Richard Exell

A new opinion poll shows that, when they are asked how much different jobs should be paid, people tend to propose higher pay for the low-paid jobs and lower pay for the high paid ones.

The opinion poll was conducted by ComRes for Pay and Tax: The Radio 4 Debate, due to be broadcast tonight at 5.00. One thousand people were asked what they thought different jobs should pay. Some coverage has focused on the fact that footballers were accorded the highest ‘merit’ pay, but what I noticed immediately was the equalising tendency it revealed – for every job that is paid £30,000 a year or more, the public came up with a figure lower than the actual pay rate. For every job paid £25,000 a year or less they came up with a higher figure:

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Richard Exell

Edinburgh City Council has begun a 30 day consultation on the future of its subsidy for Blindcraft, a sheltered factory making beds. 63 per cent of the 70 workers at Blindcraft are blind or disabled;

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Richard Exell

In a submission to the Treasury, the Local Government Association has warned that frontline services face a shortfall of £12.5 bn in 2013/4, rising to £20 bn by 2014/5. The gap will be created by rising demand for services, combined with cuts in government grants.

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• JRF Quiz
  Take the Joseph Rowntree Foundation poverty quiz – see how much you know.
• Councils face large cut in grants after Treasury deal
  “The Guardian” reports that cuts could force the government to withdraw its own plans for directly elected mayors in 12 metropolitan council areas.
• DfT cuts could see loss of 600 jobs
  “The Guardian” reports on a forthcoming administrative shake-up at the Department for Transport that could result in hundreds of jobs being lost.
• Do workers really earn more in the public sector?
  Full Fact takes reporting of last week’s ONS figures on public and private sector pay to task.

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Richard Exell

The total “tax gap” reached £42 billion in 2008/9 – 8.6 per cent of the tax individuals and companies have a legal responsibility to pay. Measuring Tax Gaps 2010, published on Thursday by HMRC looks at the ‘gap’ between the tax that should be collected and the amount that is actually collected. £42 billion is the highest ever in cash terms and the per centage tax gap is the highest since 2005-6, when it was 8.8 per cent.

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Richard Exell

Yesterday’s monthly figures from the Office for National Statistics for retail sales show sales falling whether measured by value or by volume. On both measures, the Retail Sales Index for August was 0.5 per cent lower than in July. If this is a blip, all well and good, but the government will worry that it could be the start of a trend,

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Howard Reed

Earlier this week our TUC report “Where the money goes“, which shows that the coalition government’s planned spending cuts are likely to impact much more heavily on the poorest UK households than the richest, was subject to robust criticism by Simon McGrath at Lib Dem voice.

In this article we respond to these criticisms.

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• Forget 1979. This time we’ll unite beleaguered Britain
  Frances O'Grady writes for Comment is Free on how responding to the cuts could be a defining moment for trade unionism.
• Grant cut could close London charities
  The London Borough Grants Scheme is an important source of funds for voluntary groups – especially those delivering services for children and those involved in the arts. They are increasingly worried that a London Councils' consultation on its future is going to lead to abolition or radical cuts, as this article from "Children and Young People Now" reveals.
• Why progressive women should care about spending cuts
  TUC's Nicola Smith blogging on Progressive Woman.
• Cuts, spending and society | Joseph Rowntree Foundation
  Chris Goulden, Policy and Research Manager at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on TUC research.

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Richard Exell

I have a post over at Left Foot Forward looking at this month’s labour market statistics. There’s some very good news – another substantial increase in employment and a fall in unemployment plus the number of redundancies is well down on this time last year.

On the other hand there’s some other figures that suggest that we’re a long way from a self-sustaining recovery. For one thing, there is an increase in short-term unemployment – this could just be a blip, or it could be a sign that things are about to get worse again. There’s also been increases in youth unemployment and in involuntary part-time and temporary work.

These figures relate to the early Summer, and they suggest that there were some genuine green shoots at that time. Unfortunately, this was before the cuts began and I doubt if they survived.

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Philip Pearson

News of a Treasury review of the government’s £9bn clean coal programme comes hard on the heels of a warning from climate change Minister Greg Barker that firms should prepare for “project cuts and reduced incentives.” The CSR looks set to deliver serious damage to green programmes.

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