Give us your suggestion - big or small - of where public money could be saved

The requirement for A 'Temporary Events Notice' (£21) or lottery licence when a school/ scouts / neighbourhood society for example is holding a fundraising event or selling lottery tickets in advance.

The lottery licence is £40 for the first year and £20 thereafter, and all sorts of returns are required. Basicallly, the additional printing and organisation costs make the whole thing not worthwhile.

I would scrap Trident and bring the troops back from Iraq and Afganistan.

Some good ideas in this PCS article about alternatives to cuts here

"If every public ammenity had a person responsible for purchasing and ordering that took the same approach to this task they would if buying form their personal bank account i bet millions would be saved." At work I avoid ordering any stationary if I can help it because I feel guilty spending the money. I make do, same as at home, to the point that I'm still constantly borrowing a colleague's ruler.

A small one but I don't believe it's the only example of a dreadful business process:

Tax credit people - If we have 3 months to apply for CB, don't check the CB database after only 2 months and then waste money sending out letters to query it. If it's an issue, either shorten the deadline or, a radical idea, require a TC claimant to give the CB reference number. Simple innit?

Another idea: Don't revamp the curriculum every 5 mins or spend money testing the effectiveness of said curriculum via SATs when (if you invested properly in the first place on staffing schools and resourcing them well) you could ask any class teacher for just as an effective synopsis of a child's ability for much less money.

Ban 90% of government targets related to education - this would mean the AIO could go home at lunch and the Head would probably be happy too and would not notice if their salary didn't increase much in the next 5 years, they'd just be glad to be able to get the actual important stuff done instead of wasting hours and hours whipping children's asses into school if they are 0.8 secs late and then writing about it and talking about it to Ofsted and the AIO and the overwrought parents who are on Tax credits and really just crap and lazy obviosuly

My (almost) 9yo is on the school council this year - and is trying to persuade the HT that turning the thermostat down will save on the school's utilities, but he's not getting very far! I think it's to do with the fact that I'm skint and tight very frugal with heating, and only put heating on when it is below freezing outside. It's what jumpers and blankets are for! He seems to have taken this on board, and is trying to get support for this at school! He has also suggested that the school turns OFF the pc's in the ICT suite at the end of the day instead of leaving them on standby.

Hobb - think you are right about NHS direct, Walk in centres are so much better when run right, now in our town, walk in is open 7am-10pm, also a normal GP surgery in there, plus the building houses the out-ofhours service for most of the GP surgeries in town. All under one roof.

yes, I suspect a LOT of public money has been frittered in this way.

I see you have a shiny new school that is following the model of the 1960/70s and Victorian schools, i.e. turn up heating full blast - doesn't work well in either scenario, frankly.

Wasteful shit for public places - like an arts centre that 75% of the towns' population voted against? That has run over budget by the full original amount? that sunds like a good plan! Or re-vamping the council offices and public area 3 times in 3 years?

School was only built 21 yrs ago, is well insulated, if it is leeching heat through poor insulation, it isn't apparent if you sit through a morning sweltering while children read to you!

get rid of nhs direct - despite using it myself often in moments of hypochondria, it is shit becaiuse the 2 devfault positions are 1: call your gp 2:call ambulance - if you answer yes to any of first 3 questions then go straight to solution 2.

I now know this so no need for nhs direct anymore - particularly not the website. i mean a website diagnosis really doesn't fuel the hysteria enough when i need my cold to be serious

not buying wasteful shit to put in public places like chairs from those extortionate office supply places, or plastic bay trees. If every public ammenity had a person responsible for purchasing and ordering that took the same approach to this task they would if buying form their personal bank account i bet millions would be saved. have you seen the cost of stationery at the council approved office supply places?

schools leech heat through their awful poorly insuilated walls and windows so maybe plough some money into energy conservation for mid term - longer term gain?

turn all doctors waiting room radiators off while we're on the subject

Dotnet - according to my dc's, the heating in primary schools could be turned down from scorching sub-saharan temperatures to a more reasonable level too. It's winter, all dc's have jumpers, 99% of them strip off their jumpers within minutes of getting into the classrooms as they are so warm. If they have jumpers on, the school surely doesn't need to be heated so high that they are sitting there in short sleeves??

Who is at fault? The London Commuters that can pay £1000cm+, the LL's that charge what the commuters are willing to pay, or the low-paid local workers that need the help of TC's/HB to cover the cost?

Try living (and working) in a town where a vast amount of people commute to London, and can happily pay rental prices of £1000pcm for what is essentially a 2-bed+study (used as a 3rd bed) mid-terraced house. And then tell me that a local worker, in a town where a shop manager earns £14-£17Kpa, can afford to rent a home, any home, without the help of TC's/HB?

Er, no! It's greed that pushes up rental prices and so on, not feckin Tax Credits.

If we were not getting TC's, £16K household income would NOT cover home, heat, light, food for us. Neither would £22K max before tax if I worked PT.

Thing is, the state is only paying what it needs to keep the poor poor instead of in poverty. The benefits they get cover basic living costs and not much besides. And that goes for FT workers on TC's too. It's house prices and utilities that are the cripplers, and everyone needs a roof over their head, and heat and light! HB doesn't push up the price of rentals, it doesn't fully cover the cost of rentals, it just enables a low paid worker to keep a roof over their head when there's no social housing (with lower - for now - rents) available.

Tax credits are not driving up the cost of living for everybody, they are enabling people who can't cover basic costs on their wages (heat, light, home, food) to survive.

WashingMachine you do have a point, this is not a left/right argument more a matter of fairness.

How about if your an immigrant into this country you have to deposit of say 10k into a central fund to cover any call on public services after two years of paying tax the balance is returned to you minus whatever the cost of any public service used.

No dependents allowed in except children under 18 and spouses unless they follow the above.

No medical tourism as well

Perhaps the problem is that too many people are on benefits, tax credits etc.

For example housing benefit pushes up rentals, pushing up house prices. People need higher wages to pay for rent/mortgages.

Other benefits do exactly the same. People get given money by the state and go out and spend it. This creates demand for good and services, pushing prices up. Hence they need even more money to buy the same goods and services next time around.

Benefits, tax credits etc are just driving up the cost of living for everyone.

Perhaps if the state paid out less money, the cost of living would be lower, so we wouldn't need such high wages. With lower wages, businesses could employ more people and generate more wealth.

in my bank account?

OK, I misunderstood your tone when you said that.

The thing is, the government, and the taxpayer, are footing the bill for employers paying a wage that does not cover living expenses in this country. The only ways to fix that are either to get employers to pay more money to even the most lowly of staff (which they won't do, they'll outsource to China/India/anywhere else they don't have to pay wages that high), or for the government, via the taxpayer, to foot the bill, or for thousands upon thousands to be in extreme poverty if they stop subsidising this through TC's.

Grimma - YES, that's why I said that businesses would not be able to absorb those costs, which is why it won't happen. Which is why the benefits bill has become so huge. Obviously cutting Tax Credits or JSA will not work either, because if that is what the government has decided is the minimum amount that is needed to not be below the poverty line, then if they cut TC's/benefits to below that level - lots more people, working or not, are thrown into poverty.

. About how that one can be solved!