The civil service, value for money ?

As a person who works in the private sector I have long held the view that the Civil service in the UK is a necessary evil. And should be as small as possible to remain effective, if it ever was effective!

Having spoken to a number of people in public service over the years they seems, as a generalisation, to not understand that they are a cost to the economy and they need to be as efficient as possible. It appears to be almost impossible to lose your job and no one is accountable for failure and you are encouraged to spend money left in your budget regardless of the need to do so. I could go on but my blood pressure would go up, the story below does nothing to change my view

No tax reminder for thousands as HMRC runs out of paper

Sarah Coles
Jul 26th 2011 at 5:00AM

Filed under: Taxes

You might have thought the taxman had managed every possible variation on the stupid mistake. However, it has just come up with another. Hundreds of thousands of people have yet to receive a reminder about the tax they are due to pay this month, because HMRC ran out of paper.

So what does this mean for them... and for you?
The mistake
The crunch point is the end of this month, as 31st July is the payment date for those people who complete a self-assessment form. They have to pay half at the end of the year and the other half by the end of July.

HMRC sends out reminder letters indicating what is due, and hammering home the expensive danger of missing the deadline - and the fines and interest that can be imposed on anyone missing the deadline or failing to pay.

However, this year HMRC failed to order enough of the paper it needed in order to print the letters, so hundreds of thousands will not be getting a letter until well after the deadline.

Apparently the problem was that the number of statements due to be printed has soared and no-one told the genius tasked with ordering the paper. It's just the kind of seamless internal communications we would expect from the government, and the level of competence in particular we have come to expect from HMRC.

Pointing out the obvious

You hear about labelling like this but it stunned me to actually see this on a packet of cashews. The warning next to it stated that the packet contained nuts.

Different transport

Working in the Aviation industry i find myself on a lot of aircraft, yesterday I was on a train journey for the first time in a couple of years. Criticising the rail network is a national sport in the UK, High fares, low service and overcrowding and three regular complaints.

I booked to travel from London to Birmingham 5 days in advance on Virgin West Coast, The fare was £45 in Standard class or £55 in First class, it was a bit of a “no brainer” decision on what to choose. The fare into London on the connecting train was £17 and we got nothing other than a seat. On arrival in Euston I transferred to Virgin, the carriage was almost empty and as we pulled away from Euston I was offered coffee shortly thereafter my breakfast order was taken and it arrived (on a plate not just in a foil tray) with orange juice toast and more coffee. I arrived in Birmingham an hour and 10 minutes after leaving London very refreshed and ready to go. Contrast this with all the hassle of security at airports and the packaged food, I must travel by train more often.

Flat Pack Restaurant

This photo was taken from my hotel Balcony in Nice recently, the timber building is a tempoary restaurant that opens July - September. The local planning regulations require that the building is removed for the winter and only the foundations remain. I asked my coleague how it is possible to cover the costs of building and dissasembling it as well as the winter storage costs and still make a profit. his reply .... This is Nice and there is is no shortange of money in the summer months.

Citizen M

I stay in a lot of hotels around the world and they are all, more or less, variations of the same theme. This Saturday night I found myself staying at Amsterdam Airport for the night. My local office had booked me into the “Citizen M” hotel adjacent to the terminal. This hotel chain is different from all the rest and I suspect aiming at a certain, young, demographic. I have to say overall I found the experience refreshing. All the rooms are double rooms and the bed is the full width of the room and square, it’s huge. There is no bathroom the shower and toilet are in the same room, it’s no problem when you are travelling on your own but it might not work if you are travelling with your partner. There is free internet and all the films are free, breakfast is in a bag and EUR10. There are limited facilities for business i.e. a very small desk!!

I don’t know if it would work for more than one night but the one night was good

In flight magazines

I usually spend a couple of minutes looking at the in-flight magazine when I am travelling. Since the economic downturn the advertising in these publications has subtly, and in some cases not so subtly, changed. It used to be all about wealth management, boats & other status symbols, houses and regional development agencies. With the government cuts the regional development agencies have disappeared and the boats and wealth management have largely gone as well. The BA High Life magazine this month there was a full page advert for a pawn Brokers !!!

We used a Danish Airline to move the tour group from Rotterdam to Zurich; well it’s an international business! The duty free catalogue on board was advertising Skippers Pipes. In the UK selling these sorts of sweets is banned as it could be seen as glamorising smoking and encourages children to take up the habit. Interestingly Denmark has banned the sale of Marmite because it has added vitamins. I am not sure what sort of conclusion to draw from these two facts.

Two sides of the same coin

I have been back out on the road this week with the music group that I was in South Africa with. This time they are touring Europe.

The first move was from Brussels to Berlin. Being based in London I was able to do this move in a single day. I was up at 03:00 and the taxi picked me up at 03:30. The bus took me to Heathrow at 0400 getting there at 05:30. It was then to the gate for the 06:50 Brussels Airlines flight to Brussels arriving at 08:30. A run through of the arrangements and then it was time for a coffee. The baggage arrived at 11:30 and the passengers at 13:00 the flight to Berlin left at 14:00 arriving at 15:00. I was all clear by 16:00 and had to get across town to Schoenefeld airport for my flight back to London that left at 21:25. The airport was crowded with weekend travellers going home and the flight was delayed by an hour and packed full. I got back home at 00:30, 21hours after leaving the house.

The second move was from Berlin to Rotterdam, Berlin was just a little two far to the east of London to make this work in a single day. As a result I took a morning flight to Berlin and the train across town to the hotel and then went up to Tegal airport to go through the arrangements before picking up the boarding cards that I had promised to drop off to the group. I spent the afternoon looking at Berlin, one of my favourite cities. I took the S Bahn to the Brandenberg Gate where the sence of history takes your breath away. Later on I went to the Berlin O2 Area using my back stage pass to get in and drop the boarding cards off. They were good enough to feed me with some very nice food before I returned to my hotel for the night.

Some days are easier than others.