So we got to make some cutbacks or get some more cash in – somewhere around £50bn seems to be the target; what do you suggest?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8646612.stm

Why don't we give we every public sector worker a 17% pay cut, say 37% for those in the higher tax bracket, and then make them exempt from income tax? How much could we save in admin? Maybe a bigger cut an make them exempt from NI too.
I was astonished when I heard the NHS were grumbling about the increase in NI, why do they have to pay it? Isn't that the government paying itself? Probably something to do with which budget it comes out of, but we do need a bit of joined up thinking.

one thing that could be cut, today i got a three page letter and a booklet to say that they had reassessed by Job seekers allowance and the new rate would be nothing.

Do they really need to use that much paper to confirm that i told them i had found a job? I guess they will now send me another letter with my p45 in with the same junk in a few days?

Just seems wasteful.

another saving ditch tax credits and just raise the thresholds to sensible levels! must be a more effective use of resources.

We need to cut out the nonsense that "There Is No Alternative" to cuts.

Better still, set a flat rate tax rate, maybe 30%, but whatever it needs to be. cancel NI, ALL allowances, loopholes, the lot. One band for everybody, applicable from birth to death for all earned income, don't tax savings or property in any way.

Child allowance is pointless for the well off, we get it and don't need it, we just pay it into a savings account.

Tax credits are silly.

Winter fuel allowance. My in-laws get it 'cos they are over 65 they are however minted.

Child trust fund – waste of money

I'd be happy to pay more income tax on my earnings over £75k

Public sector jobs should not be cut, some of the salaries need a review, front line staff need to be maintained, tiers of management and consulants salaries need to be cut.

Tax the banks

Tax the airlines

Cut the house of lords

Ditch tax credits completely for anyone who earns above the average wage.

Why not put stamp-duty on the seller? Can then set at any rate they like without affecting first-time buyers.

No fertility treatment or cosmetic treatment on the NHS.

Tax on aviation fuel. Maybe if we lead others may follow? If we can't do it alone maybe the EU could do it?

Car tax. Remove altogether, and also remove fuel duty. Then charge a flat rate of, for example, £10 each day a vehicle is used. Silly short journeys of 300yrds to drive the kids to school in the X5 would be a thing of the past, reduced congestion. Maybe a sliding charge based on vehicle value?

Abolish scrappage scheme. It costs the taxpayer a fortune to subsidise those who can afford a new car (most old banger types can't find the extra £10k they need for an old one, and encouraging them o borrow it may not be a good idea given that it was too much borrowing got us into this mess) It has been shown to increase pollution (massive pollution from making a vehicle, even Friends of the Earth say it's best to keep the old ones running as long as possible) All to save a few jobs in Korea or wherever they're made nowadays.

Agree with Tiger, get rid of child trust fund.

Bonuses for binmen 🙂

Just seen on the news "Bin men in Birmingham get on average £32,000!!!!"

That's more than nurses

That's more than most teachers

That's more than most police

Totally cocked up country!!

one thing that could be cut, today i got a three page letter and a booklet to say that they had reassessed by Job seekers allowance and the new rate would be nothing.

We got a drinks-coaster advertising local authority recycling scheme. Bit of grumbling in the local press about it. Partly not very green printing the damn things and partly a big waste of money.
Council man was interviewed and he said 'It didn't cost council-tax payers a penny. The money came from DEFRA.'
IT'S ALL TAX-PAYER'S MONEY YOU &*%@ING HALFWIT! They don't get the concept that we all pay for stuff, regardless of which budget it comes from.

Yes, it wasn't clear either if that meant that bin men were going to be paid 12K from now on, or dinner ladies 32K. But yeah it's cocked up whatever happens.

Just seen on the news "Bin men in Birmingham get on average £32,000!!!!"

Totally cocked up country!!

Why ? …….. you cannot dictate what Veolia Environmental Services (or any other refuse collection company) pays it's employees. They are not public sector workers,. The government does not pay their wages. Therefore cutting their wages would save the government precisely nothing.

Why ? …….. you cannot dictate what Veolia Environmental Services (or any other refuse collection company) pays it's employees. They are not public sector workers,. The government does not pay their wages. Therefore cutting their wages would save the government precisely nothing.

and who employs the services of Veolia? would it be the council, so who is paying the bin mens wages? council tax payers!

Stop paying cost overruns on projects/procurement/IT/building.

something else that was apparent from going to the job centre was how crap the IT systems were how much pointless renaming of schemes goes on and what also struck me is the speed things happen. No one seemed very busy,

so who is paying the bin mens wages?

Veolia is paying the wages – not the council. Is that really that difficult to understand ?

Reducing would the "bin men's" wages would not reduce government spending. It would simply increase Veolia's profit.

Veolia Environmental Services will have had to provide Birmingham Council with the cheapest tender, if they are "over paying" their refuse collectors, then that's their problem, not the taxpayers.

Next you'll be telling me that you have no faith in the free market. And talking to me about private sector waste/poor value for money/over blown wages/lazy workers who need to get in touch with the real world.

I think they look at it from the wrong side

I help run a small [5 employee] business & I'm also a paid employee for another company
In both companies the main emphasis has been on increasing revenue rather than cutting costs
We've diversified & found other business that then led to revenue for the original services we supply

Slash the pointless unelected quangos.
Slash the bloated public sector.
Stop foreign aid totally.
Stop unemployment benefits & council houses – bring back the workhouse.
Anything child related, if you want a dam kid then pay for it yourself.

Just a few from the top of my head.

As a shopfloor worker (Nurse) what worries me is that our managers will be told to make savings.

I seriously doubt that they will decide to axe their own jobs/pay which leaves us doing the front line work to bear the brunt.

Ultimately I believe that this will lead to a much poorer service for our patients.

As well, we will see even more outside consultants employed at £XXXX to tell them where to let the axe fall.

We already have a Business Process Mapping consultancy looking at our care pathways to make them more efficient. This project is massively passed its completion date simply because they are overwhelmed with the variety of work we do and the ways we have to do it.

Not sure that private sector practices are always the best in providing health and social care. It is the slavish following of these practices that have led to an overmanaged service, too many chiefs not enough indians.

Maybe that wasn't the long term plan but it seems that this is what has happened. Managers seem to beget more managers not better services.

Stop the subsidy to the arms industry – a billion on exports alone.

Raise the duty on new cars.

Enforce anti-corruption law rigorously and extract massive civil penalties from transgressors. The US raises hundreds of millions of dollars a year like this.

Nuke the ID card scheme.

Be more aggressive about charging unentitled people for NHS care.

Tax aviation fuel.

Reduce proportion of fuel costs that can be written off against tax.

Abolish the monarchy and renationalise their assets. Contract out management of the useful venues to be run as tourist enterprises and develop plan to sell off the rest once the market picks up.

Reduce every public sector budget by, say 25%, but leave the end service at 100%. Then let the management do what they are paid to do and provide the service required from the budget.

That way anything that doesn't go towards the service level is a 'candidate' for cutting. This would focus everybody from Minister through to Council Leaders and lower management on doing what they should – provide the required services to the people that pay.

Also make some big ticket cuts;

1 Massive scaling back of the MOD to be what it should be – Ministry of DEFENCE – not ATTACK

2 No foreign Aid (until we are back on our feet)

3 Restrict payments for private sector contractors/firms for value (e.g. all payments above £350pd to be documented and available for all to see, no payment above £1000pd or pro-rata)

4 Extra tax on public sector employees salarys/bonuses (and banks where we have a controlling interest) – anything over £100k is taxed at an additional 10%.

And I'm sure there is more.

Plus on the tax side.

1 Flat rate tax
2 No NI
3 Start taxing at £10k
4 VAT at 20%, and 0% on anything essential
5 Amalgamate tax and benefit, simple slide rule
6 Use a standard rate for all income, whether salary, dividend, pension, saving

And again I'm sure there is more we can do to make it simpler.

Veolia is paying the wages – not the council. Is that really that difficult to understand ?

So if that's the case then why does Birmingham City Council have to pay out to Dinner Ladies etc. because refuse workers were being payed more?

Surely if they were totally private sector this would not matter?

The workers include cleaners, cooks, care assistants and caretakers and were employed by Birmingham City Council. Source = BBC

Remove capital gains tax exemption on houses – will help sort out house price inflation and get extra tax in.

Additional tax on second/third properties (anyone else looked at the Sunday Times rich list and been struck how many people now make fortunes from "property"?)

Cut state benefits from people who don't need them (child trust funds for millionaires – wtf?)

Replace public sector pensions with a properly funded scheme

Ailgn public sector pay and benefits with private sector, (£38K PAs for schools – wtf again?).

etc etc

Edit – oh, and forgot – stop fighting expensive wars without first thinking about how we're going to extract ourselves from them.

Veolia Environmental Services will have had to provide Birmingham Council with the cheapest tender, if they are "over paying" their refuse collectors, then that's their problem, not the taxpayers.

Presumably Veolia has tuped ex council employees that are still on their council wages?

Well this dates back a long time so maybe they were employees of the council at the time earning what seems a lot – generous overtime I suppose?

I think tax on second homes is a good idea – not sure of the current situation but certainly council tax used to be less on these; I suggest an alternative tax for those.

Moving from an annual vehicle tax to a daily one as mentioned above does sound like a good one to me though policing it would be expensive; maybe the resultant fines would cover that?

Ditch vehicle tax altogether & put it all on fuel.

Certainly stop the foreign aid to India. If you can afford a space programme and a nuclear arsenal, you don't need aid. There's £825 million over the next three years.

*opens daily mail*

*writes a stern letter*

Reduce every public sector budget by, say 25%, but leave the end service at 100%

Yes the police, courts, prison NHS, schools, bin men, army etc can all cut there budgets by 25 % and it have no impact on service delivery. Do you really believe that?

Yes the police, courts, prison NHS, schools, bin men, army etc can all cut there budgets by 25 % and it have no impact on service delivery. Do you really believe that?

Yes I can. It would stop my police force buying surveillance vehicles at £30k and selling them a couple months later at auction for £6k because they'd bought too many. Maybe it would make them think once before spending money…

Reduce every public sector budget by, say 25%, but leave the end service at 100%. Then let the management do what they are paid to do and provide the service required from the budget.

Why don't we just increase corporation tax by 25% if it's such a foolproof plan? Let management do what they're supposed to do and provide the profits required on a narrower margin.

Or raise income tax by 25%! Be your own manager! Sustain your quality of life by filtering out the waste!

mos – Member
Ditch vehicle tax altogether & put it all on fuel.

But in doing that you punish the people that must use their cars for work. Where I work there is now public transport system so I'm restricted to driving to work and given that is deemed as a commute I can't claim that back. My OH is a community nurse and again she has to drive to her patients, once again public transport isn't an option.

It is the slavish following of these practices that have led to an overmanaged service

Absolutely. Ironic that successive efforts at market reform have resulted in an exponential rise in NHS bureaucracy, compounded by hordes of overpaid McKinsey types spouting sh1te about 'lean' management. Noteeth Senior (Consultant Paediatrician) regularly does his nut about such things.

andrewh

Council man was interviewed and he said 'It didn't cost council-tax payers a penny. The money came from DEFRA.'
IT'S ALL TAX-PAYER'S MONEY YOU &*%@ING HALFWIT! They don't get the concept that we all pay for stuff, regardless of which budget it comes from.

You are right, but you don't seem to get the concept that "They" are also part of "we"

The reason I choose 25% was that anything less than 10% will not change the culture. I realise that for many services the cut is impossible, but I'd like to see the actual evidence.

And by going for 25% this also means the end of all final salary pension schemes, including those of MP's and the higher echelons of the Civil Service – you'd be surprised how much these schemes cost, e.g. Police.

It does seem that public sector final salary schemes need to be changed if we are to avoid large increases in expenditure in the future so maybe get it sorted out ASAP to help us now. I also wonder if getting rid of the higher rate pension rebate is going to have to happen too.

Can we tax idiots at 75% please I doubt they would notice as they dont seem too good with figures /finances.
BR tiger you cannot get rid of the pension scheme as it is part of people's terms and conditions and would be constructive dismisal to remove it. You could prevent new people joining..if you get union approval but that may be a hard sell

Junkyard – if aimed at me…

My reasoning behind the strategy is that in work I've previously taken over departments/teams and created out these kind of savings, without impacting the final service.

Departments have to just stop doing things to really save, as just trying to do things cheaper usually fails on both budget and service.

And all that happens if new starters can't join is that you end up with a 2-tier workforce – like in many companies – is this fair?. The schemes should be closed for all, with any built up benefits protected.

If all schemes are closed on one day, at least people can see that they are not been picked on, and they'll find it difficult to strike as everyone can see that there is a reason. MP's etc must be included.

Enforce comminity service

No benefits for those that don't do above – thereby aiding local authorities to provide services. Litter picking street cleansing gardening etc!!

Scrap passports and roll them over to biometric id cards and make this our passport system – No ID card no benefits no NHS assistance.

Money for core services only – i really don't want to pay for some minorities project that gets scrapped every 12 months.

Tax banks and salaries above 100k, then tax bonuses as well.

Reduce cost of loans for start ups especially manufacturing.

Cap immigration for low level workers and encourage teachers and doctors.

Bored of minority factions taking over everything and bleeding hear liberals. Lets give rights to those that benefit our society and take them away for those that abuse them.