Workfare Update
21/02/12
Tesco have pulled out of the work for nothing scheme. Adverse publicity over the slave labour project has forced the company to pay job seekers themselves and to offer them a proper job at the end of one month. Other big companies have also said no thanks to workfare, including Sainsbury's, Waterstones and Matalan. Chris Grayling, in charge of the scheme, told Channel Four that he was unaware of any companies pulling out of the scheme. Nick Clegg said he couldn't understand why people couldn't appreciate how marvelous this scheme was for young people.
Job Seekers Two For None For Tesco
17/0212
Employment Minister Chris Grayling calls it 'work experience', that's the Government's workfare scheme. Large companies like Tesco take on job seekers for nothing. Very nice for Tesco, they get the work done without having to pay a wage to the worker. That's better than two for one, that's two for nothing.
The logic behind the scheme, at one level, is that the idle will acquire so called 'soft skills', like getting up in the morning, dressing themselves appropriately, and turning up on time and then the argument continues that getting some routine in their lives will encourage these 'seekers' to reach higher than the top shelf of the of the dog food section.
At another level workfare is about getting a whole raft of long term idle persons off of benefits, whether they are fit for work or not. A particular target for this scheme are those on long-term invalidity benefit; first work assessments are carried out by French firm Atos (experts in spotting lead swingers), next you are classified in the work-related activity group (Wrag), then you get offerred a work experience placement; if you refuse you lose your benefits.
09/02/12
Ofsted Goes Into Stealth Mode
Ofsted, the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills, has been in business for 20 years. During that period Ofsted has failed in its mission to safeguard educational standards in schools.
Its failure was so immense that it got rewarded with a larger remit in 2007, taking on responsibility for child protection services and post-16 education. Politicians expressed concern that Ofsted was not fit for purpose.
Five years after Ofsted's failure in Harringey, and the death of Baby Peter, the Ofsted tractor ploughs on. Now, however, there's a new man driving the machine.
Sir Michael (Dirty Harry) Wilshaw is determined to sort out all the failing schools. Henceforward, schools will get no notice of inspections and nolonger will schools be granted the euphemistic accolade 'satisfactory', that's being replaced by another euphemism, 'requires improvement'.
Schools requiring improvement will have 18 months to sort themselves out or they will be put into special measures. Then, they will be transformed into academies, run by Abattoirs-Are-Us or some other specialist educational provider.
You don't have to be genius to predict the result of this new approach. Our big city schools are full of teachers struggling to maintain some kind order in their classrooms, they're not happy, demoralised, many are intimidated by their managements and the kids. Now Ofsted are going to cheer them up with a 'useless' tag, and expect the number of failing schools to increase.
Throughout its twenty year history all Ofsted has ever done is point the finger at failing schools and failing teachers. Any fool can tell you that you're doing a poor job but it takes someone special to tell you how to improve.
All Ofsted does is tell you that this or that standard is not being met and then walks away leaving you to fix things. The whole process is tantamount to having a heart attack and having the doctor telling you - you are not well.
Educational failure is a product of political failure, a failure imagination; the failure of successive governments. Governments only employ quangos like Ofsted to point the finger of blame elsewhere - don't expect educational improvement any time soon punk.
Beyond the cloaking operations of Ofsted
The Government have also now given headteachers the power to alter the school day without notice or consulting parents and staff. No doubt this is designed to prepare maintained schools for the longer days found in academies. Also, school Govenors are to take on legal responsibility for dealing with asbestos under a new proposal from DfE. The Department of Education is also proposing to alter a raft of school building regulations in order to produce cut-price schools. And, there's more, all the gains that teaching unions put in place to protect teachers under the Performance Management regime are to be swept away under plans being hatched by Michael Gove.
03/02/12
Gotcha... Starmer goes after Huhne
It's only taken 8 years but at last the DPP has finally found the guts to go after alledged points flipper Huhne.
Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer said the Liberal Democrat MP and his ex-wife Vicky Pryce would both be charged with perverting the course of justice.
Perverting the course of justice is a pretty serious offence and could carry a hefty prison sentence, especially for someone who keeps claiming to be innocent.
However, a better description of Huhne would be childlike rather than innocent. Since only a village idiot or a child would imagine that Keir Starmer would make a very public announcement about charging you if he wasn't two hundred percent certain of getting a conviction.
Huhne has resigned as Energy Secretary, so that he can concentrate on his defence - time waster!
Tax-dodgers’ friend in charge of HMRC
21/10/11
When a large union like Unite tells you that it is estimated that somewhere between £25-£4O billion is lost to the tax man due to tax avoidance schemes it’s fair to conclude that no one knows how much is being lost.
Incompetent tax authorities are in the process of informing tens of thousands of citizens that they have underpaid their taxes. Citizens on PAYE have their tax removed from their wage packets, large corporations please themselves how much tax they pay, i.e. if they don’t like the tax regime they move their tax affairs to other corners of the globe. Alternatively, the ‘big dogs’ sit down with the boss of HMRC for a cosy chat.
Large corporations are tax-dodgers, underpaying citizens are the victims of gross inefficiency, however, they will not be treated equally by the tax authorities. For the ordinary taxpayer, the penalty for filing your tax return late is an immediate £100 fine with no appeal, and a potential charge of £1,500, multi-national bosses are allowed to negotiate their taxes over a prolonged period, until they are happy with the outcome.
The inefficiency at HMRC might be partially explained by IT systems that don’t work, regulations that few comprehend, data loss, poor management, staff shortages (25,000 jobs will go by the end of 2011, job losses have already seen a substantial rise of uncollected taxes, from 23% in 2006 to 40% in 2009. Sacking tax collectors is probably one the most bizarre aspects of the current cuts agenda when you consider that the average tax inspector generates up to 30 times the cost of his/her salary. However, encouraging tax-dodgers is a far greater cause of inefficiency at HMRC.
Meet the tax-dodgers best friend
David Hartnett is the UK’s top tax man at HMRC and he likes to be indulged by the high rollers. Hartnett likes to enjoy the best food and wine while he’s negotiating with Goldman Sachs and Vodafone, as he lets them walk away with millions of pounds that should be in our tax coffers.
He accepted corporate hospitality on 107 occasions in the past three years. Some 27 times he dined at the tables of the ‘big four’ accounting firms, i.e. Ernst & Young, KPMG, PriceWaterhouse Coopers, and Deloitte. It’s these companies that do battle with the HMRC over the tax affairs of the big companies and corporate fat cats they represent.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism puts Hartnett at the top of corporate hospitality table. A survey of 172 senior civil servants by City University shows Hartnett to be well ahead of the field. They found that top civil servants were entertained on 3,151 separate occasions between 2007 and 2009, including trips to the tennis at Wimbledon, football matches at Chelsea and Manchester United, opera performances and fashion shows.
Calling Hartnett to account
Hartnett was recently quizzed over his dealing with Goldman Sachs by the Commons Public Accounts Committee and stated: ‘I do not deal with Goldman’s tax affairs.’ He then admitted intervening, which resulted in Goldman’s not paying up to £8 million in unpaid taxes.
The case against Goldman’s goes back to the 1990s. And current PAC investigation is not the first that has tried to dig into the fog of Whitehall secrecy and corporate deception. Goldman’s set up a company in the British Virgin Islands. This entity, called Goldman Sachs Services Ltd, supposedly employed all of Goldman's London bankers, who were then "seconded" to work there. Quite simply this was done to disguise bonus payments and thereby avoid paying tax.
The company, along with 21 investment banks and other firms, purchased blueprints for an avoidance scheme called an employee benefit trust (EBT). The bonuses were indirectly invested into elaborate share option schemes.
It took the Revenue until 2005 to demonstrate in court that these EBTs were merely illegitimate tax avoidance devices. The 21 other firms surrendered, and handed over what they owed.
Goldman Sachs refused to pay its £30.81m bill. Instead the city firm Freshfields and the tax QC David Goldberg fought tooth and nail on Goldman's behalf through the courts. By 2010, according to a public judgment, the unpaid bill with accumulated interest had mounted to £40m.
And while HMRC were battling in the courts to get this full amount out of Goldman’s, Hartnett did a private deal with them and waived the interest element. In doing so he contradicted his own evidence in which he claimed that "the Revenue never charged less than the tax owing".
Hartnett misled an earlier Committee by claiming that his dealings with Goldman’s couldn’t be revealed for legal reasons. This was rubbish and disclosure was in fact at his discretion. He still refuses to be upfront about his relationship with Goldman’s. This is not just rubbish from Hartnett, it's also very odd, given that when questioned about his splendid performance for Vodafone he was more than forthcoming. Vodafone owed the Exchequer £6 billion in unpaid taxes, Hartnett, after a series of private meetings, settled on a £1.25 billion payment.
ThisisMoney.co.uk pointed out, the man who negotiated on behalf of Vodafone for its tax settlement – John Connors – had worked at HMRC until April 2007. When Vodafone hired him, he simply moved to the other side of the negotiating table on this matter.
Stephen Barclay, Tory MP and member of the PAC, had accused Mr Hartnett of misusing confidentiality rules to "cover up his own mistakes". We understand that two further very large deals have been done that Hartnett is keeping to himself.
The present situation is a mess. HMRC is not properly accountable either to Ministers or to Parliament and there's never been a genuine attempt to assess its performance, except via the National Audit Office, indirectly and long after the event.
It very much looks like confidentiality is being used as a shield to hide bad decisions and incompetence by officials and in particular by Dave Hartnett.
Update: Jan, 2012, Hartnett announces his plan to resign.