When a new schools policy is announced, check the reaction of the National Union of Teachers (NUT). Supportive, and the policy is liable to be misguided. Condemnation, and the policy is perhaps worth considering. It's a crude, but none the less useful guide. The NUT is just doing what any... Read more...
This week the Guardian website has well over 600 vacancies for jobs in government. Ranging from local to national and policy jobs, they’re paid for by the taxpayer. One thing I will note, however, is that there are still plenty of communications and similar jobs on offer (as we have... Read more...
The Daily Mail reports today that Royal Mail could be fined up to £40million for an alleged scam that aimed to fudge findings from efficiency reports. An independent research company chose panels and these people then sent letters to each other – containing the name and address of the sender... Read more...
Last Wednesday the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published it's quarterly statistical bulletin for Public Sector Employment. Total public sector employment at March 2009 sat at 6.020 million, 20.7% of UK total employment. Providing information for the first quarter of 2009, this is the first release to include the workers... Read more...
There's a fascinating post over on Chris Dillow's Stumbling and Mumbling blog about the possibility that increased taxes on alcohol will increase binge drinking, ceteris paribus: "Thirdly, there’s a spill-over from genes into social norms. In societies with more blue-eyed/shy people, drinking for Dutch courage, to loosen inhibitions -... Read more...
Please find below Peter Webb's campaign diary... Running on from the Feb-April diary... The meeting at County Hall on 18th May duly took place but was given insufficient time. PGW and John Bosten attended facing Ccllr Michael Gosling (Executive Member Resources) and Chief finance Officer Phil Walker. Our... Read more...
Well, after 5 years of fighting, debating and legal battles, today Parliament has finally released the details of MPs' expenses. Or rather, they have released some heavily edited sections of the details of MPs' expenses. After MPs themselves have been allowed to go through all their own claims "redacting" information,... Read more...
When Standard & Poor's released a warning that they might need to downgrade Britain's debt - which would cost taxpayers a fortune in higher interest payments - as many institutional investors could then no longer buy Treasury debt, they made it clear how they would be deciding whether a downgrade would take... Read more...
After many months of deliberation, the Calman Commission has today reported back on the question of Scottish devolution. As many readers will remember, last year we produced a report on Scottish funding, financial devolution and the Barnett Formula which we submitted to the Commission. So is their conclusion any good?... Read more...
Current plans are for the Olympic Village to leave behind a legacy of 3,000 new homes. The Olympic Village project has failed to attract the private financing expected and as a result, the project has been nationalised. That means there would not need to be any significant new... Read more...
Fancy stats, but the picture remains the same For many years now, the Office for National Statistics has been beavering away trying to develop measures of output and productivity in our public services. It hasn't been at all straightforward, as we can see by glancing at the dense array of... Read more...
There’s little doubt that history is a very valuable subject and that it’s tremendously important to keep children aware of the most vital and relevant dates and events in the human calendar. Selecting them is an unenviable task…and sadly for kids in the Black Country, somewhere along the line, Sandwell... Read more...
Earlier this week the Local Government Association published the summary findings of their survey of councillors' allowances but refused to release the details of the various allowances council by council. I'm pleased to say that thanks to a number of sympathetic councillors we are now in possession of the full table and... Read more...
While Cristiano Ronaldo's motivations for going to Real Madrid are easy to understand, Real's willingness to commit £187 million to a single player (the total value of his transfer fee and contractual wage bill) is perhaps less easy to explain. Brilliant he may be, and no doubt a commercial asset,... Read more...
Working as we do to highlight the massive cost of the Government's tax policies, we often get asked how people and businesses can spread the word. One great way to do so is for businesses to adopt a policy of producing full tax receipts, so that their customers find out... Read more...
In response to my earlier blog on the LGA survey of allowances, a supporter has sent information about Newham council’s shocking state of council allowances. In perusing the documents, I thought I’d report the scandal going on in one of the most deprived boroughs in the country. Look at... Read more...
Among the parlour games played at Downing Street last week (musical chairs, pin the blame on the donkey, smash the Brown pinata, etc), pass the parcel was the one most emphatically won by Peter Mandelson. Every time the music stopped, the good Baron was holding the parcel, a wry smile... Read more...
I am intrigued to see Richard Kemp's reaction to a report, out today, from the Commons Communities and Local Government Committee that accused councils of taking their eye off the ball and being negligent when it came to their investments in Icelandic banks. We have been accusing them of this... Read more...
An ONS report published on Tuesday revealed that productivity in the public sector has declined by 3.2% since 1997. This is the first such report carried out using the recommendations of the 2005 Atkinson Review, which rightly highlighted the need to change the way productivity in the public sector was... Read more...
The LGA has today released its survey of councillor allowances from over 300 English councils. From their summary you can see average councillor allowances rising above inflation to an average of £6,099 per. Astonishingly, the London average councillor salary equates to almost £10,000 – not a bad income supplement for... Read more...
As you can see on the right there are almost 600 jobs on offer in the government sector this week. Our non-job of the week comes from Hackney council: “"Cultural Officer £34,707 - £37,476 p.a. inc. The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games has led to the... Read more...
If you had a drug problem and wanted to tackle it, where would you fancy going to admit it and seek help? Perhaps you’d go to your family at home? Or maybe visit a doctor’s surgery? Or – if you’re rather an exhibitionist – you can now go along to... Read more...
It's definitely heavier Regular readers may recall an extraordinary exchange at a Public Accounts meeting in November 2007. The PAC were grilling Treasury mandarins on the PFI millstone, and they wanted to know how big the debt had become.Now, you might have thought that would be simple to answer. After... Read more...
Sir Alan Sugar is in the papers this morning claiming he will step down as director of some of his companies to avoid the escalating brouhaha over his BBC job that has been gathering speed ever since Gordon Brown appointed him 'enterprise tsar' last week. It shows that Sir Alan knows there's a... Read more...