Somerset this week: 5 April 2024
This week we have stories from Taunton, Yeovil, from the 54 Bus and the finances of the Symphony group of GP surgeries, then Somerset Council before gliding to a finish at RNAS Yeovilton...
Dear readers
This is our regular free newsletter available to all. Please subscribe here to make sure you get our free material delivered to your email inbox every week.
We aim to offer as much of our material for free. However we are a news business and that means we do have bills to pay. If you feel like helping us pay them (and helping us do more investigative journalism into the bargain) then please consider taking a paid subscription.
For 58p a week, less than the price of a pack of Sainsbury’s Fair Trade bananas, we’ll offer you all this:
3 extra articles a month
the chance to have your say, to comment argue and debate our articles
full access to our back catalogue (it is getting bigger every week)
and the satisfaction of supporting one of Somerset’s most innovative journalism projects.
Where else can you get quality local journalism that rests on our three core values of: questioning, investigating and telling truth to power?
If you’d like to support us with a paid subscription you can do that here.
Thank you.
Andrew Lee - Editor
Somerset this week: 5 April 2024
Long road home
Every now and again something can go completely wrong. Somethings that really throws the schedule. Such as when on Tuesday my old Honda CR-V decided that our offices at Shakspeare Glass in Langport was where it had arrived and it had no intention of moving on.
That left your humble correspondent with a dilemma. Being male and parked up in a car park means you are (quite rightly) not a priority for the AA. Despite being a member, the best guess of a time to arrive and – with a bit of luck and a fair wind – bring the old girl back to life, was two hours and forty minutes after I called them.
Such is life.
But needing to get to my next stop at Castle Cary a bit sooner than that, and Langport having no train station (if the Secretary of State for Transport is listening, The Langport Transport Group are still waiting for an answer on their proposals for a station) that means the bus.
Now as regular readers of Somerset Confidential® will know, the 54 bus service connecting Taunton and Yeovil (via Langport and Somerton) has recently been rescued by Somerset Council who are subsidising Buses of Somerset so they don’t close the route. You have to feel sorry for Buses of Somerset. They are owned by First Group and last year they made a mere £97m before tax. So, no doubt that subsidy from Somerset Council (who, ironically, are on the edge of bankruptcy) to save the 54 bus will come in handy.
We asked Buses for Somerset if they would like to comment on this. Their spokesperson told us: “The subsidy for the 54 and 25 didn’t come directly from Somerset Council but was in fact via their BSIP funding. While running the 28 and 58 services remains commercially challenging for Buses of Somerset, we understand how valued the services are, which is why we’ve agreed to support the local community and continue to run the 28 and 58 routes without financial assistance. For these bus services to continue operating in the long term they need to continually be commercially sustainable and cover their cost of operations. We will continue to work closely with the Council and Somerset bus user groups to encourage more people to use the bus.”
As to their profitability as a business they had this to say: “First Bus made a profit this past financial year of £57m. To put this in context, First Bus invested over £100m in sustainability projects around the UK – which is almost double the amount of profit made during the same period. Profit is important, because if we don’t make the profit and the cash generated by that, we can’t invest in the future and the growth of the business for the benefit of the local communities in which we operate. Profit enables us to invest in things like new zero emission bus fleets, such as the 25 new buses announced for Somerset, alongside technology to continually improve the customer experience and offering to attract more customers to use the bus.”
The message from Somerset Council though is crystal clear. Use the 54 or the service will have to be withdrawn. This then was my chance to use the 54 to get me en route to Somerton and then hopefully to Castle Cary. To do my bit for a bus service that desperately needs passengers.
Having just missed the 11.39am the first major problem came when I realised that the next bus was not due for another two hours – at 1.39pm. This was clearly going to be a long day. And I am not joking. Having found my way around the Buses of Somerset route planner, it revealed that the route to Castle Cary from Langport would take just shy of two-and three-quarter hours (it takes half an hour by car).
Even stopping at every village in the county, it was hard to work out how it could possibly take five and a half times as long by bus. Until you realise that the route takes you via Dorset!
No, I have not made that up. Buses of Somerset ask you to take the 54 to Yeovil, the 58 to Wincanton (via Sherborne) before the 667 finally plonks you down not in the centre of Castle Cary but a five-minute walk from it. Which with the waiting in between connections, is why it takes two-hours and forty minutes.
Responding to our article they took issue with this, however the route described above and the timing, comes directly from Buses for Somerset’s website. This is what their spokesperson told us: “In terms of the route taken in your piece, to travel from Langford (sic) to Castle Cary will require a change of service at Yeovil onto the Southwest Coaches service, either the 1 or interchange with the First West of England service 77 to connect 667. In terms of interchange time, this is typically between 10 – 30 mins, depending on the route taken. The route is served every 2 hours; however, we do not go via Dorset; Yeovil is the better interchange point.”
We would simply, politely point out that Sherborne (see map) is indeed in Dorset.
I would love to support the Somerset bus service. I was not happy at the death throes of my old Honda, but uplifted by the fact I could contribute to bus use in Somerset. This though was comic. Well, it isn’t funny of course. It is not a bus service that anyone could realistically use in any circumstances other than a desk or retail job from 9 to 5.
In case Buses for Somerset haven’t noticed, these are increasingly rare these days. Many High Street shops have closed down and office jobs increasingly involve hybrid working with home and office part of the mix. And anyone that has to travel around for a living is going to find it incredibly difficult by bus. Partly because of the lack of buses (can a two-hourly service ever really be helpful?) and partly because of the absurd routing system.
A similar point was made at a recent meeting of Langport Town Council. A member of the public who was very supportive of the idea of using the buses, came to the meeting to explain her predicament. She pointed out that for a 20 minute appointment in Yeovil Hospital, she had set off at 11am from Langport and arrived back at twenty to four.
Meanwhile, we have to watch on as First Group, owner of Buses of Somerset, a company that made just shy of £100m in pre-tax profits, receives subsidies from a council that is nearly bankrupt.
And in the case of the 54 bus, the aim of saving the service is laudable, but when the frequency of buses has been halved over the past two years, that probably won’t help. It leaves me asking the question, does any of this make sense? Accepting that this is the system for now and it cannot be changed because much of it is dictated by law, can you really expect significant numbers of people to use the bus, until there is a major overhaul of the service and the legal framework under which it operates?
Oh yes he did!
Pantomime season has now officially ended. In the world of politics though, especially here in Somerset, the capacity for pantomime is not limited by the season.
Last week we reported on how NHS Somerset had manipulated a board meeting running order. The point being to ensure questions from the public about the decision on the finance case for closing the Hyper Acute Stroke Unit in Yeovil, were taken after the item had been discussed and decided by the board. Thereby rendering public questions pointless.
Nevertheless, the degree of public outcry being as it is, politicians are lining up to take a stance against the decision of NHS Somerset.
LibDem candidate for the Yeovil constituency, Adam Dance, led the charge. Adam, who is also a Governor of Yeovil Hospital, has now written to the Secretary of State for Health asking her to call in the decision. Others have joined in too including the Quicksilver Community Group and Yeovil Town Council.
Cllr Dance also wanted to understand fully the implication of the decision, which he has opposed, asking why, if Somerset money is available to invest in Dorchester, the money is not available to spend within the county in Yeovil (the plans approved by NHS Somerset involve replacing the Yeovil unit with one in Dorchester).
In his statement on 2 April, he also expressed surprise and disappointment at the lack of support from Yeovil MP, Marcus Fysh: “I am surprised that our current MP has yet to comment on this matter. He has been aware of the issues surrounding this decision for many months. Surely, he cannot defend a decision which will mean that those in his constituency will have less chance of vital early treatment which can make such a difference to someone suffering a stroke?”
It is true that in terms of public pronouncements on the subject, the MP has been remarkably silent. But there is a General Election coming this year and public pronouncements are therefore more important. Hence yesterday, in a letter to Yeovil party members, Mr Fysh explained he has in fact been burrowing away in the background: “I have been making the case for dual Somerset site operation to include Yeovil for 10 years now and have met with relevant medical specialists, the CEOs of Yeovil hospital, the Clinical Commissioning Group, the NHS Trust, NHS Somerset, and Ministers on the issue multiple times each. I have written many letters to them and others, met with many constituents and written about it in this column several times.”
But what about a call-in and a quick word with his colleague, the Secretary of State for Health? Here it is all a little more ambivalent. The MP says: “I was very disappointed with the NHS’ Integrated Care Board’s decision, even if it was better than the original plan to close stroke services in Yeovil entirely, and immediately supported the request by the Quicksilver Community Group for the Secretary of State to review the decision. There are now requests from various groups for the decision to be reviewed and I hope our concerns with it will be addressed.”
I….immediately supported the request by the Quicksilver Community Group for the Secretary of State to review the decision.
Does that mean he is simply supportive of the letter written by the Quicksilver Community Group? Which would be helpful if not forceful. Or has he actually written a letter himself? Which is actually what is needed here.
No doubt time will tell.
Nothing to see here?
Sometimes when you set out to investigate an apparent problem or an incident, it turns out that there really isn’t anything to see after all.
That said, on occasion, it can be refreshing to actually address the things that are happening and show that the system is working and not broken. And also let our readers know that some things are working as they should.
Last month we were approached by a couple of local businesses about the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. The Somerset element of this was previously handled by independent organisations but has now been passed to Somerset Council.
The concern expressed to us was that no money has been dispensed to any local small businesses since Somerset Council took over the fund. The suspicion being that the fund was being used to bankroll a nearly bankrupt council.
What is going on? Is there anything to see here? We started investigating. We did not need to go very far.
A spokesperson for Somerset Council gave us some background and acknowledged: “Somerset Council is responsible for management and administration of Somerset’s allocation of UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) and Rural England Prosperity Fund (REPF) monies. The UKSPF and REPF are successor funds to EU Structural and Investment Funds which were managed by Government departments / agencies.”
We hadn’t heard of the REPF scheme previously, so wanted to know what that was for and what it was doing. The council spokesperson told us: “REPF is a ‘top up’ to UKSPF for rural areas. These monies are intended to be used for a variety of purposes (including, but not limited to, activity to support local business). We are supporting local business with our allocations, both through support schemes and grant monies.”
That’s the background on REPF, so what about the scheme we asked about, the UKSPF? Their spokesperson again: “UKSPF monies are being used in Somerset to provide, in response to evidenced need and demand, a number of support schemes for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) such as the Somerset Business Hub, Somerset Mentoring Programme and the Go Green Scheme.”
That’s all well and good in terms of providing business support schemes, but what about money paid as direct grants to small and medium enterprises (SMEs), as has happened in the past?
Was that happening? Was there any evidence of it happening? Could Somerset Council tell us the names of SME businesses that had received grants? Their spokesperson declined on the last question. Explaining that they couldn’t give that information without contacting them first and seeking permission, which would add a lot of time to answering our questions.
Fair enough, then perhaps we could be told the total value of grants paid out to SMEs? This proved a more fruitful line of enquiry. They told us: “direct financial support is available to SMEs under the UKSPF-funded ‘Somerset Green Business Grant Scheme’. Under the Scheme to date, grants totaling c. £181,500 have been awarded to 10 Somerset SMEs for a variety of energy and carbon saving measures and the Scheme is currently open to applications from further eligible SMEs – https://www.somerset.gov.uk/news/further-support-and-grants-available-to-help-businesses-go-green/”
That’s the UKSPF. What about direct grant payments to SMEs under REPF? “Under REPF, monies are being used to provide capital grants to rural businesses and organisations to support investment in business start-up, innovation and growth as well as community infrastructure. To date, REPF grants totaling c. £856,000 have been awarded to 29 rural businesses and organisations for a wide range of capital investment – e.g. additional production equipment for an ice cream manufacturer, a bottling facility for a cider maker and disabled access at a health and wellbeing centre.”
However that is not where it ends as there will be a further call for applications going out later this month. Admittedly we do not have any figures from before Somerset Council took over the funds to compare and contrast these numbers with. That said, it is clear that Somerset Council is providing both direct and indirect support to the SME community and as far as we can tell, is not squirrelling away money intended for business, to support their own future survival.
Recruitment drive in Taunton
Taunton Town Council has increased its council tax demand (precept) threefold this year. OK, to be precise, last year the precept was £2,114k and for 2024/25 it will be £5,905k. Which is very nearly threefold and a lot of the new money will be going on salaries.
The budget for 2023/24 included a total of £373,000 for salaries and national insurance. However, for the forthcoming 2024/25 financial year that is expected to rapidly increase to £1,083,000. Some of those costs and where precisely they will need to be spent, will not become apparent until more services are actually moved across from Somerset Council to Taunton Town Council.
Unsurprisingly the growth in spend on services is going to be more or less matched by the growth in the staff wages bill.
The recruitment drive has started already. Taunton Town Council currently have 13 full-time-equivalent staff on their organisation chart. Today there are five new roles being advertised:
Democratic Services Officer
Personnel Officer
Deputy RFO
Culture Officer
Operations and Assets Manager
In total those salaries will equate to up to £186,000 a year.
Whatever the plans may have been when the council was created on 1 April 2023, it is clear that going forward the town council is to be a significant employer with a budget that is getting close in scale to a small District Council.
It is of course bound to court controversy, putting up the precept by such a large amount. But perhaps no-one will mind that if the service delivery is good, the parks are well maintained and the public toilets are clean and in good working order.
More bail-outs needed
Symphony Healthcare may be a name that means little to NHS patients across Somerset. But the company which was owned by Yeovil District Hospital and today by the Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, owns a large number of doctors’ surgeries across Somerset.
The thinking behind the project was that bringing a large number of surgeries together, with back-office cost savings and greater purchasing power, should turn around some of our county’s financially hard-pressed surgeries.
Public support for rejuvenating our GP surgeries was recognised by a survey last year for campaign group Rebuild General Practice. They contracted YouGov to poll residents across the country about GP services. The findings will surprise precisely no-one. As well as wanting to see the same doctor when they visit their GP, the majority of patients (55%) would prefer to visit their GP for a minor ailment over other primary and secondary care services like A&E (4%) or walk-in centres (18%).
Dr Justin Geddes, Medical Director of the Somerset Local Medical Council commented: “We welcome this survey. General Practices in Somerset continue to adapt to overwhelming pressures every day to provide the very best service we can. We want to be able to give and receive the best care possible. We recognise the value we bring when we can do our job and want our doctors to be central to leading healthcare in our communities.”
Against that background, Symphony should have been pushing against an open door to bring in improvements and radically shake up the GP network across Somerset.
It didn’t work out that way. The company built up substantial losses. These were initially funded by loans from Yeovil District Hospital, but during the 2021/22 financial year £5.5m of those loans were effectively written off and are shown as a capital contribution to the business.
That is a hit to the NHS budget just the same.
£5.5m of those loans were effectively written off
The recently released 2022/23 accounts appear to show an improvement. The loss for the year was just £100k – mostly a result of technical tax accounting rather than operational losses.
The business claims that it is on top of recruitment pressure and: “has been successful and has seen clinical vacancy levels fall.” An achievement the directors believe is all the more impressive given that Somerset is: “the county that has seen the largest falling GP numbers across the country in the last 5 years.”
So plenty to look forward to? No, apparently not.
The outlook for 2023/24 shows a sharp deterioration in performance. No doubt with costs of locums and wage inflation all playing their part. However, the bottom line is that Symphony is expected to lose in excess of £5m for the year. NHS Somerset have committed to fund these losses.
However it is for now the end of the rapid expansion of Symphony. Apart from integrating the Burnham and Berrow GP practice which it took over on 1 April 2023 and is expected to cost £1.4m to integrate into Symphony, there will be no more acquisitions.
Instead, the focus will be on “maximising the quality, efficiency, workforce engagement, stability and patient experience within the organisation.” Which only leaves one wondering why on earth these things have not been the focus of the organisation in previous years?
However at least one of the company directors is capable of remarkable things. Sheila Meldrum resigned on 7 June 2022, having been appointed on 10 January 2023. That is an impressive piece of time travel.
After the year end accounts were signed off by the board, three directors of Symphony: Messrs Wyer, Dunster, and Sampson resigned over a two-month period. In the case of Mr Wyer who resigned on 13 November, Symphony dropped a ball by filing his resignation late on 4 January 2024. That could expose the company to a late filing penalty as the Companies Act only allows 14 days to file any change in directorships.
Maybe getting some of these little attention to detail things right might indicate a greater focus on quality and efficiency?
Gliding into the future
The last two years have not been happy ones for Huish Episcopi Academy. After an inadequate Ofsted, a change of leadership not once but twice, the school put into special measures, it was finally passed into the tender care of United Learning, a multi academy trust based in Peterborough. Meanwhile the school has been splashed across social media several times for all the wrong reasons.
A little good news is therefore especially welcome. That arrived this week with the announcement that the school had taken second place in the Regional Finals of the Flying Start Challenge.
Organised by Leonardo, the Yeovil helicopter manufacturer, The Flying Start Challenge is a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) competition that was run across the South West of England for local students to help develop their science and engineering skills.
Since November, Leonardo STEM Ambassadors have been mentoring more than 150 students, who have designed, built and tested their own gliders, using wood and recycled materials.
The Regional Final held at the Royal Naval Air Station (RNAS) at Yeovilton, provided the opportunity for students to test how far their creations could fly, while also participating in fun activities to deepen their understanding of aerospace engineering. Students were asked to bring a poster to the competition, capturing the design and construction of their glider so they could explain its special aeronautical features visually.
The ‘Aero’ team from Huish Episcopi Academy won a very creditable second place.
The overall winning team at the Yeovil Regional Final was ‘The Magic School Bus’ from Buckler’s Mead Academy achieving the furthest glider flight, with an impressive 19 metres. The ‘Aero’ team from Huish Episcopi Academy won a very creditable second place.
The Grand Final takes place on Friday 17 May at Aerospace Bristol. Teams from Beaminster School and Wells Cathedral School will be joining the teams from Buckler’s Mead Academy and Huish Episcopi Academy at the Grand Final.
Looking forward to that the three winning teams at the Grand Final can win cash prizes for their school, together with a glider experience for the overall winners, Arduino kit for the second-placed team and Micro Bit equipment for the third-placed team.
Plenty to look forward to and the Huish Episcopi Team have 6 weeks to see if they can tweak their design to get those extra metres from their glider that will give them the overall prize!
We hope you have enjoyed reading this edition of Somerset Confidential®. If you enjoy reading our specials why not gift someone you know a subscription to Somerset Confidential®?
Finally if you enjoyed this edition, please feel free to share it……
I completely agree, your extremely thorough reporting is really appreciated, keep on doing it.
Liz
Always interesting Andrew but unfortunately a bit depressing too.