They’ve done it again. When the current government first came in, along with alot of good moves they made, there was one move that straight away seemed barking. The subject of child benefit, tax credits etc…. All these gucci little upgrades you get if you have kids. Well, the idea is, if you do really well, you don’t need them so much. A fair assesment I’d say. However, last time they did something like this for family tax credits, they decided that if someone earned above a certain amount (£40,000) then they didn’t get the tax credits. This seemed fine in theory, but it’s done on a per person basis. So, basically, in a family one parent can earn £41,000 for a total household income of £41,000 and recieve no tax credits while a family where two parents work earning £35,000 and £37,000 respectively would have a total household income of £72,000 and STILL get their tax credits, since neither individual earns over the threshold £40k mark.

A stupid result from a good idea.

So, fast forward to yesterdays budget.

Child benefit. Anyone earning between £50,000 and £60,000 will have the benefit incrementally withdrawn. (That’s good. Incrementally. None of this flat 100% cut off points that just mean there are millions getting worthless payrises that push them over a threshold and then they end up no better off or even worse off. What kind of message does that send? Work hard, get nothing.)

Anyway, it will be incrementally withdrawn, up to 60k, when it stops. Good stuff. But wait, whats this? Oh noooo, George Osbourne STILL can’t do any maths. Someone hand this boy a calculator. He’s done it per individual AGAIN!

A family with one working parent earning £60k will get no child benefit, a family with two working parents each earning £48k will have a combined income £40k higher than the one parent working family…. and STILL get FULL child benefit.

Facepalm.

Dear future governments. Buy a calculator and stop pissing off the citizenry with poor arithmetic!!

So, theres this bloke. David something or other. He’s the prime minister or something. Anyway, when him and his bunch took over, they made some pretty good moves…… for a while. (continue reading…)

Gaaaaaargh!!! The object of today’s rant is none other than that best of British institutions, Royal Mail. Over the past few weeks, Royal mail have apparently managed to not deliver, or fail to deliver, several items. Now, it’s not the losing things that bothers me, really, what really bothers me is the attitude other companies have toward the Royal Mail service. Now, for a little backdrop to this rant then the story goes thus… Once upon a time there was a sleepy little country called England. The people paid their taxes to the government there, and in return got a state postal service. They paid their money for a stamp, which didn’t cost much, and they could be reasonable safe in the knowledge that their mail would get where it was going. So reliable was this service that companies, law firms and state departments and such would assume that if they posted something, then you received it.

Somewhere along the way, this all went horribly wrong. (continue reading…)

Dear Mr Cameron. Government services out of control? Spending through the roof? A manaagement nightmare?

Why not consolidate your public service into one, simple, easy to manage public service…? (continue reading…)