What government spending would you PROTECT? Poll discussion

Broadwood

I accept cuts have to be made, but why not try a policy whereby jobs are protected but hours are cut evenly across the board instead.

This way everyone feels a bit of pain without winners and losers. Money is also saved by not paying benefits to those who would otherwise have been made redundant.

I have first-hand experience of this method having been a casual employee for the last 5 years since taking voluntary redundancy.

I have got by on 4 days a week without too much struggle. I pay slightly less tax and N.I. than I used to and maybe have cut back on some luxuries, but all in all I am far happier with the resulting work/life balance. There is a massive difference between working 5 with only 2 off, and as I do now working only 4 with 3 days off each week.

We really do need to share the available work around. Give everybody some paid work and ban all overtime. Sit back and take a look at where we are and why. It's all down to GREED.

buckrogers

here we go again,attacks on elderly/children and create more unemployed,remember maggie the milk snatcher,same old tories,all you people who voted for them must have very short memories,well youve made your point now suffer.

PrinceGaz

I would have voted 'None' if the option were available as I believe every department should be examined to see what can be saved. As it was I was torn between Transport (but only if it were rail) and the Environment as they both cost relatively little already and investment in the new high-speed rail line (HS2) would be both environmentally friendly and stimulate economic growth, so it would probably pay for itself not too far into the future.

Mary_Hartnell

BLT wrote: »

I'm still trying to work out why we give 12 billion pounds in aid to overseas when most of them are over here anyway.

and the remittances they send to their families almost certainly exceed the money that our government takes from us and gives to their dodgy governments or NGO's, to ride about in white Land Cruisers.
The most depressing scene I can remember was an African journalist asking a room full of East African graduates how they saw their career:

Who wants to go into business?
[10% of the room raises a hand]
Get a job with a NGO?
[Forest of hands went up]

no1riggie

feedme wrote: »

Lets ay each manager has 10 people under them

1 manager = £60k 10 workers @£15k ea = £150k

If you had 4 managers (£240k) you would have 40 workers (£600k) if each manager lost 4 workers you would loose 16 workers in total and save £240k and each manager would be left with 6 people under them. You can now afford to loose 1 or 2 managers (lets say 2) and save another £120k.

So the ratio of workers lost to managers lost is 8:1 or, if in this example you only lost one manager, the ratio would be 16:1 so it seems like the managers are getting away with it but actually it's just there's far fewer of them.

I see where you're coming from, and I guess in most cases that it's true. However I work in Local Goverment ICT in a team with 9 staff. Of that 3 are managers earning approximately £35000-£40000. My employers regularly restructure the organisation, but every time they stir the pot, the result seems to be more managers and fewer people who actually do any work!! Oh, and guess who gets all the training!!!

Rainbow_Liberty

spencer88 wrote: »

£171bn for benefits and pensions!

That should be the first to take a cut, get people back out working, or offer them minimum benefits.

Easy to say if your capable of working, not everybody is and they should not be penalised or made to live on the poverty line. Some people have been dealt bad hands in life, we don't have to make it worse for them.

As for overseas aid, I always thought Charity begins at home, we should therefore look after our own first and if we have any extra then we can help others. We can't give what we haven't got and it we are in debt then we obviously HAVEN'T GOT it to give away. No brainer to me.

ziggy333

BLT wrote: »

I'm still trying to work out why we give 12 billion pounds in aid to overseas

It indeed should be reduced to £0


We also need the benefit system sorted out so that certain young single women dont make a career out of having babies with multiple fathers. topping up the babies when needed to get maximum cash and bigger free houses!!!

Mary_Hartnell

The answer is "lots" and all you have to do is keep the land in an agricultural condition - so having a paddock for your daughter's pony "earns" you (say) 100 GBP per year (extra payments are available for digging ponds, maintaining hedges and planting wild flowers.)

http://farmsubsidy.org/GB
As the subsidies are based on the land area and the owners ability to "work the system - farm the subsidies"
some deserving cases need a little extra:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tVqQ7GXJVylhbk_UriJsHtw&output=html

We are not even very good at dishing out the subsidies correctly
(What ever happened to the EU joke:
Hell The administration is run by the Italians.
Heaven The UK civil service run the administration.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/10270419.stm

I guess it needs updating now that the list of countries we subsidise has increased:

• Austria
• Belgium
• Bulgaria
• Cyprus
• Czech Republic
• Denmark
• Estonia
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Greece
• Hungary
• Ireland
• Italy
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Luxembourg
• Malta
• Netherlands
• Poland
• Portugal
• Romania
• Slovakia
• Slovenia
• Spain
• Sweden

CamClegg 5% cut in UK ministers salaries saves £180,000 a year. Cutting UK farm subsidies by 5% would save £180 million a year.

Gareth_Lazelle

krush500 wrote: »

How can anyone want to protect benefits. systematic fraud of the benefit system costs the most.

Surely the solution isn't (necessarily) to reduce benefits, but to chase the fraudsters?

You can't judge a system on the people that don't follow the rules...

You need to sort out enforcement and then judge it on the results for the people that do follow the rules,

Mary_Hartnell

Mary_Hartnell wrote: »

The answer is "lots" and all you have to do is keep the land in an agricultural condition - so having a paddock for your daughter's pony "earns" you (say) 100 GBP per year (extra payments are available for digging ponds, maintaining hedges and planting wild flowers.)

http://farmsubsidy.org/GB
As the subsidies are based on the land area and the owners ability to "work the system - farm the subsidies"
some deserving cases need a little extra:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tVqQ7GXJVylhbk_UriJsHtw&output=html

We are not even very good at dishing out the subsidies correctly
(What ever happened to the EU joke:
Hell The administration is run by the Italians.
Heaven The UK civil service run the administration.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/10270419.stm

I guess it needs updating now that the list of countries we subsidise has increased:

• Austria
• Belgium
• Bulgaria
• Cyprus
• Czech Republic
• Denmark
• Estonia
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Greece
• Hungary
• Ireland
• Italy
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Luxembourg
• Malta
• Netherlands
• Poland
• Portugal
• Romania
• Slovakia
• Slovenia
• Spain
• Sweden

CamClegg 5% cut in UK ministers salaries saves £180,000 a year. Cutting UK farm subsidies by 5% would save £180 million a year.

I've now made time to have a closer look at the table of payments.

It appears to be cumulative.
There are about 476,600 entities who have been paid a positive sum.
BUT some of these accounts are duplicated because the recipient is getting payments from more than one sub fund of the gravy train.

There seem to be a significant number of entities who have paid negative sums.
Some are obvious - "The executors of Farmer Giles" probably did not get his account closed fast enough to stop another payment being put into it and had to own up and repay the money.

Congratulations to Mellin J who got paid 0.1 Euro for rural development (But Mellin J also got 7,653.7 from another sub fund.:T
There is a large number of accounts re-paying next to nothing with the prefix RSC? Anyone any idea what this means?

Congratulations to "Milk Link" of Devon for returning 2,164,200, or should that be brickbats to the administrators who messed up the initial payment?

In all there are nearly half a million accounts listed - though I did not notice the Duchy of Cornwall anywhere.
I wonder what that costs just in administration expenses. It is said that the process can measure land as small as a sheet of paper.

Perhaps there is scope to link everything to Google Earth - so we can identify those people NOT claiming the subsidy.

Mary

In the millionaires table for Hungary there is an entry for E D & F Man Sugar LTD

http://ww2.prospects.ac.uk/cms/ShowPage/Home_page/Graduate_jobs/p!edcaefX?keyword=&action=showemployerdetails&id=20329&from=D

Now could that be the same company that left the Russians short of sugar, when the Soviet Empire collapsed?

At least they are bringing some of "our" money back to London?