September 2008

A £314m track record

Our yoga-loving work and pensions secretary, James Purnell, has been trumpeting the appointment of Tim Matthews as Remploy’s new chief executive.

Matthews, he says, has “a proven track record in managing change within the public sector”.

Just the ticket, with Remploy having closed 28 of its factories in the last year and being told the others will only stay open if it cuts costs.

Clearly, Purnell was not concerned by his new man’s appearance before the Commons transport committee in 2003.

Matthews was then chief executive of the Highways Agency, which in 2001/02 had somehow managed to overspend by…wait for it…£314 million.

Quite an achievement, I’m sure you’ll agree. As did the committee, which described the figures – blamed on an accounting systems failure – as “completely unacceptable”.

Let’s hope there’s no such cock-up at Remploy. It should be safe. Its total revenue in 2007 was only £290 million.

Brown’s cold comfort

Gordon Brown is reported to be planning to help “Britain’s poorest families” with their fuel bills this winter.

The help, apparently, will be targeted at households claiming child or working tax credits.

No mention, of course, of disabled people. In 2006, we revealed the strongest evidence yet that disabled people under 60 were dying every winter because they could not afford to heat their homes. And this February, we reported new government figures showing that more than 600,000 disabled people were living in fuel poverty, even before the latest hefty price rises.

Backchat can only assume that, if all this is true, our (visually-impaired) Prime Minister has come up with a masterplan to win the next election without the support of more than nine million disabled voters.