Working as if we live in the early days of a better nation? Scotland protects its poor again from the worst of Tory austerity

‘Council tax bailiffs should be called off, say charities’ (BBC website 4^th May 2016)

‘Record numbers of people in council tax arrears, say charities’ (Guardian 4^th May 2016)

‘Concern over use of bailiffs to chase council tax debts’ (Daily Mail 4^th May 2016)

I know, I’m behind on this story. As often before, I missed it because it attracted little attention at the time. It was only when I came across a report by the Step Change debt charity, ‘Council Tax Debts’, that my regular interest in clarifying the Scottish dimension of any political information, arose. None of the above media reports mentioned Scotland nor did they mention England either. Even the BBC, which has a proudly-claimed responsibility for accuracy, failed to clarify that this was not a ‘crisis’ in Scotland. The Step Change report, itself, only remembers, on the 19^th of 21 pages, to remind the reader that the situation in Scotland is distinctive; more of this below.

This tendency by mainstream media in the UK to report English stories as if they are applicable to Scotland is all-too-familiar. Perhaps the best or worst recent example is the continuing reporting of a spike in hate crime after the EU referendum. Despite Police Scotland reporting no comparable spike in Scotland, neither the UK nor the Scottish media seem aware or concerned to draw attention to this. Readers can see my recent piece on this on the Newsnet.scot site.

In addition to this inaccurate, thus misleading, reporting, Scottish audiences often miss-out on important news stories which, typically, are favourable to any assessment of how well the Scottish Government is performing. A good example of this, also reported by me on Newsnet.scot, was the December 2015 report from the UK Government-funded and sponsored, Social Mobility and Child- Poverty Commission, which concluded:

‘Scotland, for example, has the smallest number of children living in poverty among the constituent nations of the UK, the lowest prevalence of low pay and far more young people from deprived areas going on to higher education.’ 

In the above piece, I argued that this bias by omission contributed to the weakening of confidence in the project that is Scottish independence. If we are to have the necessary confidence to believe in ourselves enough to vote for it, then we need to see, whenever it emerges, evidence that we are already making strides toward the kind of nation we aim to be. A repeated failure by our media, especially the BBC, to tell us what is happening, accurately or at all, is powerful propagandising which can weaken the will of some voters.

Add these – the conflation of Scotland with bad news about the rUK and the omission of potentially good news about Scotland – to more the deliberate much-repeated, active scare-mongering on the Scottish NHS, economy and education systems and we risk a powerful dampening effect on the spirit of potential Yes voters.

Now, here’s another, council tax debt. The three stories above make it clear that this is a crisis for quite a large number of poor individuals and families and that the situation is worsening after years of Tory austerity programmes. The Step Change report makes this very clear:

‘In 2010, just 10% of Step Change Debt Charity clients had arrears on their council tax bills. In 2014, this had grown to 28%. The proportion of people we help with council tax arrears has almost tripled in four years, growing faster as a problem than payday loans. Not only are more of them in arrears, they owe more. Our clients owe an average of £832 in council tax arrears – up from £675 in 2010.’

The report also makes clear just why this is such a serious matter when you look at the groups most affected by such debt. People with council tax arrears are:

More likely to be families with children. 53% of our clients with council tax arrears have children at home, compared to 43% who don’t have council tax arrears.

More likely to be women. 64% of our clients with council tax arrears are women, compared to 57% who don’t have council tax arrears.

More likely to be single parent families. 25% of households with council tax arrears are single parent families, compared to 17% of those who don’t have council tax arrears.

More likely to rent their home, and to rent from a private landlord. 40% of those with council tax arrears rent from a private landlord, compared to 34% of those who don’t have council tax arrears.

When I read this, I hoped that the Scottish government would have done something about this. Not absolutely sure what the situation was in Scotland, I was pleased to see this near the end of the Step Change report:

‘Scotland has statutory protection for people with solvable or temporary financial difficulties through the Debt Arrangement Scheme (DAS). This protection allows people the space and time to regain control of their finances – by making affordable repayments to creditors, and freezing all charges from the date of application – as soon as debt advice is sought. Council tax arrears are included in DAS. A similar statutory scheme is needed for England and Wales. Only by giving this protection a statutory underpinning can it be guaranteed to people struggling with mounting debts, encouraging them to seek advice, and ensuring that their repayments can remain affordable and sustainable.’

Now, I’m not saying we’re perfect. I know that there is still far too much poverty in Scotland. It’s still disgraceful. I’m just saying we need to know where we stand so that we know what to do next. If our mainstream media don’t inform us of what has happened, honestly and comprehensively, then what use are they to us?

As before, if you can find a mainstream media report doing the above, send me the link and I’ll eat another potato I’ve been keeping. This one looks like the Donald.

Source:

Step Change: https://www.stepchange.org/Portals/0/documents/media/reports/Council-tax-debt-report-2015.pdf

 

‘Arrogant, dismissive, illiberal, reactionary, totalitarian!’

What, UKIP? Not UKIP? Don’t tell me I’ll get it. Is it that guy in Turkey? I know, it’s that Kim Thingy in North Korea isn’t it? Wrong, wrong, wrong, it’s John Swinney and Nicola Sturgeon! Says who? Kevin McKenna said it, centre-page spread, in the Herald last Saturday. He never did. You’re having me on. Here’s a quote:

‘There is a curiously illiberal and reactionary strain running through its (SNP) core which seems to belie its socialist credentials’

In a piece in the Herald on the30th July, Kevin McKenna made a number of quite strong criticisms of the SNP. I was quite stunned by the quote above, not long after having been fully gobsmacked by the headline:

‘Aim of independence is put at risk by SNP’s arrogance.’

I know Kevin may not have worded the headline but it’s a reasonably representative of the conclusions he draws. Now, I’ve criticised the SNP recently in this throbbing digital organ. In particular, I had a go at what seemed to me like a trend toward a more presidential style in both the appearance the language adopted by the First Minister. Like many SNP members I want a more collegiate style with less of the ‘I’ word. I’ve also criticised the new national testing programme for schools from what Kevin McKenna would, I hope, recognise as a liberal perspective. Further, I’ve attacked the SNP leadership’s ambivalence with regard to fracking, especially former energy minister, Fergus Ewing.  So, I think I’m a critical friend rather than a dupe. However, Kevin goes a long way beyond what I’d consider reasonable criticism, into the kind potentially damaging critique that Unionists will savour. In short, Kevin’s arguments seem more likely to damage his (?) aim of independence than anything the SNP have done.

As I read the piece, I began to think I should respond. The headline ‘We need to talk about Kevin’ jumped straight into my all-too-predicable wee brain. From where did it emerge? The book and the film were likely sources but I felt there was another source being clever about the title before me. It can’t have been all my own idea. I had to Google it but soon found a Bella Caledonia piece from 2011, by Mike Small, with the very same title. It was a venomous put-down of then then confirmed Unionist, Kevin McKenna, which readers of this will be relieved or disappointed to hear, I won’t match. Here’s how Mike Small opened:

‘It’s a piece so loaded with self-loathing, barely recognised inferiorism and desperate political emptiness…’

Wow! To be fair, some of the Bella readers don’t share Mike’s anger fully. The link’s at the bottom of this.

I’m going to concentrate on rebutting McKenna’s substantive points rather than commenting on his colourful language, used throughout the piece as an attempt to win the argument, reason and evidence-free, via labelling, hyperbole and ridicule. Here are a few of them, to give you the flavour:

• Named Person Scheme was soundly trashed
• A Party whose language is a Caledonian version of Orwellian double-speak
• Army of superannuated advisors
• Critics howled down and accused of pandering to paedophiles
• Christian groups jeered and intimidated
• Encouraged by a bunch of indolent academics

As a retired and now wholly indolent academic, I suppose, I’m still offended by Kevin’s jeering at my former profession. Does Kevin have a reason to be embittered about academics?

Let me list the examples of allegedly illiberal or reactionary actions undertaken by the SNP before tackling each to show how they can be characterised more accurately as admittedly imperfect but still benign, well-intentioned and progressive:

• Named Person Scheme
• Prisoners’ Voting Rights
• New Women’s Prison
• Minimum Alcohol Pricing
• Police Scotland
• Offensive behaviour at Football Act

McKenna’s assertion that illiberal and reactionary policies belie socialist credentials is puzzling. Socialism, by definition, tends to be pretty illiberal with regard quite a range of freedoms deemed damaging to the interests of the 99%. If you’re one of the 1% or less on the many freedoms to exploit others, cherished by libertarians, then you’ll find socialists pretty controlling. Good, I say.

More than half of McKenna’s piece is taking up with the first in the list. Revealingly, perhaps, McKenna writes early on: ‘But dear God in Heaven, this Party’s arrogance will be its undoing.’ Dear God in Heaven? I’m an atheist, thank God, so this made me twitch. If you want to find illiberalism, have a wee keek in the Old Testament buddy. Don’t go expecting him to sympathise with liberalism. Further, the case taken to the Supreme Court in London, against the Scottish Government’s Named Person Scheme, was by the pretty fundamentalist Christian Institute. See why I started to worry about where McKenna was going?

He has written before, attacking the scheme and labelling it melodramatically ‘SNP Big Brother’. I used to be a schoolteacher. I’ve seen the bruises and reported them to no effect. I heard the stories of abuse. I’ve seen the haunted wee faces when going ‘home’. The Named Person Scheme got full cross-party support at Holyrood. It’s supported by the Children and Young People’s Commissioner and the Royal College of Nursing. According to a piece in the National Newspaper on March 9^th:

‘SCOTLAND’S “leading children’s charities and public sector stakeholders” have launched a staunch defence of the Scottish Government’s controversial named person’s policy, accusing the campaign against it of misleading the public.’

The National report described the critics as ‘evangelical Christians and other groups’. The Herald newspaper has described one group of critics as ‘fundamentalists’ who are being probed for financial irregularities. The Catholic Truth blog says the Named Person Scheme is ‘Chapter 2 of the Communist Manifesto writ large’. Doesn’t the Communist Manifesto have some good Socialist credentials? I’m getting confused Kevin.

Now, Kevin, you’re saying the SNP is at times illiberal and reactionary? Correct me, readers, but haven’t evangelical Christian groups and the Catholic Church a stronger history of such, on issues such as the rights of women, gays, humanists, socialists, prisoners, minority sects. I think the SNP are pretty good on these. Both evangelical Christians and the Catholic Church tend to be really reactionary on the Theory of Evolution. The SNP has a proud record of confirming the theory by referring to Scottish Labour as dinosaurs. Jim Murphy as a pterodactyl lookalike was everywhere in 2014. Admittedly, the Vatican does have a long record of liberal attitudes toward Nazis and more recent fascist dictators. In contrast, the SNP’s Natalie McGarry even went Turkey to protest against a really illiberal leader and got herself arrested.

Perhaps the worst thing in McKenna’s piece is this:

‘Consider again Mr Swinney and Ms Sturgeon, the words of the Supreme Court judges on your deeply flawed Named Persons legislation. “The first thing that a totalitarian regime tries to do is to get at the children, to distance them from the subversive, varied influences of their families and indoctrinate them in their rulers’ views of the world.”’

This is both silly and dishonest. Does McKenna really think the Supreme Court judges meant us to think of the Scottish Government’s scheme as in any way an example of the work of a totalitarian regime? The above quote appears on page 34 of 39 pages and is only part of a wider, generalised, explanation of the European Convention on Human Rights. When I see the term ‘totalitarian regime’, I think of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, the Catholic Church in Medieval Europe or more recently, in Ireland. The Vatican, even today, has much more of totalitarianism about it than our fine wee social democracy does.

As for ‘subversive, varied influences’, aren’t these the very things the Christian groups who brought the complaint would be most keen to deny their children?

The other stuff added at the end to bolster McKenna’s claims are pretty lightweight and a wee bit desperate. The Prisoners’ Voting Rights issue has nothing to do with socialist credentials. I really doubt that any Christian groups, the Catholic Church or indeed most of the leftist public, would be with him on this one. I actually agree that non-violent prisoners should be able to vote but his use of the issue to attack the SNP, particularly, makes no sense. The new women’s prison cancellation is credit to Women for Independence but this group contains SNP members and the idea that the Scottish government had to be ‘dragged by its heels’ to cancel it is simply not true. Minimal alcohol pricing is widely supported even by liberals and socialists. Only the neo-liberal supermarkets benefit from preventing it and the EC’s ban is clear evidence of the power of the corporations. Police Scotland, I agree, have made mistakes on stop and search, carrying weapons, investigating a death in custody and spying on journalists. However, the merger had all-party support and we need to remember sometimes just how liberal our police are. You’ve only got to read of the regular behaviour of police in the USA, in France, Turkey or in London to get a bit of proper perspective. It was Police Scotland which was recently asked to help the NYPD learn how to arrest people without shooting them all the time. Finally, the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act has been a major success, reducing offences significantly over two years. Again, if we’re talking illiberal and reactionary, how about the bigotry and violence the act has helped reduce?

As I wrote this, I was a wee bit afraid. I never write stuff about Islam or Israel. I’m frankly scared to do so. I would never write about Rangers or Celtic for the same reason. I’m wary of seeming to attack Catholicism generally if I mention the Catholic Church’s well-known historical presence and guilt in much of the child abuse reported. Kevin has written in the Scottish Catholic Observer on ‘Celebrating Catholics in Scottish Life’. My wife used to be a Catholic. My oldest boy is a Celtic fan. I’d support a united Ireland. But I would no more celebrate Catholics in Scottish life than Presbyterians in Scottish life or Dudists in Scottish life. All Praise the Big Lebowski! I support Falkirk FC. How’s that for self-loathing, Mike Small? Here’s why, I’m anxious. I think McKenna’s piece with its righteous anger about the Named Person Programme is Christian, ideological, propaganda. There I’ve said it.

 

http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2011/06/06/we-need-to-talk-about-kevin/

https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2015-0216-judgment.pdf

 

 

 

 

 

The Newsnet.scot ‘Ed’ has asked Inform Scotland to remove links to his site. So, at 05:35am, I’m posting my original content into thoughcontrolscotland.com. The original versions are better anyway free of stuffy editing and removal of my best ‘jokes!’

 

NHS Scotland outperforms NHS England again?

BBC Reporting Scotland slipped in a wee bit of good news for NHS Scotland, to the 1.30pm report on 23^rd August, but was too busy with bagpipes and the Celtic game to repeat it later at 6.30. A surprisingly cheerless Jackie Bird brought us this great news:

‘Meanwhile fewer people are dying in Scotland’s hospitals. Between 2014 and this year, hospital mortality fell by 4.5% which is 3 000 fewer deaths than predicted.’

Oh come on Jackie and the editor! Surely that’s headline material and worthy of a smile? What about getting Shona Robison, SNP Health Secretary, on to be grilled by Jackie and to have to defend herself against Tory accusations that NHS Scotland is deliberately using taxpayers’ money to improve health outcomes? As somebody who is increasingly in hospital, I’m chuffed to feck.

Here’s what the BBC website included:

‘Health Secretary Shona Robison said: “It is encouraging to see that our commitment to patient safety across the health service is delivering such strong results, especially at a time when our NHS is treating more people, with more complex needs, than ever before.

“The 4.5% drop in mortality rate since the start of 2014 shows we are making progress towards our new aim of a 10% reduction by December 2018. This is on top of the improvements in mortality already achieved since the start of the Scottish Patient Safety Programme in 2007.

“Scotland was the first country in the world to implement a national patient safety programme and is the only UK country publishing and driving improvement in our NHS through the use of mortality data in this way.”’

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-37164244

Now I know comparing hospital mortality figures between NHS Scotland and NHS England is frankly insensitive and tasteless but if I don’t do it, who will? Luckily for the latter, there are no directly comparable figures. NHS England’s administrators are too damn clever to get caught out failing. However, you can still make a rough comparison using this from ‘The NHS’:

‘For the 136 trusts included in the SHMI (Summary Hospital-level Mortality Indicator) from 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2015:

15 trusts had a ‘higher than expected’ SHMI.  Of these 15 trusts, 7 also had a ‘higher than expected’ SHMI for the same period in the previous year.

107 trusts had an ‘as expected’ SHMI.

14 trusts had a ‘lower than expected’ SHMI.  Of these 14 trusts, 10 also had a ‘lower than expected’ SHMI for the same period in the previous year.’

http://digital.nhs.uk/catalogue/PUB20949

So, I think we can say that for 122 out of 136 trusts, mortality rates were either static or worse. I’m going to suggest that, overall, the NHS England mortality figures did not fall and might even have increased, for the same period in which Scottish rates fell.

Add this to the other data I’ve provided in earlier NN reports (see list below) and I think we can credit the SNP government in Scotland with achievements that BBC Scotland cannot bear to credit.

NHS Scotland is demonstrably the best-performing in the UK and among the best in the World: Look at the evidence.

1. Scotland has the best and still improving A&E performance in the World. (Royal College of Emergency Medicine and Holyrood.com 1, 2)
2. Scotland has the most GPs per head of population in the UK and has had so every year since at least 2004. (Nuffield Trust 3)
3. Scotland’s GPs feel the most-satisfied, the least over-worked and the least-stressed in the UK and perhaps in the World. (Commonwealth Foundation of New York 4)
4. Scotland’s GPs are significantly more satisfied with the coordination across multiple sites and providers than in England. (Commonwealth Foundation of New York 4)
5. 94% of Scottish cancer patients rated care as ‘highly positive’ but only 61% of English cancer patients did so. (Gov.scot and NCPES 5, 6)
6. Over 100 000 treatment delays caused by junior doctor strikes in England but none in Scotland (BBC 7)
7. Bed-blocking in Scottish hospitals remains on a downward trend, with 7% fewer delayed discharges than last year. This is in stark comparison to other parts of the UK where the number of people delayed waiting to leave hospital is on the ris (Herald, Scotsman and Jersey Evening Post! BBC 8, 9)
8. Scotland spends more per capita on health (Nuffield Trust, 10)
9. Scotland, by contrast [with England], has abolished all vestiges of the ‘internal market’. (The King’s Fund 11)
10. There is relatively little cross-border flow of patients from Scotland to England. (The King’s Fund 11)
11. Scotland specifically embraces a philosophy of ‘mutuality’ between the Scottish people and the NHS. Internally it has a highly developed approach to partnership working between the trade unions and management. The partnership’s remit stretches well beyond terms and conditions to broader issues such as quality and the design of services. (The King’s Fund 11)
12. Scotland has a long and honourable tradition of clinical audit that over the years, both before and after devolution, has helped inform the approach of the other countries. (The King’s Fund 11)
13. Scotland appears to have made more progress [in developing integrated care], perhaps in part due to its relative organisational stability over the past decade (The King’s Fund 11)
14. Scotland’s greater and earlier success in getting an electronic and shared summary care record in place, despite England investing vastly greater sums in its National Programme for IT (The King’s Fund 11)
15. Public satisfaction with the Scottish NHS reaches as high as 74% in Scotland but only as high as 63% in England (King’s Fund, 12)
16. Scottish nurses more confident in coping with demand than English nurses (OK I made that one up as I wait for the RCN to come clean on the data and confirm my guess)

Sources:

1. rcem.ac.uk/CEM/document?id=9891
2. https://www.holyrood.com/articles/news/scotland-only-uk-nation-improve-ae-performance
3. http://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/node/2540
4. http://newsnet.scot/commentary/scottish-gps-satisfied-least-stressed-uk-possibly-world/
5. http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2016/06/3957/0
6. http://www.ncpes.co.uk/index.php/reports/national-reports/2489-cpes-2015-national-report-pdf/file
7. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-36117230
8. http://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/uk-news/2016/06/21/continued-fall-in-bed-blocking-numbers-recorded-in-april/
9. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36466409
10. http://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/blog/health-care-and-scottish-election

Is there less extreme debt in Scotland?

 ‘More than 1.5 million families are in extreme debt, according to a TUC/Unison report’

‘Extreme poverty is becoming the norm in Scotland, report claims’

These two headlines and the full stories, from the BBC and from the Herald on the 13^th July 2016, gave no indication of any differences between Scotland and the rest of the UK in this serious matter. Regular readers will know that it is my mission to provide clarification so that we judge more accurately the relevance of these reports to Scotland. I’ve been waiting on a regional breakdown of the data for some time now with no success. I did eventually get this response:

‘The Bank of England’s NMG survey provides for some regional analysis, although the sample sizes for each region vary considerably.  For example, there are 468 people in the survey from the East Midlands and 771 from Greater London.  Concerning the nations, there are around 450 from Scotland and 300 from Wales and Northern Ireland isn’t covered at all. As a result, we were not able to undertake any cross tabulations on a regional/ national basis.’

I wrote to request the raw data but as I write this three days later, they seem to be ignoring me. So, it looks like I’m not going to be able to shed light directly and will have to find other sources which can be used to suggest reasonably how we might react to the TUC/Unison study. You might have noticed the quite small sample sizes above and the lack of any obvious consistency in the ratio of the sample to the populations concerned. The Scottish sample, for example, seems disproportionately small by comparison with the Welsh sample.

As I considered the headlines above, I was reminded of a previous piece I wrote for NN correcting the notion that Council Tax debt was a major factor in debt crisis in Scotland due to the Scottish Government’s actions. See this quote from ‘The job of protecting Scottish poor from excesses of Tory austerity’ (http://newsnet.scot/archive/job-protecting-scottish-poor-excesses-tory-austerity/):

‘Scotland has statutory protection for people with solvable or temporary financial difficulties through the Debt Arrangement Scheme (DAS). This protection allows people the space and time to regain control of their finances – by making affordable repayments to creditors, and freezing all charges from the date of application – as soon as debt advice is sought. Council tax arrears are included in DAS. A similar statutory scheme is needed for England and Wales. Only by giving this protection a statutory underpinning can it be guaranteed to people struggling with mounting debts, encouraging them to seek advice, and ensuring that their repayments can remain affordable and sustainable.’

This is the kind of contextual explanation that the Scottish media should be using as a matter of course, but don’t. Returning to possible level of ‘extreme poverty’ in Scotland, here’s my first evidence suggesting that the TUC report’s conclusions need to be modified for Scotland.

From the Scotland Institute’s ‘CHANGES IN HOUSEHOLD INCOME AND EXPENDITURE IN SCOTLAND 2008-2014’ of February 2016:

‘In effect, the current Conservative Government is continuing with New Labour’s reliance on debt to offset drops in income so as to maintain consumption levels. At the moment, while incomes drop, debt is steadily increasing which is unsustainable both for individual households and the wider economy. In consequence, 52% of Scottish households described the level of personal debt as being a burden. Even so, household debts in Scotland remain below the UK average.’ (8)

Further evidence of less debt in Scotland comes from ‘Unsecured and insecure? Exploring the UK’s mountain of unsecured personal debt—and how it affects people’s lives’ published by Citizen’s Advice in 2016:

‘How is unsecured debt distributed throughout Great Britain? Breaking down unsecured debt by region reveals that those living in the South West of England and Yorkshire and the Humber are the most indebted, with mean debts of £5,036 and £4,796 respectively. With average unsecured debts of £3,144 and £3,441, people living in Scotland and the West Midlands tend to have less debt on average than the rest of Great Britain.’

Perhaps undermining the TUC/Unison study, across the UK and not just in Scotland, here’s a second piece of evidence actually suggesting less debt problems in recent years, across the UK. The Office for National Statistics Early Indicator estimates from Wealth and Assets Survey, Wave 5, July 2014 to June 2015, suggest:

‘The percentage of people reporting their debt burden as “not a problem at all” rose from 66% during July 2010 to June 2012 to 75% in July 2014 to June 2015.’ (1)

‘Approximately a third of people (34%) in the period July 2010 to June 2012 felt it was either a heavy or somewhat of a burden compared with 25% now in the period July 2014 to June 2015.’ (17-18)

So, as with previous dodgy dossiers from the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of General Practitioners, suggesting a crisis in NHS Scotland, this TUC/Unison report hides Scottish data with the effect of denying the Scottish Government any credit for its efforts to minimise the effects of Westminster’s austerity policies and to protect Labour’s Scottish branch office from further humiliation. Look back, in particular, at the Herald’s headline and consider how the evidence presented here makes it both inaccurate and ludicrous.

Sources:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/37164267/more-than-15-million-families-are-in-extreme-debt-according-to-a-tucunison-report

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14614636.Extreme_poverty_is_becoming_the_norm_in_Scotland__report_claims/

http://www.scotlandinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Household-Income-and-Expenditure.pdf

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/Global/CitizensAdvice/Debt%20and%20Money%20Publications/UnsecuredorinsecureFinal.pdf

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160105160709/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171766_422909.pdf

 

 

As England faces more devastating floods, has the Scottish Government put its finger in the dyke, so to speak?

‘As many as 530 key infrastructure sites across England are still vulnerable to flooding, according to a government review.’ (BBC News, 8^th September 2016)

‘£12.5m Flood Defence Plans No More Than ‘Elastoplast’’ (Sky News, 8^th September)

A new review from the Environment Agency for England has attracted much critical press and TV broadcast, reaction. The review was commissioned after 16 000 houses, across northern England, were flooded during the wettest December in a century last year.

Most have described its plans to avoid a repeat of the devastating deluges as utterly inadequate. The Sky TV report put it very bluntly:

‘Plans to improve flood defences after the devastation caused by record high water levels last year have been dismissed as “Elastoplast”. A new Government report identifies up to 530 sites across England where key local infrastructure, such as water, electricity and telecoms sites, is still vulnerable to flooding.’

In the BBC Report, we hear from Dr Stephen Gibbs, chairman of the Carlisle Flood Action Group:

‘The issue is Government statutory powers to say ‘we will defeat flooding’. The Environment Agency [EA] has a pattern – they have a flood, they have a review, then they get out the [sticking plaster] and hope for the best until the next flood. Temporary flood defences are part of the filibustering that the EA is having to do. The Dutch defeated flooding because their senior politicians sat down and said ‘How can we defeat this?’ And they defeated flooding.’

Mention of the Dutch reminded me of the boy with his finger in the dyke and I wondered whether the Scottish Government and its agencies would be performing any better than that of their equivalents in England. I found this statement of intent on their website:

‘Historically Scotland has not faced the same degree of river and coastal flooding as England, due mainly to its different topography. However, climate change is expected to increase flood risk, potentially doubling it in some areas in Scotland before the end of the century. Through the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009, the Scottish Government has introduced a more sustainable and modern approach to flood risk management, suited to the needs of the 21st century and to the impact of climate change.

Of course, this is not hard evidence of superior performance and readers will not be surprised to be reminded of alleged failures in this area reporting in our mainstream media. Back in March 2016, Reporting Scotland was just coming to the end of serial visits (eight) to Ballater’s flooded streets:

‘After the floods, the recovery. We report from Ballater and three months on from Storm Frank, the town’s still getting back on its feet.’

On the 14^th, I wrote, despairingly:

‘We report from Ballater!’ said as if it was ‘We report from Baltimore!’ Reporting Scotland headlined the ‘Ballatergate’ again. They’ve been on Deeside eight times now. I wonder if the Deeside Piper and Herald newspaper has got this scoop.  No, quite the reverse, they’re ‘over it’ and moving on. In fact: ‘Floods won’t stop DYMT!’ they trumpet, mysteriously for those not on Deeside.  Indeed, the Deeside Youth Musical Theatre youngsters have picked themselves up, dried themselves down and started all over again, with their version of Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Raincoat! Jackie Bird opens by telling us ‘It’s almost three months since the flooding in Ballater.’ Yes I know, three months and you’re still going on about it! Why on earth are we still on this story? Does the reporter live there? Will it help to defeat the SNP in some way?’

As you know the SNP survived the BBC campaign but I doubt their interest in using future flooding to attack them again has receded (See what I did there?) much.

So, what convincing evidence is there that the Scottish Government does have its act together on this? Again, a previous piece for Newsnet, provides me with quite a lot which I hope you don’t mind me repeating much of it so that we’re ready for the next propaganda campaign. Store these facts away and until then, keep you powder dry (See what I did there, again?).

The December 30^th 2015 piece titled ‘Despite the deluge, is flood protection stronger and better funded in Scotland?’ also covered benefits for home insurers and the comparative quality of environmental leadership in Scotland. They are well-worth checking out but would make this piece a bit too long. The url is at the bottom of this.

Comparing Storm and Flood Protection in Scotland and England

As far back as 2006, researchers at the English College of Estates Management, whose patron is HRH Prince of Wales, made a number of highly encouraging comments about the achievements of the Labour-run Scottish Executive, SEPA and the Local Authorities:

‘In 1993, storms over Scotland exceeded the severity of storms over the South-East of England, however little damage resulted. This is because the Building (Scotland) Act, 2003 has introduced tougher building standards, thus buildings in Scotland are constructed to reflect the harsher conditions: and thus damage and subsequent insurance claims are significantly reduced.

As far as flood protection is concerned, unlike in England, the 1 in 200 year standard of protection is ‘universal’ for all new buildings, with a 1,000 year standard for such vulnerable uses as old people’s homes, schools, hospitals etc.. In addition, construction in flood hazard areas has almost completely ended. Crichton (2003: 26) estimates that “the active flood management programme currently in progress will result in almost all high risk properties being protected against the 200-year flood within the next three years, taking climate change into account.” It is also interesting to note that the Scottish Executive grants for flood defences have never been refused on the grounds of budget restraints and there is no rationing of flood defence spending.

It is clear, however, that the more stringent building standards which are applied in Scotland ensure that severe storms result in much less property damage than comparable events in England. Also the level of flood protection and the commitment of funding to achieve flood protection are higher in Scotland than in England.’

More recently, with SNP leadership, the favourable comparison still seems to hold. Published research from the esteemed Joseph Rowntree Foundation, in 2012, seems to support my first impressions quite strongly:

‘Where English planning regulations permit building in flood plains where there is no alternative, Scottish Planning Policy does not permit building in areas in which ‘the flood risk exceeds the 200 year return period’, i.e. where in any year there is a greater than 0.5 per cent probability of flooding. Scotland has stronger regulations governing the capacity of sewage and drainage systems for new building. It also has stronger minimum standards for flood defences. Building regulations ensuring flood resilience in the housing stock are more developed. Scottish planners, through Flood Liaison and Advice Groups, are engaged with local communities, the emergency services, insurers and other interested parties in drawing up flood plans. The differences in regulatory regimes between England and Scotland are reflected in the number of households that are at risk of flooding, and the resilience of communities in responding to those risks.’

The level of investment will be one factor in these differences. In recent years, spending in England and Wales has declined seriously after significant increases under Labour in 1997 to 2010, as revealed in a UK Parliament Briefing Paper from 2015:

‘Central Government spending on flood defence in 2010-11 was cut soon after the Coalition Government was formed. Spending was reduced in one year by £30 million or 5%. In the 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review (2011-12 to 2014-15), a total of £2.17 billion in central government funding was provided for flood and coastal defence. This represented “a six percent fall in central government funding”, The Committee on Climate Change calculated that this represented a real term cut of around 20% compared to the previous spending period.’

In sharp contrast, for Scotland, we see in a Scottish Parliament Committee Paper for 2014-2015, evidence of increasing investment:

‘With regard to flood protection and alleviation, the Committee welcomes the cash terms increases in the funding available to SEPA, and to the Natural Assets and Flooding  budget, both of which sit in the RAE portfolio. The Committee believes that, due to climate change, severe weather events will become increasingly likely in Scotland in years to come, and it is therefore essential that flood forecasting and warning systems be as accurate and robust as possible. The Committee welcomes the increased funding for flood forecasting and warning in the RAE portfolio and recommends that the Scottish Government continue to ensure sufficient funding is available to improve flood forecasting and warning systems, to ensure greater consistency across the whole of Scotland.’

I have to admit, I can’t find a great deal of more recent evidence of superiority in the Scottish system. I did find this at the Scottish government site and little (surprise, surprise) MSM coverage of it:

‘£42 million a year plan over the next decade.

More than 10,000 families are to benefit from a ten year strategy to protect homes in many of Scotland’s most flood-prone communities. The plan is the result of grant funding totalling £420 million and follows an agreement reached between the Scottish Government and COSLA. The cash will be used to deliver 40 new flood protection projects and support local flood risk management plans. More than 130 flood protection studies will be carried out to help find potential solutions for another 26,000 residential properties currently at risk. The announcement came as the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, fulfilled her pledge to return to Newton Stewart following an earlier visit in the aftermath of flooding at Hogmanay.’

So, unlike the UK Government, the Scottish Government has maintained or bettered the investment and the sophistication in flood prevention here. Had I been writing in 2006, the Labour-controlled Scottish Executive would have rightly claimed any credit for performance north of the border. In 2016, the SNP-controlled Scottish Parliament can do the same. Will BBC Scotland allow them to do it? They clearly didn’t in the run-up to General Election in 2016 so I doubt it.

There you have it, my attempt to shore up our defence plans against a flood of BBC bias (See what I did there, again, again?) as we approach the UK Monsoon season.

Sources:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37306094

http://news.sky.com/story/16312m-flood-defence-plan-an-elastoplast-say-victims-10569571

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Environment/Water/Flooding

College of Estates Management at:https://www.cem.ac.uk/media/28193/flooding.pdf

UK Parliament Briefing Paper at: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tGK3kUO-iKEJ:www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/sn05755.pdf+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

Scottish Parliament Paper at:http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/CurrentCommittees/70875.aspx

Scottish Act on Control of Flood water at:http://www.gov.scot/Resource/Doc/1057/0094052.pdf

WWF Report at: http://nationalfloodforum.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/floodplanner_web.pdf

Professor Penning-Rowsell at: http://evidence.environment-agency.gov.uk/FCERM/Libraries/FCERM_Project_Documents/FD2602_7685_TRP_pdf.sflb.ashx

Edvard Munch

‘The NHS is failing to achieve key waiting time targets and struggling to balance the books’

This was the headline on BBC Scotland this morning, 27^th October 2016 at 09:02. I wasn’t quite awake so when the presenter said ‘NHS’ I thought they meant NHS England as they (BBC Salford) usually do and my reaction was ‘Yes, I know that. NHS England really is in a crisis!’ I should have realised. It was NHS Scotland and just another contribution to the creation of an ‘Ecology of Fear’ when morning TV news watchers, mainly the elderly and the sick, get their meds. You don’t take these meds internally. BBC Scotland, habitually now, no conspiracy, just create an ecology, an environment, an atmosphere, a climate, where negativity seeps into your subconscious mind producing the necessary level of anxiety to keep you voting for the status quo – the Union. The early morning strategy works. See:

https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2016/09/22/the-power-of-nightmares-waking-up-to-early-morning-bad-news-on-bbc-scotland-and-fearing-the-unknown/

Ironically, BBC 1 at 1pm did report on a crisis in the NHS across the UK and mentioning specifically both the GMC the Audit Scotland reports. BBC Scotland then repeated the Audit Scotland report but did not mention the problems in England. Well they never do. I’ve heard there have been several junior doctor strikes in England but none in Scotland. You wouldn’t know unless you watched BBC 1 News. Thank goodness for BBC 1. No Scottish 6 with added Unionism for me, thank you very much.

It’s been about a month since I started again counting these bad beans. It doesn’t happen every day. That would just be too obvious, like in North Korea. People might get suspicious. Concentrating on only the most anxiety-inducing headlines, here’s the story so far. First, the totals:

Running total 21/9/16 to 27/10/16*                              Number of reports

Bad news for SG/SNP                                                            22

Good news for SG/SNP                                                         9

Bad news for Labour                                                              1

Good news for Labour                                                           5

Bad news for Conservative Party (CP)                              0

Missed bad news opportunities for CP                             endless

Good news for CP                                                                   3

* Monday to Friday only

The clear tendency to protect the two main Unionist parties by not reporting the numerous scandals afflicting them both is quite apparent here. Also, the neglect of the ‘No hate crime spike in Scotland’ story, which is now all over UK and international news, is beyond sad. How much do they despise their own viewers? However, I want to concentrate on the ‘scare the old folk’ agenda, denied by BBC Scotland of course but let slip by one of their major contributors Blair McDougall of Bitter Together in 2014. I won’t repeat all the general negativity or the individual, easy, rebuttals of them, here. You’ll find those in the original reports. So, here we go:

25.10.16:    The Scottish Police Federation (trades union) has criticised Police Scotland for waiting 12 hours before releasing details of the attempted murder of two officers.

19.10.16:    Scotland lags behind most of Europe in 5 year [lung cancer] survival rates

17.10.16:    The Royal College of Midwives has warned that Scotland is facing a retirement “time bomb”. About 40% of midwives are now in their 50s and 60s, compared with 30% only four years ago.

12.10.16:    The closure of the Longannet power station in March cut back Scottish economic output significantly according to the latest figures. It contributed to Scottish growth being three times slower than the UK as a whole over the year to June.

11.10.16:    Overweight 5 year-olds crisis – Scottish Government needs to do more.

4.10.16:       Scottish taxpayers and businesses face a Scotland Surcharge of up to one billion pounds over the next four years…

3.10.16:       It is the UK that is negotiating to leave the European Union. It is the UK that voted to leave the European Union and it is the UK Government that has the task of conducting the negotiations!

29.9.16:       New figures reveal that councils have been given £140 million for child care by the SG which has not been spent on the programme.

27.9.16:       Oil and gas capital investments falls ‘dramatically’ and Number of jobs in oil and gas still ‘falling.’

23.9.16:       Figures obtained by the BBC show that more than 100 children have been trafficked into Scotland in the past six years and more than half of them came from Vietnam.

22.9.16:       The current system of social work in Scotland is unsustainable! Elderly people consume more and more of social work budgets.’

So, that’s every second day or so, just to keep the anxiety levels up but not too manic.

Just a few words on today’s tale of missed targets. It’s worth noting of course that missing targets is a problem but it’s a far better situation than not having targets at all or having ones which are not very challenging. The Scottish Government is to be applauded for setting the targets so high. Also, today, we heard ‘MSPs will debate calls for improvements in the standards of Scotland’s mortuaries after a (one) bereaved family complained.’ No survey, no report, just one complaint. Is that evidence of good editorial judgement or of an agenda to undermine the Scottish Government, whenever possible? It is of course an ideal, ‘scare the old folk’ story.

Finally, Audit Scotland, how strong are their research methods? They’re not very good at all. I wrote Audit Scotland’s Limited Ability to Comment on the Scottish NHS in March 2016. Here’s a short extract:

‘The Audit Scotland report has not been able to find or use any empirical evidence representative of Scotland as a whole, to justify its negative conclusions. It relies far too heavily on a small number of selected case studies and interviews which are then not reliable nor are they triangulated with broader empirical data. AS seem over-concerned with planning documents which authorities charged with the actual tasks often produce largely to satisfy auditors. Further, AS has not used its resources to assess what is actually happening on the ground, across the country. Too detailed planning documents can stifle improvements and result in ineffective, but satisfying for auditors of course, tick-box exercises. After nearly 40 years of school and university inspections or audits, I have seen the often obsessive and useless effects of such. AS seem almost indignant that authorities have not jumped to satisfy them first.’

The end

‘Why anti-BBC billboards are a terrible idea before indyref 2’

I’m not going to read this piece on Common Space. I haven’t got the time to waste on infighting within the pro-independence movement. I’m not going to respond to any criticism for the same reason. Call me arrogant. I don’t care. I’m not saying for one minute that anyone should be denied freedom to say what they want but this is no time for ego-flattering and posturing on the fringes of a propaganda war that requires discipline and concentration if we are to succeed.

I spend all my time attacking the misrepresentation of Scottish politics by the 90% pro-Union corporate and state media, constructing or exaggerating failures and ignoring successes that might give the Scottish electorate the confidence to vote for independence.

If others within the pro-independence movement think my strategy and the strategy of Inform Scotland to expose the BBC is wrong then they are entitled to hold that opinion. They must remember, however, that in political campaigning there are only opinions. I and others might disagree with the strategies of groups like the Greens, Common Space, RISE or even the current SNP leadership. You could observe that the tiny growth in support for independence since 2014, despite awesome levels incompetence and contempt for Scotland from the current Tory government, might suggest they’ve got it a wee bit wrong. However, we have the sense not to waste time or energy attacking our own side because we have more important tasks in pursuit of our real enemies: the institutions, the politicians, the corporate leaders, the cultural icons and so on who massively dominate the media discourse upon which the electorate must base its notions of reality.

There’s a real danger, as the campaign lengthens and the years pass, that some ‘campaigners’ will find themselves too comfortable within it and lose the drive to end it in victory. This happened notably last century in the Labour Party as careerists lacking discipline and focus on the enemy, casually prolonged the war for equality and lived comfortably in its failure without end. Many became personally wealthy. Some even became members of the House of Lords! Already, there are politicians, salaried activists and journalists for whom independence would really be a bit inconvenient not to mention challenging. They need a bit of stability if they are to pay long-term mortgages, to pay school fees and to afford extended holidays in France.

According to a piece (fair) in the Herald tonight, ‘the SNP distanced itself from the poster campaign, saying it had nothing to do with it and did not support it.’ I’m an SNP member but I don’t agree with aspects of the post-Salmond strategy which has only pushed support for independence up by a disappointing one or two percentage points since 2014, despite Brexit and austerity. This comes after the dramatic increase from around 20% to 45%, in more difficult times, under Salmond’s more visceral leadership. Alex Salmond is on record as being much more directly critical of BBC Scotland. It’s little wonder after their appalling personal demonisation of him in the run-up to the Referendum.

Despite this, I remain loyal and will not be drawn into infighting. I trudged the streets of Ayr, for Nicola, only to see the new strategy fail to unseat our local Tory. I could easily spend time analysing that defeat and finding fault but I’m far too busy fighting the good fight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photographs: Ben Cawthra/REX, independent.co.uk, CHRIS ISON/PA ARCHIVE

If you saw this Daily Mirror headline in June 2015, you might have laughed at the cheek of someone using a government computer to make the addition of the Cameron regime to a list including Spain’s General Franco and Greece’s ‘Regime of Colonels’. No one was ever caught and the list duly amended. Yet, only a year later we heard Tory PM, Theresa May, and home Secretary, Amber Rudd make statements strongly suggestive of a dangerous drift toward fascism at their party conference. We heard that:

 

• employers, including universities, will be told to maintain lists of foreign workers
• foreign doctors will only be allowed to stay until enough British doctors have been trained
• to cut the numbers, only some universities will be allowed to recruit foreign students

 

Then we heard Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade, the clearly not very honourable, Liam Fox, refusing to give assurances to EU citizens in UK that they would not be used as negotiating chips. He even described them as ‘one of our main cards.’ That’s the essence of fascism, a psychopathic lack of empathy and will to control human beings as if they were objects.

 The path to fascism is one of many, sometimes quite small, steps but once ambitious self-centred people like these are walking, bad things can happen.

Within days, SNP First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon had accused the Tories of xenophobia and their policies as being ‘deeply ugly’. Also, she made it clear that foreign workers were welcome in Scotland and that she would support any firms refusing to list foreign workers.

These are fine sentiments but how securely based are they? Clearly the UK government can override anything it wishes but there is a developed cultural system here protective of human rights which would make that highly unpopular and difficult. See this short extract (page 93) from a January 2014 report I missed at the time and which I don’t think much was made of in our media, ‘Equality, Human Rights and Constitutional Reform in Scotland: A Report for the Equality and Human Rights Commission’:

‘Scotland, within the UK, can point to having taken a different approach to equality and human rights. Even when human rights have been politically challenging for Scottish Executive and Scottish Government ministers, they have never suggested a lack of commitment to the Human Rights Act, or the ECHR (although they have criticised Supreme Court judgments). In fact the current Scottish Government has stated that in the event of the UK repealing the Human Rights Act, it would incorporate it for Scottish devolved powers, and the Government’s plans for a written Constitution and an independent Scotland, include a clear commitment to European human rights standards.184 Similarly, there is no suggestion in Scotland of a political appetite to amend or repeal the Public Sector Equality Duty. The supremacy of human rights, defined by ECHR and EU law, over the Scottish Parliament is also distinctive from its status under Westminster – the Scotland Act 1998 permits the striking down of Scottish Parliament legislation if it is not competent, e.g. if it breaches ECHR.’

The full report is 102 pages long and full of ideas for further embedding human rights in a Scottish Constitution. Again, the UK government can override anything it wishes but given the now strong roots of human rights in Scotland’s politics, society and legal system, dare it try to pull them out?

Sources:

Equality, Human Rights and Constitutional Reform in Scotland: A Report for the Equality and Human Rights Commission, January 2014, at: https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/our-work-scotland/our-work-scotland/research-scotland/equality-human-rights-and-constitutional

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tories-wikipedia-right-wing-dictatorships-5817386

 

Domestic violence, predominantly against women, is one of the persisting horrors of modern Scotland. This report absolutely does not aim to diminish, to detract or to distract from a priority for change that has few if any challengers. The Scottish Government too, I feel sure, has no illusions on this:

‘The Scottish Government is committed to tackling the scourge of domestic abuse and helping victims have the confidence to come forward and report it is a hugely important part of that.’ (Justice Secretary Michael Matheson, 27/10/2015)

 ‘Violent crimes against women in England and Wales reach record high’

 This is from the Guardian on the 5^th September this year. Though the writer does not refer to Scotland at any point, she is clear that the figures refer explicitly to England and Wales. She elaborates:

‘The number of prosecutions relating to violence against women and girls in England and Wales reached a record level last year, the director of public prosecutions said, as she warned of the increasing use of social media to threaten and control.’

The figures for Scotland were released only today, 25^th October 2016. Note that the Scottish figures relate to reports rather than to prosecutions. I’m not sure how much this matters but I’m going to assume that trends in reporting and in prosecuting are both indicators of underlying trends in criminal behaviour rather than indicators of significant differences in policing. Here are the key points, reported in the Herald:

‘The number of domestic abuse incidents recorded by police has fallen in the past year, figures show.’

‘Official statistics show a 3% drop in the figures for Scotland, from 59,882 in 2014-15 to 58,104, the lowest number recorded since 2010-11. The majority of incidents (79%) had a female victim and a male accused, down from 87% in 2006-07. Over the same period the proportion of incidents with a male victim and a female accused has increased from 11% to 18%.’

So, the total number of reported abuse incidents has fallen by 3% yet the number of reported female-on-male cases has increased by 7%. Therefore, reported male-on-female abuse has gone down by more than 3%? I’m not a statistician. Have I got this right, readers?

Readers will be aware that all we have, in areas of crime, are reported levels. Actual levels of crime are generally thought to be considerably higher. From The United Nations Surveys on Crime Trends and the Operations Criminal Justice Systems report of 2010, collating evidence from crime victim surveys: ‘it is known that depending on the type of crime, only about half of the crimes are actually reported to the police.’ This is of course not definitive evidence that the level of actual domestic crime in Scotland is only twice the level of reported domestic crime.

Readers may also be aware that this report is the latest in a long line of attempts by me to try to counter what is known commonly as the ‘Scottish Cringe’ or the notion that Scotland is inferior to other countries in so many ways that it cannot/should not aim for independence as it would not be able to look after itself properly. The idea that Scots males are even more violent toward their female partners than English males are is also part of the cringe. In 2014, Frankie Boyle joked that Scotland should become an Islamic State if only to unnerve England. Of course, he observed, we’d have to improve our treatment of women if we did. He was joking but that we get it tells you how deeply embedded the notion is.

Media reporting of Scottish affairs which constructs our reality for us is, to my mind, mostly to blame for the sustenance of the cringe. Recent attempts by me to suggest that Scotland is and has been for some time, more tolerant of refugees and is less xenophobic than many other countries, have taken me out onto thin ice and attracted a few angry comments. See:

https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2016/10/20/is-tory-rule-making-england-more-barbaric-while-snp-rule-is-making-scotland-more-civilised/

To any angered by this report, I plead that you read again my opening paragraph, give me the benefit of the doubt and point out my errors calmly.

My comparison of Scotland with England and Wales may be problematic but the fall in reporting of male-on-female and the rise in reporting of female on male abuse is not.

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/sep/05/violent-crimes-against-women-in-england-and-wales-reach-record-high

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/homenews/14821657.3__fall_in_domestic_abuse_incidents_reported_to_police/

https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/Crime statistics/International_Statistics_on_Crime_and_Justice.pdf