Hogarth's take on apprenticeship "McDonald's is set to become the UK's largest apprenticeship provider, offering all workers the chance to qualify in "multi-skilled hospitality".The fast food chain said government funding meant it could offer the scheme to one in eight of its staff this year and up to 10,000 every... Read more...
Lobbying is - despite what many might hope - an inescapable feature of modern democracy. Diverse and plural societies such as ours rely on it for the representation of opinions and interests that would be lost in the broad themes of electoral politics. It is however an activity that has... Read more...
The term "watchdog", when applied to public bodies, is often a bit of an overstatement. The various quangos and committees intended to scrutinise the performance of politicians and public services are sadly more likely to whimper than bite. That cannot, however, be said of the UK Statistics Authority, whose head, Sir... Read more...
Welcome to the start of our non-job reports for 2009. You might ask after the Street Football Coordinators of last year, how we could ever top that this year. Well, the first week in and I think we may have. An industrious TPA supporter emailed in this job that could... Read more...
Today we have a very welcome announcement from the Conservatives. They are going to restrain spending in several Government departments and use the money to give a break to hard-pressed savers now and encourage more saving in the future. Basic rate taxpayers will no longer pay tax on their savings... Read more...
Over the weekend we got news of the government's New Year job creation programme: "Gordon Brown today unveils ambitious plans for a 1930s American-style programme of public works to ease the pain of recession by creating up to 100,000 jobs.School repairs, new rail links, hospital projects and plans to usher in a new... Read more...
Today's Times has an interesting piece by Libby Purves on the politicisation and professionalisation of the UK's voluntary sector. Taking stock of development since the 1970's Ms Purves observes some distinct and worrying changes in the ethos and priorities of many charities. Professionalisation, she concedes, was inevitable. Like any organisation a... Read more...
Richard Branson might seem an unlikely candidate to speak out on hospital infections, but he is vice-President of the Patient's Association and today has made a stinging attack on the numbers suffering from hospital infection. While infection rates are falling they are still alarmingly high: The entrepreneur - whose daughter Holly... Read more...
Insanity has broken out in Torbay council. As a report from the Sun discloses today, John Doble collects gold particles in his workshop and sends them onto a dealer - effectively recycling the gold. Torbay council, cue your pantomime season boos, stepped in and said the gold has to be... Read more...
With money scarce and jobs under threat, most families will be watching the pennies this Christmas. But, while VAT rates have been cut, the taxman will still demand a hefty share, with virtually all Christmas purchases, from iPhones to crackers, subject to VAT, and granny’s sherry attracting excise duty on... Read more...
The Bristol TPA blog has been in fine form this week with two sharp blog posts. Andrew Withers writes about how the value of his private pension has plummeted (thanks Gordon) and how the government have squandered your money on a wine cellar. Also casting their eye over Bristol... Read more...
It's extremely disappointing that the Home Secretary has apparently abandoned proposals to make the police properly accountable to the public by electing Police Authorities. Unfortunately, the reason she has got the jitters about the plans is exactly why directly elected authorities would be a good idea. The reasons she... Read more...
The first paper in the new Council Spending Uncovered series, which revealed councils' spending on publicity, has caused quite a stir. The figures have been reported in every corner of the land, and there has been a strong debate about which areas of spending could be cut back to reduce... Read more...
Council bureaucrats are at it again. After we blogged here about Herefordshire council ordering a local resident to stop cutting a grass verge by his home neglected by the council, the council leader apologised after we brought it to his attention. Today the Daily Express (not online) reports that... Read more...
I’ve copied below a transcript between a Euro MP and the Eurosceptic president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, about the impending Czech presidency of the EU. I’ve highlighted some phrases that we can go over afterwards, but for now just have a read: “Brian Crowley MEP: I am... Read more...
There has rightly been a lot of publicity over the last few days about the newly released expenses details of Welsh Assembly Members. Thousand pound televisions, iPods, swanky sofas, Sky subscription and other purchases have come in forall the criticism they deserve. Looking at the details, there's one other expenses... Read more...
Lord Sutherland's inquiry into this summers SATs fiasco has found that "failures occurred at almost every stage of the test delivery process". Blaming a culture of complacency at the Qualification and Curriculum Authority (QCA) - an attitude that "it'll be all right on the night" - the report concludes that... Read more...
This week’s non-job comes from SEEDA, the wasteful, unnecessary South East England Development Agency: “Head of Marketing & Communications£56,000 We’re assembling a brand new communications team to raise SEEDA’s profile. As part of this team you’ll be pivotal in making sure the South East knows what we’re putting... Read more...
Today is the 235th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, one of the earliest and most famous blows for taxpayers' rights in the face of unjust and excessive taxation. The protestors, and the Revolution they went on to inspire, were driven by a fundamental objection to unfair and unjust taxes,... Read more...
Circumlocution in action Government doesn't do efficiency. We all know that.So why does it keep trying to run efficiency programmes? Surely someone up there must have noticed they don't work. Surely someone must have registered how the shambolic Gershon programme turned into an expensive Marx Brothers farce (see many previous blogs... Read more...
This is a pretty astonishing failure, reported in the Independent: "The shared service centre in Swansea had been intended to cost £55m but make £112m in savings – which would have given an overall cut of £57m. Instead, the latest estimates show that the programme will cost £121m and... Read more...
"A week is a long time in politics". It's a trite observation, but these days it seems to be particularly true. One barely has time to digest one world rescue plan before another supersedes it; what one poll says on Tuesday is promptly contradicted by another on Thursday. In education... Read more...
Last week, I wrote an article for the Guardian's Comment is Free website discussing the costs and the huge economic risk of the Government's borrowing. Now, Dan Mitchell takes up the case against fiscal stimulus: Read more...
Our 2008 council publicity spending report revealed which councils have increased their spending on publicity, despite the tough economic times we live in. Here are the top ten councils who have increased their publicity spend in cash terms, our publicity spending sinners. I’ve included the leader of the council’s... Read more...