#CaymanTax transparency conference: speaking notes

Here are my speaking notes (3 pages) for the Cayman government’s conference on Tax Transparency in the Global Financial Services Ecosystem, 5 April. Live-tweeting when I’m not talking, at #CaymanTax.

The talk will lay out briefly the emergence of civil society voices on the issues of international tax transparency and wider tax justice, how far things have come and the challenges ahead – as well as a brief discussion of Cayman’s position. Oh, and the US emerging as the biggest global financial secrecy threat…

Cayman-speaking-notes-Apr17

Tax Justice Network: A transition

jec-2016
John Christensen

Cross-posted, of course, from TJN.

After 13 years, our founding executive director John Christensen is stepping down. We’re delighted that John will stay on and become our new board chair. And I (Alex Cobham) am honoured to accept the role of chief executive at TJN.

Since I took up the post of Director of Research at the start of last year, I’ve had the chance to look back and think about the achievements so far of John and the network. In changing the political weather on these issues, those achievements are nothing short of extraordinary.

Alex Cobham
Alex Cobham

Behind the success of this radical agenda has been the use of high quality research and excellent communications to take clear, innovative solutions into the policy mainstream. The piece below sets out some of the dramatic changes that have taken place, some of the ways that John and TJN have achieved this, and a hint of the work that’s to come. (John would never be so immodest, incidentally – but please forgive me, because the achievements are far from modest.)

Continue reading “Tax Justice Network: A transition”

Open Data for Tax Justice: Launch! #OD4TJ

Cross-posted from Tax Justice Network.

od4tj

Every year countries lose billions of dollars to tax avoidance, tax evasion and more generally to illicit financial flows. According to a recent IMF estimate around $700 billion of tax revenues is lost each year due to profit-shifting. In developing countries the loss is estimated to be around $200 billion, which as a share of GDP represents nearly three times the loss suffered by OECD countries. Meanwhile, economist Gabriel Zucman estimates that certain components of undeclared offshore wealth total above $7 trillion, implying tax losses of $200 billion annually; Jim Henry’s work for TJN suggests the full total of offshore assets may range between $21 trillion and $32 trillion.

We want to transform the way that data is used for advocacy, journalism and public policy to address this urgent challenge by creating of a global network of civil society groups, investigative reporters, data journalists, civic hackers, researchers, public servants and others.

Today, Open Knowledge and the Tax Justice Network are delighted to announce the launch of a new initiative in this area: Open Data for Tax Justice. We want to initiate a global network of people and organisations working to create, use and share data to improve advocacy and journalism around tax justice. The website is: http://datafortaxjustice.net/ and using the hashtag #od4tj.

The network will work to rally campaigners, civil society groups, investigative reporters, data journalists, civic hackers, researchers, public servants and others; it will aim to catalyse collaborations and forge lasting alliances between the tax justice movement and the open data movement. We have received a huge level of support and encouragement from preliminary discussions with our initial members, and look forward to expanding the network and its activities over the coming months.

What is on the cards? We’re working on a white paper on what a global data infrastructure for tax justice might look like. We also want to generate more practical guidance materials for data projects – as well as to build momentum with online and offline events. We will kick off with some preliminary activities at this year’s global Open Data Day on Saturday 5th March. Tax justice will be one of the main themes of the London Open Data Day, and if you’d like to have a go at doing something tax related at an event that you’re going to, you can join the discussion here.

od4tj members

Counted, sort of: IFF estimates

If you’re in London on 9 March, I’ll be giving a seminar at King’s College on the range of approaches to IFF estimates (illicit financial flows, that is) and tax losses.  All welcome, just email [email protected].

IFF estimates

Unrelated #humblebrag: recent social media rankings, are they worth anything?

CityAM Top 100 UK economists

17.

#ICAEWROAR Top Online UK Influencers: Accountancy

17.

What is Cryptocurrency

17.

#economia50 (Finance) 

24.

Book launch: Inequality, uncounted

In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives shall not be counted.

-Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900, section 127.

Imagine a world of such structural inequality that even the questions of who and what get counted are decided by power. A world in which the “unpeople” at the bottom go uncounted, as does the hidden “unmoney” of those at the very top. Where the unpeople are denied a political voice and access to public services. And the unmoney escapes taxation, regulation, and criminal investigation, allowing corruption and inequality to flourish out of sight.

This is the world we live in. A world of inequality, uncounted.

We may pride ourselves on being the generation of open data, of big data, of transparency and accountability, but the truth is less palatable. We are the generation of the uncounted—and we barely know it. But things may be changing, albeit slowly.


 

The Wicked Problems Collaborative has launched its first book, ‘What do we do about inequality?’ . The text above is the introduction to my chapter, ‘Inequality, Uncounted’ – which is a lighter, more direct telling of the argument made in the paper published last month in Development.

The indefatigable Chris Ostereich (@costrike) led the project, and edited the book, bringing together a really impressive group of contributors (and kickstarter funding). Below is the table of contents – and here’s the link to the book (it’s on Kindle so yes, on Amazon. Sorry).

TABLE of CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
DEDICATION
OPENING VOLLEYS
CONTENTS
FIGURES
WPC CONTRIBUTORS ON TWITTER
EDITOR’S NOTE
THE BLIND MEN AND THE ELEPHANT
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
WHAT DO WE DO ABOUT INEQUALITY?
1. TO ADDRESS INEQUALITY, THINK GLOBAL | Dylan Matthews
2. THE IDEOLOGICAL STRAITJACKET | Sean McElwee
3. WHAT DOES EQUIPOTENTIALITY BRING TO THE TABLE IN TERMS OF EQUALITY? | Michel Bauwens
4. INEQUALITY, UNCOUNTED | Alex Cobham
5. THE INEFFICIENCY OF INEQUALITY | Daniel Altman
6. IS CAPITALISM UNFAIR? | Chris MacDonald
7. THE PROBLEM OF INEQUALITY | Kevin Carson
8. TOWARDS RENOUNCING PERSONAL PRIVATIZATION | Nicholas Archer
9. THE INEQUALITY OF WILDNESS AND THE NECESSITY OF WILDNESS FOR EQUALITY | Megan Hollingsworth
10. THE STICKINESS OF INJUSTICE | Jennifer Reft
11. NOBLE FICTIONS AND SACRED TEXTS Paul Fidalgo
12. THE VOICES THAT ARE NOT YOUR OWN: MAINTAINING CHOICE IN THE AGE OF THE ALGORITHM | John C. Havens
13. THE EMPATHY DEFICIT: WHY THE INEQUALITY CRISIS IS ALSO A CRISIS OF EMPATHY | Robin Cangie
14. BILLIONAIRES WITH DRONES: FROM OLIGARCHY TO NEOMEDIEVALISM | Frank A. Pasquale
15. WHAT SHOULD THE WORLD LEARN FROM THE EXPERIENCE OF INEQUALITY IN LATIN AMERICA? | Patrick Iber
16. OCCUPY SANDY AND THE FUTURE OF SOCIALISM | Sam Knight
17. THE “PLACE OF BIRTH” LOTTERY | David Kaib & Chris Oestereich
18. INEQUALITY AND THE BASIC INCOME GUARANTEE | Scott Santens
19. THE AGE OF INEQUALITY: CAUSES, DISCONTENTS, AND A RADICAL WAY FORWARD | Jason Hickel & Alnoor Ladha
20. TWENTIETH CENTURY SOLUTIONS WON’T WORK FOR TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY INEQUALITY | David O. Atkins
21. THE STATE OF AFFAIRS: HEADING FROM BAD TO WORSE | Adnan Al-Daini
22. THE TRAGEDY OF OUR MIDDLE CLASS | Peter Barnes
23. POST-SCARCITY ECONOMICS: WHY ARE SOME PUNDITS AND ECONOMISTS STILL ENAMORED OF AUSTERITY? | Tom Streithorst
24. INCOME INEQUALITY: WHAT’S WRONG WITH IT, AND WHAT’S NOT | F. Spagnoli
25. TURMOIL & TRANSITION | Harold Jarche
26. KNOWLEDGE, POWER, AND A POTENTIAL SHIFT IN SYSTEMIC INEQUALITY | Jon Husband
27. THE QUESTION OF INEQUALITY: A VIEW FROM INDIA | Akhila Vijayaraghavan
28. WHAT YOU KNOW IS BASED ON WHO YOU KNOW | Deborah Mills-Scofield
29. INEQUALITY IS ABOUT THE POOR, NOT ABOUT THE RICH | Miles Kimball
30. TO TACKLE EXTREME POVERTY, WE MUST TAKE ON EXTREME INEQUALITY | Nick Galasso & Gawain Kripke
31. ADDRESSING WEALTH EQUALITY WITH INVESTING SOLUTIONS FROM NATURE, NURTURE, AND SCIENCE | Rosalinda Sanquiche
32. THE LOGIC OF STUPID POOR PEOPLE: STATUS, POVERTY AND GATEKEEPING | Tressie McMillan Cottom
33. POOR CHOICES | Melonie Fullick
34. THE PARTICIPATION GAP | Devin Stewart
35. GETTING THE FRAME RIGHT | KoAnn Skrzyniarz
36. THE FIRST JOB CREATOR | Adam Kotsko
37. LIFE IN THE TREETOPS: A CHOICE OF CHASTENING PRIVATION OR DEBASING PROSPERITY | Chris Oestereich
NOW WHAT?
IT’S LONELY OUT IN SPACE
PARTING SHOTS

 

Three lessons of #Googletax

From @Jason_Spacey
From @Jason_Spacey

 

 

Since news broke that Google has negotiated a deal with the UK tax authority following the latter’s audit stretching back to 2005, criticism has been growing – of the deal, of the UK government and of the company. What might we learn from #Googletax?

1. The world has changed; oh, and life’s not fair

On the face of it, Google may feel a bit hard done by. After years of criticism over your tax bill, you agree to pay £130 million more – and what do get? More criticism. Criticism of your tax bill and, additionally, of your relationship with government.

Well, the world has changed. Nobody quite knew what to say when Starbucks decided in 2013 to raise its tax payment after criticism. Margaret Hodge, famously stern then-chair of the Public Accounts Committee, summed things up by welcoming the payment while stressing that the system still needed sorting.

But the world has changed. Prem Sikka quickly calculated Google’s effective tax rate (given some necessary assumptions on relative profitability of UK operations) at around 2.77%. Richard Murphy suggested tax of around £200 million each year would be about right, as did Jolyon Maugham QC (and like Prem, put Google’s new effective rate near 3%).

Now you might point out that none of these three are exactly ‘tax is theft’ flagbearers. But the tax-twittersphere was surprisingly quiet – where normally it likes nothing more than an event like this as an excuse to accuse each other of committing vile, ideological sins while pretending to analyse objectively, this time things were pretty calm. Nobody seemed keen to commend Google’s tax payment, nor to defend their doing a deal.

In fact, I think there’s a marked difference in public attitudes. The depth and breadth of understanding seems beyond any previous peak (not least the important heights of UK Uncut); and the general sense that a distribution of taxable profit between countries in proportion to the scale of economic activity would be about right. Who knows where that might lead?

It seems overwhelmingly clear that Google has come out of this badly, in terms of reputational impact – and that’s before they appear before the now upcoming Public Accounts Committee hearing. They may feel like they’d have been better off to keep their heads down.

So, life’s not fair.

2. Do no evil

On the other hand… A less aggressive tax position would have allowed Google to avoid (the open audit from which this deal, and the attendant bad publicity arises.

Imagine the conversation:

  • “So, this way we’ll pay tax at about 2.77%. I even think HMRC might go for that.”
  • “Meh. We can pay much less than that.”
  • “Really? Isn’t that, like, pushing it?”
  • “Tax is theft. Tax is evil. And you heard the man: Do no evil.”

No, I don’t suppose it went anything like that. But still: this wasn’t done blind. At some point, someone thought that the position they had was entirely defensible, and any risk (reputational or in terms of subsequent tax assessment) was worth taking; and that’s the position that ultimately got signed off by management and auditors.

As Owen Barder says, CSR means two things: Pay your tax, and don’t be corrupt. With this tax position agreed and hailed as a success by the UK government, there’s presumably no way back on that front. And presumably no corruption to address. So what could Google do now to reclaim its reputation?

I’d say there’s only one thing that might have any impact. And right now, it would still be a long shot. But it’s this: commit in Google’s own, inimitable, data-led way, to publish its full, country-by-country reporting (CBCR).

This would hurt. A lot. As much as Google tax is being picked over now, we’d have much more fun if we had the actual data showing the full difference between where it does business and where it pay tax. But… once it was done, it would be done. And all the pressure would be on Google’s rivals to follow suit, making them the story instead whether they published or not.

Along the way, this might help make Google what it presumably always hoped to be: not just doing no evil, but positively doing a bit of good. If they wanted to go the whole hog, they could even help us knock together the open database which we hope will provide a platform for all the eventually public CBCR data.

3. The Golden Thread is (still) worth following

What of government? After coming out early to announce the Google deal as a ‘victory’, a ‘real vindication of the government’s approach’, Chancellor George Osborne must have spent the rest of his time at Davos kicking himself. But if not, his Conservative colleague Boris Johnson certainly was – writing the next morning that “we should recognise that the fault in the whole affair lies with our national arrangements“. And it got worse for Osborne: a subsequent headline had Prime Minister David Cameron ‘distancing himself‘ from the Chancellor’s triumphal claims.

The government might, like Google, think things are rather unfair. After all, they’ve done a deal to get more tax, not less.  But the nature of the deal, and the fact that taxpayer confidentiality would seem to prevent any effective defence against the 3% claim, leaves them exposed at PAC and more generally.

That’s why this is the right time for the government to take the initiative, get back on the front foot, bring out the disinfectant and mix any other positive metaphors it can think of. David Cameron came to power claiming he would usher in a new era of transparency, and in some aspects of international tax he can fairly claim to have delivered a fair bit already.

In May, the UK will host an anti-corruption summit where it had hoped that the Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies would follow in signing up to public registers of beneficial owners of companies. It seems increasingly unlikely that this will happen – but the Google debacle provides an opportunity for a real policy commitment that would put the UK, too, back on the side of the angels.

Having helped along the OECD’s mandate to develop a country-by-country reporting standard while hosting the 2013 G8, the government then saw the OECD deliver a technically good standard with the minimum (and most unequal) possible transparency.

The tax justice movement lost that round of the argument because OECD members saw the measure’s real value as being about holding multinationals to account (so only tax authorities needed the data); while multinationals lobbied fiercely against publication, even once they had had to accept the compliance costs.

What was lost was the point that CBCR is not just about companies’ accountability – it’s also about governments’ accountability. You can’t show you’re getting a fair share of tax from multinationals if you don’t publish this data. And you also can’t show that other governments, like Ireland or Luxembourg or the Netherlands, aren’t ripping you off.

This would be the perfect time for the UK government to discover that the Golden Thread applies at home as well as in developing countries, and to announce that it will publish CBCR data itself (in open, machine-readable format, natch); and advocate for this to be an EU-wide measure.

 

EC tax ruling: Belgian opportunity, big 4 at risk?

There’s been a good deal of coverage of the European Commission decision that Belgium’s ‘excess profit’ tax scheme is illegal, and so it must claw back unpaid tax from companies that were able to achieve double non-taxation on profits shifted into the jurisdiction. The focus has largely been on the implications for specific companies. It’s worth thinking more about different jurisdictions involved, and the possible risks facing the big 4 audit firms.

Basis of the EC tax ruling: Guaranteed double non-taxation

First, the ruling seems pretty clear cut, in principle at least, because the ‘excess profit’ approach is so transparently designed to engineer double non-taxation. Much like Ireland’s bad Apple agreement which accepted that the jurisdiction was not entitled to a share of profits that were shifted in but resulted from activity elsewhere, the Belgium scheme determined that any ‘excess profits’ would be exempt from tax.

The scheme defined excess profits as those bigger than an equivalent, purely domestic business would report – in other words, the result of a multinational’s activity elsewhere. Since these were by definition being reported in Belgium and not elsewhere, double non-taxation was the aim and indeed the guaranteed result. Bingo!

Whereas other cases (e.g. LuxLeaks) involved tailored responses to individual companies, the Belgium approach was consistent leading the Commission to conclude simply that:

We did not have to investigate the specific tax rulings to each company that are based on the scheme. They are automatically illegal.

Why Belgium? Who else?

As I said in various interviews, ‘België is niet de grote vis’ (Belgium is not the big fish), and the ruling is fascinating more because of the potential scale if a similar demand for clawbacks were applied to the bigger EU players in the profit-poaching business.

Our study of US multinationals, which we find to shift 25-30% of their global profits, shows that the majority of shifted profit goes through six jurisdictions: outside the EU Bermuda, Singapore and Switzerland; and inside, Ireland, Luxembourg and Netherlands. [New work from the US Joint Committee on Taxation, with access to firm-level rather than aggregate data, puts Cayman ahead of Singapore in the top six; ut the EU jurisdictions remain central.] Using global balance sheet data (predominantly capturing European multinationals), our earlier study confirmed the same three EU jurisdictions and also highlighted the roles of Belgium and Austria.

The figure, drawing from the results of Cobham & Loretz, 2014 using Orbis data, shows the share of declared profit which would be stripped away from each jurisdiction, if profits were to be aligned with each of the measures of multinationals’ economic activity (which was the declared aim of the OECD BEPS initiative). Belgium would stand to lose 25-50% of its declared profits under any measure of activity except intangible assets, a relatively extreme position.

Cobham Loretz 2014 tab4fig-Bel

Consistent with this view of Belgium as a location for profit-shifting by European multinationals in particular, the European Commission states that the clawback will amount to €700m, of which the bulk – around €500m – relates to European multinationals.

So while Belgium may not be such a grote vis internationally – it doesn’t register for US multinationals in the aggregate, for example – it’s certainly big enough for the European Commission to have bothered with.

But the really big money would be at stake if the same type of decision were to be taken with respect to the profit-shifting into Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Of these, the relative complexity of mechanisms in the Netherlands (using trusts and special purpose entities for example, rather than blunt rulings) may make it a harder target. But rulings in Ireland and Luxembourg are already in the Commission’s sights. If the doubly non-taxed profits here were required to be retrospectively taxed at applicable statutory rates, the effects would be substantial indeed.

Company calculations

What would that look like from the point of view of companies involved? Consider the Belgian case. Gross profit that might have faced an effective rate of 15-20%, say, in the countries where the underlying economic activity took place, was shifted into Belgium and declared as ‘excess’ and therefore not subject to tax – in any jurisdiction.

Applying the unmitigated Belgian statutory rate instead will have two main results. First, the overall tax paid will almost certainly (assuming interest is dealt with appropriately) be higher than if neither the scheme itself, nor any alternate profit-shifting arrangement, had been used. The Commission notes that for the Belgian companies used, 50-90% of profits were ruled as ‘excess’; so it’s unsurprising that companies like AB InBev are assessing their options.

The second effect is a more forward-looking one: the changes that the Commission decision may imply for current and future profit-shifting strategies. If the possibility exists for retrospective taxation on shifted profits, do companies become less aggressive? Or is there simply a premium put on the more complex and/or iron-clad methods – for example, will Netherlands structures become even more dominant? Will it favour the UK’s CFC and patent box mechanisms, now with the OECD BEPS mark of acceptability, over other (smaller) jurisdictions?

Big 4 risks

A further impact is that on the big 4 and other professional services firms that may have provided the advice on which basis multinationals made the particular profit-shifting decisions – and themselves profited substantially in doing so. If there is a case for companies to sue over bad advice in the Belgian case, imagine the exposure – for example – of PwC, if a substantial share of LuxLeaks cases were equivalently unwound? If so then at some point, given the vast scale of profit-shifting and the potential tax liability if statutory rates rather than 0-1% were to be applied, a question of financial viability could even arise.

Looking forward again, will multinationals approach such tax advice differently if the possibility of retrospective action remains? Does this simply reduce the value of the advice, or change the willingness to consider it?

And for the big 4 and their staff, with the nature – and some of the risks – of selling profit–shifting advice now impossible to ignore, what are the ethical considerations?

An opportunity for Belgium?

Finally, what can Belgium do? Not such a big fish perhaps, but definitely on the hook. The immediate upside is unexpected tax revenue; the downsides are many.

First, the country stands clearly exposed for antisocial behaviour: profit-poaching in a time of austerity, when the social costs of lost revenues in EU partner countries could not be clearer. Second, trust: how will business view the jurisdiction after this reverse? And third, the stability of the model: given the substantial share of profit booked in the country that appears to have been unwarranted, what are the tax implications of losing the right to tax the non-‘excess’ element?

Here’s the opportunity. The one-off revenues from forcible clawbacks should be sufficient to cover for some time the losses from reduced inward profit-shifting. The question is whether Belgium aims to retain a role in profit-shifting – if it tries to appeal the ruling, struggles to regain credibility with multinationals, introduces and promotes new (OECD- and EC-compliant) mechanisms… or if instead, it takes the opportunity of being ‘caught’, and decides to chart a path towards less anti-social fiscal behaviour.

This could, for example, involve taking a lead in pushing for greater transparency of tax rulings; and in advocating for full enactment of the proposed Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB) and associated proposal for formulary apportionment within the EU, which would eliminate much of the current profit-shifting; and of course publishing country-by-country reporting of multinationals, which would make the extent and direction of it transparent.

Is ‘girl-centred development’ harmful fantasy?

Has the worm finally turned on the promotion of ‘girl-centred development’ in terms of claimed macroeconomic benefits? Daphne Jayasinghe posted on aspects of this yesterday; and the academic literature is pointing the same way.

The Journal of International Development has just published a paper by Cynthia Caron and Shelby Margolin, Rescuing Girls, Investing in Girls: A Critique of Development Fantasies.

The authors analyse “three girl-centred campaigns [and find that they] identify and diagnose girls’ problems and prescribe solutions that not only circumscribe girls’ futures, but are also counterproductive.”

From SciDevNet’s handy summary:

These campaigns do not recognise girls as individuals, each with specific abilities and personal aspirations, but rather assume that all girls want to be educated, raise families and become wage earners,” write Cynthia Caron and Shelby Margolin, two development scholars at Clark University in the United States…

The authors say these programmes support a “development fantasy”, promoting education as a way to “invest in girls” and increase their economic value. The campaigns aim to further economic growth under the guise of girl empowerment, say Caron and Margolin, perpetuating what they see as a “failed development narrative that economic growth inevitably leads to an equitable future for all”.

Has the worm turned? Let’s hope so. The need for a genuine focus on women’s empowerment is far too great for it to be pushed down the channel of fantasy.

Here’s the full abstract:

The girl child increasingly is at the centre of development programming. We draw on Slavoj Žižek’s notion of fantasy to show how and, more importantly, why girl-centred initiatives reproduce the shortcomings of women and gender-focused programmes before them. Through an analysis of three girl-centred campaigns, we illustrate how experts identify and diagnose girls’ problems and prescribe solutions that not only circumscribe girls’ futures, but are also counterproductive. We argue that even as campaigns try to integrate lessons learned from earlier gender and development initiatives, the critical reflection that a Žižekian approach promotes would better enable development actors to reformulate campaigns and fundamental campaign assumptions.

Versions of the same thinking are clearly now influencing some of the campaigns that have been critiqued too – take for example Katrine Marçal’s piece in the 2015 State of the World’s Girls report:

Girls and women are not an untapped economic resource in the world; their work is the invisible structure that keeps societies and economies together.

Things are shifting.

Time for a gendered data revolution

Too many of the big numbers on gender inequality count the cost for GDP – rather than the costs imposed on women. Daphne Jayasinghe, Women’s Rights Policy Adviser at ActionAid UK, calls time.

Counting gender inequality – which big numbers?

It seems that when it comes to measuring the scale of women’s economic inequality, big numbers really count. Last month the McKinsey Global Institute published its finding that labour market gender inequality represents a $12 tn loss in global GDP. The IMF, the World Economic Forum, the OECD and others have described the “double dividends” of increasing numbers of women in the labour market thereby increasing GDP growth rates .

This analysis makes a striking, headline grabbing argument but what is the purpose? In spite of 1 in 3 women suffering violence and a gender pay gap as high as 30% in some countries, it seems that world leaders and decision makers need more convincing on the value of gender equality.

Gender equality is not just seen economically in the workplace. Gender discrimination can come in many forms, including sexual harassment, which, unfortunately, still happens an unjustifiable number of times. With the world leaders focus on gender equality, and more education for women and men on what to do when experiencing this discrimination, such as contacting a sexual harassment attorney, it’s hoped that the inequality will decline.

The fashion therefore is to promote women’s rights in relation to financial returns to the economy. To highlight the growth potential for economies of more women in the labour market, regardless of the exploitative or dangerous conditions they may be working in.

This analysis neglects the fact that neoliberal growth models rely on underpaid women workers as well as a workforce that is fed, clothed and brought up by the invisible cadre of unpaid women carers. Gender inequalities in the home and work place are by no means an inconvenience to global capitalism, they are a precondition for its success.

Counting the costs to women

ActionAid took steps to attach a big number to this debate which challenges this contradiction and measures losses to women themselves. We estimate that women globally could be USD$17 trillion better off each year if their pay and access to jobs were equal to that of men (USD$9 trillion in developing countris). We argue that women’s cheap labour and unpaid work is effectively subsidising the economy by this staggering amount – a result of gender discrimination and women’s economic inequality.

AAid gender gap2

An analysis of this problem that makes a growth potential argument for gender equality neglects the role that economic policies can play in exacerbating inequalities. An assessment of the benefits of economic justice to women themselves and the economic drivers of inequality is vital.

Analysis of the legal gender barriers to the economy exist in the World Bank’s Women, business and the law project. In contrast, an understanding of the underlying but more pervasive social norms governing gender inequality is constrained by data shortages. For example, less than half of all countries measure unpaid care using time-use surveys.

Talkin bout a revolution

The Sustainable Development Goals agreed last month present an opportunity to improve gender data particularly since addressing discriminatory social norms and institutions has become a new development priority and features strongly across the goal on gender (SDG5) targets. Investments in countries’ capacity to gather data and attention to strong indicators to track the progress of achieving goals are imperative.

Such a gendered data revolution may help move the debate on women’s economic empowerment along from assessing what women could do for the economy towards what they are already doing – often with little recognition or reward.

Ask not what women could do for the economy – ask what they are already doing.

 

Inquest closed: Connor Sparrowhawk – #JusticeforLB

The inquest of Connor Sparrowhawk (LB) has closed, with a unanimous jury finding: Connor’s death, as a result of drowning following a seizure in the bath while in a Southern Health treatment and assessment unit, was contributed to by neglect.

Much more will be heard of the specific failings on the unit, and in particular of the management of Southern Health. So this is far from the end of the road. But it is an important step towards #JusticeforLB – the extraordinary grassroots campaign that has grown up around Connor’s family, Sara and Richard, GeorgeJulian and many others.

The consistent and persistent uncounting of people living with learning disabilities is a part of, and a reflection of, one of the greatest systemic injustices internationally.

But those statistics, and more often their absence, don’t transmit the full picture. A few of the specifics of Southern Health’s approach, as revealed at the inquest, are worth drawing out.

These are in addition to the documented failures to gather information about Connor, including from his family – such as the history of his epilepsy – and to ensure appropriate training for staff around important aspects of their job – such as epilepsy. [This was a highly costly, specialist unit for people with learning disabilities. One in five people with learning disabilities have epilepsy. One. In five.]      

Withholding information

Repeatedly over the course of events, Southern Health ‘found’ new information that should have been provided to Connor’s family previously. Including sending new information unexpectedly, by courier, in the week before the inquest. This, more than two years after Connor’s death, and after numerous internal and independent reviews.

At best, the implication is a quite exceptional incompetence in the treatment of vital information about people in their care. 

In addition, it was only during the inquest that it came to light that a patient had died on the same unit in 2006 – after, almost unbelievably, an epileptic seizure in the bath.

Connor’s family, between their own professional expertise and the network of support, including a largely pro bono legal team led by a QC, have probably got as close to making the inquest a ‘fair fight’ as anyone ever does. One wonders what happened in the 2006 case. Which leads us to…

Adversarial approach

The UK government’s attempts to deny legal aid to bereaved families – which have been found in breach of human rights law – rest on the idea that such processes are not adversarial.

Connor’s inquest demonstrated beyond any possible doubt the falsity of such a claim. Not only was Southern Health (aggressively) represented, and from the public purse, so too were multiple members of the unit’s then staff, each individually.

The full timeline of @LBinquest is hugely revealing, but the arguments over what directions the coroner could give the jury were especially so. Southern Health’s legal team sought a set of directions to make it less likely the jury could return a verdict on neglect – including by arguing for a dictionary rather than a legal definition, which is an interesting court approach to say the least. The family’s QC, Paul Bowen, told the coroner:

Not adversarial? What happens when the family don’t have a QC to respond?

The last word – for now

In September, the United Nations made the commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which provide a set of targets for human progress for 2016-2030, and importantly apply to every country of the world.

The SDGs include a requirement to disaggregate main progress indicators according to a range of salient inequalities – including those related to disability. Given that the UK’s prime minister co-chaired the high level panel that first made that proposal, let’s hope that the UK will lead the way by finally delivering on the recommendations of the government’s own inquiry on the need for much better data in relation to people living with learning disabilities. And then the rest…

Over to Connor’s family (and please read the full inquest response from JusticeforLB):

Two years and 7 months ago, our gentle, quirky, hilarious and beyond loved son (brother, grandson, nephew, cousin) was admitted to a short term assessment and treatment unit, STATT, run by Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust. Connor, also known as Laughing Boy or LB, loved buses, Eddie Stobart, watching the Mighty Boosh, lying in the sunshine and eating cake. He was 18 years old.

The care Connor received in the STATT unit was of an unacceptable standard. The introduction of new medication led to increasing seizure activity on the unit, a fact denied by the consultant psychiatrist for reasons only known to her. Connor was allowed to bathe unsupervised and drowned, 107 days later.

Connor’s death was fully preventable. Over the past two weeks we have heard some harrowing accounts of the care provided to Connor. We have also heard some heartfelt apologies and some staff taking responsibility for their actions for which we are grateful. During the inquest, eight legal teams (seven of whom we understand are publicly funded) have examined what happened in minute detail. We have had to fundraise for our legal representation.

Since Connor’s death, Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust have consistently tried to duck responsibility, focusing more on their reputation than the intense pain and distress they caused (and continue to cause us). It has been a long and tortuous battle to get this far and even during the inquest, the Trust continued to disclose new information, including the death of another patient in the same bath in 2006. Families should not have to fight for justice and accountability from the NHS.

We would like to thank everyone who has supported the campaign for JusticeforLB, and hope that the spotlight that has been shone onto the careless and inhumane treatment of learning disabled people leads to actual (and not just relentlessly talked about) change. It is too late for our beautiful boy but the treatment of learning disabled people more widely should be a matter of national concern.