-
Richard has a post on Left Foot Forward looking at the latest "Report on Jobs" from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation.
-
"Community Care" reports that the government underestimated the number of people who will be hit by the loss of DLA for people in residential care homes. The government originally said this would hit 60,000 people, but Disability Minister Maria has had to admit to the Commons that the true figure is 80,000.
-
-
Richard Exell
Community Care has an interesting article about the government’s plans for a Personal Independence Payment to replace Disability Living Allowance. The magazine reports an amazing comment from Disability Minister Maria Miller:
Because the assessment process hasn’t been finalised we don’t have those figures. You can’t estimate the impact of something until you have finalised it.
It’s strange that the Minister doesn’t know how many people will be affected.
Because I do.
-
Pensions & Investment
NAO say that public sector pension costs were “stabilised” before CPI indexing
Nigel Stanley
Perhaps the most effective proto-Tea Party campaign in the UK has been the long war against public sector pensions conducted by the TaxPayers’ Alliance and their allies in bodies such as the Institute of Directors. But even their most creative allies in the media (and there are many) have not been able to turn the latest report by the National Audit Office into another attack on soaraway, out-of-control, gold-plated pensions.
Indeed I’ve only been able to find one on-line news report about it.
Perhaps this is because it completely contradicts an important part of the anti-public service pensions narrative that the changes negotiated by the last government were meaningless window-dressing – something that I remember John Humphreys felt free to editorialise about when interviewing John Hutton.
-
Philip Pearson
A call to arms today, as we seem to be approaching the last few hours before the UN goes into a closed session to agree the basis of a statement from the conference. The lack of transparency is deeply worrying. We have not been able to identify a single government, reason or meeting objecting to the union’s position. Is this therefore a UN-led blocking move? The five “W”s apply: who what where when, and why?
A new version of the Shared Vision text was issued on 7 December 2010, which does bring back elements of the original vision, notably on gender, indigenous peoples, human rights and stakeholder participation. But principles of Just Transition and Decent Work are surprisingly omitted. This is despite what we understand to have been the EU’s support for this text to be reinstated.
-
Scarlet Harris
At a time of seemingly relentless bad news stories for women, a narrowing gender pay gap represents a very welcome chink of light. The Office for National Statistics reported today that the gender pay gap has fallen by almost a whole percentage point to 15.5%, based on the mean average earnings of full-time workers.
It’s great when when an unexpected piece of good news comes along but we can’t afford to be complacent about the huge gulf that still exists between men’s and women’s earnings.
The ONS figures provide a timely reminder of the stark difference in the size of the gender pay gap in the public sector (10% for full time employees) compared to the private sector (19.8% for full time employees). The median hourly wage for a woman working part-time in the private sector is just £6.96 – barely a pound more than the minimum wage (currently £5.93).
With women comprising approximately two thirds of employees in a public sector which is set to haemorrhage hundreds of thousands of jobs over the next few years, it’s clear that the narrower gender pay gap seen in the annual survey of hours and earnings (ASHE) today is likely to be short lived.
-
Richard Exell
Today’s Index of Manufacturing data from the Office for National Statistics added to the evidence for a continuing manufacturing recovery. The Index, which shows the level of manufacturing output, was 0.6 points higher in October than in September, and 5.8 per cent higher than in October 2009. The increase was twice as high as had been expected and the September rise was upgraded from 0.1 to 0.2 per cent. The overall Index of Production, which includes mining and the utilities, was down 0.2 per cent on the month, but these elements are accepted as being volatile.
As I noted above, the evidence for a sustained manufacturing recovery is now very strong; but today’s figures aren’t quite as impressive as the manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index results that I found so encouraging last week. If we look at the IoP results over the past two years the picture for 2010 is of solid growth rather than a boom:
-
Sean Bamford
With the newly announced net migration figure climbing to 215,000 from 196,000 the Government’s pledge to reduce it to the tens of thousands is proving to be even more difficult to achieve than ever. The main reason for this increase has been a further drop in emigration, a factor over which they have little control. Already, their capping of Tiers 1 and 2 to 21,700 for the forthcoming year with its overall reduction of some 5,000 has been superseded by this net increase. Given that the Government is fond of quoting Professor Metcalf of the Migration Advisory Committee on this subject, this is his assessment of Tiers 2 and Tiers 1 migration
All things being equal. Tier 1 and 2 migration clearly has a positive impact on (GDP). In a straightforward static analysis, Tier 1 and 2 migration makes a small but positive contribution to GDP per head. Such effects will accumulate over time and become more significant. (Source: MAC Report)
Not only is the cap on Tier 1 and 2 proving ineffective to meet the Government’s objective, it would seem that the TUC’s assessment that such an arbitrary cap will damage the economy is well founded!
-
Philip Pearson
In the drafting group on the UN’s Shared Vision text today, several Governments took the floor stating that they were supporting Just Transition. These were Norway, the USA, Gambia on behalf of the African group of nations, and the EU. Trade unions in our delegation from each of these supporters have clearly been at work.
-
Richard Exell
Today the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders published the car sales data for November, which confirmed the picture of demand I’ve been drawing in recent weeks: reasonably good in the business sector but household demand continues to be very very depressed.
Car sales were 11.5 per cent lower last month than in November 2009, reflecting the fact that we had the car scrappage scheme then and don’t now.
-
Working Life
May Day bank holiday “could be moved to Trafalgar Day in October to spare us autumn gloom”!
Paul Sellers
Today’s attack on May Day in the Daily Telegraph and Mail is likely to be an attempt to build a right-wing fantasy mountain out of a rather prosaic molehill that will most likely collapse under the weight of the garden roller of reason.
But enough of metaphor, the simple facts are that the Department for Culture is being lobbied by some parts of the tourist industry to move the May day holiday to the autumn, with All Saints Day (1 Nov) and Trafalgar Day (21 Oct) being touted in some quarters as possible new dates.
It is very hard to see how the abolition of the maypole and the morris dancer would benefit domestic tourism. Rather than tinkering with tradition the Government should simply create a new bank holiday in the autumn.