Cutting it
Bubble — By David Jones on June 10, 2010 2:31 pm
A taste of things to come
But sometimes the fog lifts, and what was a broad outline becomes a set of specifics. It’s then you learn that it’s your job which is part of the £60bn government savings plan. So, sadly, it is with over 100 employees at Companies House in Cardiff.
Over the coming weeks leading up to the 22nd June budget, we will hear much more about which jobs are going to be lost and which services will be affected.
The position for the Welsh Assembly budget is still to be announced (Companies House is a UK-funded service). Yesterday, Jane Hutt met with the new Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander and said “the decision on whether to defer cuts is a very difficult one as we seek to protect the economic recovery and it should not be rushed”, so we don’t yet know if there will be an impact on Welsh funded services.
But even if the decision in Wales is to keep the current budget commitments and therefore delay any in-year cuts, these specifics will be felt be everyone in Wales, either directly through unemployment or though the reduced spending and its economic impact from business services to retail spending.
So the talking and warning and concern-for-the-future is coming to an end, and the grim reality of what we’re facing will start to be revealed.
Two predictions :
One – It will be bad
Two – There will be a renewed analysis of what actually caused this
UPDATE: It’s now clear that Companies House is looking for other ways to make economies. The BBC reports:
Companies House in Cardiff says it hopes to make savings without any job losses.
It said that instead, staff will face pay freezes and a branch in Nantgarw, Rhondda Cynon Taf – which employs about 250 people – will close with work moving to the city head office.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/10282199.stm
Tags: cuts, public spending
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17 Comments
David said: “The position for the Welsh Assembly budget is still to be announced (Companies House is a UK-funded service).” While we might look for some (slight?) amelioration of cuts’ impact in Welsh Assembly Government-funded services, the future may be bleaker for Wales-based UK departments besides Companies House.
Department for Work & Pensions (Jobcentres), HM Revenue & Customs, Courts Service, Office for National Statistics, Identity and Passport Service, Intellectual Property Office – and these are just some of those offices based in Newport, presently employing thousands of people providing essential government functions.
I suspect David’s two predictions will indeed come to pass…
But will we still spend £3 million pounds on marketing agencies in OZ? http://www.ukprogressive.co.uk/it%E2%80%99s-the-top-line-sir-an-open-letter-to-the-new-welsh-1st-minister/article6675.html
And millions more on junkets to Dubai (which is in even worse shape that Wales).
And on new expensive backlit billboards by gate D-4 in Amsterdam Schiphol Airport so those coming to and from Cardiff and the other UK cities can see it but not many other potential investors can thanks to the gross incompetence of International Business Wales, Cardiff and Co and the Welsh Assembly Government (WDA replacement?)
And any more harebrained schemes to spend £10 million pounds sprucing up the airport that flies to nowhere?
And how about another £10 million trying to lure NYC to CWL service. http://bit.ly/cVfjN0
But hey… once the parking lot is done they will collect £1 per car no matter how long one just drops off.
Oh, sorry… you were legitimately worrying about cuts in services? Just watch our AMs and chosen ones fight to protect their lifestyle, too bad for you David. Just don’t dare touch their boondoggle junkets disguised as business development!
Once again, Denis uses this platform to push his own writing and then shoots himself in the foot with sweeping, uninformed statements like: “Just watch our AMs and chosen ones fight to protect their lifestyle”.
What does this mean? Assembly Members have the tightest set of rules for expenditure of any legislature in the UK, and they are published for all to see here: http://www.assemblywales.org/memhome/mem-allow-pay-pensions.htm. Everything is scrutinised, and so it should be.
Leaving aside what on earth this has to do with cuts at Companies House, a UK government agency, who does he think goes on these so-called jollies? Perhaps, rarely, a minister. And how often to they take place? In the seven months I’ve worked there, I’ve not heard of a single trip of this kind.
Check your fact, please.
I remember once that Ieuan Wyn Jones went on a ‘trade mission’ to India, not long after he first became Minister.
The alarm bells were ringing and both the South Wales Echo and Western Mail ran stories with the usual rent-a-quotes criticising the trip. A ‘junket’ surely.
6 months later it emerged that deals worth several millions of pounds had been won for Welsh businesses as a result of the mission, far exceeding the cost of it. A praiseworthy story ran, but by then the damage had been done.
No Duncan, I usually aim much higher than my foot. Sorry if the only references are my own and, while it is snarky and cool to point, I’ll point right back asking why no one else in the media is challenging the ridiculous amounts of money frittered away in the name of economic development?
Without a national top line, as in businesses paying taxes and creating jobs for people who also pay taxes, we will see more and more expense cutting in agencies like Company House.
Why is no one asking for a detailed WAG, IBW or Cardiff and Co ROI calculation on the millions of pounds frittered away (and please, more than wholly created press mention column inches) in the name of economic development? What do we in Wales have to show for these “investments”?
Call it sweeping if you wish and for months there was a continuing series of articles unresponded to by any authority because your former employer chooses to ignore, rather rips press releases, pops a pro and con quote at the front and back-end and calls that news. I mourn the loss of true investigative media voices. When the press becomes the mouthpiece for anyone rather than asks questions such as the above.
And….
Why were 88 people needed to attend the Smithsonian folk-life festival junket vs real economic development and search for inbound capital? Where was the diligent expense controls there of which you speak? How much money came in from THAT strictly monitored junket?
How much money is being frittered away in the name of the Ryder Cup? We have an event that will last three days, with corporate executives choppering into Wales from London because we have three completely full and over-priced 4-star hotels (only St Davids is considered 5-star and that is debatable) and a road/infrastructure system that is such a joke my US clients will avoid it at all costs? Where is the benefit to Wales if they chopper in and out for the day? Ask K-Club how much extra Ireland got four years ago? I choppered in and out in a day back to Liverpool with my client.
Why did Cardiff and Co hosts a local black-tie dinner at the museum at enormous cost to entertain local business leaders? How will that attract businesses to Wales? Why also did they buy bus adverts for vehicles riding through Cardiff with the Chair’s smiling face in a photo full-on? Why does our airport lose so many travellers to Bristol yet points fingers? You can only blame the volcano for so long.
The list is getting far too long… Where are the media voices demanding accountability on behalf of the people and the business community bleeding a death of a thousand cuts in a country where 70% of the workforce is in the public sector and we will be involved for the next year in an expensive and distracting magician’s mis-direction called devolution!
In any other global city/nation there would be investigations launched and heads rolling. Probably well above the knee now…
Denis,
Thanks for the explanation. We’re a lot more in common cause than you might think. A lot of what you detail (and which I don’t know about, so I won’t dispute it) would involve officers rather than elected AMs jetting off across the world.
I am completely with you on the Ryder Cup. Somebody should FoI the Welsh Government and ask what it’s total expenditure, including infrastructure improvements, travel and marketing, has been for the event. Then it should be measured against a return on investment. I simply do not believe that three days is an adequate window to ‘showcase Wales to the world’ and receive any benefit from it.
I’m not so sure about journalistic culpability here. I regularly speak to a number of business reporters who have very firm views on economic development. But it wouldn’t be fair to air their views here without their say-so.
In addition, whereas I once thought that this tournament would benefit only Sir Terry Matthews, I have recently spoken to someone “in the know” who tells me that he stands to lose a substantial amount of money over this tournament. In fact, only Ryder Cup plc looks to do extremely well out of this.
There is a prevalent attitude that questioning the Ryder Cup equates to knocking Wales. I don’t believe that most people feel that way. If it is perpetrated at all, it is not a widely-held view.
“where 70% of the workforce is in the public sector” Really? what are your sources for that extraordinary figure?
Duncan,
I suspect your point over the Ryder Cup could be extended to other sporting events, most obviously last year’s Ashes. I’d guess the MS (especially as it did draw in the FA Cup for several years) paid for itself and of course continues to draw in revenue to the Cardiff area, but what else?
“There is a prevalent attitude that questioning the Ryder Cup equates to knocking Wales. I don’t believe that most people feel that way. If it is perpetrated at all, it is not a widely-held view.”
Indeed. I have to admit I have probably held back a bit with this in mind, particularly given my locality to it.
The problem I find, and again it does come back to our limited powers, I feel that the WAG can make policy within those boundaries that would not carry weight if we were independent. And I include in this some of the universalist approaches to things like free prescriptions.
The Ryder Cup has been oversold by the WAG, because it lacks the powers to offer a more indepth economic/business development package around tax and investment in growth industries. There is also a populist twinge to sporting events, which does prove appealing to many Governments.
That is not to say WAG has no power, but I do think many WAG policies can be oversold due to a need to highlight what we can do with our limited powers. This in turn leads to both overselling on one end, but a distinct lack of critical context on the other in terms of output. It infects opposition AMs who blame WAG for Wales’ sluggish economic performance (as if Westminster does not exist) but also industry critics who try to call for outputs from of WAG policy that are wider than its powers.
I am not expert in these matters, so go gentle on me.
I don’t have an opinion on the Ryder Cup but why is Denis repeating the lie that “70% of the workforce is in the public sector”. The real figure is 24% with over 70% in the private sector. The first time Denis did it was down to being mistaken.
On the contrary, Marcus, I think you’re on to something. Not sure I agree with your speculation as to why it’s happened this way, but certainly the Welsh Government doesn’t have all the powers it could do with to really take advantage of such an event.
Ben, your point about Cardiff is well made. I suspect it will be even more the case with Newport and the Ryder Cup. Spectators can only enter the site via busses that run from special Ryder Cup car parks, even those who live close to the Celtic Manor Resort. And, I’ve said this before, if you are travelling from the US, what difference does it make if you have to make an 80-mile-odd round trip from Bath every day? I fear that the South West of England will do at least as well out of this event as Wales will.
“On the contrary, Marcus, I think you’re on to something. Not sure I agree with your speculation as to why it’s happened this way, but certainly the Welsh Government doesn’t have all the powers it could do with to really take advantage of such an event.”
Fair comment. I think you pick up on another point, that the (lack of) outputs from the Ryder Cup are it would seem wholly at the WAGs door, but the ability to wholly tailor the process to achieve those outputs are not.
The point I was trying to make is making policy in a non-revenue raising/fixed block grant environment provides its own challenges. Sometimes this can lead to innovative policies despite limited powers, sometimes I feel it means we have a policy that we would not perhaps deem appropriate if we was an independent revenue raising nation, or certainly they would not be given the same prestige.
The WAG is constantly fighting a battle to get their policies noticed, which I think can sometimes lead to overselling the ones that get reported.
Denis Campbell clearly finds much of what we do in Wales, on the economic and political fronts, second-rate and irritatingly un-American. Many people in Wales, including myself, share his frustrations. Also, I don’t play golf.
However, as a Nationalist, I feel the blame must lie with the fact that we don’t have proper effective control over our own affairs. In America, even a small (ish) rural state like Georgia has more control over their finances and legistlature than Wales does and this is enshrined in a proper written Constitution. That is why full devolution to nationhood (or at least a state within a federation) is necessary and the only way it appears that we can attain this, in the short term, is by pursuing this ridiculous (endlessly delayed) referendum route.
Naively and simplistically, it seems to me that if everyone, including the political parties, are more or less in agreement that ‘more powers’ are needed for government in Wales to function properly why cannot the WAG just take them now, exercise them and argue the toss retrospectively (in the courts) with the UK government? Of course, whether the current WAG is administratively ‘competent’ to handle these extra powers can and will be argued but most of them are clever and responsible people who could probably take this on with ease.
After all, if a State like North Carolina can run its own affairs, within a federal framework, then Wales should be able to do so, n’est pa?
I think that the UK ConDems, if they really want smaller government as they keep saying, would be more than happy to ‘get shot’ of Welsh administrative concerns. It is unlikely that they, politically, would want to impede the course of devolution/decentralisation and secession of powers as long as it didn’t cause the break up of the Union and it was perceived that there was equitable distribution of regional funding that included England. The Barnett formula is clearly a dead parrot.
The problem is parochialism, lack of leadership and an inability to see beyond the immediate concerns or express a clear future vision. Because everything always stems from money and finances then, as I have argued in detail elsewhere and in an article for the Institute of Welsh Affairs think tank (out soon), the first critical step is to reform the financial and banking infrastructure by redirecting money through local/regional credit unions and by joining the ‘move your money’ movement. Devolutionary or constitutional issues do not apply nor is there an insurmountable regulatory/legal barrier to doing this – it’s just a question of will and decision-making.
Duncan & Denis.
Just two points:
1. Companies House staff reduction has been caused by technology. Instead of sending paper by post, most filing is now done on line with payment (where relevant) on line. The same is happening with VAT and HMRC. So with less paper, fewer people are required. Whether efficiency will improve, only time will tell.
2. WAG and Assembly economies. Duncan thank you for the link to AMs’ rules for expenditure etc. However, I was most surprised at my findings.
Firstly the only detail available for each AM was 2007/2008 -why is not 2008/2009 available?
Secondly, looking at the regulations I was most suprised to see that only AMs inside the Cardiff – Newport – Caerphilly area are not allowed second homes. I presume that these regulations are up to date??
Thus there are claims for second homes (including mortgage interest), subsistence allowance and transport for AMs who live within 1hr 30mins commute from Cardiff. (all of which have caused problems at Westminster). Surely in these difficult economic times it is not unreasonable to expect a 1.5 hour commute to work – a cost which is not allowable by the HMRC.
Also found were claims for taxis when an AM had to visit London – what is wrong with the tube?
Surely the regulations for AMs expenses needs to be revised urgently so that they can lead the way by example! If they, being at the top of the public sector in Wales, do not adopt the ecomonic culture of the private sector, then why should they expect the rest of the public sector so to do?
Cambria Politico bemoans “this ridiculous (endlessly delayed) referendum route.” Only, it’s not endlessly delayed, is it? All parties, at Cardiff Bay and at Westminster, are agreed that the referendum should be held within the next year. The Westminster ConDem government proposes it should be held next year. WAG had hoped to hold the referendum this Autumn, but failed to act promptly enough to achieve that. But early next year isn’t really “endlessly delayed”, is it?
Cambria Politico goes on to say “Naively and simplistically, it seems to me that if everyone, including the political parties, are more or less in agreement that ‘more powers’ are needed for government in Wales to function properly why cannot the WAG just take them now, exercise them and argue the toss retrospectively (in the courts) with the UK government?” Yep, that does seem naive and simplistic. Government (in London, Cardiff or wherever) is surely all about the maintenance and enactment of legislation – of law. For any government deliberately to break the law, by unilaterally assuming further law-making powers, would be for it to abrogate its own legitimacy.
For the Assembly to enhance its legitimacy amongst Welsh voters, we need to secure a referendum mandate, which can best be achieved by a positive, effective Yes vote campaign. And such a debate takes time, for all people’s issues and concerns to be heard and addressed.
Financier,
The expenses system for AMs was changed last November. This gives you the background and the new rules:
http://www.assemblywales.org/allowances
Here is the BBC report:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_east/8334738.stm#top
In addition, one of the Assembly’s legislation committee’s has been considering AMs’ remuneration. You can keep up to date with its progress here:
http://www.assemblywales.org/bus-home/bus-legislation/bus-leg-measures/bus-legislation-measures-proposed_remuneration.htm
Financier/Duncan, the Remuneration Measure has now completed its legal passage and awaits Royal Assent.