Matt Dykes

The attempt this week to win over public and professionals alike to the Government’s reforms of the NHS brought to mind another recent re-branding exercise where David Cameron tried to salvage a flagship policy in the face of overwhelming scepticism.

Yes, I’m talking about the Big Society.

As with the NHS, so with the Big Society.  The Prime Minister nailed his personal colours to the mast.   He told us of his “passion” and his “100% commitment” to his “mission” to “try and build a bigger and stronger society whatever is happening to public spending.”

But evidence continues to suggest that the Big Society remains crippled by the devastating impact of the Government’s cuts on the voluntary sector and the resulting levels of sceptism among the workforce and general public.

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Paul Sellers

The TUC has been very worried for some time now about the exponential spread of unpaid “interns”. Good work experience is valuable, but demanding unpaid work as the toll for young people trying to start their careers is despicable.

There are some signs this week that the laissez-faire attitude to bad internships might be about to change. The Government has promised a push to make internships fairer as one of the measures outlined in its Social Mobility Strategy, whilst today’s Low Pay Commission report urges the government to enforce the National Minimum Wage (NMW) for interns.

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Tim Page

There’s an interesting article in today’s FT, entitled ‘In a tight spot’, which describes divergent policy towards interest rates in the US, the UK and the eurozone. This is prompted by the fact that the European Central Bank (ECB) is expected to raise interest rates today, by 0.25 per cent, while the US Federal Reserve continues to ease monetary policy. The Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England (MPC), which analysts expect to hold rates this lunchtime, is unfairly described as “sitting on the fence”.

The article neatly describes two things, one explicitly and one implicitly. It highlights, as if we didn’t already know, how interconnected the  global economy is today. Higher eurozone interest rates would drive down the dollar, hitting continental Europe’s attempt at an export-led recovery (an attempt at which some are succeeding more than others). US inflation might accelerate as import prices rise. What Washington and Frankfurt do are of interest to economies thousands of miles away from Washington and Frankfurt.

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Scarlet Harris

It’s not the first time – and sadly it is unlikely to be the last – that contributors to this website have commented on government budgets, cuts, plans and initiatives which seem to mete out particularly harsh treatment to single parents. Richard Exell recently explained why the cap on benefits will hit single parents particularly hard.

Nicola Smith has explained how single mothers are caught between a rock and a hard place with increased childcare costs.

We also know from modelling by Howard Reed for the Women’s Budget Group that the 2010 CSR would leave lone mothers 18.5% worse off, making them the biggest losers of the government’s cuts.

Now the government is introducing charges to lone parents seeking maintenance payments from non-resident parents through the Child Support Agency (CSA).

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Owen Tudor

As the decisions of the European Parliament and the Heads of the seventeen Eurozone Governments showed in March, the prospects for securing a European Robin Hood Tax are now stronger than ever. But there is still work to be done. The European Commissioner for tax matters, Lithuanian Algirdas Semeta, denounced the EP vote, and the full European Council – the heads of all 25 Member States – decided to continue pressing for an unlikely global Robin Hood Tax. Now you can have your say by commenting on a European Commission consultation on finance sector taxation. Before the European Parliament voted to restore support for a European Robin Hood Tax (dropped from the original committee report on a tied vote), half a million emails were sent by campaigners to MEPs across Europe. They made a difference, and a new web tool will allow you to send a message to the UK Commissioner Baroness Cathy Ashton, Commission President Manuel Barroso and the arrogantly unelected Tax Commissioner Algirdas Semeta.  If you want to do more than send the standard letter to Commissioners, you can also respond to the full consultation document. The deadline, whatever you do, is 19 April.

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Janet Williamson

The European Commission has just published its Green Paper on Corporate Governance (closing date for responses 22 July). It covers three areas: the board of directors, shareholders and the role of comply or explain in corporate governance.

From a UK perspective, the inclusion of this last section is interesting, because the concept of ‘comply or explain’ as a means of ‘enforcing’ codes – in other words, either do what the code says or explain why you haven’t – has had a significant role in UK corporate governance since the 1990s. The UK Code of Corporate Governance is ‘enforced’ using comply or explain, and many in the UK see the Code and the flexibility of its enforcement as a strength of the UK system. However, it is also the case that under ‘comply or explain’, some areas of the Corporate Governance Code have simply been flouted, notably the requirement to take into account pay and conditions elsewhere in the group when setting directors’ pay, which is routinely ignored by companies both in terms of compliance and disclosure. Comply or explain does not always work, and it is good to see the European Commission question the extent to which it should be rolled out further within the EU.

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Nicola Smith

I have a guest post up at Left Foot Forward discussing our new Tax Credit calculator and the limitations of the Treasury claim that most households are winners from today’s changes.

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John Wood

Tax Credit changes are taking effect from today that could leave families thousands of pounds out of pocket. Along with Mumsnet, we’ve put together a quick online Tax Credit changes calculator to help you find out how your household will be affected.

It lets you add your details, such as income level and number of children, and it’ll estimate how they will be affected by the tax changes taking place from today and from April next year.

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Tim Page

More gloom for the UK economy today from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Paris-based think tank that brings together the richest 30 free-market economies in the world. In a new analysis by Pier Carlo Padoan, its Chief Economist, the OECD argues that the UK’s economy will grow more slowly over the next quarter than that of any other G7 country apart from Japan.

UK gross domestic product (GDP) will grow by an annualised rate of one per cent in the second quarter of 2011, according to Padoan, down from the 1.3 per cent forecast in November and compared to forecasts of 3.4 per cent in the US, 2.8 per cent in France and 2.3 per cent in Germany.

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Nigel Stanley

The government’s much trailed Green Paper proposing a flat rate retirement pension has yet to appear on the DWP website, so it is hard to give a detailed reponse. (Update: it was published at 6pm but has still yet to appear at 6:30).

But we do know that the government is not intending to put any extra money into the system. This is what Pensions Minister Steve Webb said on the Today Programme this morning:

We’re not talking about spending a lot more money … we’re broadly talking about spending the same money but spending it in a simpler way. We take the complicated system – the basic pension, the state second pension, the means-tested – (and) roll them into a single payment.

“Obviously if people have already built up rights above that level we’ll honour them so we’re not taking any money off people.”

The key question therefore is who will lose as there are clear gainers.

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