personal budgets

Bank closures: Could Wales community bank be the answer?

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One benefit of the devolved administrations is that the legislature is close enough to the people to do things which local authorities in England can’t. This is a classic example. Whilst I’m not seeking to open up the regional government debate again I do think a South West or an East Midlands regional response to a policy issue like this affecting rural communities would provide enough heft to address a national malaise.

Assembly research shows more than 200 banks have shut in Wales since 2008, leaving towns such as Newcastle Emlyn and Hay-on-Wye without any.

Banc Cambria would work like a regular bank, with branches across the country, but would be owned by its members.

First Minister Mark Drakeford pledged to set up a community bank in his Welsh Labour leadership campaign.

The Public Bank for Wales Action Group, working with the Community Savings Bank Association, wants to fill gaps left by the departing high street banks.

Banc Cambria board member Mark Hooper told BBC Sunday Politics Wales: “You will be able to have a current account, businesses will be able to have accounts, there’ll be mortgages provided so people will be able to buy homes.

“We’ll also be making sure there’s a superb online presence – people like using their apps. It will be in Welsh and English.”

Mr Hooper hopes for Welsh Government support and wants to be able to start talking about its first investor soon, as it continues to seek funding.

It would then be able to set out a timescale for applying for a banking licence and opening the first branches.

NHS health budgets funding holidays, Nintendo consoles and a pedalo ride

This sort of journalism might be eye-catching but it emasculates an important principle. Namely that in an era of reduced budgets and shrinking resources at the local level people are best placed to make the decisions on how the funding which supports them is spent themselves.

Personal budgets are the means by which mutualisation of local services, based on people exercising personal choice, through initiatives such as my village companies idea can become a reality. Letting people choose for themselves removes the tyranny of some procurement models. Namely those which seek savings by building bigger and bigger contracts with multi-service agencies .The commissioners behind these strategies replace choice and accountability in the interest of terms which should be alien to local government such as “business modernisation” and “productivity”.

Public services are about people not widgets. In all the lampooning of people exercising some of their personal choices, in ways, which reflect their priorities, the author of this article would do well to reflect on that. Still in the interests of balance here is what they have to say:

NHS patients have gone on holidays and been provided with Wii games consoles, a summer house and a pedalo ride under a scheme to give patients in England personal health budgets, an investigation has found.

A satnav, a vacuum-cleaning robot, shiatsu massage and horse-riding are among other items or pursuits funded through the scheme that is designed to give patients more control over their care.

All patients needing continuing healthcare in their home or in residential care are entitled to have personal budgets to give them more control over the help they get from the NHS. The budgets must be agreed with local NHS teams.

An investigation by the medical publication Pulse, aimed primarily at GPs, has uncovered unusual uses to which some funds were put last year.

Freedom of information requests to clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) suggest they intend to spend more than £120m this year on personal budgets for 4,800 patients.