Since 2018 public expenditure has surged. This year we see government spending nearly £1.1 trillion, up by more than a quarter compared to the 2028-19 level. We need to ask what do we get for all this money? Where does it all go?
Each household this year will pay on average £35,000 in tax to receive on average £38,000 in government activity. The system is very redistributive so the higher earners contribute many times the value of the benefits they receive, and some pay more in total taxes than they get to spend on themselves and their families on everything else.
These huge sums are leading more and more people to question why the level and quality of services is in many cases so disappointing. As an MP running part of the extensive complaints system for government which is an important part of the job I am in receipt of too many justified complaints.
There is the Home Office, unable to process migration claims quickly and fairly to ensure illegals go back whilst those we welcome can soon adjust to their new lives and get a job. There is the failure to stop the people trafficking across the Channel, the failure to prevent protesters blocking main motorways for hours on end and delays in reporting on people’s suitability to undertake jobs with children and vulnerable people.
There is the Probate Office, unable to process the long and complex information they require in a timely way. This leads to difficult delays in sorting out a deceased person’s estate and can be very upsetting for the families involved.
There are the delays in getting a doctors appointment or treatment at a local hospital. During covid managers of the NHS failed to use all the capacity taxpayers were paying for in private hospitals when these extra beds were meant to be there for non covid cases. They closed down wards in state hospitals for fear of cross infection and did not use the Nightingale covid hospitals provided. .
There are delays at the Passport Office, impeding people from travelling owing to unreasonable delays in renewing passports.
There are delays in the granting a wide range of licences that individuals and businesses need. North Sea oil and gas production has been held up by a shortage of licences and delays in granting them.
The Transport Department grants cash to schemes that reduce the capacity of main roads, making like more difficult to get to work, cutting access for emergency services, and making it more difficult for supply trucks to the shops.
In most of these cases Ministers are keen to see improvements in service levels and have agreed large increases in cash to achieve this under the general 27% increase in 3 years in total spending. It is time for public sector managers to raise quality and efficiency across the board.
November 16, 2022
Agree completely. But when will anything happen to change the situation? Crime is also out of control. Driving standards on our roads are dangerously poor. Too much of the money allocated to tackling these problems never seems to actually be used effectively. Have a problem? Appoint a consultant at hugely inflated fees and waste the money on them so there is nothing left to actually tackle the problems. Why do we have officials in government if they cannot perceive the problems and solutions themselves- what are we getting for their salaries?
November 16, 2022
Yes, consultancies who come with a big price tag just to ‘state the bleeding obvious’ .
I’ve seen and paid the invoice presented to a firm I worked for in the private sector. All they did was present a flash looking dossier full of things most of the staff had been nudging management to do for improvements.
So I dread to think how much they’ve been making out of the public sector.
If the report I read regarding HS2 consultancies was only half right, then the sums for the work done are scandalous.
November 16, 2022
P A West,
It is extremely difficult to sack civil servants for incompetence or inefficiency. No P45s means no improvements.
There is another huge issue of private sector firms doing what used to be public sector jobs and not doing them well – but charging much more for it. The prison service is one example.
There are a number of favoured government suppliers, introduced under Francis Maude, who have a licence to print money on government work. The big accountancy firms have branched out and find it pays better than auditing even if they are no good at it. They are often not much good at auditing either – but any complaints are investigated by their own and so nothing changes.
November 16, 2022
Yes, there were 17 million Leave voters, and to our horror we realise that plenty of them have driving licences.
November 16, 2022
And we realised, to our horror, that the 16.8 million Remain voters had been very effectively brainwashed. Unable to think for themselves, they just parroted ‘Single Market, Customs Union and Stuff Democracy’.
November 16, 2022
Crime, poor driving standards, growingly ineffective public sector over a 20 year period – these are the result of Brexit in 2020-2021? No sane person can even faintly imagine that is a logical conclusion.
You are obviously a rabid pro-Brexit propagandist trying to heap ignominy on those poor benighted souls who voted to remain, by parodying their childish remoanerism.
November 16, 2022
cheer up Martin, as you keep telling us it is only older voters who wanted out of the Dictatorship, and you believe we are dying to reduce that majority! Wait another generation and you may get a Ref to rejoin what by then will have disintegrated anyway.
November 16, 2022
If you pay car tax it can take up to five working days for this to appear on online records.
The department can not prevent other reminder services appearing online when you seek to make the payment – a shambles.
November 16, 2022
If you don’t pay it, they crush your car. That’s your friendly, all-caring state for you.
November 16, 2022
Whether you drive a Rolls Royce, a 4×4, a EV or classic mini, we all use the same roads and should therefore pay the same flat road tax fee ….differentiation of road tax is just social engineering in a communist state – and will be increased to drive ICE vehicles off the road to satisfy net-zero
November 17, 2022
Heavier cars cause much more road damage per mile (and use more fuel and resources which we are short of).
November 17, 2022
Don’t fall into the government message, we aren’t short of fuel or resources, and the amount of fuel you use shouldn’t be a determining factor on ‘road tax’ …that’s social engineering
November 16, 2022
The financing of despotic State interference is ruinously expensive.
It is a tragedy that MPs are complicit in the destruction of the one thing they are elected to protect, British freedoms, and by the one thing that has become all our captors, the British State
The British State’s embraced some of the most pernicious and vile ideology whose purpose is sinister and oppressive. We have to finance this terror, this cultural and personal assault
John may try and portray the State has benevolent but he knows that it’s become a threat to our very way of life
November 16, 2022
++100%
November 16, 2022
I agree and what’s more as I read around there is an awakening to this.
I was growing up in the early 1970’s I’d skipped a generation in effect and was born to older parents.
Even then they were adamant (and not alone for their generation in their views) that so much was being stripped away.
They actually during their many discussions on politics and the state of the nation, both agreed that we would eventually be impoverished financially, most certainly culturally and more and more laws being passed to mould one way of life into something else.
It is terrifying for me as I’m afraid much of what they feared has happened and is happening.
November 16, 2022
Indeed it is. I’m slightly older but the mass immigration policy of the last 50 plus years by the legacies is a deliberate means to change our nation, it’s culture and values. Not only do they lie about this deliberate policy but they legislate to stop the English people from protesting about it but call it “equality/diversity” when in fact it makes English people second class. The only people (English) held accountable and laws enforced whilst others break the law regularly and with immunity. We’ve seen this with the lack of enforcement with grooming gangs, take the knee protests, statues destroyed, only some demonstrations enforced during lock downs and finally NO DEPORTATIONS of the illegal immigrants invading our Country but put up in 4* Hotels with all meals, pocket money, health and dentistry provided by English tax payers hounded by this pretendy conservative Government. No action over 12.5 years to get rid of the woke/pc culture that has invaded our institutions, public services, health. In fact most pretendy conservatives encourage this perverse culture to prevail. We have two more years before we elect a proper patriotic party, the Reform Party.
November 16, 2022
Time action.
Ref first para.
They have certainly succeeded in that task.
November 16, 2022
Could you please state one “British freedom” that people in the European Union do not have?
No? It’s very easy to do the converse though, isn’t it?
November 17, 2022
We are supposed to be able to deny people at our borders! the EU doesn’t.
November 16, 2022
Perhaps it’s time that many of these public sector ‘workers’ actually went back to work and did some work. There is no sense of urgency but just a sense of importance and entitlement with many of them. They are all too busy in the councils devising ways of fining us with their latest road schemes and cycle lanes or planning where the next few thousand homes will be built without any infrastructure to be bothered about our necessary services. The roads and pavements where we live are a disgrace with overgrown weeds and shrubs and mud from farmers fields and the council aren’t interested. We have no lighting at all. Try phoning the tax office or any other office dealing with any kind of licence. Most are languishing at home. They expect customers do go online and search for many services which isn’t satisfactory for many elderly people. They all need an overhaul and a work ethic and they should be back in the work place. Covid is no longer a threat.
November 16, 2022
Look at the 500 or so employees at NHS on over £100,000 and loads more on £260,000. I suspect if you got rid of the 500 and put the salaries to employ doctors, nurses, radiographers etc telling the doctors to organise the hospitals and GP surgeries and keep them clean they could run a far better service than the utter shambles at present.
November 16, 2022
FUS – totally agree – I work for an accountancy practice – HMRC dedicated Agent line can take up to 50 mins to be answered on a good day, not sure what the time frame is for Joe Public. Totally disgraceful and yes most HMRC EEs are still working from home – it’s a joke!
November 16, 2022
Wow. So glad I sold up and retired. I haven’t the patience for a 50 minute wait on the ‘phone. The agent line was answered straight away in my day.
November 16, 2022
Indeed. There are at least twice as many people employed in the Council/NHS and other public services than is needed. How do I know? I worked for a local Council for a year after retirement. I found their behaviour, lack of work ethic and culture, quite shocking. Supervision and leadership were non existent. No one cared. This Government either doesn’t know and are incompetent or do know and can’t be asked to reform them.
November 16, 2022
What has this party learned in its 12 years of government? It has learned how to avoid democracy, how to waste money hand over fist, how to spend money on anyone but the Brits, how to virtue signal net zero to the world even if it destroys the UK, how to put immigrants before legal citizens, how to avoid its manifesto promises, and how to annoy the hell out of the population!
We need a GE. NOW!
November 16, 2022
They mainly only aways with this as the only real alternative or Labour/SNP/LibDim is even worse and encourages nearly all the daft Covid, climate alarmist, policies and the tax, borrow and waste lunacy that we get from these fake “Conservatives”.
November 16, 2022
They mainly only getaway with this…
Dominic Rabb just now:- “we are a difficult situation due to Covid and Putin’s War” – No Rabb we are in a difficult situation due to the absurd over reaction and misdirected/counter-productive reaction to Covid and the government’s insane, expensive and intermittent energy/Net Zero agenda, the currency debasement by Sunak and the appalling waste within government.
November 16, 2022
LL,
Tories do not have any significant policies that they implement! All the significant policies are from Labour and Tories happily give SNP our taxes to do as they wish!
Tell us by comparison and time Tory economics against Labour last time in govt ie taxation, spending, deficit, debt, inflation. Perhaps compare immigration figures?
Blaire invaded Iraq, Cameron invaded Lydia and wanted to invade Syria for regime change but was stopped by Red Ed! Compare to Sunak’s rant about Russia. How about China bringing world wide problems, covid, colonisation, human rights etc. Challenging was the best Sunak could describe it. World wide devastation by covid, human rights, Hong Kong etc challenging. No mention of coal fired power stations hurting the world either under his net stupid yet happy to give China millions in aide, transfer jobs, industry and allow immigration.
November 16, 2022
Why Shirley? And get Labour and the SNP; we’ve already heard some of their ideas from 5% wealth tax over £5m then it will reduce to £2m (just as Osborne reduced the pension tax grab figure) that includes your home value. The SNP has been given lots of money they’ve held back from spending to make the Tories look bad.
Higher rates are spoken about by riling up the North i.e. “Balancing up the overtaxed homes in the North with undertaxed SE & London properties, without mentioning Labour-run Wales getting away with the lowest rates even though they earn the same thanks to public sector nationalised wage bargaining. They want to revalue properties and remove the capped top rate, they’ll make it sound like it will only affect £2m + properties.
Labour claim the UK has underinvested, John should tell us how much in the last ten years this government have invested in new social homes (including the equivalent amounts from the NHB and CIL), insulating homes, roads (but also tell us how much government gains from fuel tax and vehicle duties, schools, hospitals, rail (tell us how much is received from tickets towards the infrastructure?), buses,
We have lots of new costs too such as – taxis to schools, taxi allowances for adults, mobility allowance cars.
November 16, 2022
Very defeatist AT.
Vote for what you believe in. If you know what the socialist Tories stand for please tell us. It certainly is not in their manifesto or in anything they say. Look back stabber Sunak and tell us what he is currently doing in the manifesto he said he would implement, or from his pledges at hustings to become PM. Who voted for what he and Hunt are doing? Labour voters that is who.
JR is an ignored minority in his party.
Three good articles in con woman today: that address mass immigration and cultural destruction by the Sunak outfit.
November 16, 2022
Agree 100%, Hope. The main parties are all undemocratic, by design!
November 16, 2022
I know Hope, I can’t help it. There are not enough MPs like John Redwood, Philip Hollobone, we used to have political giants in the house from both sides such as Lord Frank Field and Ann Widdicombe people of substance and belief, I didn’t believe in everything they said but at least they were consistent and honourable.
I didn’t agree with Sunak’s coronation and nothing he has done since from keeping on the rejected Hunt has been a surprise. Since October half-term he and Hunt are strangling the economy. People want to work and earn but there is nothing being spent because they are creating this feeling of doom. I also think they’ve frozen public sector spending which is sending the economy into a downward spiral.
November 16, 2022
………………and 5.6 million on benefits and not working despite the pretendy unemployment figures of just over a million. Over 300,000 on benefits where for three generations no one has worked. Benefits should be time limited. End of. After 12.5 years nothing has been done or will be done by this Government.
November 16, 2022
@Shirley M
What on earth would be the point of that? Out of the frying pan?
November 16, 2022
Shirley M, ++++++
November 16, 2022
Apart from the rising population the fault can be laid at the door of management.More and more industries are breaking jobs into smaller parts and selling them as a specialisation.The upshot of this is the need to get work from many different people than one.The strange theory was that it is better to do one thing as an expert than a few things at a less level.That reduces the capability to understand whole systems and how parts fit together and undermines humans capabilities.
Hospital workers have always been overworked.I have been exhausted all my life working in secondary care and it is the hospital workers who turn the wheels to allow paper work to go through.
The language problems are a root cause of a slowing down of every day processes as all work requires communication.
When the money gods in thought of cheap labour,they obviously didn’t think about the interaction between other aspects in an infrastructure.
November 16, 2022
Quite right. Unfortunately I suspect the public sector managers and employees know that by continuing to foul things up they can bring about a Labour Government that is more to their ideological liking.
November 16, 2022
@David Paine
The public sector is aware that continued incompetence will bring it money from the politicians …. and that a socialist Government is more likely to pay up.
November 16, 2022
They have a socialist government and it’s paying up. 27% more than 3 years ago!
November 16, 2022
Indeed a staggering sum of money.
Would be nice to receive a breakdown from HMRC each year to see exactly where it all goes, we get a very, very simple sort of breakdown from the Local Authority with regards to Council tax receipts with a pie chart showing the differing percentages, but nothing from HMRC.
Most people do not have a clue for example that the NHS Budget takes up the entire Nations Income tax receipts and more other taxes to fund it, I did not have a clue until you posted such information a few months ago.
Amazing that taxation per household is greater than the average median yearly salary/wage for an individual.
Something needs to change in the system many Millions of people are now running on empty !
Yet the present Government thinks more taxation is the answer !
November 16, 2022
ukpublicspending.co.uk
November 16, 2022
@Berkshire Alan
Is HMRC merely responsible for the collection of some of the money ?
I think the civil servants at HM Treasury are the ones responsible either for spending it or at least for keeping track of where it all goes.
November 16, 2022
Try https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicsectorfinance/bulletins/publicsectorfinances/september2022
Or, if you want a real puzzle try
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicspending/datasets/esatable2mainaggregatesofgeneralgovernment
November 16, 2022
Indeed, increasing taxation will stop a recession and increasing corporation tax will increase foreign investment here…………………………..but wait! Anyone would think they’re deliberately messing up the economy and our personal wealth, because they ARE. Sunak and Hunt the unelected and unwanted dictators who know nothing.
Bit like shutting down coal, nuclear and gas power stations for foreign interconnectors, intermittent wind and solar power is good for our National Security. Oh no it’s not.
November 16, 2022
Gm. rather than one
November 16, 2022
Add to your last point, Sir John: It is time for public service managers to get their P45, and for new people to come in and do the job properly.
November 16, 2022
As more and more people turn to do it yourself jobs and food growing , there will be less jobs available and less tax to collect. Industries such as fancy cakes are not a priority for most families.A packet of ginger biscuits from Aldi costs less than 50p.
November 16, 2022
When those responsible for delivering these services are tasked with improving, their response is that they need more money. This will then result in more layers of bureaucracy and complexity.
November 16, 2022
If you fail in the private sector you risk getting sacked. In the public sector failing often only results in being allocated a bigger budget. Quite staggering that we have over half a million civil servants. There should be an across the board halt to new recruitment and a reduction or freeze on most departmental budgets. A massive downsizing is needed across the whole of government
November 16, 2022
I have lived in Spain. The level of government service was spectacular – if you knew the ropes. Otherwise, very frustrating indeed. I met a friend who lives in Sweden and he told me of the terrible burden of taxation for their welfare state, which, he said, was actually very impressive.
So now for us, post covid – Spanish delivery, Swedish taxes!
My net door neighbour is furious because, as he sees it, he works hard for a decent wage which is pinched to support lay-abouts and illegal immigrants.
I think he speaks for a great number of Conservative voters…
November 16, 2022
Indeed he does which is why we need significant change by politicians who are prepared to speak out about the lazy and workshy and deliver what the people want, not what they want.
November 16, 2022
Sir J,
It is time for a much more radical exercise. Take each department, quango and public funded body and ask “Is Government the only option to carry out and pay for this task?”. If the answer is ‘No’ then stop.
Look back 50 or 100 years to see how much Government didn’t do. The only way we will control the State is to reduce it’s influence massively.
It will not happen in this decade and maybe not the next one. At some point though the current model fails. It did for the Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans…
November 16, 2022
PeterB,
Spot on. The historic pattern is very clear. Our current “concerns” about issues that previous generations would have thought irrelevant are repeat patterns in history.
To avoid risks of hyperinflation the Bretton Woods agreement towards the end of the war (which the USSR didn’t sign up to) fixed the dollar to gold. When the US started to run out of gold Nixon decided to decouple the dollar from gold in 1971.
The bank runs (they always happen sooner or later) in 2008 resulted in the classic solution of rolling out the money printing presses – but of course it “will be different this time” because it is done electronically now!
Then you get an asset price bubble, then eventually inflation gets out of control. As Sir John has pointed out our current PM decided to carry on printing way past the point he should have.
Civil servants “working from home” are not effective – and just think they have index linked pensions.
November 17, 2022
There is nothing wrong with indexed linked pensions, previously offered in the private sector. But the government taxed them out of existence. Future generations of pensioners will have less money and, as a result, contribute less tax to cover their health and social care bills.
November 16, 2022
Many people usually the higher tax payers get almost nothing back of value at all as they pay themselves for education, housing and healthcare. We should be encouraging far more of this with education vouchers and tax breaks or contributions. On top of these vastly high taxes we have the motorist mugging fines, excessing parking charges and the other back door taxes plus all the red tape compliance costs.
What do we get? Hotels for illegal migrants and their hotels and their legal costs, roads being blocks or constricted, millions of pointless and worthless degrees, the pointless HS2, the insanity of net zero, police who do almost nothing to address or deter crime, vast numbers of overpaid civil servants delivering little of value & many doing positive harm, the pointless test and trace, the net harm vaccines, the pointless lockdown …
November 16, 2022
We also get the pointless Danegeld payments to the French of hundreds of £ millions, billions of gold-plated pensions for state sector workers, pensions and expenses payments for PMs for live costing circa £10 million each the dire NHS that often does more harm than good, the expensive energy agenda so people cannot heat and ventilate their homes properly, the idiotic subsidies for EVs and “renewables”, vast payments and benefits for people who could work but choose not to (encourages to do so by the system that pertains)…
November 16, 2022
I can tell you a few things we don’t expect:
To have our hard-earned money pissed away on providing luxury accommodation and services for 80,000 criminal migrants who have been ferried-in over the past 10 months.
The Net Zero lunacy, which has led directly to a severe energy shortage
The legions of Equality and Diversity personnel employed across the Public Sector at vast expense
An unreformed NHS. Throwing money down the unreformed black hole will achieve nothing.
To subsidise thousands of Mickey Mouse degrees so the left-wing universities can churn out brainwashed drones who are unlikely to ever find a job which will pay back the debt.
To pay “Climate Reparations.” Or Foreign Aid to countries with nuclear arsenals and space programmes.
That’s a start.
November 16, 2022
+1
November 16, 2022
Donna. A great start.
November 16, 2022
+1 Donna. It ‘should’ be unbelievable but unfortunately it isn’t!
November 16, 2022
Donna, ++++ + +
November 16, 2022
Good morning,
Sir J. You made a list of things that are not working as they should, and in many cases used to work well. The change to not working well was likely caused by some new rule or regulation, brought in by….
Get to the root of the problem, don’t just throw money about!
Related is the cost of government, this must be reduced by cutting waste. Ministers love to run high spending departments, they must be encouraged by rewards to reduce wasted expenditure and increase productivity.
November 16, 2022
Peter, now you’ve made me wonder if the running costs of the whole Passport Office are covered by the cost of the passport?
What % is the whole Probate department cost covered by the cost of the probate plus the inheritance death duties?
Same for the DVLA.
When you think about it, these services aren’t a taxation cost as they charge directly for the services on top of general taxation.
November 16, 2022
Indeed. Get the Lords down to a couple of hundred and a cull of at least half of our MP’s. Not wanted or needed to do nothing or act in the English nations interest. Perhaps we could have our own English devolved Government like the other Nations in this NOT United Kingdom? Then we could expect no University Tuition fees, Hospital Parking charges, prescription charges etc. Get rid of all these new do nothing Majors, halve the number of Council’s and Counsellor’s who are invisible accept at elections. Get rid of the Police Commissioner’s and their hanger ons. Why can we see this and the politicos ……….can’t?
November 16, 2022
Timaction :”….Get the Lords down to a couple of hundred….”
Agreed and the membership should be in proportion to the number of votes received at the last GE including for those parties who fail to manage to win a single seat because of the FPTP system.
November 16, 2022
+1
November 16, 2022
The more we pay the less we get.
Here in St Ives Cambs I stumble along pavements and drive over pot holed roads.
WHY?
November 16, 2022
Pay as you use?
November 16, 2022
My guess is it’s because the government ministers running the relevant departments are incompetent and have no experience at all of running large service organisations.
November 16, 2022
What do they care about delivering value these places are run for the senior staff. Spendong on pot holes, public loos, libraries, decent schools… just means less for senior staff and staff pensions. Not their money so what do they care/
November 16, 2022
I have recently worked in several government departments. The problem is that there is no one person in charge. An area might be nominally responsible for delivering a service, but the managers are without the levers to manage it. For example, HR might need to recruit new people faster, IT might not work, or policy issues get in the way. But it does not happen as the other areas have other priorities. So the local managers have little influence in fixing things. The Civil Servants at the top only stay in post for a short time, so they do not sort anything out either.
To fix it, you need to change this round. The front-line services need to call the shots, with the support areas and policy serving the front-line teams.
November 16, 2022
The Government is like a giant harpoon in the country. You can increase spending but it’s very difficult to cut spending.
Spending is and should be a political decision. It should rise and fall. The civil service should grow and shrink with voters wishes.
November 16, 2022
“These huge sums are leading more and more people to question why the level and quality of services is in many cases so disappointing”
Health and social care, and pensions. That’s the black hole isn’t it?
November 16, 2022
Cynical me reading this sudden interest in public sector performance a day before we are going to be shredded on tax, a main reason being egregious waste and total dissatisfaction with outputs. Obviously part of a deflection campaign because Lord Maude was being touted yet again. Continuous improvement is a mantra in large PLCs.
Obviously not in government. Why?
Public Sector managers are too blame? So nothing to do with Secretary’s of State and a vast panoply of junior ministers/SPADs etc. Handing out vast budget increases instead of keeping them ‘flat’ to force improvement through more ‘bang for the same buck’ etc
Please explain how it works and why we shouldn’t lay the blame fairly and squarely at your door. Have you no levers? Explain the process how individual civil servants and outputs are performance managed. How many have to leave or are they parked in a pool until reallocated to be poor at their next job? JRM was clear that numbers have to be reduced. So how many have you got rid of? My guess is none.
Every time the level of public dissatisfaction reaches a certain point you churn this out, hope we accept it and move on.
To use your phrase. We don’t believe you.
November 16, 2022
A short but pointed slogan that could be dusted down to sum all of this up would be “Britain’s not working”, not on this occasion to describe the unemployment that characterised Labour in the 70s and enabled the memorable Saatchi & Saatchi poster, but to describe the fact that in so many ways Britain is not functioning.
Might we go on to say that this comprises the Conservative Party’s inevitable reaping of what it first sowed when Margaret Thatcher was deposed, and – save for a short period when we had visionary Boris instead of frightened and henpecked Boris – its steady erosion by the forces of globalist elitist managerialists? We may ask ourselves whether in the course of the next two years any sitting MP dismayed at what has happened to the party might take such dismay to its logical conclusions.
November 16, 2022
IMO those hospitals were pure fear mongering PLUS they fitted in with Spend Spend Spend!
I read about another country which did exactly the same thing.
Centralise a deadly, highly infectious plague? WHAT a good idea!
November 16, 2022
Just as disturbing is that according to the MsM many government departments that have had barrels of TaxPayer money dumped on them say they have know idea were it has been spent or what additional service it has provided.
In reality if there was proper accountability, as in someone that receives the money had to define how and just importantly why it was spent.
This over the last 12 years and more so in the last couple is a Conservative Party big time failure. They repeatably demonstrate fiscal irresponsibility. We have a 70 year high on tax take no additional or improved services and no-one able to take responsibility. That at the end of the day begs the question why do we have Government and why do we have a Parliament.
November 16, 2022
The govt. has entirely forgotten or simply ignores whatever contract it is we have with it. Is it a social contract….more like an economic one really.
We pay for its flights of fancy and personal global stage strutting.
That sickening parade after Bataclan…and others got very little remembrance.
The jobs AFTER that of PM are the IMPORTANT (highly remunerative) jobs!
We pay the govt. so it does not harry, take our goods or imprison us.
That’s not government …it’s extortion with menaces!
November 16, 2022
£1.1 trillion, of Taxpayer money that on every metric would produce more benefit to ‘all’ in the hands of the taxpayer. Governments have historically and still today demonstrate an inability to achieve intended aims with other people money.
November 16, 2022
The whole way the country is governed has for years been akin to a juggernaut running with loose wheels and it has speeded up and the wheels are starting to fall off.
The way we operate as opposed to the way we need to operate are world’s apart. Ministers good or bad can make no impact when the people they ultimately rely on are not committed to the tasks in hand.
Across the commercial world the “jobs for life edict” has long gone. It will be very painful for some but a marvellous opportunity for others if the whole employment structure for both civil and public services was change as would members of Parliament undergoing a yearly performance review.
Take a leaf of of the operational manuals of the biggest most successful companies in the world. They are not in existance to be nice but successful and love or hate them so they are.
This country is affected with a ” that will do, automatic pilot operating methology ” it will have to change. Doing nothing is not an option.
November 16, 2022
“That will do” isn’t good enough turbo.
A demonstration of failure was May’s ‘the “Festival of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”, and described as a nationwide festival in celebration of the creativity and innovation of the United Kingdom’ now called Unboxed, with a cost of £120m. Shows were in areas that were anti-Brexit, with campaigners there against it from the start and they wonder why it is reported to have failed. [Although all the numbers of visitors to smaller events haven’t been calculated properly]. Dowden was responsible and now needs to answer for it. Yet he was promoted again by Sunak with a reported ‘big failure’ on his hands.
I didn’t hear of one event near where I live. Unboxed is a series of 10 art, science and technology projects. To “celebrate our nation’s diversity and talent. Unboxed comprises ten projects “shaped across science, technology, engineering, the arts and mathematics” and is spread across multiple venues in the four countries of the UK, and accessible in person free of charge, on TV, on radio and online.
All they had to do was look at successful festivals like Glastonbury, the guy in charge there only pays himself £60k pa; his daughter may be on more, I don’t know. For an event with a £32m turnover, just 27% the size of Unboxed. He even made a surplus £2m to donate to charity. It creates jobs for 50 full-time people. 210,000 attended in 2022.
It’s like Blairs Millenium Dome – O2 failure all over again; it failed to entice the six million Britons who had been expected to go through its turnstiles, and it was almost pushed into bankruptcy. So Labour needn’t crow!
November 17, 2022
Glastonbury clearly more profitable than farming which feeds people !
November 16, 2022
I was one of those civil servants you decry.
And the words I most hated were ‘do more for less’ which was trotted out every year, despite the fact the demands on the system were continually growing higher.
In my opinion, the problem lies not with the public sector but demographic changes, as well as the fact our politicians are naturally unwilling to discuss some very difficult questions, such as the amount of money the UK spends on end of life care, the need for large-scale and continued immigration, being honest about Brexit, as well as other political hotcakes that I can’t see the government touching until it is left with no choice.
November 16, 2022
What ‘need’ is there for large-scale and continued immigration, Ignoramus? There’s a desire for it, yes, in certain quarters, but that’s not the same thing. There may be a need for small-scale immigration in certain sectors where the native population does not wish to work. I’m not convinced the 1 1/2 million unemployed in this country totally lack the skills to do the jobs migrants are doing, and will do them as long as they’re paid a decent wage.
November 16, 2022
ignoramus, how has Brexit caused problems for UK passport delays (in fact May took the Passport creation contract off a British company and gave it to a French supplier),
How has Brexit affected the UK probate service?
I can see how Brexit has affected migrant crossing by boat instead of in Lorries and on ferries and flights. The checking though by Home Office staff through the two years of Covid, how did Brexit affect them processing the applicants?
November 16, 2022
ignoramus,
‘Do more for less’ is also known as ‘continuous improvement’. It is the way of the world in the private sector.
The private sector are fully aware that if they slip behind they can go under and the work and their jobs will disappear. That is not the case in the civil service.
November 16, 2022
I worked in the private sector too.
I think the differences between the two are overstated, though the public sector is more unionised and understandly has to follow very strict procurement rules.
November 16, 2022
Oh and I’m not criticising Brexit, merely saying that the government needs to be honest about where it’s working and where it’s not and have clear targets like anything else.
November 16, 2022
I too was a Civil Servant. In my experience the Civil Service front-line staff and the managing agents who actually delivered the service ranged between fairly to highly competent. The middle and senior management often didn’t understand how the service was actually delivered and many had no interest in finding out. They just issued unachievable targets and/or undeliverable instructions and then skedaddled to their next role before the proverbial hit the fan.
November 16, 2022
Where is the waste. I have no problem with workers on the taxpayers payroll ‘working from home’ However, London Weighting Allowance intended to ease the pressure and cost of the commute – being paid for those that no longer take on the chore?
November 16, 2022
What a shambles. Tax and spend parties in control with no idea of how to run anything efficiently. If MPs were paid on performance and results they would be owing the taxpayers money instead of sitting pretty on high salaries, expenses and gold-plated pensions.
November 16, 2022
Why all the fuss about 15 minute cities?
They are what we used to have!
They are exactly what has been taken away from us over the years.
Small villages had every necessity…and that was ripped away by idiots spending our money so to do!
At most villagers took a bus on Saturday to go to the local market but all other needs were a walk away.
Hamlets, villages, towns, cities all had the facilities they needed.
Until the rapacious ones decided to hand the world over to supermarkets and to “save” (OUR money) by centralisation!
What did they do with the savings??
November 16, 2022
Sir John
We now have the ludicrous situation whereby wages are chasing benefits.
Even if we take at face value the estimated 5% ‘record’ pay increases across the private sector (I can tell you my and many others’ wages have been frozen for years) wages are now about to be overtaken by welfare (if not already) including the fact that many on welfare can expect their add-ons to be going up commensurately too… so the Amazon driver will be cold while the layabout lives in a heated house. Not to mention those workers brought into the higher tax band as they try to work harder to mitigate inflation for themselves.
The Truss fiasco means that anything resembling tax cutting is now anathema in the Conservative party. It has, effectively, been banned as a possibility.
It begs the question as to why *you* are still a member of this organisation.
I now question *your* salary and *your* pension and I’m doubtless that you do work hard but – as you keep telling us – hard work does not equal productivity.
I expect to hear nothing from you about wage-inflation spirals. I expect to hear nothing from you about ‘modernising’ workers’ pay, conditions, working practices and pensions when you do not suffer ‘modernisation’ yourself and have helped to allow the benefits-wage spiral to exist.
reply There is no sign of a wage price spiral. Pay is falling behind the current elevated level of price rises.
November 16, 2022
This comment is apropos the leaked 10% increase in benefits (untaxed) in Thursday’s budget – so that welfare claimants tread water while workers suffer pay cuts even if they do get their 5% pay awards, which a good many don’t and those who do get it end up paying more tax or even tapering into a higher tax band whilst unable to qualify for mortgages where they live.
There has been a putsch, Sir John. You well know it. Your ranting from the sidelines is as pointless as my own. In fact it is dangerous – it lends the impression that our situation is normal and that this is still a Conservative government.
I think it’s time for me to stop as I’m only helping to encourage you to think you have useful purpose (other than to add legitimacy to an illegitimate government.)
November 16, 2022
Reply to reply – No but there is a benefits to wage spiral … untaxed 10% benefit rise (mooted) vs taxed 5% wage rise (if the worker is a lucky one.)
This is not a Conservative government, not even remotely so.
November 16, 2022
Good ministers and managers do not need cash to increase efficiency and performance. They need the will, determination and trust of their staff who have been given a vision that they can believe in and be empowered to be masters of their own destiny.
The days of pushing paper and working the oracle to pension day are long gone or should be. But are they?
November 16, 2022
If the councils own the shopping centres, they could let the shops out at a reasonable rent with the agreement that if the shop turns over above a certain amount, they pay a % more rent to encourage the council to make the centre more attractive and increase footfall by offering ‘experience’ days.
In the past, in areas of social need, they end up with charity shops and gambling establishments, footfall falls further, and decent shops and even chain stores close down. Rather than rent out to entrepreneurs, artists and homemade crafts farm shops (could even be co-operative between several farms), they leave the shops empty until the area becomes broken and empty. Sorry but aged councillors, often ex-public sector workers, seem to have little entrepreneurial flair or vision. They hate people making money and building up businesses, so they snuff them out at birth, preferring the large supermarkets to not only take over their shopping centres but now increasingly all the little family shops in every area, so we now only have a choice of the main five, with the goods they want to push (not local, new entrepreneurial cheeses etc.).
November 16, 2022
Where is the waste. Diversity and inclusion staff, why? Either function is discriminating. Then remember TaxPayer money is to exclusively achieve in return the ‘best-of-the-best.
November 16, 2022
Its all supervisors roles to deal with diversity and inclusion. The buck stops with the management. No need for a separate person or role. End of. Otherwise where will it all end?
November 16, 2022
Where is the waste. Overseas Aid, sending UK taxpayer money to regimes so they can have Nuclear Weapons and Space Programs is at odds with looking after the under privileged at home. It comes over as a Commercial Bribe that if anyone other than Government did it they would end up in prison.
November 16, 2022
Simply put Sir John, government both political and civil service is not fit for purpose. It is an enormous sea anchor both financially and regulatory on the private sector that through it’s productive enterprise creates that vast sum of money you allude to.
Yesterday I used the word pollarding, a process that needs to be applied to all givernment activity. The one area I would exclude are our military who give value for money in excess, despite the MOD.
November 16, 2022
A very precise summary of the situation and what should be done about it AC. The likelihood of anything being done to improve things is effectively zero as things stand I’m afraid. I have no great faith in the Conservatives being able to improve our economy and the Labour ‘alternative’ is just as abysmal.
I’m not sure how dire things need to get before we are no longer willing to vote for the status-quo or even if the “Public” are capable of understanding the need for drastic change. Perhaps when the NHS finally collapses under its own weight, people will begin to understand the fiscal realities a little more keenly.
November 16, 2022
I’m all for cutting, but if may say, pollarding is not the effective action. Pollarding cuts the growth but not the roots. The roots just force growth again. We need root removal!
November 16, 2022
It’s not just licenses for the North Sea what about around the Falklands?
November 16, 2022
What about ‘fracking’ for shale gas
November 16, 2022
Plus, we also get all those MPs who always promise lower taxes and better public services before elections but almost always deliver the complete opposite once in power. Worse still we get all the lefty, woke and climate alarmist indoctrination in schools, the exam system, the BBC, the bonkers Climate Change Committee, the space progamme…
They we get all Sunak/Bailey currency debasement and inflation thrown in. Plus. we get all those deluded lefty Lords and their tax-free daily allowances. Then all the devolved layers of incompetent and often fraudulent government. Then we have governments that look after vested interest and party doners. Then all that decolonising of Maths, Computing and Physics at university must cost a bit!
November 16, 2022
“making life more difficult to get to work, cutting access for emergency services, and making it more difficult for supply trucks to the shops.”
That was never the intention it was just a virtual signalling to attract political me-to attention. The problem is and will remain there is no concern for creating a proper infrastructure, as some one will have to make a decision
November 16, 2022
Wow, what an enormous amount of money.
I think the different departments, especially the NHS, need to look at the way they purchase supplies. The tendering process is expensive for would be suppliers and basically concentrates on that business’ structure and difference and diversity figures. NHS buyers should be able to phone a supplier, ask for a price and then either accept or reject the offer. It doesn’t matter how many women or men or ethnic minorities work for that business nor how many of each group are on their board.
It’s being reported that council tax would need to increase by twenty percent to fill their funding shortfall. This would be suicide for the party.
Sir John,
Do we still pay a landfill tax to the EU?
November 16, 2022
As said so many times on this site.
You can stop the dingy invaders in a week by changing the laws, leaving the ECHR and other treaties if necessary.
There is no will to do it from our leaders. Why therefore should the people most affected by these cop outs bust their fans to provide a better service?
November 16, 2022
No, Sir John, it is time for Government to stop spending money & to live within its enormous income.
To stop throwing money at every problem & make every pound do the work of two. There is an epidemic of idleness across the public sector & I suspect 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people. The weak leadership of our country in the last 12 years has led to the situation we are in today.
It seems we have a Government that does not believe in anything, so we get weak policing, woke Universities, a wasteful NHS which always wants more money & every department of state is underperforming. Where does the money go & why does the Government allow this colossally high level of spending?
November 16, 2022
Oh be fair, Sir John, these civil servants are delicate blossoms who should not be pressurised into doing a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay because that might hurt their feelings, and then a senior minister might get ever so slightly cross about it, and then the CS might have to go through all the unspeakable trauma of lodging a complaint about bullying by said minister.
November 16, 2022
SM, it’s a shame every meeting isn’t recorded; I would hate to work with people like this day in and day out without some protection, especially if it was my job to fix the problems they’re causing. Especially if they are politically motivated people.
However, the other day someone on here said Rachael Reeves the Labour Shadow Treasurers’ husband works as Director General for Finance at Department for Work and Pensions – what!? We were told he was one of Truss’ most trusted advisors, well that worked out well for her! He is rumoured to be taking charge of Tory spads. And people wonder why accusations are made to bring certain MPs down.
November 16, 2022
The Govt has a compulsive gambling disorder with self-infected supporters.
November 16, 2022
Anything provided “free, as in free beer” is open to abuse such as NHS and Public Services. Nothing is free but costs taxpayers and is now impoveRishing us Rishi!
Trouble-shooter urgently needed for Public Sector going to hell in a handcart on a mega scale.
Financial controls like basic budgets andij.u
November 16, 2022
Error – my comment went awry just like the Public finances
November 16, 2022
“In most of these cases Ministers are keen to see improvements in service levels and have agreed large increases in cash to achieve this…” – and in the other cases the Ministers have recognized throwing more cash at failure only produces more expensive failure? Or perhaps they are just not keen at all?
I confess I expect much more for this spending at truly Corbynesque levels.
November 16, 2022
What can you expect for £1,087,000,000,000 a year? Very little indeed of any quality or value in the UK it seems. Even fixing potholes, emptying the bins and proving a few decent public loos is beyond them.
Would be good if we at least had a decent criminal justice system that deterred real crimes and protected young people from violence & sex abuse. Alas we do not even seem to have that.
November 16, 2022
You’ve just reminded me of an issue to take up with my council and the police commissioners or whatever they are called. What are they all about anyway? Seems like another layer, another on the payroll and yet everything stays the same and only ever moves backwards.
A set of public loos in the town has had to be closed down because of consistent vandalism and the repeated repairs are costing too much.
I cannot tell you how angry this makes me.
So yet again decent law abiding people pay the price all round and those paid to ensure decent law abiding people’s rights (we never hear about this demographics rights do we?) are not trampled on.
It would take two at most surely police officers to do a little covert operation to catch the repeat offenders.
They have to clear up the damage, if they are earning they have to pay something towards repair. If they are under age make the parents responsible or at least make the parents aware what their brats are up to.
Then we’ll hear about ‘rights’ no doubt but why should those who can’t behave have more rights than those who do?
November 16, 2022
Michelle, all our councils have allowed Supermarkets to take over town, they have been given premier positions, M&S and Debenhams when they held these powerful positions always provided clean public toilets, its time the supermarkets stepped up. They are making massive gains from their increased allowance to get into all sales from clothes to houseware and school uniforms.
November 16, 2022
I think it is wicked beyond wicked of the govt to pay businesses to undermine democracy.
Immigration is a political issue and the govt. is using our money to tempt businesses to do what we definitely, if asked, would not want them to do.
How many million per day now?
November 16, 2022
*Specifically hotels, luxury cruisers and country houses.
November 16, 2022
What is the first duty of a government? To protect the borders. And the second? To keep law and order within those borders.
November 16, 2022
The most important duty of government is to protect our freedoms. They are failing miserably. I believe they will thoroughly deserve the measure that is doled out to them by the electorate in two years time.
November 16, 2022
Our constitutional freedoms come under upholding law and order.
November 16, 2022
Much talk about mould in houses. I have no knowledge of this particular case at all and make no comment on it.
But most mould in houses is caused by lack of ventilation, tenants who simply cannot afford to heat the home, tenants drying wet washing on radiators in the flats and not opening windows to ventilate the home, over crowded homes (often not tenants but illegal subletting to others) . Often not that much the landlords can do for the building itself. People need affordable, on demand reliable energy but government policy is the complete reverse.
So Rishi now says dealing with illegal immigration is his no. 1 priority (well the Danegeld will do nothing much Sunak). But I thought that dealing with the inflation caused by Bailey and Sunak QE & the debasing of the £ was his no. 1 priority the other day? What will it be tomorrow? Damaging the economy even further by vast tax increases and killing NonDom status (reducing tax take) perhaps.
November 16, 2022
His No 1 priority is illegal immigration!!! AFTER 12.5 YEARS. Do we believe in Unicorns, Fairies or Pixies? The only thing to stop these illegals will be that all the 4* Hotels are full up.
November 16, 2022
Gove in the House today said everyone is entitled to a warm, dry, safe place to live, whatever their background, wherever they have come from. This is the sort of idiotic thing the higher clergy used to say before mass immigration got completely out of control, when they themselves lived in warm, dry, well maintained (by the Church Commissioners) Deaneries and Palaces, while the rest of us had to struggle to get any roof at all over our heads, let alone with heating, or not leaking. Now, along comes a senior Cabinet Minister and tells us, more or less, that this unrealistic assertion by the out of touch clergy has now been extended to anyone from anywhere in the world!
November 16, 2022
As a youngster, before mass central heating, I was educated by my parents, school and in basic military training that you scrap off jack frost from your windows, scrub and clean away mould, wipe away condensation, keep a room ventilated, never dry cloths indoors or on radiators without opening a window ….we seem to be forgetting the basics or is it just easier to blame someone else
November 16, 2022
Did Gove mention whether that included the native British at all? Those in the cold, dark, poor north should get increased subsidy as they are forced to use more power.
November 17, 2022
Everyone’s entitled. The mantra of the idiotic lefties.
November 16, 2022
This morning news, which is that the ‘vaccine’ damaged CAN sue, but that the British taxpayer will be paying the losses! Another black hole John, most people acting under duress and those warning of the catastrophe silenced with all the force the Government could muster.
In an official response on 14/11/2022 to a petition regarding the indemnity of vaccine manufacturers, the UK Government stated the following:
“The Government cannot comment on the terms on which COVID-19 vaccines were supplied as these are confidential. Indemnities do not prevent individuals from pursuing legal claims for compensation.”
“In general, indemnities given to manufacturers do not prevent individuals from pursuing a legal claim against a manufacturer for compensation. Rather, the indemnity determines who will pay the manufacturer’s losses arising from such a claim.”
November 16, 2022
There are too many people in England – we could do with half the number – it would need to be a policy decision to scale the whole thing back to managable proportions – but who is going to be the first to stand up and say?
November 16, 2022
+ 100.
That is the issue, not shortage of labour etc. but too many here.
Follow the money, someone’s making out of it I’m sure but it’s not us.
I note Hammond calling for more immigration for growth. The population has shot up by millions and yet, here we are. I believe we once had higher GDP than China so more people doesn’t mean more growth.
Besides there is more at stake than just ‘economy’ with mass immigration and in particular from so many varying cultures. The latter in itself putting a strain on services.
November 16, 2022
In Suffolk an area of farmland the size of 14 football pitches being turned into a “solar farm”. Huge govt incentives of OUR money, no doubt, to NOT GROW FOOD.
When we ARE starving will it be turned back to farmland?
November 16, 2022
@Cuibono
Not a chance…they want us to starve.
November 16, 2022
Solar is not viable in South Africa according to their extensive reports. Good luck in Sunny Suffolk!
November 16, 2022
Actually, many of us in SA who can afford it (both privately and commercially) have solar power – and/or diesel generators – simply because the State provision of electricity is beyond dire, due to incompetence and years of corruption. However, there are also huge issues with theft and vandalism.
November 16, 2022
Solar is not however viable. SA needs to invest R1.7 trillion to keep Escom ticking over with 8 hour blackouts. So you opt for anything whether it’s viable or not.
We may well be making the same decision in the U.K. soon.
The Germans are already felling the Black Forest for firewood and have the biggest dirty brown surface coal mine I have ever seen in my life.
November 16, 2022
Only if they can find more immigrants to farm it, the British population having forgotten how to farm and don’t want to do that sort of job anyway.
November 16, 2022
Says a townie….
November 16, 2022
At least the UK is not (I understand) contributing to the pointless NASA’s Artemis Rocket Launch Round the Moon trip. It makes even the insane HS2 project seem relatively sensible.
A very expensive and entirely pointless PR stunt for deluded politicians and similar. Surely tax payers money is far better spent on Earth for the benefit of people. What is at all is achieved by this farce?
November 16, 2022
Oh hell, why not? We have money to burn!
November 16, 2022
The space missions to find extra-terrestrial life are what gets me. Scientists trying to teach the universe what they believe, rather than learning what the universe can teach us.
November 16, 2022
The UK remains a member of the European Space Agency (ESA) and continues to participate in the Copernicus Space Component (CSC-4) of the Copernicus programme through ESA. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/uk-involvement-in-the-eu-space-programme
I wonder how much we pay for membership ?
November 16, 2022
As of 02/12/2021 the UK had not paid its €750 m contribution to the Copernicus programme (sciencebusiness.net ‘UK-EU row may leave Copernicus €750 m short’).
A 04/02/2022 item on researchprofessionalnews.com ‘Missing UK money could delay plans for Copernicus satellites’ was confirming the UK non-payment.
‘Interestingly’ to this day the UK scientists have lost all possibilities to lead any research within the Horizon2030 programme. Some UK scientists eager to participate (NB not lead) have now moved to the Continent to pursue their work.
November 16, 2022
We don’t get value for money for the £1,087,000,000,000 that is spent by the Government. Much of it is wasted.
The NHS has record amounts now being chucked at it every year. However, it still demands more. Why is is not forced to examine how every pound it is given every year, is spent? Chucking more large sums of money at the NHS will not solve the problem.
Why doesn’t this Government heed advice and take immigration away from the Home Office – and into a separate department, with a dedicated Minister? The problem is too big for it to deal with now. Again, billions of our money are wasted supporting people who have no legal right to be here.
The Police don’t respond to many incidents calls. When they do, they seem more concerned about the rights of the persons involved in causing the problems, than the victim, or those affected. So how are they value for money?
The Civil Service is becoming ever more resistant to implementing Government policy (contracting their own employmemt contracts of maintaining neutrality). Billions are spent paying them every year, so how is that value for money?
Local Council are demanding ever more in Council Tax, yet continue to cut services. Take Wokingham for example. The axing of food caddy waste bags – that will result in more people chucking their food waste in with general waste. Plus the axing of free parking in Wokingham Borough car parks on a Sunday. Hardly helping struggling local businesses!
Yet the 32.7 million employed in the UK are expected to support the “official” population of 67.3 million. Stumping up ever more in taxes to do so.
This Government seriously needs to get a grip!
Things have been allowed to slide to such a level that is feels we are close to hitting the brown stuff.
November 16, 2022
Our government employees at all levels, from the smallest local councils to the largest government departments never seem to focus on giving value for money, nor are there anywhere near enough targets and objectives set as there are in the private sector.
When a Minister comes to the dispatch box to respond to criticism from the opposition on almost anything, they deploy the argument of how much extra money their department is spending, not on what it is being spent on or on successful outcomes. That just perpetuates the problems.
Just this morning on the Today programme we had a report on the parlous state of the NHS in Northern Ireland. For probably the first time ever, one of the interviewees stated clearly and unequivocally that the problem was not funding : she said, as we who contribute here regularly know, that NHS spending in NI is far higher than in England ( and is in Scotland) but outcomes are significantly worse. Why ?
Hearing that, I thought that if I were the newly-appointed NI secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris, I would have immediately put in a real expert on healthcare systems to carry out an in-depth investigation to establish what is wrong and come up with plans to put it right. His or her mandate would be to come up with a plan, not in two years time, but in three months. Even to get the NI Healthcare system to perform to the standard of that of England would be a big improvement, and that would hardly be a challenging target !
I then thought, if I were Steve Barclay, the health secretary for England, I would do the same but I would get healthcare experts from Germany and France to carry out the review as their systems costs about the same per head, but have far better outcomes AND they have far more beds available than the NHS, which is running at an 89% overnight occupancy rate. Why do other European Countries do so much better for the same cost ??
November 16, 2022
The UK Government is negligent by deliberately ensuring there is no accountability of how it spends taxpayer money, a premeditated fudge even. We risk falling into the trap of Governments pre 1979. Risk? No we have fallen into those traps. Back then so much of UK life and industry was just given taxpayer money seemingly for no other reason than why not. That led to the situation that those paid by the State with taxpayer money just held out their hands and got what they wanted – more money. There was never any discussion of returns, value for money or tangible results – just as now taxpayer money was handed over no questions asked.
That led to the situation that those the money was taken from were drying up, they had also enough and left the UK. It took a proper Government to take back control and re-balance. That of course led to strife from those that just got used to the taxpayer paying them, their sense of entitled was being challenged.
The big change in track was also Government recognised they were, lets say ‘crap’, at running businesses and industry. They were elected representatives not entrepreneurs, they were the custodians, the accountants of the public purse not dynamic business leaders. Getting real what the hell were they doing at playing at being industry top dogs – they then as now had no experience.
There are to many Political agendas being played out in today’s Establishment all forgetting they are paid by and are servants of the people. While they see their position as one of entitlement others see it as a waste of Taxpayer money.
The UK needs a proper UK First Government, me-too on the World Stage is not UK Government. When some talk of fiscal responsibility and stability the rest of us, those that pay the bills, just want to know why Government doesn’t know were our taxpayer money has gone and who is responsible to us for spending it. How can expenditure grow exponentially while what we see in return declines?
November 16, 2022
“We need to ask what do we get for all this money? Where does it all go?”
What we get is roughly 22% of the UK workforce employed by the government in one way or another, including many hugely expensive and totally useless QUANGO’s. These people export nothing, get tremendous noncontributory final salary pensions – and can mostly speak the dead language Latin. Need I say more?
Take the NHS – one of the largest employers in the world, with a headcount approaching 1.2 million. Less than half of these people are clinically qualified doctors, consultants, nurses, or laboratory people. These rest are dead wood in administrative positions, working in layer upon layer of management structure on humungous salaries and who all go home on friday lunchtime.
November 16, 2022
+1
November 16, 2022
King’s Charles get lots of income from the seabed within the 12 mile zone. Its time that the government stopped this practise . The seabed and profits from it should belong to the government and its people.
Unfortunately there’s no mp willing to call this out as they are frit.
November 16, 2022
£8 Billion last year.
November 16, 2022
‘How the Queen came to own the seabed around Britain’, 05/02/2021 theguardian.com
November 16, 2022
Not a complete list by any means, but all symptoms of a system falling apart, or should that be ‘ripped apart’.
It’s hard to see how our once dynamic institutions could be so incompetent that they produce so many pathetic results for us – there has to be something else at work here, and it is of the same nature we associate with the socialist mind set. Perversion of every kind.
It’s not just the dumbing down effect, it’s more a case of collective minds becoming so aberrated they cannot think logically or with sense any more.
November 16, 2022
Sir John has highlighted what a mess our economy is in . Only tough action at the very top combined with capable and efficient and determined management underneath can resolve the problem . The public must be convinced that the required sacrifices will bring stability in the short term .
November 16, 2022
This post is entered after 11am following 42 previous comments listed. Most readers are likely to support Conservative values, yet virtually every comment is critical of what the Govt has been increasingly doing wrong in recent years. Wokingham is well represented. Beyond that whom can they support to effect change for the better?
November 17, 2022
Do you mean in the H of C, or in Council? Two quite different subjects.
November 18, 2022
H of C.
November 16, 2022
We have had our money taken from us and the services are not being fulfilled.
Socialism is not working. Britain is not working.
November 16, 2022
Socialism is the only plan in town with Sunak & Hunt
November 16, 2022
On top of everything else, how much will this will eventually fall on the taxpayer?
Our boys will be part of it you can bet good money on it.
Farage Vindicated? EU To SET UP First ‘Rapid Deployment’ Military Force
November 16, 2022
I’m afraid many pointed out that objective before Farage picked it up – he’s always a little late in learning the lines.
November 16, 2022
Farage was arguing with Clegg about us joining a European army back in 2014
November 16, 2022
We need radical action in our grossly failed administration and government. Sir John MP who lists the never ending examples of failure, negligence and incompetence and traitorship is welcome for doing it, but he fails us by not having the courage to depart from the party which does it all and starting anew.
He thinks he can change it but if he were true to us and himself he would recognise it is impossible. He must know it is and has been for years. By staying with the failed party he just encourages the continuation.
November 16, 2022
£1.1 trillion pounds! A gargantuan, bloated state. Yesterday I saw eleven council workers conferring around a large ride on mowing machine, and council tax will be going up.
From the tid bits of information, I think we are going to be severely punished by Sunak and Hunt. Those two who were roundly rejected by the Conservative party membership are now firmly on power in No’s 10 and 11 Downing street.
What I would like to know Sir John, is who was behind putting these two failures (both electorally and in their previous jobs) in power. Their ambition seems to be to tax and inflate us into a state of poverty so it seems reasonable to assume that is their purpose, or that of their handlers.
When we end up owning nothing we will certainly NOT be happy.
November 16, 2022
The problems with the public sector are fundamentally systemic rather than incidental. The system is inherently flawed. The public sector lacks the essential control mechanism of financial profit or loss that is fundamental to the private sector. The plain truth is the private sector requires a certain level of efficiency to attract and keep customers, cover its costs and survive by not making continuing losses. Otherwise both bosses and workers lose their jobs. It also needs more efficiency to get bigger profits from which individual people stand to benefit personally. In the public sector its employees inherently neither gain from efficiency nor lose from inefficiency. So why would they bother? The public sector and its workers survive regardless and is able to cover up or at least excuse its inefficiencies by asking for ever more money from government. In the private sector a dissatisfied customer can generally go elsewhere and encourage his friends to do likewise thus eventually endangering the business and its workforce. That doesn’t happen with the public sector.
Trying to improve things (which happens naturally in the private sector due to competition and the financial discipline of the profit/loss mechanism) in the public sector is always an uphill struggle and can often be akin to flogging a dead horse.
The answer is to minimise the scope of the public sector which is inherently inefficient and maximise the scope of the private sector which is demand led.
The extent of our inefficient public sector is now absurd. The £38,000 cost per household per year (and many households consist of just one person) is more than the median wage and after tax it is more than most households get (in wages , in benefits or in pension) which they have to live on.
November 16, 2022
Peter Bone MP asked at PMQs today why we hadn’t sent any illegal economic immigrants back to France – He was given a none answer by the Deputy PM
Lets remind everyone that we have a law on the statues books to send them back …why isn’t the government using it ?
Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002
Asylum claims by persons with connection to safe third State
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2002/41/section/80B
November 16, 2022
O/T but of interest, I hope.
I don’t spend much time complimenting government ministers, but well done, George Eustice! It seems he gave a senior civil servant a proper pasting for his pathetic performance in post-Brexit trade negotiations with Australia. And deservedly so, from what I’ve read. I look forward to seeing more of this. Perhaps some Tories have got cojones after all.
November 16, 2022
So the public sector does not deliver value for money? Surpridse!!!!
Consider these three axioms:
– Everything central government touches turns to dross
– All taxation is theft
– Labour governments are simply the criminal classes in power
An exaggeration? Yes, but only by a little.
November 16, 2022
Given that 30% of that is gross profit. ie. Taxes not going on services. It’s going on the debts.
The debts are the problem. Borrowing, Pensions, Nuclear Clean up, The EU, losses on insurance, damages to victims, …
November 16, 2022
I’d be interested to know ‘where does it all come from?’. Have you just divided government spending by the number of households to come up with the figures of £35k and £38k. If so, it’s a bit misleading as it doesn’t break it down to how much is paid by business and how much by people. Nonetheless, it is an interesting figure. I wonder how many households contribute less than £35k a year in taxes. I imagine it must be a fairly significant majority.
That is the $64k question, Mr. Redwood. And I would have thought you could provide us with some sort of breakdown. I mean, the whole thing is now beyond a joke. What is all that money spent on? I try not to be judgmental about how other people live their lives but, here in Dorset, I seem to keep meeting people of working age who, clearly, either don’t work or who only work part time. The system seems to encourage a sort of half-life or perpetual struggle/dossing.
As my dad often observed, if you do the right thing all your life – work hard, pay your taxes, obey the law etc. – you will be shafted and you are a mug. He was right.
Each household this year will pay on average £35,000 in tax to receive on average £38,000 in government activity.
November 16, 2022
We’re always hearing about ‘austerity’. It would be educational to see, for example, total government spending figures for the years 2010 to 2022. And total tax take, too.
November 16, 2022
In my view, government ministers need to start bullying their departments much more actively. Whether they do or not, they will be constantly accused of doing so by europhile and/or Labour-supporting ex-mandarins bearing a grudge, so the ministers should make a clean sweep.
And btw the government should stop recruiting its enemies to the House of Lords.
November 16, 2022
Yes we spend too much on the Civil Service, H of C, H of L, the roads, the railways, the Local Authorities, the NHS, the endless Quangos, the Police (unless they start doing other than standing around on the hard shoulder of Motorways watching people on gantries, the Overseas Aid, the UN, NATO, Climate not-Change, Space exploration, allowing too many ‘staff’ in foreign embassies, allowing way too many students(?) from abroad to join our universities, taking applications for asylum.
Not enough on scientific research, medical problems, teaching 4/5/6 year-olds to read, ensuring 16 year-olds can join practical apprentiships, providing FREE loft insulation fitting, discounted LED lighting.
November 16, 2022
My experience of NHS managers is they do not really manage, nor appear accountable for the performance of their staff. Many NHS staff I’ve spoken with, whom have retired early, have done so with factors including bullying/vitriolic behaviour of senior managers, plus burnout &/or disallusionment. Needs a wholesale senior management transformation, run by external assessors, to retain only the right people and provide formal management training and objectives.
November 16, 2022
So what was the reason for deleting my post, Sir John. Too close to the truth again 😉
November 17, 2022
[…] Government spending is nearly £1.1 trillion, up by more than a quarter compared to the 2018-19 level. Where does it all go? – John Redwood […]
November 17, 2022
[…] Government spending is sort of £1.1 trillion, up by greater than 1 / 4 in comparison with the 2018-19 stage. Where does all of it go? – John Redwood […]