The Department for Work and Pensions announced today that there will be a 5% cut in the funding of the Council Tax benefits service. The Local Government Authority is claiming that unless there are “significant increases in council tax”, these cuts would lead to a decline in benefits."The LGA said... Read more...
It’s already four times over budget and today the Olympics get another a rap on the knuckles, this timefrom the Commons Public Accounts Committee. Committee Chairman Edward Leigh said to the BBC it was “worrying” that arrangements for monitoring progress and risk weren’t in place. During the hearing, Mr Leigh... Read more...
...not if they are microchips that hold your medical information. According to new American research reported today, electronic health records - touted by policymakers in Britain and America as a way to improve the quality of health care - failed to improve care delivered in routine doctor visits. "Of 17... Read more...
In an interview with today's Financial Times, Shadow Business Secretary Alan Duncan said that Regional Development Agencies must "justify their existence" to escape being abolished by a Conservative government. He said: "My experience with all RDAs is, after an initial ‘Oh yes, we likethem’, people very quickly say in the... Read more...
The revision of the secondary school curriculum for England announced today includes the teaching of basic personal finances: New Schools Secretary Ed Balls wants young people to be equipped with an understanding of finance topics such as debt, tax and pensions… …This will also include lessons about life at work... Read more...
We know him from playing a butcher in Coronation Street but John Savident – who starred as Fred Elliot in the soap – wants to take Elliott’s clever to the British tax code. In an interview with the Times Savident explains how he’d like to “scrap” the tax code,... Read more...
Today there have been two stories suggesting that managerial problems in the National Health Service are costing us money, getting people seriously ill and even causing a frightening number of deaths. First, hospitals are facing a massive compensation bill. As Blair Gibbs, TPA Campaigns Director told the Daily Mail: "Too... Read more...
The Conservative Party’s Social Justice Policy Group will be presenting its findings tomorrow. It has been widely trailed in the media. Two stories today, in the Financial Times and the Telegraph, will leave taxpayers with mixed feelings. On the positive side, David Cameron said yesterday that he will go into... Read more...
£2.3m Enviro-Twaddle In the news this week: £2.3m blown on nappies fiasco- "A Government minister has delivered the news that millions of parents have been waiting to hear: traditional nappies are no more environmentally friendly than disposables. After a four-year study the Environment Agency concluded that "there is little or... Read more...
It was reported yesterday that twelve of Cannock Chase Council’s most senior staff are costing the taxpayer £800,000. This is in addition to three new directorial roles, each with a £80,000 annual salary (Lichfield Mercury, 5th July). We are informed, of course, that these three new roles are at no... Read more...
West Bromwich doesn’t have much to boast of these days; it has no cinema, no theatre, no swimming pool and the shopping centre is tumbledown. Sandwell, the local authority, only received one star in the latest CPA Council Ratings (2006) and the area is right at the bottom of the... Read more...
Not content with import taxes which raise the price of food and clothing imported from outside the EU, nor with abortive plans to introduce an EU tax, the bureaucrats in Brussels are at it again. This time it's VAT. The European Commission is calling for VAT rates to be harmonised... Read more...
Two interesting pieces have appeared in the last few days on Gordon Brown and David Cameron's approaches to taxation and the economy. Firstly, Fraser Nelson wrote in last week's Spectator: "During what passed for Labour’s leadership campaign, Mr Brown was asked why he would not raise the top rate of... Read more...
“The reform of the Child Support Agency has been one of the greatest public administration disasters of recent times. The facts speak for themselves. More than one in three non-resident parents fail to pay any of the money they owe, amounting to £3.5 billion in uncollected maintenance. Around 230,000 of... Read more...
The Public Accounts Committee today reported on the disastrous history of the Child Support Agency. By October 2006, one in four applications for maintenance received by the Agency in 2003 were still waiting to be cleared, there was a backlog of a quarter of a million cases and around 36,000... Read more...
The Telegraph is not impressed by the review of the NHS that the new Health Secretary Alan Johnson has launched: "The "once-in-a-generation review" he launched yesterday, to be undertaken by the distinguished surgeon Sir Ara Darzi, now a health minister, appears to be aimed at soothing the ruffled feathers of... Read more...
We can be forgiven for being a bit sceptical about Gordon Brown’s initiative to make local spending subject to local ballots. The idea is welcome and it’s high time the people had a say over where their council tax is spent. Given the record of this government, however, we’re minded... Read more...
In an interview today with the Financial Times Alistair Darling responded to calls for change in the tax treatment of private equity firms. He said that he would "always strive in making change to try and make the [tax] system simpler" but would not make populist changes to capital gains... Read more...
When Ken Clarke's Democracy Taskforce reported recently the TaxPayers' Alliance wrote for ConservativeHome: "Unmanageable departments combined with inexperienced and short termleadership produces dismally bad performance. This is what erodespeople’s trust in politics. People are right not to trust the modernBritish state to fulfil all of the functions it has assigned... Read more...
This week’s Guardian treasure-trove comes up with a gem of a non-job. Charnwood borough council has advertised for a ‘director of change management’. Paying this non-jobber £69,000 a year for ‘change’ not only means constant change within the council but highlights that something isn’t right in the first place. If... Read more...
The Telegraph today: "The report declares: "The impact of continuousdownsizing, pressures and overstretch is affecting the [defence]department's ability to retain and provide a satisfactory life forArmed Forces personnel." It stresses that in thepast six years, the Services have been operating above the mostdemanding level of operations envisaged by defence planners... Read more...
In the Telegraph today we learn that there are fears for the new vocational diplomas that the government is looking to introduce. Apparently the requirement that students emerge functionally literature and numerate is asking a little too much. Alan Johnson, the last education secretary, warned earlier this year that the... Read more...
In an interesting op-ed in the Observer, the Shadow Chancellor had plenty of advice for Alistair Darling, as he takes over the reins at the Treasury. In one of the key parts of the article, Mr Osborne wrote: “Britain's businesses will be held back so long as we have some... Read more...
When governments look to fight hyper-inflation a common strategy has been to issue a new currency.The idea is that the new currency will restore credibility and signal a break from the past. Today it has been announced that the government is trying to do something similar in an attempt to... Read more...