The TaxPayers' Alliance - Media Coverage

Financial Times: Letter: It is VAT and NI that have direct, negative impact

From Mr Mark Wadsworth.

Sir, I am puzzled as to why Corin Taylor (Letters, August 29) and John Redwood ("Government defends business tax regime", August 29) focus so much on reducing corporation tax. I agree that it slows the rate at which businesses can grow, but at 30 per cent it is the lowest rate of the Group of Seven advanced industrialised countries, and as it is only levied on net profits, it does not drive companies out of business.

On the other hand, UK plc pays two-and-a-half times as much in value added tax and employer's national insurance as it does in corporation tax.

VAT does not just increase the price paid by the customer; it also reduces the net price received by the producer. Thus low-margin producers are forced out of business and output is reduced quite significantly. NI adds to the cost of labour; so it reduces net wages and employment levels. Thus VAT and NI have a direct, measurable, negative impact on the economy.

Imagine that corporation tax were replaced by a fiscally neutral tax of 5 per cent of turnover tax, with no deduction for expenses. Those businesses with high profit margins would pay far less than now, but those with a profit margin of 5 per cent or less would go to the wall. This would damage the UK economy and tax receipts would fall. Similarly, VAT could be replaced at minimal overall impact with a turnover tax of just under 15 per cent (£17.50 divided by £117.50) and the system of reclaiming input VAT could be sidestepped by simply exempting business-to-business supplies. This would surely cause three times as many businesses to go to the wall as replacing corporation tax with a flat turnover tax of 5 per cent.

Thus, while I share Mr Taylor's and Mr Redwood's enthusiasm for deregulation and cutting the tax burden overall, it strikes me that they are starting at completely the wrong end when it comes to detailed suggestions. The taxes we should reduce first are VAT and NI.

Mark Wadsworth,

London E11 4QX

Daily Star: Fury at Vampire Wardens Plan

by STUART PATTERSON

COUNCIL chiefs have been accused of trying to make extra cash by putting their traffic wardens out on the night shift.

Parking attendants in Aberdeen will now be on patrol issuing tickets until 3am.

Officials in the city claim the initiative is designed to stop motorists parking illegally.

But the scheme was condemned as another way for the local authority to rake in cash.

Corin Taylor, of the National Taxpayers' Alliance, said: "This is incredible.

"People expect more from their local council. It just shows the wrong-headed priorities of Aberdeen City Council.

"They're spending public money on employing traffic wardens all night when there is no traffic.

"It sounds like just another way for the authority to target motorists and take money off them." Six local authorities across Scotland, Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Perth & Kinross, Glasgow and South Lanarkshire, have their own parking patrols.

Parking offences were decriminalised and enforcement powers were handed over to the local authorities.

The move was designed to cut congestion and keep traffic moving at peak times.

However, those against parking patrols claim they are simply another way for councils to raise cash. More than 513,000 tickets are issued every year and motorists hand over more than £14 million.

Aberdeen City Council has now decided to crack down on drivers by sending its teams out to issue tickets through the night.

The attendants will be hunting rogue parkers until 3am for the next three months as part of a pilot scheme.

Councillor Martin Greig, one of the men behind the project, said: "I have had a lot of complaints about parking on double yellow lines.

"There are more cars on the road than parking spaces and this will help deal with the problem."

Yorkshire Post: Councils face soaring costs over help for immigrants

EXCLUSIVE: Pressure was last night increasing on the Government to reform the law, with Yorkshire councils reporting rocketing translation costs to deal with EU enlargement.

Local authorities are being forced to pay huge increases in costs to cope with the wave of immigrants from Eastern Europe, figures released to the Yorkshire Post under the Freedom of Information Act reveal.

The money councils have spent on translators and interpreters has soared since the European Union expanded in May 2004.

In Sheffield the cost of translation services - including providing interpreters and translating leaflets - almost doubled from £169,000 in 2002/03 to £313,000 in 2006/07.

And in Kirklees, a drop in the amount paid for translation services over the last three years cannot mask a 28 per cent rise in the amount spent on Eastern European languages.

That includes an 180 per cent increase in the number of times Polish translators were needed in the last year - and a 285 per cent increase in the number of Slovakian translations.

Last night Corin Taylor, spokesman for the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: "Translation costs are clearly excessive - and not just with local authorities but with NHS trusts and the police too.

"The national language is English and that's what businesses and authorities should be communicating in. Of course there is a need to translate key documents, but a lot of councils are going beyond the demands of legislation. That's been growing worse in recent years and it's the taxpayers having to pay the price."

Pressure is growing on the Government to constrain local authority translation, with an influential commission now claiming that the current policy is both costing councils too much and stopping immigrants from having to learn English.

Last December the Department for Communities-funded Commission for Integration and Cohesion was asked to look into local authority translations.

This summer it reported back that:

There was no legal reason for all materials to be translated ;

Translation should not be a substitute for learning English;

And it should be reduced in languages used by long-settled groups and only be used for new communities.

It said: "Is it essential that the material be translated? If so, does it need to be translated in full? Would a short summary do? Does every community group need to know about it? Would there be an additional burden on public services of not translating it?"

The commission suggested translations be paid for by including adverts for English lessons within the text.

The Race Relations Act only states that all parts of the community should have access to services. The Human Rights Act requires translation only if someone is arrested or charged with a criminal offence.

Last night a Department of Communities spokeswoman said: "We are considering the report in detail and will respond formally in the autumn."

Due to different information available from each local authority in Yorkshire, it is impossible to compare results like-for-like - but, of the 17 that responded to the request for information, only Craven Council has not seen any increase in costs since the EU expanded.

In Rotherham costs jumped from £23,709 in 2002/03 to £35,430.50 the next year, and Calderdale paints a similar picture with costs rising from £10,232 to £26,771 between 2002/03 and 2003/04.

Although the EU enlargement did not happen until a month into the financial year 2003/04, many councils paid out to translate documents into the new languages in anticipation.

Last September a Yorkshire Post investigation revealed that the region's police forces have more than doubled the amount spent on interpreters since 2002/03. West Yorkshire Police, for example, went from £484,982 in 20002/03, to £1,090,627 in 200505/06.

And last December it was revealed that Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust was spending £400,000 on translating services.

Daily Express: Foreigners owe NHS £100m

By Cyril Dixon

FOREIGN embassy officials are among overseas patients who owe NHS hospitals more than £100million in unpaid bills, it emerged yesterday.

Staff from the London consulates of Cyprus, Kuwait and Qatar have failed to pay more than £1million for treatment.

The unpaid bills deprive hospitals of much-needed funds that could pay for medical staff or equipment.

Tory health spokesman Andrew Lansley said: "It is an abuse of our National Health Service if those who are not entitled to free treatment get access to care but then do not pay their bills. I would urge the Department of Health to act, especially with foreign embassies, to enforce payment."

Matthew Elliott, of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "The Government should crack down on health tourists freeriding at our expense. It's not the World Health Service, it's the National Health Service."

London's Royal Free and University College hospitals are owed more than £1million by Cypriots, Kuwaitis and Qataris. Hospital managers said that the debts were less than three months old.

The Royal Free, in Hampstead, is owed £4.5million from overseas and private patients. One person owes the hospital £104,000.

Last year, a survey of 106 hospitals by the Tories found that of £27million spent treating overseas patients, about £10million was not repaid.

One NHS manager said:

"With the money we are owed we could build two new district general hospitals."

Financial Times: Letter: Reduced corporation tax would pay for itself

From Mr Corin Taylor.

Sir, Your assertion that we should not "fool ourselves into thinking" that a lower rate of corporation tax will pay for itself is unduly conservative ("An unbalanced tax", August 28).

The TaxPayers' Alliance recently commissioned the Centre for Economics and Business Research to investigate the effects of a reduction in the main corporation tax rate to the 12.5 per cent Irish rate, phased over nine years. The simulations revealed that such a cut would not only boost gross domestic product, employment, fixed investment and household income, but after five years tax revenues would be higher - precisely the Laffer curve effect that you deny would occur.

These higher tax revenues would come in the form of increased income tax and value added tax receipts - as more people would have better-paying jobs - more than offsetting the reduction in corporation tax revenues. By the end of the simulation period, government borrowing would be almost £30bn lower than under the baseline scenario.

Across eastern Europe and beyond, economies and public finances have reaped the benefits of lower corporation tax rates, so much so that western European countries are now following suit. Is it too much to ask our Treasury to take note?

Corin Taylor,

Research Director,

The TaxPayers' Alliance,

London SW1H 9JA

The Australian: Non-courses make no sense

ABAN CONTRACTOR

DURING the past few weeks the markets have taken a tremendous pounding. Billions have been wiped off share prices, personal pensions have been hit and mortgages across the globe look set to rise again.

In Britain, where hundreds of thousands of people are up to their eyes in serious debt, the penny has finally dropped. There is very little spare cash around. Budgeting, although not quite a fashionable word, is openly being used again.

So it came as no surprise when the TaxPayers' Alliance chose one of the worst weeks on financial record to lodge its claim that "non-courses" cost British taxpayers more than pound stg. 40 million ($99 million) every year.

Sound familiar? Australian voters, especially those with links to the higher education sector, will have little trouble remembering a buoyant former education minister, Brendan Nelson, repeatedly listing a range of wasteful cappuccino courses -- including surfboarding, aromatherapy and the paranormal -- offered by the nation's 38 publicly funded universities. It had the desired effect: taxpayers were not happy.

When the TaxPayers' Alliance released what it described as "Britain's first ever list of university `non-courses"' last Tuesday, it was similarly received. Attending university is an expensive business and the alliance hit a nerve when it pointed out that the average student graduates with more than pound stg. 13,000 of debt. Worse still if that money has been spent on a three-year course that no employer will recognise.

The alliance defined a non-course as a university degree that lends "the respectability of scholarly qualifications to non-academic subjects", claiming that many were "of dubious academic merit, offering training better learned on the job".

"In the worst cases, they offer neither intellectual stimulation nor any improvement in employment prospects," it said.

The student and the taxpayer paid the price.

And, according to the alliance's calculations using Department for Education and Skills figures, if the pound stg. 40 million were spent on other undergraduates, their fees could be cut by pound stg. 104 a year. "Or pay for a pint of beer a week for each student."

Having trawled through the list of every course offered in Britain through the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, it found 401 non-courses available in 89 institutions in the 2007-08 academic year. One, the University of Derby, offered 41 non-courses.

A personal favourite is equestrian psychology. It is available at the Welsh College of Horticulture to anyone with a grade C in four GCSEs, the equivalent of Australia's Year 10 exams. Once completed, students can "top up to a BSc (Hons)".

Included in the alliance's top five were the three-year BA (Hons) degree in outdoor adventure with philosophy at Marjon College and golf management at the UHI Millennium Institute. The latter promises "a high-quality qualification with a comprehensive understanding of the modern golf industry. Regular field trips to courses such as St Andrews and Carnoustie are a feature of the course."

These courses fulfil an important function for many higher education institutions: they put bums on seats and help fund less popular courses such as maths and science. But the alliance has an important point, one that every parent with a child at university understands: young people are spending thousands of pounds and three years of their life studying a subject that may leave them no more employable than when they started.

And the figures back them up. The National Audit Office says there is a 20 per cent dropout rate at British universities. That means one student in five starting a full-time course next month will fail to complete their studies.

"The cost to the taxpayer of this dropout rate alone has been estimated at pound stg. 300 million each year in subsidised loans and tuition fees," the alliance said.

Now that is a figure to be reckoned with.

Irish Times: Enrol the dice, swig, swing or tackle.

Students can now study for degrees in gambling, beer, golf or rugby, writes Rosita Boland   

Got your Leaving Cert results? Wondering what to do with them? Forget the days when students had to choose between familiar academic subjects in the areas of arts, humanities and the sciences. You can now learn in college hours things that students used to pursue only during after-college hours. It sounds like an ad for a well-known beer, but the reality is that you can now take courses in playing rugby, pulling pints, being in a band, and gambling.

This week, the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) in Britain published a list of what it has described as 401 university "non-courses" what the British media have gleefully called "Mickey Mouse courses". The TPA argues that taxpayers are paying more than £40 million (€59 million) a year to subsidise courses which it believes are unsuitable to be included on any university syllabus.

Among them are culinary arts and adventure tourism at the University of Derby. "We offer regular guest demonstrations and table service training, wine courses and a look at the anthropology of food. As well as practical training, you'll study aspects of world cuisine, the history of food and the diversity of culinary arts." There's also golf management, at Scotland's UHI Millennium Institute. "The course provides a high-quality qualification with a comprehensive understanding of the modern golf industry. Regular field trips to courses such as St Andrews and Carnoustie are a feature of the course."

There's more. The Swansea Institute of Higher Education offers activity and play leadership. At the University of Central Lancashire, you can study adventure travel, where "You will have plenty of opportunities to experience a variety of outdoor pursuits and will be encouraged to achieve additional outdoor activity qualifications".

Believe it or not, this autumn, you can enrol on a course which ensures that when you graduate, you will be working for a billionaire. The UK Sailing Academy, at Cowes, has designed a course to train crew to skipper luxury super-yachts. There are now apparently so many obscenely wealthy people who have commissioned the design of their own private sailing boats and motorboats that there just aren't enough skilled staff to crew them. The UK Sailing Academy estimates there are 10,500 super- yachts cruising the world's waters. Hiring crew members who know what they are doing helps owners to protect such investments.

John Ely, chief executive of the UK Sailing Academy, estimates there is currently a demand for 4,000 qualified crew members.   

The luxury-crew course may just be starting up, but for the past 20 years, students have been graduating from the International Centre for Brewing and Distilling, based at the school of life sciences of Edinburgh's Heriot-Watt University. This four-year course aims at giving students an understanding of the science and technology involved in managing a brewery. At the latter end of their studies, students must work for at least eight weeks in a maltings, brewery or distillery in order to pass their degree. With all that experience to draw on, students at Heriot-Watt must have the best-organised student parties in Britain.

Then there's the opportunity to take a degree in business economics with gambling studies, at the University of Salford, Manchester. The university's website explains, "This unique degree was created in response to the need for a more academic approach to the study of gambling and commercial gaming. Students learn about economics, focusing on the use of economic theory in the analysis of business problems, and examine gambling from an economic, social, cultural and mathematical perspective." Students also have "the possibility of vacation employment in the industry".

Closer to home, this year, the Institute of Technology at Carlow offers a BA in sport and rugby. The first course of its kind in Britain or Ireland, it's being run in conjunction with the Irish Rugby Football Union and Leinster Rugby. Students will be expected to show their rugby-playing skills, so presumably each candidate will be getting down and dirty to compete for one of 20 course places. The course combines coaching, fitness, player development and a business or communications module. What rugby students do in their spare time might be a question for the philosophy students.

Daily Express: Free lunch for those who skip parents' night

STAYAWAY parents who refuse to attend school consultation evenings are being treated to free meals and even trips to cafes.   

The scheme was launched after Executive research revealed that some parents felt "intimidated" in the presence of teachers.   

Now they are being encouraged to discuss their children's progress with other mums and dads over lunch instead.   

Ministers say that the scheme - currently being piloted in Glasgow - is an example of good practice for headteachers nationwide to follow.

But last night it drew anger from critics. Blair Gibbs, campaign director of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: "Adults who don't attend parents' evenings at school are letting their children down - that's not a reason to give them special treatment at our expense.

"Many committed parents struggle to afford school equipment and books, so why should their taxes be used to pay for a slap-up meal for those parents who couldn't care less?

"If these hand-outs are deemed good practice then politicians clearly have more money for schools than they know what to do with."

Tory education spokesman Murdo Fraser said: "It's fairly depressing that schools have to go to such lengths to try to engage with parents about their children's education.

"It says a lot about modern society that some parents are so uninterested in their children's schools that they can only be persuaded to participate if someone takes them to a cafe and buys them something."

The scheme was highlighted in a recent Executive report entitled Practice For Positive Relationships: Reaching Out To Families.

It states: "In examples of good general communication with parents, Scottish schools, aware of barriers to participation and communication that parents may experience, make arrangements to provide appropriate support.

"Senior staff in All Saints Secondary School (Glasgow) were concerned about low levels of participation in their parents' evenings. They reflected on the barriers that might prevent parents from attending.

"The school has also identified a number of key supporters amongst the parent group who hold 'living-room consultations' with other parents, and bring feedback to the school.

"They find that some parents more comfortable giving their views to another parent in an informal setting.   

"Key supporters receive expenses to cater for their 'group' or take them to a cafe or another venue where they feel comfortable."

An Executive spokesman said last night: "It's down to the schools. We have highlighted this as being good practice in the context of it working in some parts of Glasgow.

"It can be intimidating for some parents to go into schools and talk to teachers. That's the reality we have found in research.

"This school has found that helping those parents talk to other parents is one way to overcome those barriers.   

"That is not a green light for all schools to follow suit at great expense but if a school does have similar issues then we're saying that it's something they may wish to consider."

Last year, East Renfrewshire Council began inviting pupils to sit in on conversations between teachers and their parents.   

Many schools now offer flexible hours for consultations.   

Daily Express: Outcry at secret amnesty for 315,000 asylum seekers

COUNCILS are in revolt over Government plans for a "stealth amnesty" that could let 315,000 more asylum seekers stay.   

Local authorities say the move is "grossly irresponsible" and have written to the Home Office warning it will put intense strain on services.

One leader has called for top-level sackings over the fiasco. They hit out after it emerged officials are to allow thousands to stay in the UK on human rights grounds. It shatters Labour's promises it will not grant an immigration and asylum amnesty.

And it comes as the Liberal Democrats plan to propose an "earned" amnesty for 600,000 illegal immigrants.   

Ministers are desperate to clear a backlog of 450,000 socalled "legacy" asylum files and are set to fast-track approvals.   

Town halls have been warned that 70 per cent of the first 7,000 cases are to get indefinite leave to remain by Christmas - seven times current the approval rate. They will then be the responsibility of councils to house and support.

Andrew Carter, Conservative coleader of Leeds City Council said: "This is gross irresponsibility. What they are trying to do is offload a massive problem of their own making on to local authorities and local communities.

They have pulled this stunt before when local authorities have been left to pick up the pieces."   

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: "To effectively propose an amnesty by stealth is shortsighted, reckless and utterly irresponsible. Councils have already warned the Government about the massive pressure being placed on local services and housing. Such an amnesty would make this situation worse by encouraging more to try to come illegally."

The 450,000 files in the Case Resolution Programme were unearthed last year in the wake of the foreign prisoner scandal.   

Among them are claimants who should have been deported years ago while others have never been dealt with.   

The first 7,000 include many families with children born in the UK.   

The Human Rights Act protects against removal on the grounds of a right to a family life. Councils have been told 4,900 cases are likely to be approved.

If the rate is applied to the rest of the backlog 315,000 asylum seekers and failed asylum seekers will be allowed to stay.   

Normally, just one in 10 claims is approved at the first stage. Once a case is granted, the claimants will be taken out of the Governmentrun asylum support system and become the responsibility of councils virtually over night.

Leeds alone is expecting to have to find 500 homes, while 1,063 cases are due to be considered across the Yorkshire and Humber region.

Local authorities there have jointly written to Lin Homer, chief executive of the Border & Immigration Agency. The letter warns the move will create "significant" pressures on housing and social services.

Mr Carter said residents will suffer as efforts are directed to "finding homes for people the Home Office has virtually turfed out and on to our doorsteps". He added: "All they want to do is get the statistics off their files and on to someone else's.

"There is an element of panic again running through the Home Office. Well, there wants to be panic and there ought to be sackings and they might want to start at the top.

We cannot go on soaking people up like a sponge."   

Matthew Sinclair, spokesman for the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "Council taxpayers will end up footing the bill."   

Home Office sources insist the approval rate will fall as the rest of the files are considered because there is wide variety in the cases.

Ms Homer said: "This is not an amnesty. This is the programme the previous Home Secretary announced last year to the House.   

"We will take action to remove those not granted permission to remain in the UK." The Government has constantly insisted it has no plans for an amnesty.

Independent on Sunday: The Spectator

By Simon Redfern

Sport   

The taxpayers" alliance have attacked "non-courses" in further education. "The Government has failed in its pledge to abolish Mickey Mouse courses," they squeak. Top of their hit list is Outdoor Adventure with Philosophy at Marjon College, Plymouth. Hmm... if I was going mountaineering I might feel safer being guided by one of Marjon"s alumni than, say, a classics graduate. And presumably the philosophy comes in handy if things go wrong. For a real Mickey Mouse course, the place to go is Disney University in Florida, where students destined for jobs in Walt Disney World can "practise on cash registers, ticketing machines and turnstiles". And all at no expense to the taxpayer, one assumes.

£1m   

The insurance policy organisers of a duathlon - a 10km run and 20km cycle ride - around Loch Ness on 2 September have taken out against the chance of an attack on entrants by the reputed monster. If it"s a publicity stunt, I suppose it"s worked.

Golf drive of the week   

in town for the Scandinavian Masters golf tournament, Bill Murray was stopped by police in the early hours of Monday morning driving a golf cart through downtown Stockholm. This, curiously, is not illegal, but drink-driving is; the results of a blood test are awaited. It is not thought the actor was rehearsing another sequel to his seminal 1980 oeuvre "Caddyshack", and suggestions that his next film will instead be titled "Lost in Transportation" are, frankly, far too silly to be mentioned here.

Good week for   

Ben ainslie (right), Finn champion at Sydney 2004, won the Olympic Test Regatta over the Beijing 2008 course... David Healy took his goal tally for Northern Ireland to 31... and Sheila Drummond hit a 144yd hole in one at Mahoning Valley Country Club.She is totally blind.

Bad week for   

Rob styles (near left), suspended from Premiership refereeing duty after several howlers during Sunday"s Liverpool-Chelsea game... Paul Robinson, whose own howler in goal for England on Wednesday allowed Germany to equalise... Stefan Langer, son of Bernhard, who carded a 28-over-par 98 in the KLM Open... and Lancashire County Cricket Club, under attack after Old Trafford"s outfield was churned up by two Arctic Monkeys concerts.

Website of the week   

one of The World Golf Hall of Fame"s two inductees this year is Curtis Strange, with 70 per cent of the vote, while Fred Couples managed only 17 per cent. Perhaps voters felt a Strange Couples double ticket might raise guffaws; which, in a link so clunky The Spectator is almost ashamed, is the reaction the wedding notices on view at jibjab.com/view/172390 inspire. Our favourite is the joining together in holy matrimony of Joe Looney and Shelby Warde, but the Poore-Sapp, Crapp-Beer and Hardy-Harr nup- tials run it close. Examples of other sporting pairs who shouldn"t hyphenate their names welcome.

Daily Express: £1bn scandal

By Tom Whitehead Home Affairs Correspondent

Taxpayers foot the bill as red tape robs police of 25,500 bobbies on the beat   

POLICE are wasting hundreds of millions of pounds every year on officer overtime because of the Government's failure to slash red tape and tackle staff shortages.

Forces around the country have spent more than £1billion in the past three years on extra duties in a huge drain on the public purse.

It is enough money to put 25,500 extra police on our streets for a year.   

The waste is revealed in figures released under the Freedom of Information Act and last night rank-and-file police leaders attacked the alarming trend.

They blamed a lack of resources that leaves officers with no choice but to work extra hours just to protect the public.   

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: "These alarming figures reflect what we have been saying for years.   

"This Government has tied up the police with red-tape and diktats.   

"Conservatives would put local communities – not Whitehall – in control of policing and get officers back on the beat where the public want to see them." Corin Taylor, of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "The police are spending most of their regular working hours on paperwork.   

"So it's not surprising that they have to work overtime to go out on the streets. The enormous cost to taxpayers of police overtime, as well as the tragic events this week, is yet more evidence of the need to cut police bureaucracy." Most forces paid an average of £20million each in overtime in the past three years. The Metropolitan Police spent £422million.

The total national bill for overtime from 35 forces who responded has risen from £360million in 2004/05 to £380million in 2005/06 and £375million in 2006/07. The projected total for all 43 forces in England and Wales is £1.28billion.

Police Federation spokesman PC Nigel Cox: "Our stance has always been that officers should not be required to work overtime and that the appropriate level of resources should be in place to cover all aspects of policing.

"The federation has been saying for a long time that bureaucracy is keeping officers in offices rather than being out on the streets." PC Cox of the federation's Devon and Cornwall branch said the overtime burden fell heavily on frontline officers, CID and major crime investigation teams.

But Bob Pennington, Assistant Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall, said overtime payments fell in real terms last year, when inflation is taken into account.

He added: "The vast majority of overtime is incurred through having to deal with unanticipated incidents. To have officers available 'just in case' would not be cost effective." A Home Office spokeswoman said: "Record numbers of police officers are on our streets.

"Total police personnel stands at 228,036 and there has been an 11 per cent increase in the number of officers in the last 10 years."

The Business: Corin Taylor: The economics of happiness: just state control with a smile

There is the pursuit of real happiness – and then there is the economics of happiness, a Brave New World of artificial well-being to which many deluded scientists have chosen to pin their hopes.

In Aldous Huxley’s masterpiece, soma was the perfect fake happiness drug; it infamously had “all the advantages of Christianity and alcohol; none of their defects”. In the dystopia envisaged by the so-called happiness economists, officials armed with clipboards and regression models would know what makes us happy – a poorer but more egalitarian society.

The seminal article on happiness economics was published by Richard Easterlin, a professor at the University of Southern California, as long ago as 1974. He claimed that average happiness in the US had remained at the same level between 1946 and 1970, despite a doubling of income per head over this period.

More recently, a flood of papers in learned journals have argued the same central thesis: economic growth and increases in income per head do not affect well-being; governments should therefore cease trying to maximise growth in favour of explicitly targeting happiness.

Not to be outdone, David Cameron, the Tory leader, has thrown his weight behind this fad, saying recently: “It’s time we admitted that there’s more to life than money, and it’s time we focused not just on GDP (gross domestic product), but on GWB – general well-being.”

One of the key pieces of evidence that happiness economists rely upon are statistics spanning several decades in various countries showing increasing GDP but happiness flatlining. The reason for this, given by Lord Layard from the London School of Economics, and others, is the persistence of income inequality, which they claim offsets any happiness gained from a larger economy.

Critics put a rather different gloss on the theory, explaining it as follows: people are jealous of the possessions of others, and strive to catch up by taking better jobs or working harder, in turn triggering a commensurate reaction from their rivals. We are all constantly striving to be better than the Joneses; we all are made unhappy as a result; so we should all be forced into greater equality for our own good, with the help of punitive tax rates and red tape.

Analysing the responses of a large number of individuals at a single point in time (say 2007) suggests that while richer people are happier than the poor, the increase in happiness associated with higher income gets progressively smaller. If the difference in happiness between earning £100,000 ($198,557, E147,236) and £1m a year is insignificant, it’s easy to see why some believe this can justify higher taxes on the rich.

But a new book by Helen Johns and Paul Ormerod published by the Institute of Economic Affairs blows apart the arguments of the happiness economics crowd. For a start, happiness is often measured in surveys using a three-point scale. This means it is impossible to measure any increase in happiness for those ticking 3, the highest happiness box – a considerable number of people given that the average score in such surveys tends to be around 2.2.

There is therefore always an upper limit to happiness, compared with no obvious upper limit to GDP, a devastating problem for proponents of happiness economics. The authors also calculate that to obtain a 10% increase in average happiness, 22% of people would, net, have to move up one category, or 11% move up two categories. A substantial share of the population would have to enjoy a significant rise in happiness, confirming that the statistics are biased against detecting any rise in well-being.

The central argument constantly wheeled out is that happiness and economic growth are unconnected; but happiness has in fact no correlation with a large number of other variables that might be expected to affect people’s well-being. Over the last 30 years or so, real public expenditure has risen 50% in Britain and hours worked have fallen by 16% in (West) Germany, while in the US, crime has doubled and then fallen back almost to where it was in 1971, female earnings have grown by 30% relative to male earnings, and overall income inequality has greatly increased. The effect on happiness? None.

Finally, there is a body of research on happiness based on surveys that track changes in specific individuals over time, rather than looking at random samples of people at a single point in time, and compares their levels of happiness. It shows stable family life, being married, good health, religious faith, feelings of living in a cohesive community where people can be trusted, and good governance contribute to happiness; perhaps not unsurprisingly, chronic pain, divorce and bereavement detract from it.

The only role this suggests for governments is to ensure a well-functioning democracy with a large public space for a flourishing civil society. But happiness economics is really little more than an attempt by opponents of economic freedom to bring in state control by the back door. Their doctrine has no proper empirical basis and few worthwhile policies emerge from it.

The US Declaration of Independence did not stipulate that government should ensure that everybody was happy; rather, it gave individuals the right to pursue their own happiness in the best way that they themselves saw fit. Hardly perfect, for sure, but the only way we know.

The Sun: Pay-to-throw rubbish plan

 By Ben Ashford   

HOUSEHOLDERS will have to pay directly for throwing out their rubbish under plans being considered by council chiefs.   

They have come up with three possible schemes to cut the amount of waste ending up in landfill.   

Wheelie bins with microchips could weigh rubbish, with residents billed for the amount they create.   

Different sized pre-paid waste sacks could be used in urban areas where wheelie bins are not practical.   

A third option is householders choosing different sized wheelie bins based on how much rubbish they generate - and being charged accordingly. The Local Government Association said the schemes would "promote recycling, not generate extra cash through an extra stealth tax".

But it warned taxpayers will bear the brunt of up to Pounds 3billion in fines councils face over the next four years if they do not meet EU targets.

A poll of 1,000 people found 38 per cent supported paying directly for rubbish collection IF council tax was cut. The TaxPayers' Alliance said cuts would have to be Pounds 20 a month but there was "no guarantee".   

Telegraph: Scottish pupils 'get 25 per cent more funding'

By Kate Devlin and Toby Helm   

A FRESH row over "education apartheid'' blew up last night after it emerged that secondary school children in Scotland are having almost 25 per cent more spent on their schooling than those in England.

The new figures fuelled resentment over the sums   

English taxpayers are laying out for public services north of the border, over which their MPs have no say under the devolved government in Edinburgh.

The figures from the department for Children, Schools and Families and the Scottish Executive showed that an average of pounds 4,138 was spend per primary school pupil in Scotland in the year 2005-06, - 12 per cent more than in England where it was pounds 3,684. By the time pupils reached secondary school the figure was pounds 5,771, compared with pounds 4,638 in England. The gap is expected to widen still further this school year under plans announced by Scottish ministers which involve cutting class sizes for young pupils to 18. Further reinforcing the view that Scots get a far superior education deal, the Scottish Executive, which under devolution has control of education and health policy, has started a pilot project to provide free school meal to all pupils. If successful it could be introduced nationwide.

The school meal plan was announced by Edinburgh's new Scottish National Party administration, which has also scrapped tuition fees for Scottish students starting university this autumn. The spending figures will reignite debate over the Barnett Formula - the funding system devised in the Seventies by the then Labour Treasury minister Joel Barnett - under which Scotland was given a bigger slice of spending to address deprivation, and on account of its geography.

Campaigners last night called for the government to scrap the controversial calculation which even the (now) Lord Barnett has said is out of date.

Corin Taylor, from the Taxpayers Alliance, said last night: "It is unfair that English taxpayers are subsidising higher public spending in Scotland. The Barnett formula is an unfair calculation that has had its day, Scotland is no longer one of the poorest parts of Britain and it is unfair for it to be subsidised in this way. He added: "Today's figures are just another example, after tuition fees and free personal care for the elderly, of how Scots are receiving much more generous benefits.''Education unions said the government should increase education spending in England to at least the Scottish level. The figures will also reopen demands - supported by the Tory Party - to address the so-called West Lothian Question - the anomaly under which Scottish MPs can vote at Westminster on health and education issues affecting people in England, but English MPs have no say over those subjects north of the border, following devolution.

Ben Wallace, Shadow Minister of State for Scotland, said both issues needed to be looked at.   

"The frustration is that this government started the devolution process in 1997 and it is unfinished and currently unfair.   

"The Barnett Formula is showing signs of being out of date and is not getting resources to the people who need it most. We should it review it, upholding the principle of fairness that was supposed to be at its heart.''

He added that the review should be part of a wider look at the workings of the Union, including the issues on which Scottish MPs can vote. "We now have two classes of MP in the House of Commons and until the West Lothian is solved this unfairness will fatally undermine the balance between the countries of the United Kingdom.''

Education unions said the government should increase education spending in England to at least the Scottish level.Steve Sinnott, the General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: "''When Gordon Brown was Chancellor he emphasised that spending per pupil in England had to rise to the level of independent schools, which is even higher again than in Scotland. That was something that we have applauded and we are monitoring his progress towards that.'' But he added that spending per pupil had increased significantly over the last decade. A spokeswoman for the Scottish Executive said that it had been a "political choice'' to spend more on education in Scotland and one that ministers were "not unhappy with''. However, he added that it was difficult to make direct comparisons between England and Scotland because of the different systems of education and because Scotland had a higher proportion of pupils in small rural schools.

Yorkshire Post: Jayne Dowle: A real life lesson - degrees aren't for everyone

Obsessed as he is with "location, location, location", we haven't yet heard much from the Prime Minister about "education, education, education", the mantra of his predecessor.

Today is the day for GCSE results so it will be on the agenda. When the usual hullabaloo over "Are exams getting too easy?" subsides, I trust that Mr Brown and his Ministers will take some time to think seriously about what happens next.

I hope that they will be brave enough to drop Tony Blair's fixation with pushing 50 per cent of young people into taking a degree by 2010. I know, I know? I know all the figures about how the percentage of British graduates lags behind that of many European countries. I know all about how "upskilling" benefits the local economy - only it doesn't, when all the "upskilling" jobs are in Leeds or Milton Keynes

and graduates move away from their home towns and villages. I taught journalism at university for three years, so I think I might know something of what I'm talking about.

And although there are plenty of former students who stand

out - because of their innate talent or their determination to overcome personal odds or their sheer guts - there are plenty of others who should never have been on a degree course in the first place.

I felt so sorry for those kids, fed such false hopes. They honestly thought that they could take a degree without reading a newspaper, and then walk straight into any job in journalism. It was heartbreaking for them, and frustrating for the teaching staff who worked relentlessly to provide support.

Some of these students could hardly put one word in front of another unless it was in "text speak". I remember in one lesson spending half-an-hour explaining what academic "journals" were, and literally pleading with the class to find the library.

The able students thrived, as they would in any environment. Most of those with the aptitude found, or will find, jobs in journalism and the wider media, armed with a useful modern degree.

But what of the others? The ones who constantly "forgot" to hand assignments in, stomped out of job placements and generally proved that they were not ready for higher academic study. Will they look back at those three years and think "what a waste of time and money" and go off

and get a job with the council anyway?

One girl, actually among the brightest in the class, did. She declared that writing essays was "pointless" and dropped out at the end of her second year. She will probably be running a local government department by the time she is 25. Is that so wrong? The implication that "working" is dishonourable compared to presenting a seminar on semantics suggests a nasty lack of respect.

That girl might decide, as a local government officer I know did, to go back and study for a business degree later.

Rather than concentrating on sucking in the young with flyers in nightclubs, universities should be flexible, and prepared to offer degrees to anybody, at any age.

I have a friend who is a deputy director in a NHS Trust hospital. She didn't go to university at 18 because all she wanted was to get a job. She now earns far more than me, with my posh degree, will have a better (make that "a") pension when she retires, and can hold her own in any board meeting. Everybody just assumes that she has a string of letters after

0her name. She is proud

to put them straight and gets respect for it.

Better to be honest then, than to parade a dubious degree as if it was some Nobel-Prize-worthy honour.

It is claimed that "Mickey Mouse" degrees - a description coined by Margaret Hodge when she was Higher Education Minister - are costing the British taxpayer £40m a year.

Researchers for the Taxpayers' Alliance found that more than 400 "lightweight" courses are on offer at 91 educational institutions even though Ministers had vowed to outlaw them. They cited cases such as Aromatherapy and Therapeutic Bodywork at the University of Greenwich, and Martial Arts and Adventure Tourism at the University of Derby, and judged them to be intellectually lacking and inferior to on-the-job training.

The universities under attack have defended their courses, as they would.

There is a degree of academic snobbery, to be sure. And there will be plenty of excellent tutors preparing Power-points and plenty of happy students doing their holiday reading right now.

However, the vocational bent of such programmes raises false hopes that employment will be guaranteed on graduation.

Their existence does nothing to promote respect for "soft" courses such as media or marketing which end up being lumped under the "Mickey Mouse" label. I've sat in tough validation meetings to set up such qualifications, and I can assure you that they are anything but.

Daft degrees distract funding and student numbers from rigorous degree courses such as chemistry and physics, which are closing in worrying numbers.

And ultimately, the existence of "easy" degrees encourages the wrong-headed assumption that there is a degree for everyone, regardless of intellectual inclination or attitude.

The sooner the Prime Minister gets his head around that one, the better for the future of our education system.

Guardian: Pay-as-you-throw rubbish collection system wins support: Poll suggests 64% support tax rebate for recycling Tories warn schemes could lead to fly-tipping

Rebecca Smithers, Consumer affairs correspondent

Nearly two-thirds of householders in England say they are in favour of a "pay-as-you-throw" system of collecting their rubbish, the Local Government Association claimed yesterday.

Local council chiefs said their survey of 1,028 adults found 64% would support a variable charging system which would reward individuals who actively recycled their domestic waste by offering them a council tax rebate.

But the Conservatives warned that the three separate schemes outlined were fraught with administrative difficulty and would not lead to lower council tax bills, while there was also a danger that people would try to side-step the system by burning their rubbish and fly-tipping.

The UK produces more waste a head of population than many of its European counterparts and has one of the worst recycling rates. The LGA has outlined three schemes for cutting the amount of waste going into landfill: a sack-based system in which householders buy different sized pre-paid sacks for general household waste; a weight-based system where wheelie bins are fitted with chips to allow the bins to be weighed when they are loaded on to the vehicle; and a volume-based system in which households choose from a range of wheelie bin sizes, and are charged accordingly.

The LGA said similar schemes elsewhere in Europe had been successful, leading to much higher recycling rates. Its survey comes in response to the government's Waste Strategy for England 2007, which set out how bin charges would work.

Paul Bettison, chairman of the LGA's environment board, said: "If councils introduce save-as-you-throw schemes it will be to promote recycling, not generate extra cash through an extra stealth tax. There is now strong public support for schemes that reward people for recycling and councils should be given the power to introduce these where appropriate."

But the shadow communities secretary, Eric Pickles, said: "Under the government's plans for bin taxes there will be no reduction in council tax. The overall burden of taxation will rise so householders will pay more. Labour ministers have already been warned that bin taxes will lead to a huge increase in fly-tipping and backyard burning. The government's half-baked plans wouldn't add up to a green measure - they are simply another stealth tax."

Michael Warhust, senior waste campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: "Friends of the Earth supports initiatives that reward people who recycle, but councils need to ensure that everyone has access to a good roadside recycling service with a weekly food waste collection."

Blair Gibbs, campaign director of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "Past experience of rising council tax, alongside the introduction of parking charges in the 90s, gives the public good reason to distrust promises that pay-as-you-throw will mean lower council tax."

Daily Express: Green bin fees 'just one more tax on families'

By Alison Little

FEARS rose yesterday that "pay-as-you-throw'' rubbish collection fees will become a new stealth tax on hard-pressed families.

The concerns grew after council leaders set out a list of possible ways to levy charges.

Pre-paid rubbish bags and wheelie bins fitted with microchips to weigh garbage were among the options for making householders pay for what they put out.

The Local Government Association, which represents councils, insisted the proposals were aimed at cutting waste and promoting recycling.

It denied that what it dubbed "save as you throw'' proposals would be used as a stealth tax to raise extra cash.

But Blair Gibbs, campaign director of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "Past experience of rising council tax, alongside the introduction of parking charges in the 90s, gives the public good reason to distrust promises that pay-as-you-throw will mean lower council tax.

"Parking charges have become a stealth tax enabling councils to raise extra revenue, and there is every danger that bin charges will go the same way.

"People may be prepared to accept variable charging as an issue of fairness, but cuts in council tax would have to be in the order of £20 a month to justify charging, and no current proposals from the Government guarantee that council tax will be reduced at that level to compensate.

"Families have never paid so much council tax and when asked if they'd like charges on top of council tax - as is likely to happen - they give a very different response.'' Dr Michael Warhust, senior waste campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: "We support initiatives which reward people who recycle, but councils need to ensure that everyone has access to a good roadside recycling service with a weekly food waste collection.'' The LGA outlined three schemes it said councils could use to reduce the amount of rubbish that residents threw out for disposal in landfill sites.

Householders could pay for differently sized rubbish sacks, or have microchips in wheelie bins to weigh waste as it is loaded on to refuse trucks. Residents would then be billed for what they put out.

The third option would be to let householders choose the size of wheelie bin they use, based on how much rubbish they thought they would put out, and be charged accordingly.

The LGA said any scheme would depend on local circumstances and need residents' backing.

It warned that taxpayers would bear the brunt of fines of up to £3billion which will be imposed on councils over the next four years if they do not meet EU targets for cutting the waste going into landfill.

It said a survey by Ipsos Mori had found that 38 per cent of people strongly supported a system in which they would pay lower council tax while being charged directly for the amount of rubbish they generated. A further 26 per cent said they "tended to support'' proposals under which the more they recycled, the less they would pay.

But Shadow Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said:

"Under the Government plans for bin taxes there will be no reduction in council tax. The overall burden of taxation will rise so householders will pay more.

"Labour ministers have already been warned that bin taxes will lead to a huge increase in fly-tipping and backyard burning.

"There is more than a whiff of desperation with their bin tax plans if they need to rely on loaded questions.

"The Government's half-baked plans wouldn't add up to a green measure - they are simply another stealth tax.''

Newsquest Media Group Newspapers: Councillor defends £42,000 earnings

A TAXPAYERS' group has reacted with anger after it emerged that a Barnoldswick county, district and town councillor earned more than £42,000 from allowances last year.

As leader of the Liberal Democrat opposition on Lancashire County Council, David Whipp earns a bonus of more than £10,000 on top of the standard councillor's pay, making a total of £22,450.

Next year, that bonus will rise to more than £17,000.

Coun Whipp, who lives in Barnoldswick, also serves on the Lancashire Police Authority, earning him an extra £14,750 and, as Pendle Borough Council's executive member for resources, he rakes in £5,000 per year.

His income is more than two-and-a-half times that of the average councillor in Lancashire, but Coun Whipp said he represented good value for money and worked up to 100 hours a week for the community.

However, Blair Gibbs, a director of the campaign group Taxpayers Alliance, said: "It has become far too easy for some people to carve out quite a lucrative career in local government and all at council taxpayers' expense. Town halls are spending too much money and big allowances for elected members are part of the problem.

"Councils used to attract those who were committed to their community and would volunteer out of a sense of civic duty. Now there are far too many just accumulating as many posts as they can and raking in the expenses."

Former Barnoldswick Town Council chairman, Jenny Purcell, said the money for members should be more evenly spread between authorities.

"Town councillors do just as much and we barely get any help towards it," she said.

"When I was chairman I had a maximum expense limit of £100. Phone calls alone for council business cost more than that. But it seems to me there are a lot of double standards - £42,000 is pretty steep."

But Coun Whipp defended his payments, saying he worked an average 70-hour week. He said he sometimes spent more than 100 hours a week on council business, including almost every evening. He had also endured threatening phone calls and assaults, as well as being admitted to hospital through illness from stress as a result of the job.

Coun Whipp added: "I work hard to provide good value for the money I get from my public duties. I am a councillor to make a difference, not to make money.

"I must be doing something right. I've stood for election, and won, 21 times in the 27 years I've been a councillor.

"I confess that my public work is virtually my whole life. I'm proud as an ordinary guy who left school at 16 with no qualifications that I can operate at the top levels of local government in the county. And, of course, it's open to anyone to have a go and do the same - we live in a democracy."

Coun Whipp said he tended to shun job "perks" like cheap meals and hospitality and the only expenses he claimed were a fraction of his travelling and childcare costs.

"As a senior councillor I am responsible for the oversight of hundreds of millions of public money. I've more responsibilities and influence over local services than an MP and do it at a fraction of the cost. I've certainly made more savings for the public purse than I've cost it," said Coun Whipp.

"The standard allowances are fixed by an independent panel and if I wasn't doing the jobs someone else would, probably less effectively, so there wouldn't be any saving."

Labour councillor and the county council's cabinet member for sustainable development, Coun Tony Martin, often a critic of Coun Whipp, also defended the allowances.

He said: "The easiest answer in the world is to go back and say let's not pay councillors anything at all, but if you do that you return to a situation where no-one can afford to be a councillor except the landed gentry.

"Considering the amount of work involved in being a full-time councillor, and the fact that maximum job security is only four years, I think it's about right."

Gazeta Wyborcza: Brytyjskie śmietniki będą ważyć odpadki?

kar, PAP

Brytyjski związek samorządów lokalnych (LGA) przedstawił w środę projekt wyposażenia koszy w mikroczipy, które obliczałyby, ile dane gospodarstwo domowe ma zapłacić za śmieci.

LGA zaproponował także "system worków", w ramach którego gospodarstwa domowe miałyby płacić z góry za worki na śmieci. Torby mają mieć różne rozmiary i różne ceny tak, aby Brytyjczycy mogli wybrać odpowiednią wielkość i nie "przepłacali" za wywóz odpadów.

Pomysły samorządowców zrodziły się po tym, jak ankieta przeprowadzona przez LGA wśród 1028 osób wykazała, że ponad dwie trzecie Brytyjczyków popiera wprowadzenie systemu "ile wyrzucasz, tyle płać" w zamian za ulgę w podatku od nieruchomości (council tax). Tylko jedna na pięć osób zdecydowanie sprzeciwiła się nowemu projektowi.

- Jeśli samorządy wprowadzą system "ile wyrzucasz, tyle płać", będzie to promocja recyklingu, a nie próba podstępnego wprowadzenia nowego podatku - powiedział przewodniczący rady ds. środowiska w LGA, Paul Bettison.

Jednak grupa lobbingowa stowarzyszenia podatników (Taxpayers' Alliance) ma pewne wątpliwości. "Ludzie prawdopodobnie zaakceptują zróżnicowane opłaty za wywóz śmieci, jednak ulgi podatkowe musiałyby być na poziomie 20 funtów miesięcznie, by wprowadzenie nowego systemu było opłacalne dla Brytyjczyków" - poinformowała grupa w oświadczeniu.

Bettison ostrzegł władze samorządowe, że jeśli ilość utylizowanych śmieci się nie zmniejszy, Wielkiej Brytanii grożą kary Unii Europejskiej w wysokości nawet 3 miliardów funtów (17 miliardów złotych).

Yorkshire Post: Degree subjects of derision - or just an educated choice?

A few years back there was a joke doing the rounds.   

"What do you say to a sociology graduate?"   

"Can I have a burger and fries, please."   

A decade ago a sociology degree was seen by many as a soft option that wasn't worth the paper it was written on.   

Now, it's equestrian psychology and golf management that are being dismissed as "Mickey Mouse" courses.   

Culture Minister Margaret Hodge coined this phrase while she was Higher Education Minister, saying students would not want to pay for worthless degrees once tuition fees were introduced.

But the controversy surrounding these supposedly soft options hasn't gone away.   

The TaxPayers' Alliance, a group campaigning for lower taxes, said in a recent report that more than 400 "non-courses" were costing the public £40m a year.

At the top of its hitlist was outdoor adventure with philosophy, at Marjon, the College of St Mark and St John in Plymouth, while others included fashion buying at Manchester Metropolitan University and golf management at UHI Millennium Institute in Inverness.

A degree was once seen as a passport to a high-flying career that came with a salary to match, showing prospective employers you had attained a certain academic standard.

But with more graduates flooding the marketplace in recent years, there are fears these standards are dropping, and the finger is being pointed at the increasing number of new courses popping up.

Jenny Ungless, director at City Life Coaching, which offers career advice to young professionals, claims the Government's target of getting 50 per cent of young people to university is one of the problems.

"There's a mindset that if you want a successful career you have to go to university, yet quite often the career a student wants doesn't require them to have a degree.

"However, there are a lot of courses which aren't traditional ones, but which equip you for the job you want to do like landscape gardening, or golf management and they are completely legitimate."

But do these kind of vocational courses warrant university degrees?   

"They're fine as long as the courses do what they say on the tin, so if you're training to be a fashion buyer you are equipped to go straight into the job," she says.

"From the point of view of employers there is concern that the quality of applicants is slipping, but this is not because more people are taking softer options but because basic maths and English standards have dropped."

Recent figures show the typical graduate is likely to rack up about £20,000 of debt and Mrs Ungless, a classics graduate from Cambridge University, rejects the idea that some courses are a waste of taxpayers' money.

"There is some cost to the taxpayer but there's a huge cost to the individuals who are planning to go to university," she says.

"Someone can go to Oxford University and study law but if they don't end up being a lawyer you can argue that's a waste of taxpayers' money.

"I think there's a lot of hypocrisy and snobbery surrounding this issue."   

Philip Parkin, general secretary of the Professional Association of Teachers (PAT), believes university degrees are more important than ever.

"We are much more degree orientated now and the number of low-skilled jobs is reducing, which means that degrees are becoming essential," he says.

"There's a question whether some courses do have the academic rigour that is required and some new universities are trying to do eye-catching courses in the hope of increasing their numbers and I think filling places sometimes overrides the academic rigour.

"Do we need as many media studies graduates as we are producing? I suspect we don't."   

He would like to see university courses more closely tailored to Britain's economic needs.   

"New courses need to be developed all the time in areas like electronic communications.   

"But they need to have the required academic rigour and if they don't have that they should be HNDs, because you have to retain the value of having a degree."

There are those who believe a degree from anywhere other than Oxbridge or one of the Russell Group universities is somehow inferior. But they are missing the point. More than 60 per cent of graduate jobs advertised don't require a degree in any particular discipline. Britain's economic needs are changing all the time and it can be said that universities are simply reacting to demand and one person's "Mickey Mouse" course is another person's specialist degree.

Take James Rodgers who studied Computer Animation and Special Effects at Bradford University last year.   

The 21 year-old Rotherham graduate won the Royal Television Society award for the best student animation in Yorkshire and went on to get a job working at Red Star Studios in Sheffield.

Perhaps those who dismiss new-fangled "Mickey Mouse" courses might want to consider that Mickey Mouse was created 80 years ago and is still one of the most recognisable symbols in the world.

Birmingham Post: Save-as-you-throw... or will you?

By Emily Beament   

Pre-paid waste sacks and wheelie bins with microchips could be introduced to make householders pay for their rubbish under plans outlined by council leaders yesterday.

People could also be charged according to the size of the wheelie bin they choose to use, in Local Government Association proposals to cut waste and encourage more recycling.

But the LGA insisted the "save as you throw" proposals would not be a stealth tax to raise extra cash for councils.   

The association outlined three different schemes which councils in England could use to cut the amount of rubbish residents throw away.

The first would be a system in which householders buy different sized pre-paid rubbish sacks - a scheme which could be used in urban areas where wheelie bins are not always practical.

The second would be the use of microchips in wheelie bins which would allow the amount of rubbish to be weighed as it was loaded on to the refuse truck. Residents would then be billed for the amount of waste they created.

The third option for councils would be a scheme in which householders choose the size of the wheelie bin they use, based on how much rubbish they think they will generate, and are charged accordingly.

The LGA said any scheme a council introduced would be dependent on local circumstances and have to be supported by residents.   

But the association warned taxpayers would bear the brunt of fines of up to £3 billion which will be imposed on councils over the next four years if they did not meet European targets for reducing the amount of waste which ends up in landfill.

And it said a survey carried out by Ipsos Mori found 38 per cent of people strongly supported a system in which they paid a reduced council tax rate and were charged directly for the rubbish they produced.

The poll of 1,028 British adults found that a further 26 per cent "tend to support" the proposals, which would mean the more they recycled the less they paid.

Coun Paul Bettison, chairman of the LGA's environment board said: "If councils introduce save-as-you-throw schemes it will be to promote recycling, not generate extra cash through an extra stealth tax.

"The unfortunate reality is that we must do more to reduce the amount of waste being thrown into landfill. There is now strong public support for schemes that reward people for recycling and councils should be given the power to introduce these where appropriate.

"Evidence from the continent shows "save-as-you-throw" schemes can reduce waste and boost recycling."   

The schemes would require Government legislation before they could be implemented and could be introduced by around 2009/10, the LGA said.

The latest plans to boost recycling and cut waste come after criticism earlier this year of councils alternating rubbish and recycling collections fortnightly.

The Government defended the alternate collections against concerns that they encourage rats and disease and said councils which had introduced them had much higher recycling rates.

Blair Gibbs, campaign director of the TaxPayers' Alliance said: "Past experience of rising council tax, alongside the introduction of parking charges, gives the public good reason to distrust promises that pay-as-you-throw will mean lower council tax.

"Parking charges have become a stealth tax and there is every danger that bin charges will go the same way."   

Shadow Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said: "The Government's half-baked plans wouldn't add up to a green measure - they are another stealth tax."

Dr Michael Warhust, of Friends of the Earth, said: "Friends of the Earth supports initiatives that reward people who recycle, but councils need to ensure that everyone has a good roadside recycling service with a weekly food waste collection."

Daily Telegraph: Boris Johnson: 'Mickey Mouse' degrees are just the job for earning a buck

OK then, let's have a good snigger. Let's all look at the list of these so-called degrees, and sneer at the pathetic delusions of the students who are taking them. In the saloon bars of England, it is by now a settled conviction that the university system is riddled with a kind of intellectual dry rot, and it is called the Mickey Mouse degree.

Up and down the country - so we are told - there are hundreds of thousands of dur-brained kids sitting for three years in an alcoholic or cannabis-fuelled stupor while theoretically attending a former technical college that is so pretentious as to call itself a university.

After three years of taxpayer-funded debauch, these young people will graduate, and then the poor saps will enter the workplace with an academic qualification that is about as valuable as membership of the Desperate Dan Pie Eaters' Club, and about as intellectually distinguished as a third-place rosette in a terrier show. It is called a Degree, and in the view of saloon bar man, it is a con, a scam, and a disgrace.

Kids these days! says our man with the pint of Stella, slapping The Daily Telegraph on the bar. Look at the rubbish they study! 'Ere, he says, finding an account of the recent investigation by the Taxpayers' Alliance, which has compiled a list of the 401 "non-courses'' being offered by our universities.   

In a satirically portentous tone he reads out the brochure of Marjon College in Plymouth, which really is offering a three-year BA (Hons) degree in Outdoor Adventure With Philosophy.

Yes, he says with incredulous sarcasm, the dons at Marjon College give instruction in the ancient discipline of Outdoor Adventure by examining its "underpinning philosophy, historical antecedents, significant influences, environmental and sustainable aspects and current trends''; and just in case you thought that wasn't quite rigorous enough, they guarantee that "the modules will include elements such as journeys, environmental management, creative indoor study and spirituality''.

Absurd! cries saloon bar man, and then jabs his finger at yet greater absurdities: a course at the University of Glamorgan in "Science: Fiction and Culture''; and get this - the Welsh College of Horticulture is offering anyone with four Cs at GCSE the chance to study for an Honours degree in "Equestrian Psychology''! It's a degree in horse whispering! he says. It's bonkers.

Why, he asks rhetorically, are we paying for students to waste their time on these Mickey Mouse courses, when it is perfectly obvious what they should be doing. Trades! Skills! Craft! This country doesn't need more bleeding degrees in media studies and whispering into horses' ears! What we need is people who can fix my septic tank! We need more plumbers,'' he raves, and it's not just because he resents paying so much for his Polish plumber; it's because the whole university business is - in his view - such a cruel deception on so many young people. They rack up an average of pounds 13,000 of debt for some noddy qualification, when they would have been far better off getting stuck into a job after leaving school and engaging in an old-fashioned apprenticeship.

That's what he thinks; and that, I bet, is not a million miles from the view of many eminent readers.   

And yet I have to say that this view of higher education - pandemic in Middle Britain - is hypocritical, patronising and wrong. I say boo to the Taxpayers' Alliance, and up with Mickey Mouse courses, and here's why.   

The saloon bar view is hypocritical, in the sense that it is always worth interrogating the saloon bar critics about their aspirations for their own children or grandchildren. Would they like them to have degrees? Or would they like them to have some kind of explicitly vocational training?

It is notable how often a critic of university expansion is still keen for his or her own children to go there, while a vocational qualification is viewed as an excellent option for someone else's children.

It is patronising, in that you really can't tell, just by reading a course title, whether it is any good or not, and whether it will be of any intellectual or financial benefit to the student.

The other day my normally humane and reasonable colleague Andrew O'Hagan paraded the idea of a degree in "Artificial Intelligence'', as though it were intrinsically risible, and for 20 years we have all been scoffing at degrees in "media studies''.

But AI is one of the most potentially interesting growth areas in computer science; and the truth about Media Studies is that its graduates have very high rates of employment and remuneration.

Of course there are mistakes, and of course there are a great many students who drop out,   

get depressed, or feel they   

have done the wrong thing with their lives.   

But the final judge of the value of a degree is the market, and in spite of all the expansion it is still the case that university graduates have a big salary premium over non-graduates. The market is working more efficiently now that students have a direct financial stake in the matter, a financial risk, and an incentive not to waste their time on a course that no employer will value.

It is ridiculous for these saloon-bar critics to denounce "Mickey Mouse'' degrees, and say that the students would be better off doing vocational courses - when the whole point is that these degrees are very largely vocational.

We can laugh at degrees in Aromatherapy and Equine Science, but they are just as vocational as degrees in Law or Medicine, except that they are tailored to the enormous expansion of the service economy.

It is rubbish to claim that these odd-sounding courses are somehow devaluing the Great British Degree. Everyone knows that a First Class degree in Physics from Cambridge is not the same as a First in Equine Management from the University of Lincoln, and the real scandal is that they both cost the student the same.

There again, who is to say where a Mickey Mouse course may lead?   

The last time I looked,  Disney had revenues of 33 billion dollars a year - and if any university offered a course in   

the Life and Works of Mickey Mouse, I wouldn't blame them in the least.   

Boris Johnson is MP for Henley   

Birmingham Post: Letter: An appalling record of mismanagement

By Derek Johnson

NHS

Dear Editor, It is about time that Steve McCabe MP and the Labour Party realised that they do not have a monopoly on matters affecting the National Health Service. His tired old inaccurate mantra that the "nasty Tories" starved the NHS of funds when they were last in power does absolutely nothing to allay the concerns of those worried about the future of the City Hospital. In fact, Mr McCabe would do well to remember that it has been the Conservative councillor and Parliamentary spokesman for Edgbaston, Deirdre Alden, who has long been at the forefront of the campaign to preserve A & E services on the site.

Therefore, although Emma Brady in

her background article was correct in highlighting the fact that there was nothing new in David Cameron's assertion that district hospitals are under threat from the Government's reforms (Post, Aug. 21), Mr Cameron was fully entitled to promise it a "bare-knuckled fight" over what he sees as the Government's failure to provide the public with value for money from the NHS.

As a taxpayer, I am extremely annoyed that the record sums of money pumped into the NHS since 1997 has not translated itself into a better service

for patients. The postcode rationing of drugs, the longest GP waiting times in history, and the failure to ensure that superbugs such as MRSA do not take hold in hospital wards, have all been recurrent themes throughout this government's stewardship of the NHS. These failures, added to the recent administrative calamity of the botched implementation of the junior doctor centralised recruitment system, and as recently highlighted by the Taxpayers' Alliance, the £336 million cost overrun in the building of Birmingham's University Hospital all constitute an appalling record of mismanagement by the government.

If he wishes, the uber-loyalist Mr McCabe can maintain his complacency over the problems in the NHS and continue to hark back to a tired old script of twenty years ago. Meanwhile, the hard-pressed patient and taxpayer wants to know why the government has failed and what it intends to do to improve the health service.

David Cameron and the Conservatives may not have all the answers about healthcare, but they have a duty to hold the Government to account on the public's behalf.

They should be heard with respect, despite what Steve McCabe may think.

DEREK JOHNSON Birmingham

Daily Mail: Benefits Bill For Migrants Hits £125m

BY JAMES SLACK HOME AFFAIRS EDITOR

BENEFIT claims by Eastern Europeans have almost trebled in the past year, official figures show.

The cost of the payouts - to almost 112,000 migrants - is put at £125million a year.

The Home Office figures mean that one in six of an estimated 683,000 Eastern European incomers is living off the state to some extent.

A year ago, only 42,620 were claiming benefits.

Critics say that the welfare bill will rise further because 700 more migrants arrive every day from former Soviet Bloc states.

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: 'The number of migrants arriving from the new member states has increased by almost 60,000 in the latest quarter alone and now the total is close to 700,000.

'This blows out of the water the Government's woefully complacent estimate that a maximum of just 13,000 migrants a year would arrive from these countries and reinforces our calls for tougher restrictions on those entering from Romania and Bulgaria.

'Labour need to realise that immigration can be of real benefit to this country but only if it is properly controlled, with its impact on the economy, public services and social cohesion taken into account. Sadly, this is still not the case.'

Ministers insist that most migrants are young men with no interest in state handouts.

But the official figures show that 111,908 East Europeans are receiving tax credits, child support and other payments.

The 160 per cent growth in claims can be explained by the Government's decision to lift a block on income-related payouts.

Once a migrant has been working here for 12 months, they are entitled to the same level of support as any British citizen.

Many Poles are drawn by generous handouts for parents who, in some cases, can claim benefits for children who remain in their homeland.

Others have decided to settle here

with their families. Eastern Europeans have made 3,538 successful applications for income support and jobseeker's allowance. Both are worth £57.45 a week.

Some 68,927 are receiving child benefit and another 38,578 are claiming tax credits that can reach £5,200 a year.

Support with housing goes to 803 Eastern Europeans.

The figures cover all claims from May 2004 to May this year.

Blair Gibbs, of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: 'Migrants who come here should work and pay taxes but mass immigration is having a direct financial cost on British taxpayers because there are not tight enough rules on claiming benefits.

' Taxpayers don't want new migrants arriving here and being able to depend on benefits instead of working.'

Sir Andrew Green, of Migrationwatch, said the figures exposed the 'reality' of mass migration.

'The real message is that the mass inflow of immigrants from East European countries continues at over 500 a day,' he said. 'This is placinga huge strain on our infrastructure. For example, one million of Gordon Brown's new houses will be needed just for new immigrants.

'It is vital that there should now be an annual limit on immigration as three quarters of the public would like to see.'

A Home Office spokesman said: 'We should not be surprised that applications for child benefit and

tax credits have increased as the stock of A8 [Eastern European] nationals in the United Kingdom has increased.

'Some may have formed families since they arrived while others have brought their families over to the UK after starting work here.

'However, we will continue to ensure that only the valid applications are approved - the proportion of applications rejected has increased. Provided A8 nationals have a right to reside and meet all the other relevant conditions of eligibility, then they are entitled to tax credits and child benefit, just like other claimants.

'As workers, A8 nationals are of course liable to tax and national insurance contributions on their earnings and are therefore contributing to the Exchequer.'

The figures do not cover any claims made by Romanians and Bulgarians - whose countries joined the EU in January.

They can enter Britain only on visas and have limited working rights.

Home Office Minister Tony McNulty said yesterday that the restrictions were under review.

Yesterday's figures also show that the number of failed asylum seekers living in Britain is increasing.

Although 450,000 were scheduled for deportation, officials managed to kick out only 18,280 last year.

At the same time, 20 , 700 more failed asylum seekers joined the list.

BBC News: University 'non-courses' attacked

A report from the Taxpayers' Alliance highlighted 401 such courses starting this autumn in the UK, which it said cost £40m a year to run.

But the vice-chancellors' organisation Universities UK accused it of a "rag bag of prejudices".

It said courses were over-subscribed and graduates much in demand.

The TaxPayers' Alliance report said the courses "lend the respectability of scholarly qualifications to non-academic subjects".

The training they offered would be better learned on the job, it suggested.

The report had a "top five" of target courses:

   1. Outdoor adventure with philosophy, at Marjon, the College of St Mark and St John in Plymouth
   2. Science: fiction and culture, at the University of Glamorgan
   3. Equestrian psychology, at the Welsh College of Horticulture in Mold, Flintshire
   4. Fashion buying, at Manchester Metropolitan University
   5. Golf management, at UHI Millennium Institute, based in Inverness.

Author Peter Cuthbertson said: "Political priorities have led to a never-ending drive to increase the number of students in university.

"As a result, there has been a massive expansion of 'non-degrees' of little or no academic merit.

"The government has failed in its pledge to abolish 'Mickey Mouse' degrees.

"If 'non-courses' were abolished, all the other students could save over £100 on their tuition fees or buy an extra pint of beer a week."

Demand from employers

But Universities UK said the alliance had failed to understand developments in higher education or the labour market.

"Had they done a little more research, they would have found that these so-called 'non-courses' are in fact based on demand from employers and developed in association with them," a spokesman said.

"Graduates on these courses are in demand from employers who are looking for people with specific skills alongside the general skills acquired during a degree such as critical-thinking, team-working, time-management and IT skills - a point lost on the authors of this rag-bag of prejudices and outdated assumptions.

"Students know this - which is why these courses are often over-subscribed and have high employability rates."

He said golf management - one of the courses derided by the alliance - involved business, management and accounting as well as practical experience at golf courses.

"This is academic snobbery, as predictable as it is unfounded."

Daily Express: The degree of stupidity

By Gabriel Milland

PARENTS, students and taxpayers are wasting millions on degree courses in “non-subjects” like horse psychology, claim critics.

Campaigners say students are being tempted by non-academic subjects that leave them in debt and floundering in the job market.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance said yesterday it had found 401 “non-courses” at 97 universities.

They include golf management – the prospectus promises “field trips to St Andrews and Carnoustie – martial arts, adventure tourism and watersports.

The alliance says that based on an average subsidy of £5,790, taxpayers face an annual bill of £13million for such courses.

Corin Taylor, of the alliance, said: “University degrees lend the respectability of scholarly qualification to non-academic subjects. In the worst cases they do not provide intellectual stimulation or better job prospects.”

The expansion in “non-courses” comes despite a promise in 2003 by Margaret Hodge, then higher education minister, to end “Mickey Mouse courses.” With Labour determined to get 50 per cent of school leavers into higher education, there is pressure to recruit students.

But Professor John Coyne, vice-chancellor of the University of Derby, which topped the list for “non-courses”, said: “The definition of a ‘non-course’ is seriously flawed. Those graduating in many of the subjects listed enjoy 100 per cent employment, according to our statistics.”

Daily Express: Graduates go all Goofy

MILLIONS of pounds are being wasted on university courses of no value, says the Taxpayers' Alliance.  They're often described as Mickey Mouse courses.  But we say they're just plain Goofy.

The Sun: Daft Degrees

EMPLOYERS look for many skills and qualifications when hiring a candidate.

A degree in Outdoor Adventure with Philosophy isn’t likely to be one.

The Government’s obsession with sending half of all youngsters to university has led to an explosion in these “Mickey Mouse” courses.

Many would be better off on a vocational course learning a trade.

What’s the point of colleges churning out youngsters with useless degrees when you can’t find a decent plumber these days?

Times: News in Brief

Money is ‘wasted’ on vocational degrees

A class war broke out in the university world yesterday after a report derided the new generation of vocational degrees, such as golf and equine dentistry, as “non-courses” (Alexandra Frean writes).

The TaxPayers’ Alliance, a group campaigning for lower taxes, claimed that the 401 such “noncourses” in the country cost the public £40 million a year. The group said that the training offered by these “Mickey Mouse” courses would be better learnt on the job.

Universities UK, representing vice-chancellors, said that the courses were based on demand from employers, and accused the group of “academic snobbery”.

Among the degrees on the group’s list is Outdoor Adventure with Philosophy, taught at a college in Plymouth.

METRO: Universities in row on 'non-courses'

A ROW has erupted over so-called 'Mickey Mouse' university degrees in subjects such as equestrian psychology and golf management.  The TaxPayers' Alliance - a group set up to campaign for lower taxes - said the 401 such 'non-courses' cost the public £40 million a year.  But university leaders hit back, accusing the group of 'academic snobbery' and failing to recognise how the job markets have changed.  They said the courses appealed to employers looking for specific skills and were often over-subscribed.  The alliance's five top 'non-courses' also included outdoor adventure with philosophy, fashion buying and science: fiction and culture.

The Sun: £40m uni 'waste' on daft exams

By DAVID WOODING

UNIVERSITIES were slammed yesterday for blowing £40million every year on Mickey Mouse degrees.

A record 2,500 students have signed up for courses such as fashion buying and model-making.

Critics say the taxpayers’ cash, enough to chop £100 off every other student’s tuition fees, would be better spent on academia or on-job training.

The course branded most ludicrous is outdoor adventure with philosophy at Plymouth’s Marjon College.

Others include therapeutic bodywork (Greenwich), lifestyle management (Leeds Metropolitan), visitor attractions (Blackpool College) and science-fiction and culture (Glamorgan).

The list of daft degrees has been compiled by anti-waste group the Taxpayers’ Alliance.

Spokesman Peter Cuthbertson blamed the explosion of “non-courses” on Labour’s push for higher education.

A total of 91 unis are offering 401 such degrees — as firms complain about new employees being unable to read, write or add properly.

Universities UK — their umbrella group — accused critics of “academic snobbery”.

Daily Mail: £40 m waste of the 'Mickey Mouse' degrees

"Mickey Mouse" university degrees are costing taxpayers more than £40million a year, a report said yesterday.

Researchers found more than 400 lightweight courses on offer at 91 different educational institutions.

In each case, the subject matter was judged intellectually threadbare and inferior to on-the-job training.

Ministers had promised that soft courses would be driven out of universities.

But the report from the Taxpayers' Alliance suggests they are becoming even more common.

The pressure group singled out as especially useless a course called "outdoor adventure with philosophy".

Offered by Marjon College in Plymouth, it features "journeys, environmental management, creative outdoor study and spirituality".

The alliance criticised the University of Glamorgan for a degree course examining "complementary strands of science, science fiction and culture" while the Welsh College of Horticulture was lambasted for offering a BSc in "equestrian psychology".

Researchers said the courses failed to give students a proper education or training.

The alliance said £40million saved from scrapping lightweight degrees would cut tuition fees by more than £100 per student per year.

It said the University of Derby offered 41 "non-courses" - studies that could be taught on the job and demand no academic scholarship.

Peter Cuthbertson, who wrote the report, said: "Political priorities have led to a never-ending drive to increase the number of students in university.

"As a result, there has been a massive expansion of