is something which, as I’ve said before, is a central part of this discussion always missed and for which at the moment there are no major proposals to reform.
Read 6 tweets
6 Oct
Thoughts on that speech and conf season more genrally

Leaders' speeches rarely remembered. That one might be. Either as a magnificent piece of political positioning where the PM made the problems of his signature policy into virtue or a Callaghanesque "Crisis, what crisis" x 10.
As I've said several times this week the transition from "problems are exaggerated/non existent" to "all part of the plan" has been something to behold.

Ministers are now leaning heavily into the idea that disruptions we see are part of the "transition" to a different...
...sort of economy. Will leave aside particulars of that for the moment (for more watch NN tonight) but just as a piece of politics, if the disruption isn't too great, as I say, we may look at this as a nimble bit of positioning; at a stroke minimising Brexit...
Read 14 tweets
6 Oct
Boris Johnson on social care: "When I stood on the steps of Downing St I promised to fix this crisis and after decades of drift and dither...this reforming government, this can do government, which got Brexit done, is going to get social care done."
"We're embarking on a change of direction. We're not going back to the same broken model with low wages, low growth, low skills, low productivity: all of it enabled and assisted by uncontrolled immigration."
"The answer is to control immigration, to allow people of talent to come to this country but not to use immigration as an excuse of failure to invest in people, in skills, in machinery, facilities they use to do their jobs. Truck stops- to pick an industry entirely at random."
Read 6 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(