I can count, I can...

I am, somewhat unexpectedly, being educated again. Well, I say educated, in that I am part of an HM Revenue & Customs pilot study, testing the value of the NVQ Level 2 in Operational Delivery.

I've met my assessor, Barry, and done the mandatory literacy and numeracy tests. And that's my first concern. The picture shows one of the sixteen numeracy test questions, indeed, one of the more difficult ones.

Remember, I'm a tax official, working in an organisation that requires academic evidence of numeracy as part of our recruitment process. I have an 'O' level, two 'A' levels and a degree in Mathematics. I do find myself wondering why I am obliged to take a test that I would have been upset at failing when I was five. It appears to be 'education by box ticking', something that I don't really approve of.

And, to be blunt, it doesn't appear to be particularly rigorous. Keep the answers short, I am told, avoid detail. There I was, thinking that this might offer an opportunity to give some serious thought as to the way we function, and whether or not we provide a service that meets the actual needs of our customers, rather than one that fits with what we're willing to provide. Clearly, I am being naïve.

Once upon a time, we had proper, rigorous training, where you were taught not only what to do, but why you are doing it. But that's expensive, so instead consultants are brought in to break down our work into simple bite-sized chunks that a slightly slow gibbon could master.

That's fine, so long as you have a basic knowledge of the job. However, if you don't, as soon as something unusual crops up, you're floundering at the end of a long rope, with managers appointed on the basis of managerial competence, rather than any knowledge of your job.

And that, my friends, is why bureaucrats become jobsworths. If in doubt, stick to the letter of the law...

Eric Pickles redefines 'moral duty'

Not only has Eric Pickles failed to extend his largesse to Parish Councils, but he now accuses me of failing in my moral duty by increasing the Parish precept by 13%.

I would love to freeze our share of the council tax this year. But I can't - the numbers simply don't add up.

Like councillors around the country, I have a legal obligation to secure the finances of my authority. Each year, we fret about balancing the books, about long-term sustainability, about maintaining essential services, about protecting our staff and treating them with respect. Even in good years, difficult choices are made, but in hard ones...

Some of my colleagues on principal authorities have concluded that, rather than take the 'bribe' equivalent to a 2.5% increase on the previous year's budget, they will increase council tax. Their logic is that, one day, the bribes will stop and, when they do, the gap between income and expenditure will need to be bridged by a large increase in the precept. A little basic arithmetic tends to support their contention.

Others argue that it is better to protect council taxpayers this year, accepting the likelihood of a big increase for 2013/14. And if you're up for election in 2012, one can see the political attraction. Or, if you hope that the economy will improve so that the increase will seem less painful, it is entirely logical.

But, whatever decision they've taken, it has been one which has not been taken lightly. And given that Eric's largesse has no impact on the deficit, and that it is being paid for by taxpayers, I thoroughly object to him bandying around the phrase 'moral duty'. It is my moral duty to do the best for my community - all of my community. That may mean cutting costs, it may mean increasing council tax levels.

And by the way, Eric, you've just passed a Localism Bill, giving me a power of general competence. The idea was that local councils were to be trusted to get on with things without vast layers of central bureaucracy or diktat. For pity's sake man, read the memo. Or, if it's all too complex, it's your moral duty to get someone to explain it to you. I'd ask Andrew Stunell, if I were you...

For the benefit of Iain Duncan-Smith: a definition of homelessness

This morning, on BBC's Breakfast Show, Iain Duncan-Smith was talking about the impact of his proposals on a benefit cap. He suggested that the 'scare stories' were exaggerated, claiming that the Shelter definition of homelessness was unrealistic.

When pressed, he stated that their definition of homelessness includes circumstances where bedrooms are being shared. At this point, Ros noted that he was being less than entirely accurate.

So, I thought that I ought to check. Given that Ros has plenty of knowledge on housing issues, and has held senior office at District and County level, I'd tend to trust her judgement. And here, for the benefit of the Secretary of State, is Shelter's actual definition;

"Homelessness means not having a home - most people who are homeless don't sleep on the street. Even if you have a roof over your head you can still be homeless. This is because you may not have any rights to stay where you live or your home might be unsuitable for you due to severe overcrowding or other reasons."

If I was being extremely generous, I would accept that he may have misinterpreted this. But I'm not. To my mind, most people would see severe overcrowding as being rather more than simply sharing a bedroom.

So, either he is wilfully misrepresenting the facts, or he is ignorant of them. And on that basis, he is unworthy of any faith that Parliamentarians might wish to place in his judgement. And that rather casts doubt on the quality of the legislation he is promoting...
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A benefit cap: victimising people at taxpayers' expense?

I freely admit that I haven't given an awful lot of attention to the Welfare Reform debate. Odd really, because Ros cast her first ever vote as a rebel against the proposal to punish those in receipt of housing benefit who have a spare bedroom. But nonetheless, it isn't an area of policy that I'm terribly knowledgeable about.

But I do like to think that a proposal should add up. And the benefit cap doesn't seem to do so. As I understand it, the proposal will lead to a direct saving of £270 million from the social welfare budget. So far, so good. But are there consequential effects?

Some of the people impacted, indeed, a lot of them, will be living in private rented accommodation. If housing benefit is reduced, they will probably lose their home unless rents drop in their area across the piece. That seems, to put it politely, somewhat unlikely, given that landlords will not want to reduce their income, and that overheads are likely to increase as interest rates revert to more sustainable long-term levels. If they lose their homes, they aren't intentionally homeless, and their local authority is obliged to house them, which comes with a cost to the local authority. If they have available housing, that cost can be held down but, if temporary rented accommodation is required, that can be quite expensive.

If the senior official in the Department for Communities and Local Government who wrote that the resultant costs would exceed the benefits of the cap is correct, the Government will have achieved something superficially popular and fiscally inept simultaneously. Quite some achievement, might I suggest?

Tim Leunig offers what seems like an entirely sensible alternative, suggesting that you could make equivalent savings by increasing the housing stock by 1.3%. You would create jobs, impose some downward pressure on housing costs across the board, and create an asset which will generate a return, all of which are obviously good.

I'm uncomfortable about the idea of punishing people on the basis of an arbitrarily chosen number. Yes, it is right that we should give people an incentive to seek work, but it can't just be about sticks - carrots need to play a part too. And whilst Liberal Democrats approach it by taking people out of income tax at the bottom end of the income scale, Conservatives appear to prefer making them so impoverished that any job, no matter how poorly paid, and no matter whether or not it allows them to live with dignity.

And so, in the unlikely event that Iain Duncan Smith happens to see these words, I'd be grateful if he put fiscal responsibility ahead of a rather perverse insistence on self-reliance...

Even a bribe from Eric Pickles wouldn't help me this time...

Last year, I was rather pleased that I had managed to freeze the Parish Council precept by cutting a swathe of utterly superfluous proposed expenditure from the draft budget. Indeed, I probably felt a bit smug about it at the time.

But something was bothering me. Our Parish Clerk produces an exquisitely detailed budget document each year, which we, the Parish councillors, look at and, apart from my enthusiasm to cut out things that I deem unnecessary, accept. I had therefore assumed that the income and expenditure balanced, as it all added up.

And, indeed, it does. However, it gradually dawned on me that I didn't have a grasp of the whole picture, a failure which annoyed me somewhat, as I take a degree of pride in my basic numeracy. So, this year, I produced my very own income and expenditure account, based on the budget figures, stripping out the earmarked funds for elections and the funds inherited from the Community Council intended to finance the playing field.

As a result, my vague unease was crystallised into a rather ugly realisation, that we were actually spending more than we were bringing in. To be honest, I should have spotted it earlier, but you know how it is, everything seemed alright, and I didn't want to be too aggressive as a reasonably new councillor.

Luckily, I'm not alone. Our Parish Clerk has seen the same iceberg, and has proposed some changes that will help address the problem. I've added my own thoughts, and we've filled much of the gap. Unfortunately, inflation and a transfer of waste management costs from the District Council make the numbers more difficult.

Which leaves one last option - increasing the precept. Not a palatable one, but really the only viable one we have. And so, taking a deep breath, I've joined my colleagues in agreeing a 13% increase in the precept for 2012/13, about £5 for a band D household.

It doesn't sound like much, 10p a week, but it's my friends and neighbours who will be paying it, so none of us have done it lightly. Hopefully, though, it will allow us to stabilise our finances in future years.

I do wonder how these people do it...

It is said that getting involved in Liberal Democrat Voice is a certain route to blogging damnation. With the 'curse of the BOTYs', whereby all winners have almost entirely stopped blogging thereafter, and the workload involved in being an editor, you can kind of see why that might be so.

And, alas, I seem to be sliding into the same trap. Blogging here has been a bit light of late, partly caused by my being on holiday, partly because my other responsibilities are keeping me from the blog.

Ironically, most of what I write for Lib Dem Voice is not what I have included on my own blog and, in truth, I haven't written that much for the site. It is a bit of a distraction though, and I really need to start managing my time a little better, so that I can keep up.

So, we'll see what can be done here, but in the meantime, it's my day today on Liberal Democrat Voice so, if you have any comments on how it's going, feel free to add them here...
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Don't you just hate it when an accountant spams you?

There are few things that genuinely annoy me - I'm a fairly placid soul at heart. But one thing that really does irritate me is commercial spam comments on my blog.

Last week, I blogged about an Indian chartered accountant turned standup comedian. So far, so commonplace. However, in my inbox is notification of a comment, reading as follows;

"For your peace of mind, Gordons Knight www.gkcadvice.co.uk offer a 100% Guarantee on our chartered accountant london services in the UK."

Now, I don't know the firm myself. However, their action in spamming my blog gives an impression that they are a bunch of opportunists, rather keener to attract clients than to worry about ethics. That might seem unfair, but it annoys me. They clearly don't know me too well either, as the chances of an HMRC official needing an accountant are, I would suggest, fairly small.

So, to those 'nice' people at Gordons Knight, might I offer a piece of advice? Spamming people is annoying, regardless of how well meaning you might be. Indeed, it gives the impression that you might not be that well meaning, something that I look unkindly upon.

Luckily, they're in South London, so I'm less likely to encounter them, but if you're looking for an accountancy firm in South London, don't ask me for a testimonial...
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No more unlikely than a chartered accountant doing standup...

One of the things about visiting family is that I am simultaneously inside, and outside, of my comfort zone. Inside, because I am with my family, and outside, because I tend to find myself doing things that I might not otherwise do. My second cousins, Dylan and Arlene, are somewhat younger than I am, and are incredibly social. So, when cousins are in town, they are keen to do things. And, for some reason, if there's karaoke involved, all the better.

We had been part of a shopping exhibition to Phoenix Mills, a rather chi-chi mall in Lower Parel, and the existence of comedy was noted. As, to my knowledge, stand-up comedy is not a traditional Indian artform, and having noted that one of the comedians was a local ex-chartered accountant, when the idea of a night out was mooted, we thought, why not?

So, on Thursday evening, we set off from our hotel, an edifice so vast that you can presumably see it from space, and so over the top that Graham Norton would claim it to be tasteless - just what purpose does the young lady wishing us a good morning actually serve? - in an air-conditioned taxi to the mall, where we were joined by Dylan and Arlene.

And yes, it's that 'Comedy Store', transplanted to South Mumbai for the benefit of a young, almost painfully hip audience. With a Geordie compere, who rapidly alighted upon a young man isolated on the front row, and kept coming back to him with some quite concerted advice on how to make friends, and made a series of suggestive comments about the sexuality of the guys further down the row.

I was intrigued, because homosexual acts are still punishable by imprisonment here, and somewhat surprised by the reception he was getting - uproarious laughter.

He was, it must be said, very funny in a 'thank God he hasn't seen me' sort of a way, and he had evidently made a real effort to research a bit of Mumbai culture first, with gags about biscuit adverts and Amitabh Bachchan (the Big B, as he is known).

Now I know that Will Howells has taken up stand-up and, whilst I haven't seen his act yet (so, when are you playing the Regal, Stowmarket, Will?), I sense that Karun Rao has given me a hint of what I might expect, as he delivered a set of jokes about being a chartered accountant and about how difficult it is to get laid when you are one. Geek humour at its very best.

Our last act was a black comedian from Greenford, near Southall, called Nathan Caton. As a West Indian kid at a mostly Indian school, he'd learned a pretty impressive number of Hindi swear words, which he tested on a fairly receptive audience. I have to say that I was least impressed by him, as he seemed to think that doing a bunch of gags about his mother would be enough.

The beer flowed, and the sushi was good too, and all in all, it was a really pleasant evening. But somehow, I can't see me getting into the Comedy Store in London for less than a fiver...

Hello from 2012! You guys, you're so last year...

So, Ros and I have seen in the New Year, to the sound of bhangra (you have no idea...). I have my flashing light stick as a souvenir, and Ros has an excitingly blue feather boa.

But, of course, I'm out of synch for five and a half hours because whilst here it is 2012, I'm still Regional Secretary until 5.30 a.m. local time. At least I'll be asleep when the transition actually happens.

So, let me wish you all a Happy New Year. May 2012 bring you all that you could reasonably hope for, and be a year less painful than 2011 was.

Time to wave the flashing light stick, methinks...
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Arise Sir Bob, the Voice of Colchester

Long term readers of this blog will know that I am a bit of a fan of Bob Russell, our nearest Liberal Democrat MP.

And the talk here in Mumbai is of nothing else but the exciting news that, at some point in the New Year, the Queen will say, "Arise, Sir Robert" and we'll have another Liberal Democrat knight.

Bob is not 'fashionable' but he is a bloody good tribune for the people of Colchester, a patriot and a great campaigner over forty years for local residents. And for all of that, and the fact that he's a nice guy too, I couldn't think of anyone more deserving in our Parliamentary Party.

And for next time, Your Majesty, might I commend Sir Alastair Carmichael, for services to politics and Facebook?... Make him come in his Viking outfit too, he's got an enormous axe...
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2011 in review: a tale of what wasn't to be... and where we were going to be...

Released from the role of First Husband, things were going to be a bit quieter, yes? Well, no, not really. Freed from her Presidential responsibilities, Ros ran through the gears as my campaign manager, as I sought to win Stowupland ward from the evil Tories.

We'd been leafleting with increasing enthusiasm, and it was soon time to put a bureaucrat on the doorstep. And much to my surprise, I began to rather enjoy myself, uncovering a latent liberal vote dating back to the post-war years. The locals were (mostly) friendly, and I began to suspect that I might have an outside chance.

Sadly, the combination of increased turnout stemming from the AV referendum - they tended not to vote Lib Dem - and a Green candidate who attracted 15% of the vote without actually campaigning was enough to deny me by 91 votes. As Ros said, if I could achieve a 12% swing under such circumstances, I could have reasonably expected to have won in any other year.

There was no time for disappointment though, as Europe awaited. Ros and I had been elected on to the Council of the European Liberal Democrats (ELDR), and our first outing was to Dresden. I freely admit that it didn't sound tremendously enticing but we discovered that Saxony was a pretty corner of Germany, and with pork and beer as key staples, the cuisine suited us too. So much so indeed, that we went back.

Ah yes, travel. I got to the Caribbean for the first time, to Jamaica. I wasn't entirely convinced, as it seems fundamentally wrong that most of the profit goes offshore, leaving the locals to do the lifting and carrying for little pay. Perhaps I need to go somewhere else...

We had liked Dresden so much that we went back for a holiday, combining it with Prague as a two-centre trip. The sun shone, the food (and the beer) were marvellous, and we discovered a whole new part of the world to intrigue Ros.

For we had discovered a degree of freedom. When Ros and I first met, the campaign for the Presidency was warming up, and with a year and a half of campaigning, followed by two years of the Presidency and another four months of a District Council campaign, we hadn't actually had a lot of 'us time'. And we were enjoying it too.

Our last trip was to Palermo for more ELDR business. It can seem a bit cliquey from the outside, as a lot of our delegates attend the annual Congress year after year. Undoubtedly, the cost is a factor, but the fact that it is a little known facet of the Party's activity doesn't help. I rather enjoy it all, as the way of doing politics is gentler, more collegiate. And despite having fought a campaign as the candidate and not just a supporter, I still don't like retail politics.

Life as a parish councillor has continued to take up more of my time. As the parish council's 'envoy to everywhere else' I discovered a thicket of committees, councils and other bodies sufficient to fascinate a bureaucrat. And it is all genuinely fascinating for a transplanted boy from the city.

And with that, I must away, as it's New Year in just over five hours. You see, we're in India, visiting family, catching some sunshine and doing some shopping. It's warm, the rupee is on its knees, and my family are their usual, gloriously bonkers, self. It's good to be home...
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