I don't understand it. Booker has campaigned steadily against the heart-rending injustice of the forced adoptions system - continued today.
The Telegraph finds space on page two for the infantile "ginger rodent" story, but this huge scandal continues to be tucked away in Booker's column, this week on page 31.
Still, credit to the paper, at least they are giving him scope to run with it. I can maybe understand why The Guardian doesn't want to offend its right on clientele by campaigning for justice, but this seems a natural fit for the Mail.
Booker's conclusion is surely right. If those in the system are going to continue their cosy compliance, it will take more than one backbench MP to bust it open.
October 31, 2010
October 28, 2010
Spain: it's worse below the surface
Not only local authorities, but also mortgages.
The Wall Street Journal is stunned that handing in your keys won't cancel your mortgage debt, as apparently it does in the US (but not here). But it's worse there. You can't cancel mortgage debt by going bankrupt. So your mortgage debt may stay with you for ever, while court costs ratchet up. Eight per cent of Spain's homes are in negative equity and an estimated 1.4 million Spaniards could face foreclosure proceedings.
Surely government will have to make defaulters' lot less harsh, even though this will mean more losses for the banks and hence for taxpayers.
Another indication that the Spanish economy has deep fault lines which no ECB bailout can begin to address.
The Wall Street Journal is stunned that handing in your keys won't cancel your mortgage debt, as apparently it does in the US (but not here). But it's worse there. You can't cancel mortgage debt by going bankrupt. So your mortgage debt may stay with you for ever, while court costs ratchet up. Eight per cent of Spain's homes are in negative equity and an estimated 1.4 million Spaniards could face foreclosure proceedings.
Surely government will have to make defaulters' lot less harsh, even though this will mean more losses for the banks and hence for taxpayers.
Another indication that the Spanish economy has deep fault lines which no ECB bailout can begin to address.
October 26, 2010
Eurozone stresses increase
Who could not cheer on Richard North's gloating over French disruption, with a sideswipe at Italy?
Meanwhile, Ambrose reports that eurozone indicators are showing "unprecedented divergence", with the M1 money supply booming at double-digit rates in Germany but contracting in Spain, Ireland, and Greece. And whose needs will the ECB cater for in setting interest rates? Hm, tough call.
Impossible to predict when the break-up of the eurozone will start. But when it does, it may be swift.
Meanwhile, Ambrose reports that eurozone indicators are showing "unprecedented divergence", with the M1 money supply booming at double-digit rates in Germany but contracting in Spain, Ireland, and Greece. And whose needs will the ECB cater for in setting interest rates? Hm, tough call.
Impossible to predict when the break-up of the eurozone will start. But when it does, it may be swift.
State sector failing
The second case review, out today, shows Baby Peter's "horrifying death" was down to the incompetence of almost every member of staff who came into contact with him. He had been visited 60 times by the authorities in the eight months before his death.
As The Spectator Coffee House reports, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary has found that 15 of 22 police authorities perform ‘adequately’, which is defined as meeting ‘most of the minimum requirements of the specified role…they were most effective at dealing with local short-term policing priorities’. With forces facing 20% cuts, only 4 authorities were judged to have set clear strategic direction and ensured value of money.
Two bad examples of a state sector complacent and flabby.
As The Spectator Coffee House reports, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary has found that 15 of 22 police authorities perform ‘adequately’, which is defined as meeting ‘most of the minimum requirements of the specified role…they were most effective at dealing with local short-term policing priorities’. With forces facing 20% cuts, only 4 authorities were judged to have set clear strategic direction and ensured value of money.
Two bad examples of a state sector complacent and flabby.
October 12, 2010
Understanding Philip Green's report
Sir Philip Green's report on bad spending by government is pleasingly short at 33 lucid slides - by contrast with the EHRC's questionable report on discrimination, where the executive summary alone ran to 48 pages.
All the more surprising, then, that Damian Reece hasn't understood it, writing that:
So what you don't do is to create or increase purchasing empires in each government department (think subsidiary companies in a business).
You need a central procurement function. Well, apparently Gordon Brown set one up, so that's gone well, hasn't it.
The last thing each department needs is a commercial director, each keen to demonstrate their worth.
The departments need hatchet men. Central procurement needs to start with the big items. Take fixed phone lines. The job of the departmental hatchet men is to list all their department's contracts and make sure none of them are renewed. Then it's up to the central purchasing function to make use of the combined database.
Similarly (for instance) with paper. Basic paper requirements can be easily standardised. So do it.
One of the shortcomings with the NHS centralised purchasing is that it covers too many individual items (sometimes by the way poorly specified, with end users having little chance to influence it).
Start big and simple. Hit the big items which can be easily standardised. Then each department needs to grip these purchasing cards. What are they being used for? Why? Again, this is not a job for a commercial director, but a task for an implacable hatchet man with a lust for detail. Note, we are not talking auditors here, but doers.
If you try to do everything at once, nothing will get done. Sir Humphrey would probably have approved.
Start with the big wins.
All the more surprising, then, that Damian Reece hasn't understood it, writing that:
Francis Maude, who commissioned the report, must act and appoint a commercial director to each government department to impose the best commercial terms on suppliers.No. The report's message is that purchasing has to be centralised and controlled. Did you get that, Damian? Centralised.
So what you don't do is to create or increase purchasing empires in each government department (think subsidiary companies in a business).
You need a central procurement function. Well, apparently Gordon Brown set one up, so that's gone well, hasn't it.
The last thing each department needs is a commercial director, each keen to demonstrate their worth.
The departments need hatchet men. Central procurement needs to start with the big items. Take fixed phone lines. The job of the departmental hatchet men is to list all their department's contracts and make sure none of them are renewed. Then it's up to the central purchasing function to make use of the combined database.
Similarly (for instance) with paper. Basic paper requirements can be easily standardised. So do it.
One of the shortcomings with the NHS centralised purchasing is that it covers too many individual items (sometimes by the way poorly specified, with end users having little chance to influence it).
Start big and simple. Hit the big items which can be easily standardised. Then each department needs to grip these purchasing cards. What are they being used for? Why? Again, this is not a job for a commercial director, but a task for an implacable hatchet man with a lust for detail. Note, we are not talking auditors here, but doers.
If you try to do everything at once, nothing will get done. Sir Humphrey would probably have approved.
Start with the big wins.
October 09, 2010
Are we doomed to support this state waste?
Today I'd like to talk about examples of the expensive timidity, waste and padding which percolate our state services. I say "our" state services - but too often they exist in their own smug vacuum, behaving and spending other people's (taxpayers') money in ways that no private sector business would.
Thus the head teacher at the smug academy which suspended Katharine Birbalsingh turns out to be a blairite. Having no regard to the freedom of speech of the teaching profession, the school claims that:
And how the cushioned state sector loves its bureaucracy. The 59 armed officers who attended the Saunders siege had to take account of at least six protocols running to more than 300 pages covering the use of firearms. This doesn't work on the ground. No organisation can run effectively like this, but the pampered police seem content with this state of affairs. Never mind that it wastes our money and makes them less effective. While chief constables bleat about their operational independence - an independence which they seem less and less to deserve, we must wait to see what inroads elected local commissioners can make into this complacent, featherbedded wastefulness.
Did you know there's an organisation called "Play England"? There is actually a report out - issued jointly (two organisations are better than one) by the Health and Safety Executive and Play England - saying that organisations designing play areas should allow for a “few grazed knees or bruised elbows” if children gain from the experience, for example learning how to ride a bike on rough ground or use a climbing frame. Seventeen thousand of these guides - yes, seventeen thousand - have "already" been ordered by local authorities and schools hoping to build modern play areas.
The BBC has sent more people to cover the Chilean mine rescue than all our other broadcasting services combined. Channel 4 News has sent three, ITV six, Sky News (which of course provides rolling news) a team of nine. But the BBC requires 25. The BBC says smugly:
Finally today to Brighton, where the council apparently has a growing reputation for its training courses. A recent "Leading on Diversity" course asked staff to imagine they were a seven-year-old child called Sarah Hardy, the daughter of English economic migrants who had moved to the fictitious region of Sindia. They were also told that "while asleep one night they have slipped through a wormhole in space" and woken up in a parallel world where it is "normal to be lesbian or gay". They were asked about this self-indulgence.
Are we doomed to finance this featherbedding for ever?
Why should we?
But who will kill it?
Thus the head teacher at the smug academy which suspended Katharine Birbalsingh turns out to be a blairite. Having no regard to the freedom of speech of the teaching profession, the school claims that:
Teachers will always have opinions about the ways in which schools should be run.... Generalisations about teachers and schools can be seen as insulting to many teachers who have worked hard to make a difference.This is not just patronisingly wimpy, it is hugely illiberal. Generalisations about teaching and schooling are to be off limits. Who do they think they are to stop professionals debating the quality of the expensive education service we pay for?
And how the cushioned state sector loves its bureaucracy. The 59 armed officers who attended the Saunders siege had to take account of at least six protocols running to more than 300 pages covering the use of firearms. This doesn't work on the ground. No organisation can run effectively like this, but the pampered police seem content with this state of affairs. Never mind that it wastes our money and makes them less effective. While chief constables bleat about their operational independence - an independence which they seem less and less to deserve, we must wait to see what inroads elected local commissioners can make into this complacent, featherbedded wastefulness.
Did you know there's an organisation called "Play England"? There is actually a report out - issued jointly (two organisations are better than one) by the Health and Safety Executive and Play England - saying that organisations designing play areas should allow for a “few grazed knees or bruised elbows” if children gain from the experience, for example learning how to ride a bike on rough ground or use a climbing frame. Seventeen thousand of these guides - yes, seventeen thousand - have "already" been ordered by local authorities and schools hoping to build modern play areas.
The BBC has sent more people to cover the Chilean mine rescue than all our other broadcasting services combined. Channel 4 News has sent three, ITV six, Sky News (which of course provides rolling news) a team of nine. But the BBC requires 25. The BBC says smugly:
BBC News has devoted appropriate resources to ensuring that we have been able to report the story in depth to our UK and global audiences on television, radio and online.That's disproportinately more than Sky need.
Finally today to Brighton, where the council apparently has a growing reputation for its training courses. A recent "Leading on Diversity" course asked staff to imagine they were a seven-year-old child called Sarah Hardy, the daughter of English economic migrants who had moved to the fictitious region of Sindia. They were also told that "while asleep one night they have slipped through a wormhole in space" and woken up in a parallel world where it is "normal to be lesbian or gay". They were asked about this self-indulgence.
The council, which is being forced to make £45 million savings in the next three years, refused to reveal how much the training courses cost.Come again? Refused? Who are they, to refuse us who are their paymasters? This seems especially foolish in the light of Porker Pickles' reforms, which will require them to publish detailed breakdowns of spending.
Are we doomed to finance this featherbedding for ever?
Why should we?
But who will kill it?
Labels:
BBC,
government waste,
police
October 06, 2010
Noticed today
The New York Times reports that "in recent years, dozens of Karzai family members and close allies have taken government jobs, pursued business interests or worked as contractors to the United States government, allowing them to shape policy or financially benefit from it". Afghanistan is not going to become a democracy and the US cannot win this war. We let ourselves be dragged in on its coat tails, and that is how we'll leave.
At home, Kelly Marshall, who has five children by four different fathers, saved her benefit money to help pay for breast enhancement.
Researchers also found that attendance was no better at the schools, despite huge investment in new classrooms, science labs, drama studios and sports facilities.
It's not school buildings that make the difference. Throwing wads of (other people's) money at a problem is an easy answer, but it's not always the best solution.
At home, Kelly Marshall, who has five children by four different fathers, saved her benefit money to help pay for breast enhancement.
I saved money from my benefits for four months to cover half the cost and put the rest on a credit card, which I pay back with my benefits.Inspector Gadget returns angrily to his theme of sink estates.
I know most people will think it is wrong I am spending taxpayers' money on my looks. But I deserve it because I am a good mum. Having children has taken its toll on my body. All mums should be able to have cosmetic surgery.
If ministers want to start asking awkward questions about why ASB hasn’t gone away in Ruraltown, they should ask this; how many times have the most prolific offenders been arrested by police in the past? how many times have they been convicted in court and what was the penalty? If it was a community sentence, did they complete it? If not, what happened next? Were any fines paid? If not, what happened? Why are offenders with a history of breaching community sentences given further community sentences? I can tell you the answers to all of these questions, and you won’t like the answers.Finally, several local authorities want judicial review of Michael Gove's decision to cut the Building Schools for the Future programme. But an initial study suggests that children attending schools reconstructed under the flagship Building Schools for the Future scheme actually made less progress than children in similar state secondaries.
Researchers also found that attendance was no better at the schools, despite huge investment in new classrooms, science labs, drama studios and sports facilities.
It's not school buildings that make the difference. Throwing wads of (other people's) money at a problem is an easy answer, but it's not always the best solution.
October 04, 2010
Lighting the blEU touchpaper?
If you strip away the political correctness, says Ambrose, an IMF report more or less condemns Southern Europe to death by slow suffocation.
We are, he says, seeing a pattern – first in Ireland, now in Greece and Portugal – where cuts are failing to close the deficit as fast as hoped. Trapped as it is with the fixed exchange rate of the euro, "Southern Europe will not recover for a long time".
What does this grim economic outlook mean for these countries?
How are such troubles reflected in everyday life? The Wall Street Journal looks at Brunete, a "leafy town on the outskirts of Madrid, where residents live in comfortable homes behind high walls".
It is three years in arrears to providers of building supplies and electrical services. Soon, it says, it may be unable to pay city workers. Municipal leaders say that for years, they stepped in with their own funds rather than leaving constituents without services which they should have been getting from other parts of government.
Spain's 8,000 municipal governments owe companies some €13 billion. Big companies owed money say they can't continue to finance operations that employ more than 100,000 people collecting garbage, cleaning streets and maintaining parks. "We've been using our own capital to finance the cities," says one. "But our own sources of finance have dried up."
Some 125,000 companies (around 10% of Spain's total) have gone out of business since the economic downturn began in 2008. The second-leading cause of failure among Spain's small companies is late payments by public administrations. Indeed, earlier this year the government promised its cities a €3 billion credit line to help them pay suppliers, such as sanitation providers, that have threatened to cut services. But, says the paper, the funds haven't been delivered yet.
Some of the spending cuts made by the town are trivial, suggesting they've been avoiding gripping the problem. But tax receipts are falling and it's only going to get worse.
Political strains are showing even in the Netherlands, which is only now about to get its first operating government since February. Like many countries in Europe, says the WSJ, they have seen centrist parties losing support to those further to the right and left.
What then are the political prospects for a Southern Europe facing medium term economic decline? Italy seems content for the moment with its buffoonocracy, but Greece is simmering, and Spain and Portugal don't look set for stability.
Will these be the strains which pull apart the eurozone and perhaps even the EU?
Is the blEU touchpaper already lit?
We are, he says, seeing a pattern – first in Ireland, now in Greece and Portugal – where cuts are failing to close the deficit as fast as hoped. Trapped as it is with the fixed exchange rate of the euro, "Southern Europe will not recover for a long time".
What does this grim economic outlook mean for these countries?
The lesson of the 1930s is that politics can turn ugly as slumps drag into a third year, and voters lose faith in the promised recovery.Portugal is about to have a general strike. Spain has already had one. The Portuguese government has lost its majority. In Spain unemployment will rise from the present level of 20%.
How are such troubles reflected in everyday life? The Wall Street Journal looks at Brunete, a "leafy town on the outskirts of Madrid, where residents live in comfortable homes behind high walls".
It is three years in arrears to providers of building supplies and electrical services. Soon, it says, it may be unable to pay city workers. Municipal leaders say that for years, they stepped in with their own funds rather than leaving constituents without services which they should have been getting from other parts of government.
Spain's 8,000 municipal governments owe companies some €13 billion. Big companies owed money say they can't continue to finance operations that employ more than 100,000 people collecting garbage, cleaning streets and maintaining parks. "We've been using our own capital to finance the cities," says one. "But our own sources of finance have dried up."
Some 125,000 companies (around 10% of Spain's total) have gone out of business since the economic downturn began in 2008. The second-leading cause of failure among Spain's small companies is late payments by public administrations. Indeed, earlier this year the government promised its cities a €3 billion credit line to help them pay suppliers, such as sanitation providers, that have threatened to cut services. But, says the paper, the funds haven't been delivered yet.
Some of the spending cuts made by the town are trivial, suggesting they've been avoiding gripping the problem. But tax receipts are falling and it's only going to get worse.
Political strains are showing even in the Netherlands, which is only now about to get its first operating government since February. Like many countries in Europe, says the WSJ, they have seen centrist parties losing support to those further to the right and left.
What then are the political prospects for a Southern Europe facing medium term economic decline? Italy seems content for the moment with its buffoonocracy, but Greece is simmering, and Spain and Portugal don't look set for stability.
Will these be the strains which pull apart the eurozone and perhaps even the EU?
Is the blEU touchpaper already lit?
Gloom about sink estates
A gloomy post from Inspector Gadget about sink estates. No extracts, just read it in its entirety.
Policing them is not an impossible task but it is one that police forces are failing at.
As Inspector Gadget and Douglas Carswell suggest, we need the courts to punish people properly.
None of this is hard to understand or to implement. The people in charge aren't delivering, so directly elected Crime and Justice Commissioners have to be worth a try.
Policing them is not an impossible task but it is one that police forces are failing at.
As Inspector Gadget and Douglas Carswell suggest, we need the courts to punish people properly.
None of this is hard to understand or to implement. The people in charge aren't delivering, so directly elected Crime and Justice Commissioners have to be worth a try.
October 03, 2010
Rotten government is no loss
The BBC programme about Toby Young's attempt to open a free school was worth watching (unlike John Humphrys' jejune and chippy contribution to the same series).
Also worth reading was his Telegraph piece urging that "pupils need teachers, not touchy architects".
For instance, "Bexley Business Academy ... has had to cut staff and spend money on mending the constantly leaking roof and replacing the designer Italian lavatory seats. It’s now running at a deficit of almost £1 million a year. The school was built by Lord Foster’s practice at a cost of £31 million."
It was part of Building Schools for the Future (BSF), under which "the cost of rebuilding a school ... was three times greater than that of an equivalent commercial project". Young says this was partly because of the involvement of vainglorious architects - but we also know that a third of the costs could be incurred before any work was done on site, jumping through the government hoops.
Anyway, asks Young, are school buildings that important? Seeing a modern school building in Humphrys' programme, with a huge internal open space, you just knew it was going to be paid for by taxpayers.
As a teenage boy I don't recall that the state of the buildings mattered to me at all as long as we were dry and warm and we couldn't hear other classes. I just loved having good teachers. We would just have laughed at expensive loo seats.
But the BSF disease is catching locally. One school nearby has decided to spend money upgrading its reception area. That may impress visitors, but what benefit will it bring to the pupils? None.
BSF was expensive and fundamentally flawed. But that rotten Labour government also failed in small things. They paid £40,000 to water pot plants - which we had also paid for. David Cameron and George Osborne have scrapped spending £4,000 of taxpayers’ money on Downing Street Christmas trees and will buy them themselves. Don't say the last lot couldn't have afforded it on their salaries.
What a rotten government that was.
Also worth reading was his Telegraph piece urging that "pupils need teachers, not touchy architects".
For instance, "Bexley Business Academy ... has had to cut staff and spend money on mending the constantly leaking roof and replacing the designer Italian lavatory seats. It’s now running at a deficit of almost £1 million a year. The school was built by Lord Foster’s practice at a cost of £31 million."
It was part of Building Schools for the Future (BSF), under which "the cost of rebuilding a school ... was three times greater than that of an equivalent commercial project". Young says this was partly because of the involvement of vainglorious architects - but we also know that a third of the costs could be incurred before any work was done on site, jumping through the government hoops.
Anyway, asks Young, are school buildings that important? Seeing a modern school building in Humphrys' programme, with a huge internal open space, you just knew it was going to be paid for by taxpayers.
As a teenage boy I don't recall that the state of the buildings mattered to me at all as long as we were dry and warm and we couldn't hear other classes. I just loved having good teachers. We would just have laughed at expensive loo seats.
But the BSF disease is catching locally. One school nearby has decided to spend money upgrading its reception area. That may impress visitors, but what benefit will it bring to the pupils? None.
BSF was expensive and fundamentally flawed. But that rotten Labour government also failed in small things. They paid £40,000 to water pot plants - which we had also paid for. David Cameron and George Osborne have scrapped spending £4,000 of taxpayers’ money on Downing Street Christmas trees and will buy them themselves. Don't say the last lot couldn't have afforded it on their salaries.
What a rotten government that was.
The eco-fascist mindset
Richard Curtis's deservedly notorious video can be accessed through the Daily Mail website.
Evidently seeing a teacher indoctrinating schoolchildren is fine. If some aren't persuaded, it's funny to see them being blown up:
But the eco-fascists find it funny.
I claim the right not to be pressurised by highly questionable science. I claim the right for our children to be educated to independence of mind, not to the mindless compliance evidently cherished by eco-fascists.
Every site should condemn this video. If yours doesn't I will come round and kill you by bombing.
There ... wasn't that uproarious?
If that unaccountably didn't make you laugh, try this:
Evidently seeing a teacher indoctrinating schoolchildren is fine. If some aren't persuaded, it's funny to see them being blown up:
Many people found the resulting film extremely funny, but unfortunately some didn't and we sincerely apologise to anybody we have offended. As a result we've taken if off our website.Note the insinuation that more found it funny than didn't. The Nazis did classroom indoctrination but even they didn't blow up the independent minded there and then.
But the eco-fascists find it funny.
I claim the right not to be pressurised by highly questionable science. I claim the right for our children to be educated to independence of mind, not to the mindless compliance evidently cherished by eco-fascists.
Every site should condemn this video. If yours doesn't I will come round and kill you by bombing.
There ... wasn't that uproarious?
If that unaccountably didn't make you laugh, try this:
The 10:10 campaign is designed to encourage people, business and government to cut their carbon emissions by 10 per cent.So that's where your donation to comedy went.
It is an independent organisation ... backed by a range of organisations including Comic Relief.
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