Charlotte Linacre: On your bike for 20p a mile
Following the MPs' expenses scandal in 2009, we were vocal in highlighting the need for an overhaul to provide a better deal for taxpayers. The latest expense revelations pour fresh doubt on MPs’ priorities. While some have got the point, others are continuing to make bizarre claims.
Generally the scandalous claims have stopped or been rejected this time, but there were a surprising number of small pointless amounts being recorded. Lots of examples like: 54p for sugar, 20p for bicycle mileage, 84p for coffee. It indicates a worrying lack of common sense! For the time it takes to fill out the form it simply isn’t worth it. With a salary of £64,000 why wouldn’t they just use the loose change in their pocket and move on?
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Dominique Lazanski: Scrap the fibre tax
Today, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt announced the government’s plan to roll out broadband for everyone across the UK. Mr. Hunt said that in the next seven years £830m of public money will be made available and BT said that it will match any of this funding that it receives with its own investment. All of this is well and good in achieving the Coalition’s Government goal on broadband access, but a little known tax, called the Fibre Tax, is actually hampering investment from small to medium sized ISPs in fibre and technical infrastructure.
The Fibre Tax is a tax assessed by the Valuation Office Agency (VAO) on fibre deployment and ‘lighting’ – or the turning on of fibre so that it is ready to use.Companies have to pay in advance if they are hoping to set up smaller networks – even by renting lines from larger ISPs. Prior to this summer, it cost ISPs £200 for one fibre connection deployed over 2km. Now, it costs ISPs £850 for one connection over 1km and ten connections cost £4,400 over 1km. If you do the maths, an ISP that deploys or rents fibre over 100km, say, could pay up to £440,000 for ten connections. BT is exempt from this tax, however, as they are charged a flat fee based on incomes and revenues.
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Andrew Allison: Council pensions and the 'staff merry-go-round'
There are many people in Britain who are facing redundancy. Many do not know if they will still be working after Christmas. This is the economic reality, and they also know the redundancy payments they will receive will be at a minimum. Companies cannot afford to pay more as they struggle to stay in business. If you work in the public sector, however, it's completely difficult.
Hull City Council abolished the role of Head of Communications and Marketing in September last year, and the incumbent was earning a salary of £65,942. The redundancy payment they received was £109,576. As you can see, this is almost two years' salary. The argument the council uses is it saves a £66K salary and - eventually - Hull taxpayers will be better off. These type of high payouts go on all the time, but just over a year on, what has happened to this officer?
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Rory Meakin: High public spending means a decade of decline
Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has warned that the coming decade may be seen by history as a decade of decline for the West. In an interview with the Guardian he highlighted the rise of Asian economies and the West’s failure to rise to the challenges and opportunities that rise presents.
"If the story of the coming decade is not to become 'the decline of the West' then Europe and America have to change tack, rise to the biggest challenge of all – restructuring the world economy – and equip themselves to benefit from the next great global challenge – the dramatic rise in the consumer spending power of Asia."
Of course, Brown is right. Britain and the West in general are losing their competitiveness as emerging economies continue to liberalise and develop. But while he is right about the threat to British prosperity, he is wrong about why we are struggling to keep up and wrong about what we should do about it.
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Tim Newark: Rubbish garbage removal
Last Thursday, there was a flurry of snow on the streets of Bath. Thanks to the swift gritting of the roads in the centre of the city by the council, my wife could drive our children to school, the postman could deliver our mail and even the recycling truck could remove our food scraps, but, oh no, our black bags of rubbish remained unmoved.
When I phoned up the council on Friday to ask when they were going to remove our rubbish, I was given two contradictory pieces of advice within minutes of each other. Firstly, I was told I should leave my rubbish out on the off chance that it might be collected that day, but then I mustn’t do that because I would be fined for leaving my rubbish out on a non-pick-up day.
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