Budget 2017

[ckn]

20 hours ago, ckn said:

£10bn of NHS one-off capital funding across Parliament.

£3.75bn in revenue funding for the NHS (£2.8bn for the English NHS).

A decent investment as long as it's not lies like last time.

My optimism that this was a decent investment is now gone.  That revenue funding, the stuff that pays for all things that aren't one-off for those who don't get finance terms, is one-off funding split across years.

The immediate £350m that's coming in is not enough to cover the deficits built up by the cost cutting, it's a sticking plaster on a deep wound.  The rest of the revenue money is what concerns me, if the NHS is actually getting that ON TOP of inflationary rises then it'll be welcome but way short of what's needed.  My concern is that the money will actually be the NHS's budget rise meaning it's extra money spun as really another below-inflation increase.  We'll have to wait and see.

[Bedford Roughyed]

3 minutes ago, ckn said:

My optimism that this was a decent investment is now gone.  That revenue funding, the stuff that pays for all things that aren't one-off for those who don't get finance terms, is one-off funding split across years.

The immediate £350m that's coming in is not enough to cover the deficits built up by the cost cutting, it's a sticking plaster on a deep wound.  The rest of the revenue money is what concerns me, if the NHS is actually getting that ON TOP of inflationary rises then it'll be welcome but way short of what's needed.  My concern is that the money will actually be the NHS's budget rise meaning it's extra money spun as really another below-inflation increase.  We'll have to wait and see.

Was the £350m a joke to troll us?

[ckn]

14 minutes ago, Bedford Roughyed said:

Was the £350m a joke to troll us?

You'd have to think so with the jokes Phil was saying during his speech...

Also, that one-off £10bn capital, only £3.6bn is new money, the rest is to be made up of fire sales of NHS land and assets apparently.

[ckn]

Also, one thing I saw picked up elsewhere.  The government pledged earlier to scrap the public sector pay cap but the budget only singled out the NHS for actually giving it the additional money needed for that pay, what about the police, fire, civil service, etc.?

[ckn]

On a roll today.  The niggling things above got me to actually look again at the budget book.  One thing that immediately caught my eye was on the welfare cap (Annex B).  How can any ethical government include bereavement benefits in a welfare cap?  I pick up that one as it was top of the list (nearly) but there are others in that list of things in-scope for the welfare cap that you really have to wonder what sort of stone-cold soul would allow.

Could you ever imagine being the government employee that has to tell someone they're getting a reduction in their benefits for the rest of the year because they're too disabled, or too cold, or grieving too much.  Oh, and your Christmas Bonus goes towards that cap as well.

I really couldn't care what the cap is, it's the ethical nature of the things that make up the cap in the first place that bother me.

[ckn]

One thing missed was Phil Hammond saying the Tories' wonderful economic mastery had taken the UK out of the Top 5 world economies.  Yet, Labour are the party accused of financial incompetence...  go figure that one out.

[JonM]

Yes, we've been overtaken again by France, in spite of them being hamstrung by decades of socialism, the dead hand of the Euro etc.

[Saintslass]

2 hours ago, ckn said:

Also, one thing I saw picked up elsewhere.  The government pledged earlier to scrap the public sector pay cap but the budget only singled out the NHS for actually giving it the additional money needed for that pay, what about the police, fire, civil service, etc.?

Didn't the police and fire service get above 1% in their most recent pay reviews?

 

[Saintslass]

1 hour ago, JonM said:

Yes, we've been overtaken again by France, in spite of them being hamstrung by decades of socialism, the dead hand of the Euro etc.

We were overtaken by France a few months back and then we overtook them.

Our unemployment levels are a lot better than theirs.

[ckn]

5 minutes ago, Saintslass said:

Didn't the police and fire service get above 1% in their most recent pay reviews?

 

Yes, they did.  It was still below inflation and RPI but it was better than the cap they had.  The police and fire services didn't get the extra money to pay them though, they had to pay it out of their previous budget settlements.

[JonM]

2 minutes ago, Saintslass said:

Our unemployment levels are a lot better than theirs.

That is certainly true.

I've been trying to hire someone in France this week, and as it's so hard (and expensive) to fire people over there if they turn out to be no good, people choose who they employ really carefully, and try to hire only if absolutely necessary. Their social provisions give security to the employed (which is a good thing) but there is definitely a cost if you are young and/or unskilled.

[ckn]

One bit hidden in the Budget is that it gives HMRC powers to immediately make tax code changes rather than wait.  Normally, I'd support something that provides a more accurate tax payment as it then stops unpleasant end-of-year corrections, but HMRC make around 6 million errors a year in tax coding.

To do things like this, HMRC should have punitive fees imposed on them if they get it wrong resulting in someone paying more tax.  HMRC are quick to impose penalties of their own for errors from taxpayers but the other way around is just one of those things.

This comes on the back of other HMRC new powers, including them being able to demand you pay them any underpaid tax immediately, even if you've lodged an appeal or are taking it to court.

Might not really seem much but it's more one-sided powers to the government over us, from a party that's supposed to be small-government minded.

[JonM]

4 minutes ago, ckn said:

To do things like this, HMRC should have punitive fees imposed on them if they get it wrong resulting in someone paying more tax.  HMRC are quick to impose penalties of their own for errors from taxpayers but the other way around is just one of those things.

About 15 years ago, I got a tax refund of more than £30k after (unknown to me) HMRC lost a court case - they had effectively misinterpreted the law and owed tens of thousand people money as a result. The money turned up within a couple of days as they used to have to pay a fairly hefty interest rate on overpayments back then; it's only 0.5% now.

I've also had several occasions when I've had to phone up HMRC and ask for immediate tax code changes to avoid getting 1negative salary in the month. The PAYE system doesn't seem to cope very well with employers making lump sum payments. I've always found them very competent and reasonable to deal with though.

[ckn]

1 minute ago, JonM said:

About 15 years ago, I got a tax refund of more than £30k after (unknown to me) HMRC lost a court case - they had effectively misinterpreted the law and owed tens of thousand people money as a result. The money turned up within a couple of days as they used to have to pay a fairly hefty interest rate on overpayments back then; it's only 0.5% now.

I've also had several occasions when I've had to phone up HMRC and ask for immediate tax code changes to avoid getting 1negative salary in the month. The PAYE system doesn't seem to cope very well with employers making lump sum payments. I've always found them very competent and reasonable to deal with though.

HMRC's telephone advisors could teach many big companies lessons on how to treat "customers".  They're always helpful, clear and concise in their advice but are hampered by cuts, underinvestment in technology and policy decisions.  What I like about calling them is that it goes on the permanent record, if they give advice and I follow it then I'm 100% safe from any liability for errors that come from it.

For example, I got an exemption from claiming to be self-employed as I'm really doing bit-work consultancy while looking for the right new job for myself.  I called them up and walked through all the options, they told me to simply reconcile the money I'm earning on next year's tax return and not bother registering as self-employed, they then gave me a reference number to show that it'd been put on my record.  Simple and completely removed any stress about the whole thing.

[Griff9of13]

56 minutes ago, ckn said:

HMRC's telephone advisors could teach many big companies lessons on how to treat "customers". 

Agreed. Getting trough to them in the first place however...  

[ckn]

9 minutes ago, Griff9of13 said:

Agreed. Getting trough to them in the first place however...  

One more suited for the rant thread...

That's unfortunately caused by their cuts to the number of people there and their investment in that bone thick "my voice is my identity" stuff that only really works if you speak with proper received pronunciation.  Then trying to get the bloody thing to understand I wanted to talk to someone about declaring non-pay income was a nightmare, first time it told me to register as self-employed on the website (click), second time it said that information was on the website and I should register as self-employed (click), it took about five attempts to get through to an advisor.

THIS sums up how I was feeling:

 

[Trojan]

22 hours ago, Saintslass said:

We were overtaken by France a few months back and then we overtook them.

Our unemployment levels are a lot better than theirs.

And their wages are a lot higher than ours.  And (according to the IFS) will remain so for an indefinite period

[Bob8]

36 minutes ago, ckn said:

One more suited for the rant thread...

That's unfortunately caused by their cuts to the number of people there and their investment in that bone thick "my voice is my identity" stuff that only really works if you speak with proper received pronunciation.  Then trying to get the bloody thing to understand I wanted to talk to someone about declaring non-pay income was a nightmare, first time it told me to register as self-employed on the website (click), second time it said that information was on the website and I should register as self-employed (click), it took about five attempts to get through to an advisor.

THIS sums up how I was feeling:

 

My struggles with voice recognition ended when I was in the USA.

There, they have figured out that you cannot expect everyone to speak the same.  Because that is really, really obvious.

[Saintslass]

1 hour ago, Trojan said:

And their wages are a lot higher than ours.  And (according to the IFS) will remain so for an indefinite period

There may be a link between the two.