Richard Exell

Well, the foreign exchange markets certainly liked today’s services Purchasing Managers’ Index results – the pound rose to its highest level against the dollar for three months. The manufacturing index a couple of days ago reached record heights, and yesterday’s construction index was reasonably good, showing output returning to growth, though jobs are still being lost.

But, as I’ve found myself saying a lot recently, services account for two thirds of the economy, let’s see what the services PMI looks like.

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Anjum Klair

More than two-thirds of local authorities are planning major cuts in spending on buses, which will hit people on low incomes and those in rural areas the hardest.

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Anjum Klair

The Citizens Advice Bureau service could be devastated because of budget cuts, its chief has warned. CAB chief executive Gillian Guy told the BBC:

“If we add up all the cuts potentially coming our way they could amount to as much as 45% of our funding and that’s quite devastating.”

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Nicola Smith

This April working parents across the country will get a shock – despite inflation running at 4.8 per cent the childcare costs they recieve under Working Tax Credit will be cut by 10 per cent. And there is no indication that things are going to get better. It remains unclear how childcare costs will be met under Universal Credit, with early indications that support may  be even less than is available at present, and several recent Government consultations on new mandatory welfare to work programmes have been unable to commit to providing childcare for parents who are required by Jobcentre Plus to take part. It’s too early to call for sure but indications are that the Government’s position is becoming increasingly conservative: if work doesn’t pay you enough to cover your childcare costs then it’s time to get back into the kitchen (unless of course you’re a lone parent).

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Anjum Klair

The Guardian reports that funding for trainee teachers has been cut by 14% for secondary schools, which will result in the number of students funded being cut by 2,200, from 16,845 to 14,555. The number of English, art and music trainee teachers will drop substantially.

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Anjum Klair

The GMB’s latest list shows that a total of 150,059 posts are under threat of being made redundant at 260 councils and authorities across Britain. In nearly all these councils a 90 day statutory consultation period is underway on how to deal with these job losses.

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Anjum Klair

The Refugee Council is the largest independent refugee charity in the UK. It provides advice and assistance to asylum seekers and refugees in London, the East of England, West Midlands and Yorkshire and Humberside. The Guardian informs us today that the Refugee Council is to have its government funding cut by almost 62% with cuts to frontline services beginning “almost immediately” and fully implemented in three months’ time.

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Nigel Stanley

The Audit Commission report that NHS hospitals in England could save around £500m a year if they improve the way they buy everyday supplies. Apparently one trust bought 13 types of glove while another purchased 177.

While I suspect things are never quite as simple as these headline figures suggest, there is no doubt a real issue here.

Yet it takes good managers sitting in back offices to run good effective procurement programmes – and for all Andrew Lansley’s rush to endorse the report’s findings – it is precisely such NHS staff who are regularly attacked by those who want to suggest public services are wasteful.

I don’t want doctors, nurses and physiotherapists  to be  glove ordering. They have better things to do with their time.

Let’s hear it for the bureaucrats – and all the other support staff – who make sure the health professionals get their job done.

And of course the localism agenda means that government is gradually losing powers to insist on tight procurement policies – these not only make sense for efficiency reaons, but can also play a part in industrial strategy.

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Owen Tudor

The FT’s excellent Philip Stephens reaches the conclusion in the FT today that bankers will have to accept that they must contribute substantially more to the public purse before the public accept that justice has been done, and says that politicians will have to make sure that happens.

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Owen Tudor

The influential Economic Committee of the European Parliament voted today on whether the EU should move immediately to implement a Robin Hood Tax or wait for further reports and the possibility of a global deal. Greek Socialist MEP Anni Podimata proposed a report which said that “ the financial transaction tax should be introduced as a first step at EU level”. Liberals and the Centre Right voted against, Greens, Socialists and others voted for, and the result was a dead heat: 21-21. This shows how close the debate is in Europe about how to introduce a Robin Hood Tax. The Liberals and the Centre Right MEPs were urging that the Parliament should wait to see whether a global deal could be done through the G20, or at least for an impact assessment which the European Commission hopes to publish in the summer, but FTT supporters argued that both options were merely delaying tactics. This year will be crucial for the campaign to secure a financial transactions tax, and the struggle is as close as it could get.

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