Local government funding has been cut to the bone for years, any inefficiencies would have been the first things to get trimmed when funding got tighter.
Part of the issue is that nobody ever agrees on what "inefficiencies" mean. We're really not talking about so-called "Spanish Practices" and similar things that most people would agree are inefficient.
Take paperwork, for example. Most paperwork is "inefficient", because it's not actual useful work. But if that paperwork is, for example, work planning for a job you're about to do, and doing that paperwork means that you're more likely to get the job done safely without injuring or killing anyone, then it was useful and worthwhile, even if someone might think it "inefficient".
As Alan points out, budget cuts are inefficient. If you cut my budget and I have to fire a bunch of people, then not only can I now get less work done, because I have fewer people, but you've banked an inefficiency for the future, because I've now lost decades of knowledge and experience, and when I get to hire new people in the future, I have to start with untrained people who won't be productive for a few months.
There is a modern trend for contracting out everything but your core functions. Don't employ cleaners - hire a janitorial contractor. You're not an expert in cleaning, but the janitorial company is. Hire a security contractor, hire a catering contractor, hire an electrical contractor - just contract for the services you need when you need them, and change the contract next year if you need something different.
Is that efficient? Well, it depends. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't.
There is a modern trend for contracting out everything but your core functions. Don't employ cleaners - hire a janitorial contractor. You're not an expert in cleaning, but the janitorial company is. Hire a security contractor, hire a catering contractor, hire an electrical contractor - just contract for the services you need when you need them, and change the contract next year if you need something different.
Is that efficient? Well, it depends. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't.
As Ronald Coase went on to point out; the flip side of organisations existing as a collection of contracts was that contractual relationships also have transaction costs (they need to be specified and written up).
Outsourcing your janitorial staff may lead to a top line saving, but you'll get the results you tender for - usually lower and lower standards that just scrape above bare minimum and a demoralised, badly paid workforce unwilling and contractually unable to go the extra mile.
Outsourcing more complex functions just magnifies the cost impacts when your e.g. IT system isn't up to scratch and remediation involves an expensive change control processes.
Oh, and all these contractual relationships need to be managed ... and suddenly I can't work out why I have all this admin overhead in my health service.
Oh, and all these contractual relationships need to be managed ... and suddenly I can't work out why I have all this admin overhead in my health service.
Well, quite.
The other thing that seems to get overlooked in the "expertise" argument is that the contractor may well have expertise in their core skills, but they don't have any in yours. And depending on exactly what kind of work we're talking about, that might be a problem. "I don't know what it does - I just clean it" doesn't always work.
Take paperwork, for example. Most paperwork is "inefficient", because it's not actual useful work. But if that paperwork is, for example, work planning for a job you're about to do, and doing that paperwork means that you're more likely to get the job done safely without injuring or killing anyone, then it was useful and worthwhile, even if someone might think it "inefficient".
Almost my entire job right now is paperwork, and that paperwork exists solely to ensure that my employer complies with data protection law. That shades in a small way into child and adult protection, but mostly it's avoiding getting sued and/or fined by the ICO. The need for my role is almost entirely due to regulation, which has put a particular burden on the public because of the sheer quantity and variety of data sharing we engage in.
Take paperwork, for example. Most paperwork is "inefficient", because it's not actual useful work. But if that paperwork is, for example, work planning for a job you're about to do, and doing that paperwork means that you're more likely to get the job done safely without injuring or killing anyone, then it was useful and worthwhile, even if someone might think it "inefficient".
Almost my entire job right now is paperwork, and that paperwork exists solely to ensure that my employer complies with data protection law. That shades in a small way into child and adult protection, but mostly it's avoiding getting sued and/or fined by the ICO. The need for my role is almost entirely due to regulation, which has put a particular burden on the public because of the sheer quantity and variety of data sharing we engage in.
Some of the things I witnessed in privately-owned *care* homes were horrible - poor food, dirty and cramped rooms, cruel and untrained staff etc. etc. - and put me off the idea of making a profit at the expense of other people's misery, illness, and vulnerability.
Part of the problem is, of course, that many of the worst homes are reliant on inadequate funding from local authorities, who in turn have been short changed by central government. Given the number of such that have gone bust, I don't think profiteering is necessarily the issue here. Where there's profit to be had it's in private provision for paying residents.
Actually the going bust is a symptom of the profiteering:
They normally deploy corporate structures that shield the ultimate owners from liability, and then do the normal trick of loading them up with debt, extracting dividends and cutting costs until the care homes go under (extra bonus ball if the care home originally owned the property on which it was situated).
Even better (or worse!) if the local community raised the money to build the home in the first place.
Take paperwork, for example. Most paperwork is "inefficient", because it's not actual useful work. But if that paperwork is, for example, work planning for a job you're about to do, and doing that paperwork means that you're more likely to get the job done safely without injuring or killing anyone, then it was useful and worthwhile, even if someone might think it "inefficient".
Almost my entire job right now is paperwork, and that paperwork exists solely to ensure that my employer complies with data protection law. That shades in a small way into child and adult protection, but mostly it's avoiding getting sued and/or fined by the ICO. The need for my role is almost entirely due to regulation, which has put a particular burden on the public because of the sheer quantity and variety of data sharing we engage in.
The media environment does make things difficult for Labour: the media always poses the question of whether Labour will keep Tory tax cuts, not how the Tories will afford their spending commitments.
Take paperwork, for example. Most paperwork is "inefficient", because it's not actual useful work. But if that paperwork is, for example, work planning for a job you're about to do, and doing that paperwork means that you're more likely to get the job done safely without injuring or killing anyone, then it was useful and worthwhile, even if someone might think it "inefficient".
Almost my entire job right now is paperwork, and that paperwork exists solely to ensure that my employer complies with data protection law. That shades in a small way into child and adult protection, but mostly it's avoiding getting sued and/or fined by the ICO. The need for my role is almost entirely due to regulation, which has put a particular burden on the public because of the sheer quantity and variety of data sharing we engage in.
There seems to be an assumption that the forthcoming budget will be worthy of damnation here in hell. I know things have been said by various Labour Party figures but it occurs to me that they are not overnight going to improve everything for everyone and if that is what we are expecting then we obviously didn't learn the lesson given by pro-Brexit campaigners.
There seems to be an assumption that the forthcoming budget will be worthy of damnation here in hell. I know things have been said by various Labour Party figures but it occurs to me that they are not overnight going to improve everything for everyone and if that is what we are expecting then we obviously didn't learn the lesson given by pro-Brexit campaigners.
Worthy or not the thread at least give people a chance to rant
There seems to be an assumption that the forthcoming budget will be worthy of damnation here in hell. I know things have been said by various Labour Party figures but it occurs to me that they are not overnight going to improve everything for everyone and if that is what we are expecting then we obviously didn't learn the lesson given by pro-Brexit campaigners.
I think I'm far from alone in thinking that not making things worse would be a good starting point.
Before the election we were told that just taxing education and the Non Doms would solve everything. They should have been bold and said they would have to reverse the national insurance cuts and might have to raise income tax.
It might have cost them a few seats but they would still have won with a big majority.
Before the election we were told that just taxing education and the Non Doms would solve everything. They should have been bold and said they would have to reverse the national insurance cuts and might have to raise income tax.
It might have cost them a few seats but they would still have won with a big majority.
Before the election we were told that just taxing education and the Non Doms would solve everything. They should have been bold and said they would have to reverse the national insurance cuts and might have to raise income tax.
It might have cost them a few seats but they would still have won with a big majority.
Before the election we were told that just taxing education and the Non Doms would solve everything. They should have been bold and said they would have to reverse the national insurance cuts and might have to raise income tax.
It might have cost them a few seats but they would still have won with a big majority.
That is simply not accurate.
Which of my opinions are not accurate ?
Before the election we were told that just taxing education and the Non Doms would solve everything.
This is not an opinion. It is a fact claim. And it is wrong.
Before the election we were told that just taxing education and the Non Doms would solve everything. They should have been bold and said they would have to reverse the national insurance cuts and might have to raise income tax.
It might have cost them a few seats but they would still have won with a big majority.
That is simply not accurate.
Which of my opinions are not accurate ?
Before the election we were told that just taxing education and the Non Doms would solve everything.
This is not an opinion. It is a fact claim. And it is wrong.
We were told that these were the only taxes that would need to be raised.
Before the election we were told that just taxing education and the Non Doms would solve everything. They should have been bold and said they would have to reverse the national insurance cuts and might have to raise income tax.
It might have cost them a few seats but they would still have won with a big majority.
That is simply not accurate.
Which of my opinions are not accurate ?
Before the election we were told that just taxing education and the Non Doms would solve everything.
This is not an opinion. It is a fact claim. And it is wrong.
We were told that these were the only taxes that would need to be raised.
No we weren't. We were told they were going to raise those taxes, and they ruled out raising a number of others, but they never said those were the only taxes that would be raised.
The Budget? More of the usual pointless flim-flam that fails to address the underlying problems in the country.
What should be in it? Something to address the chronic short-termism that cripples sensible investment.
What will be in it? Increases in CGT, decrease of the level at which IHT kicks in.
Economically the country is going to hell in a hand-cart and that won't change while we have a Chancellor who doesn't know the difference between spending and investment.
There is no hand cart we are walking straight into Hell.
From what I have heard this budget will not make people happy. We need stimulus. Ordinary people need money in their pockets in sensible ways. Ordinary people will spend on what they need/want encouraging the economy. To quote Hello Dolly
“Money is like manure, it only does good when you spread it around”
Will Ms Reeves be taking action to persuade wealth creators and people who pay shed loads of tax to remain in the country?
"Wealth creators" is not a term you'll find any reputable economist using. "Wealth creators" are only called wealth creators by people who want to fool you into thinking they create wealth. The only people "wealth creators" make wealthy is themselves.
Anybody who talks about wealth creators without scare quotes is either a con artist or a mark.
“From what you’ve heard” Based on what exactly - the press release of various lobby groups ? The editorial of a newspaper ? A wild guess ?
From the mouth of the Chancellor on TV. From Starmer on TV. From other cabinet members on TV. Places where anyone can hear them. They are not expecting the budget to be popular. They have been signalling this for while now.
I fear she's going to increase employer's NI contributions at the very least, and she may be tempted to increase employee's contributions for higher-rate tax-payers.
I don't think she's going to budge on the Winter Fuel Payment, notwithstanding that the real value of the basic £200 had already fallen by over 80%.
Wealth creators: a misleading term, when what is usually meant is those who fund and/or found companies which produce goods for export thus providing not only employment, so money for the workforce, but also boost the national coffers by selling to those outside the domestic economy.
The biggest risk to UK PLC is that even before Ms Reeves makes clear her plans the very people who are likely to found/fund companies to benefit the economy are starting to vote with their feet and leave the UK. The amount lost through their personal tax payments is peanuts: the real loss is jobs, wages for the workforce and Corporation Tax.
The super wealthy aren't actually likely to link their investment decisions to their country of residence, and even less likely to found real companies (as opposed to shells, investment vehicles and the like). New productive companies are far more likely to come from the middle and working class, those with enough money to take the risk but who still need to actually work, and they're not going to be leaving the country in substantial numbers.
What should be in it? Something to address the chronic short-termism that cripples sensible investment.
..
I fear she's going to increase employer's NI contributions at the very least, and she may be tempted to increase employee's contributions for higher-rate tax-payers.
I am so over the Telegraph now. I may be guilty of nostalgia but I remember the Telegraph being a serious newspaper with a right-of-centre perspective. I rarely agreed with their editorial stand point but I could at least respect it. Brexit seems to have broken them particularly but over the summer it's been really quite pathetic the sort of nonsense they're spouting day after day. I expect this from the Spectator but anyway...
The figure being thrown around by various media outlets - and I assume GBNews as well but I haven't checked - is 9500 individuals with a net worth of over $1m* will leave the UK this year. That is based on one piece of research that I think should come with lots of caveats but if we accept that number, what does it actually mean?
Does it correlate with inward and UK based investment? No, not really.
Does it indicate a significant drop in tax revenue? Nope. Probably not even a measurable drop in the tax take.
Is it new? Nope. It's interesting how they left that out but it's a decade-long trend and thousands of millionaires left in 2023.
Finally, is it a large a number? Well, the UK has nearly 3.1 million individuals with a net worth of $1m or more*, so this "mass exodus" is in fact 0.3%. At this rate, we'll run out of millionaires in just over 300 years. And that's only true if we don't grow anymore in the meantime...**
This is what passes for serious journalism in the UK at the moment. Which is why I hold so much of the media in complete contempt.
AFZ
*Dollars because of international comparisons.
**Yes I am being flippant here as a significant minority of millionaire net worth individuals are cash-poor and definitely have no money to invest. I have not been able to find out who is included in the 9500 figure. Some of them may well be comfortably off people who wish to retire abroad.
The problem is that at the moment the best way to make wealth out of large companies is by asset stripping, profit extraction, cutting staff or investment to reduce short-term costs, and then taking your stake out of that company and putting it into the next. If you want a company that's actually productive in a way that benefits the wider economy you need to look at the smaller to medium companies that aren't so exposed to predatory investors.
Data I've seen from this side of Hadrians Wall where the better off pay a wee bit more tax than down south (and the poorest a wee bit less) is that the net flow of wealthier people is probably unchanged since the tax rates increased, or may even have gone up (the difficulty is, of course, working out the number of people who'd have left or come to Scotland with a different tax system). Now, all I need to do is find those reports I read from about 6 months ago. But, I'm far from convinced that modest changes to the tax system which places a greater burden on those able to bear it and a smaller burden on those struggling is going to result in a massive flight of the people who do the work building economic growth from the country. If we lose a few work-shy billionaire layabouts who have most of their income in tax havens already then we could be better off with a reduced parasitical rentier class.
Comments
Part of the issue is that nobody ever agrees on what "inefficiencies" mean. We're really not talking about so-called "Spanish Practices" and similar things that most people would agree are inefficient.
Take paperwork, for example. Most paperwork is "inefficient", because it's not actual useful work. But if that paperwork is, for example, work planning for a job you're about to do, and doing that paperwork means that you're more likely to get the job done safely without injuring or killing anyone, then it was useful and worthwhile, even if someone might think it "inefficient".
As Alan points out, budget cuts are inefficient. If you cut my budget and I have to fire a bunch of people, then not only can I now get less work done, because I have fewer people, but you've banked an inefficiency for the future, because I've now lost decades of knowledge and experience, and when I get to hire new people in the future, I have to start with untrained people who won't be productive for a few months.
There is a modern trend for contracting out everything but your core functions. Don't employ cleaners - hire a janitorial contractor. You're not an expert in cleaning, but the janitorial company is. Hire a security contractor, hire a catering contractor, hire an electrical contractor - just contract for the services you need when you need them, and change the contract next year if you need something different.
Is that efficient? Well, it depends. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't.
As Ronald Coase went on to point out; the flip side of organisations existing as a collection of contracts was that contractual relationships also have transaction costs (they need to be specified and written up).
Outsourcing your janitorial staff may lead to a top line saving, but you'll get the results you tender for - usually lower and lower standards that just scrape above bare minimum and a demoralised, badly paid workforce unwilling and contractually unable to go the extra mile.
Outsourcing more complex functions just magnifies the cost impacts when your e.g. IT system isn't up to scratch and remediation involves an expensive change control processes.
Oh, and all these contractual relationships need to be managed ... and suddenly I can't work out why I have all this admin overhead in my health service.
Well, quite.
The other thing that seems to get overlooked in the "expertise" argument is that the contractor may well have expertise in their core skills, but they don't have any in yours. And depending on exactly what kind of work we're talking about, that might be a problem. "I don't know what it does - I just clean it" doesn't always work.
Almost my entire job right now is paperwork, and that paperwork exists solely to ensure that my employer complies with data protection law. That shades in a small way into child and adult protection, but mostly it's avoiding getting sued and/or fined by the ICO. The need for my role is almost entirely due to regulation, which has put a particular burden on the public because of the sheer quantity and variety of data sharing we engage in.
Why?
Even better (or worse!) if the local community raised the money to build the home in the first place.
That would suggest abstention rather than support. Keith may need to get that fence post fitted with a saddle.
Yes, abstention, rather along the lines of not interrupting your enemy whilst he's making a mistake.
I did, but he has been nicknamed Keith for quite some time, it's not a typo.
I didn't know that - can you say what the reason for the nickname is?
I think the origin is him being such a bland non-entity that people could barely remember his name, never mind what he stood for.
Thank you.
fixed quoting, -- chrisstiles, Hell Host
Well that's what I am expecting. Hope I'm proven wrong, but not holding my breath.
I think I'm far from alone in thinking that not making things worse would be a good starting point.
It might have cost them a few seats but they would still have won with a big majority.
That is simply not accurate.
Before the election we were told that just taxing education and the Non Doms would solve everything.
This is not an opinion. It is a fact claim. And it is wrong.
We were told that these were the only taxes that would need to be raised.
No we weren't. We were told they were going to raise those taxes, and they ruled out raising a number of others, but they never said those were the only taxes that would be raised.
Probably not.
What should be in it? Something to address the chronic short-termism that cripples sensible investment.
What will be in it? Increases in CGT, decrease of the level at which IHT kicks in.
Economically the country is going to hell in a hand-cart and that won't change while we have a Chancellor who doesn't know the difference between spending and investment.
From what I have heard this budget will not make people happy. We need stimulus. Ordinary people need money in their pockets in sensible ways. Ordinary people will spend on what they need/want encouraging the economy. To quote Hello Dolly
“Money is like manure, it only does good when you spread it around”
Anybody who talks about wealth creators without scare quotes is either a con artist or a mark.
From the mouth of the Chancellor on TV. From Starmer on TV. From other cabinet members on TV. Places where anyone can hear them. They are not expecting the budget to be popular. They have been signalling this for while now.
I don't think she's going to budge on the Winter Fuel Payment, notwithstanding that the real value of the basic £200 had already fallen by over 80%.
Wealth creators: a misleading term, when what is usually meant is those who fund and/or found companies which produce goods for export thus providing not only employment, so money for the workforce, but also boost the national coffers by selling to those outside the domestic economy.
The biggest risk to UK PLC is that even before Ms Reeves makes clear her plans the very people who are likely to found/fund companies to benefit the economy are starting to vote with their feet and leave the UK. The amount lost through their personal tax payments is peanuts: the real loss is jobs, wages for the workforce and Corporation Tax.
"Give me sensible investment Lord, but not yet"
Others have noted that the phrase 'wealth creators' is mostly a myth designed to make greed a moral good. I assume you are referring to the headlines like this one from the Telegraph: Britain to suffer biggest exodus of millionaires in the world
I am so over the Telegraph now. I may be guilty of nostalgia but I remember the Telegraph being a serious newspaper with a right-of-centre perspective. I rarely agreed with their editorial stand point but I could at least respect it. Brexit seems to have broken them particularly but over the summer it's been really quite pathetic the sort of nonsense they're spouting day after day. I expect this from the Spectator but anyway...
The figure being thrown around by various media outlets - and I assume GBNews as well but I haven't checked - is 9500 individuals with a net worth of over $1m* will leave the UK this year. That is based on one piece of research that I think should come with lots of caveats but if we accept that number, what does it actually mean?
This is what passes for serious journalism in the UK at the moment. Which is why I hold so much of the media in complete contempt.
AFZ
*Dollars because of international comparisons.
**Yes I am being flippant here as a significant minority of millionaire net worth individuals are cash-poor and definitely have no money to invest. I have not been able to find out who is included in the 9500 figure. Some of them may well be comfortably off people who wish to retire abroad.
Asking for a friend.
It would depend what you did with the money.
But if that is true, it's true of any rich person.
What if I did a Trump? Set up numerous businesses that went bankrupt, taking other people's money with them? Is that 'wealth creation'?
It sounds like humbug to me. Part of the simplistic nonsense pedalled by certain political circles, easy answers to every question.