Nationally, regionally and locally, large and small businesses have been deferring investment decisions for months now as the uncertainty continues.Cognitive learning games they are also finding that european customers of their products are now holding off from committing to future purchases or they are securing alternative suppliers in mainland europe to ensure continuity.Cognitive learning games all of this is going to have a significant impact for economic regeneration and for businesses and jobs for years to come.

The delays and inability to act are shown even more starkly in the public sector. The draft long-term plan for the NHS has now just surfaced many months late but that is the exception to the rule, as domestic policy development and legislation on the big issues across the spectrum has effectively disappeared. Even within the NHS plan funding for public health is simply pushed back to the spending review, while further cuts are announced for 2019/20.Cognitive learning games

Having ditched the earlier agreed reforms on funding adult social care, a green paper on the issue was confirmed as urgent in the march 2017 budget.Cognitive learning games originally promised for autumn 2017, that was then pushed november, which came and went as publication was pushed back to early 2018, then summer, and then autumn.Cognitive learning games in october 2018, the chancellor said it would be ‘published shortly’. In december, we were told that “it would be published at the first opportunity in 2019”.Cognitive learning games that has already come and gone.

As the structural issues about adult social care have become acute, another emergency has ridden up fast on the rails – children’s services.Cognitive learning games since 2010, the number of section 47 investigations – relating to the most serious concerns about child safety – have more than doubled. There are now more than 75,000 children in local authority care, a doubling in the last decade, nearly three-quarters with foster parents.Cognitive learning games

Meanwhile, as the institute for fiscal studies has recently confirmed, funding for children’s services has fallen from c£850m then to c£700m this year with nearly every council significantly over-expending.Cognitive learning games in the budget, the chancellor announced an extra £84m funding for children’s services in 20 councils over the next 5 years. That’s a gnat’s bite in comparison to the £3bn shortfall estimated by 2025.Cognitive learning games

There is silence around the future of local government finance. What is going to be happening to national non-domestic rates – especially in the context of the precarious state of the high street and the central importance of business rate retention – and the new homes bonus and council tax?Cognitive learning games and then of course, there are all those ‘fair-funding’ promises – which with no additional funding may simply transfer more of the pain to poorer, urban, northern areas.Cognitive learning games “ late spring” says the minister about proposals for the redistribution of local government finance. “ which year?” we call.

The rationale was that the TV plays an important tool in the battle against loneliness and social isolation.Cognitive learning games four in 10 older people say the television is their main source of company. Many are unable to enjoy other social activities. Christmas is a particularly bad time for loneliness; analysis by age UK found that almost a million pensioners wouldn’t have seen or heard from anyone over the festive period.Cognitive learning games

As part of the negotiations in 2014/15 over the TV licence fee, the BBC governors foolishly agreed that the BBC would take responsibility for the cost of pensioners’ free licences, despite not having the resources to fund them in the longer-term.Cognitive learning games basically, the conservative government had threatened a lower licence fee – and therefore less money for the BBC – if they didn’t agree. This meant that, starting from this year, the BBC has taken responsibility for funding free TV licence fees of those over 75 and it also has the power to scrap or reduce the number or scope of free licences.Cognitive learning games

When it is combined with ‘light touch’ regulation and contract management – with inadequate resources being committed to tender assessment and contract monitoring – we end up with poor value-for-money, service specifications not being delivered, incompetent directors being paid millions before they walk away from the disasters they have left behind, and shareholders extracting millions in dividends whilst the public picks up the cost of their failure to pay appropriate pension contributions.Cognitive learning games

There is still a long, long way to go to get to the bottom of the carillion collapse. Amongst others, the insolvency service and the official receiver are still investigating.Cognitive learning games the £5.2bn-turnover company collapsed owing banks about £1.3bn. It had just £29m of cash and a £600m pension deficit. About 3,000 people were made redundant, although 14,000 jobs were saved after contracts were shifted to other providers.Cognitive learning games

When stories circulated that carillion’s sub-contractors on government tendered projects were not being paid on time, more questions arose. It was then revealed that carillion was not including 30 day payment clauses in its public sector contracts with subcontractors, which is required by the public contract regulations.Cognitive learning games if the government did not detect this behaviour by one of its biggest strategic suppliers, what confidence can any of us have in its overall approach to public procurement?Cognitive learning games

Over the last year, the share value of another big government contractor, interserve, has fallen by 90%. It’s in financial crisis, desperately trying to restructure its £650m debts.Cognitive learning games it has more than £1bn of live public sector contracts with police forces, universities, hospitals, transport executives, local authorities and central government departments.Cognitive learning games

As the government thrashes around desperately trying to arrange emergency measures in case we crash out of the EU without a deal, it has arranged a £13.8m contract to run additional ferries across the channel between ramsgate and ostend with a new company called seaborne freight, despite it never having run a ferry service nor managed shipping arrangements before.Cognitive learning games

In 2015, the government began to devolve powers to mayoral combined authorities. While there were and still are differing views about the requirements to have a mayor there was general agreement that devolution should be based on city regions as coherent areas of local economic activity.Cognitive learning games the powers to be devolved were related to improving the economic performance of those areas such as skills, transport and new business development, which is quite distinct from devolution to scotland and wales and to the regional assembly proposals of a decade ago.Cognitive learning games

A recent research report clearly demonstrated that adjacent smaller towns acting in cooperation with bigger successful cities are economically and socially much healthier than towns which sought to go it alone.Cognitive learning games that is why a devolved city region model is so important to barnsley, doncaster and rotherham. It is also crucially important to the travel-to-work areas in north nottinghamshire and north derbyshire.Cognitive learning games I am sure that is why, when the SCR is up and running, there will be a renewed interest in engagement from those areas.

The challenges for SCR are not just about economic regeneration but also about diversifying the economy, securing additional jobs which match the potential highly qualified workforce who come from our universities and want to stay in the area.Cognitive learning games but, with too few jobs to match the talents of our cities, we need to focus on nurturing and supporting 21 st century businesses. And we need more training opportunities to improve the skills and pay levels of the population in general.Cognitive learning games

We have some excellent examples of what can be achieved when councils, education institutions at the forefront of technological change, skills providers, and businesses and entrepreneurs do get their act together.Cognitive learning games the development of the advanced manufacturing research centre, with its 600-place apprentice training facility, the opening of plants by rolls royce, boeing and mclaren and the proposal for an innovation corridor stretching from the olympic legacy park to the doncaster-sheffield airport are some of the many positives already happening.Cognitive learning games