Gove sacks quarter of DfE :jaw:

[Alis_Klar]

BBC News - Department for Education cuts 1,000 jobs

[Pyroman]

They're trying to make these tiny savings here and there and completely wrecking the joint. How about we pull out of Afghanistan and get some proper tax from Vodafone and others and we'd never have to worry about money again

[mthomas08]

Can also add those benefit cheats or those who actually refuse to work because they are lazy!!

[teejay]

Feel sorry for the people losing their jobs, but tbh the education department is pretty bloated. Hopefully this will sharpen the focus on the important stuff rather than all the pointless twaddle that's sent out, classic example is the constant changes to the census data collection, which costs a fortune.

[twin--turbo]

Made redundant not sacked.

 

Rob

[localzuk]

Its horrible that anyone will lose a job, but my thought is the same for this as many government departments - why does that dept have 4000 people in it??

[teejay]

@Pyroman a planned withdrawal from Afghanistan is already in place, please remember who took us in there in the first place, you can't blame that on the current administration.

As for Vodafone, well yes I think the government caved in too easily on this one, but I also feel that companies have every right to do what they can to be tax efficient in a legal manner. You may think that all the money goes to money grabbing barsteward directors, but the vast majority goes on employing staff, which is what we need as a country. Their tax bill is huge anyway from all the other taxes outside of corporation tax, think business rates, employer NICs etc, you can even argue VAT and employee NICs and income tax is payed by the company, although they are technically customer and employee taxes. You also have to remember that having a profitable company benefits the shareholders. Who are the biggest shareholders, pension companies, including including local government pension schemes, so if you want a pension, you want strong profitable companies.

[GrumbleDook]

Its horrible that anyone will lose a job, but my thought is the same for this as many government departments - why does that dept have 4000 people in it??

 

Because it has a lot of the people that previously did jobs in other sections, NDRBs, etc in there. PfS is now part of EFA and still deals with Academies, new school builds, etc. Some Becta staff went in ... and are still doing an essential job (leading on safeguarding work for UKCCIS for example). The DfE brought back in a lot of work done elsewhere so the previous cut of staff was almost unnoticed ... this one is likely to hit hard.

 

The priority of back office staff going will only work if things are made more efficient (a common thread across the whole of the public sector) but I worry that it will just mean corners being cut instead because there simply aren't the staff to cope with the need.

[Trapper]

Give Gove another 5 years and there won't be a Department of Education. Every school for themselves, poaching each others students for cash.

[teejay]

Give Gove another 5 years and there won't be a Department of Education. Every school for themselves, poaching each others students for cash.

 

Since schools get paid on a per pupil basis this happens already.

 

It's an interesting thought though, if there wasn't really a DfE and all it did was allocate schools a budget based on pupils on roll, would the standard of education improve or get worse?

[Valyyn]

Since schools get paid on a per pupil basis this happens already.

 

It's an interesting thought though, if there wasn't really a DfE and all it did was allocate schools a budget based on pupils on roll, would the standard of education improve or get worse?

 

This made me think of the classic Yes, Prime Minister episode, with the "National Education Service" - The National Education Service - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Andrew_C]

You may think that all the money goes to money grabbing barsteward directors, but the vast majority goes on employing staff,

 

Errr... No, this is tax on PROFIT that they are legally, if immorally, avoiding. Profit goes to the directors and shareholders.

[localzuk]

Errr... No, this is tax on PROFIT that they are legally, if immorally, avoiding. Profit goes to the directors and shareholders.

 

That's slightly over-simplistic. Profit doesn't all go to directors and shareholders. It also gets folded back into the business for expansion, R&D etc... ie. investment in the future of the business. It also can simply be put in a big bank account as working capital for those odd days when they want to buy another business etc...

[MattHarwood]

Errr... No, this is tax on PROFIT that they are legally, if immorally, avoiding. Profit goes to the directors and shareholders.

 

I agree Voda and others have acted immorally, but that profit to the shareholders tends to work out as the man on the street - pension funds, savings accounts etc.

[zag]

Its the classic cycle of labour increasing control and bloating the public sector then the torries cutting it back to be more efficient.

 

Personally I support the Conservative point of view that less regulation is better. Reducing the staff is a good thing and should be done across all centralized government departments.

[timzim]

I agree Voda and others have acted immorally, but that profit to the shareholders tends to work out as the man on the street - pension funds, savings accounts etc.

 

Yeah right. So have a look at Vodafone Annual Report 2012 - Directors' Salaries and then tell me that the £6bn tax they avoided - sorry, I mean 'were let off' - in 2010 went to the man in the street.

[Andrew_C]

less regulation is better

Like the banks? I hope your pension is somewhere safe...

[teejay]

Yeah right. So have a look at Vodafone Annual Report 2012 - Directors' Salaries and then tell me that the £6bn tax they avoided - sorry, I mean 'were let off' - in 2010 went to the man in the street.

 

 

Total remuneration of the Directors was £6.7 million, that small bit to the right of the chart. That big bit on the left of the chart is the total dividend payout to shareholders, ie 'the man on the street' who owns shares in Vodafone, the pension fund of 'the man on the street', had a payout of over £6 billion, on which tax is paid by the receiver of the dividend. Look at the two biggest shareholders in Vodafone, one is an investement company used by pension funds, the other is Legal & General, a pension company.

[timzim]

Total remuneration of the Directors was £6.7 million, that small bit to the right of the chart. That big bit on the left of the chart is the total dividend payout to shareholders, ie 'the man on the street' who owns shares in Vodafone, the pension fund of 'the man on the street', had a payout of over £6 billion, on which tax is paid by the receiver of the dividend. Look at the two biggest shareholders in Vodafone, one is an investement company used by pension funds, the other is Legal & General, a pension company.

 

Ah, you must mean 'the man i the street who earns enough to buy shares and/or afford a decent private pension'. I was thinking of 'the man in the street who works hard all his life, pays all the taxes & NI he owes and is looking forward to his meagre state pension & free healthcare, mainly funded by tax paid by large corporations'. Wrong man, wrong street, silly me.

[localzuk]

Ah, you must mean 'the man i the street who earns enough to buy shares and/or afford a decent private pension'. I was thinking of 'the man in the street who works hard all his life, pays all the taxes & NI he owes and is looking forward to his meagre state pension & free healthcare, mainly funded by tax paid by large corporations'. Wrong man, wrong street, silly me.

 

That just sounds like someone who is bitter, sorry. It isn't anyone else's fault if someone has a bad pension provision but their own.

[timzim]

That just sounds like someone who is bitter, sorry. It isn't anyone else's fault if someone has a bad pension provision but their own.

 

I think you might find a lot of bitter people out there. They're bitter that large corps get away with grand theft while they struggle to make ends meet.

Edited November 15, 2012 by timzim

[teejay]

Ah, you must mean 'the man i the street who earns enough to buy shares and/or afford a decent private pension'. I was thinking of 'the man in the street who works hard all his life, pays all the taxes & NI he owes and is looking forward to his meagre state pension & free healthcare, mainly funded by tax paid by large corporations'. Wrong man, wrong street, silly me.

 

Who said anything about a private pension, what about your Local Government Pension Scheme, their main investment is in shares. You have savings in an ISA, well that's invested in shares. Shares in companies can be bought by anyone, there is no law that says shares can only be bought if you went to Eton:rolleyes:

Vodafone, Starbucks, Amazon etc still pay a huge chunk in tax, look at Employer NICs, Business Rates, etc etc. The headline figures are mainly about one tax, Corporation Tax, which raises around £44 billion per year, less than 10% of the total tax receipts, your state pension and your healthcare are mainly funded through Income Tax, National Insurance and VAT which account for around £360 billion.

[teejay]

Just to put this in context, Vodafone as an international company has a turnover of around £46 billion, it's total international tax bill is just over £14 billion of which around £1.4 billion is paid in the UK, the rest is paid in other countries it operates in.

Sources: Vodafone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Performance data - Vodafone

[zag]

Nice info teejay. Very well explained!

[localzuk]

I think you might find a lot of bitter people out there. They're bitter that large corps get away with grand theft while they struggle to make ends meet.

 

No, they are bitter through jealousy, and through perceptions that are often incorrect, due to ridiculous publications like the Daily Mail telling them half truths and the like.