The Budget

Strange how France and Germany have both seen debt-to-GDP fall since 2020, while the UK's risen.

In many cases organisations and Government waste OUR money:-

HS2 guy on the radio the other weeks saying main contractors on HS2 so risk averse that subbies weren't allowed to work in the rain, the guy said in the previous week he spent 4 days just sat in his car but being paid.
Suspensions of staff Caerphilly suspended a senior officer on £137,000 a year for 6 and a half years before sacking him for gross misconduct "With legal costs and payouts to the two other officers involved, the cost to the tax payer has been estimated at between £4m and £6m."
that's one incident in one local authority, how much nationally 
again CBC employs over 8000 staff for 180,000 residents. 1 per 22 residents
compare that to Cardiff 13,000 staff for 369,000 1 per 28
Blaenau Gwent 2880 for 69,000 1 per 23

it's logical that there are higher numbers of staff proportiontely in smaller councils
each will have the same number of departments with heads, deputies, PAs etc
Wales has 22 local authorities for just over 3 million residents ie an average of 136,000 residents
England has 317 local authorities for 56 million 1 per 176,000 of course that ignores the duplication of counties and districts within most of England and for example you don't get full duplication so County Councils are responsible for highways, schools, social services etc the latter 2 being most of the staff employed within the county.

Anyone remember the episode of yes minister where sir Humphrey wants Hacker to reprimand "South Derbyshire council" which is the best run most efficient council in the country, and Humphrey goes on about how they won't spend time producing the statistics that his department wants to measure how efficient they are.

Having worked with and for local Authorities it rings so true, efficient organisations are often those that don't invest huge amounts in collecting and analysing data they don't need for the provision of services.

Bit of a barney on the Today programme. Fiscal drag queen indeed.


www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-hunt-bbc-radio-4-amol-rajan-unworthy-b2508561.html


I'm a big BBC fan and believer in impartiality. Amol Rajan probably overstepped the mark here. Interested to know what you all think.

I heard it this morning. It was not Hunt's finest moment. He got his feet held to the fire, and he whimpered loudly.

Hunt IS relying on fiscal drag, not moving thresholds at a time of high inflation...
"But in a withering assessment, the highly respected Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said for every £1 handed back to voters by the chancellor, the decision to freeze tax thresholds would claim £1.30."

Rajan actually said "They call you the fiscal drag queen, don't they?" - an FT opinion piece used the term yesterday in a budget review headlined "Chancellor's fiscal drag act"... www.ft.com/content/de2e3532-00b6-4e79-a104-3fa5844cb505
"This is fiscal drag, and Hunt is the fiscal drag queen: he even came dressed as his Labour shadow, Rachel Reeves."

As for the "soviet" line - what was actually said was "you've launched something called the Public Sector Productivity Plan - a mildly soviet title, but let's not be cynical".

Interview starts at 2hr12 in - www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001wymc - and the "unworthy" exchange starts about 2hr27.