Futility

As on every Thursday morning I undertook a shift at the Rainbow Centre, Marion helps out on the reception where she is a calming confident presence while I work behind the scenes with the Debt Counselling Group. I came across a case today that in a microcosm showed the futility of organisations. One of the clients owed well under £100 in Council Tax arrears to Scarborough Council. They decided in their wisdom to pursue this debt, which was relatively recent. The court summons to Scarborough Magistrates Court stated that an additional £100 would be added in costs. So now somebody who could not pay a small sum had his debts more than doubled.

Now don’t get me wrong I am absolutely behind the Council in trying to maximise the Council Tax take, I just think that there needs to be a sense of proportion. Is more than doubling the debt of somebody who cannot pay the original sum a good idea. It seems to me that there must be more humane and effective approach. Make no mistake the chasing of debts like this has only two logical outcomes, a restructuring of the original debt or prison. In the latter case the cost to society of getting to that stage is enormous both in financial and human terms.

We seem to have lost our sense of proportion and fairness as a society. We have no feeling for the humanity of a case but instead are heartlessly try to criminalise a whole raft of people. I contrast this was a piece that I saw in the media recently, it came to light that Ian Duncan Smith none other than the minister for Work and Pensions had failed to submit timely expense claims on his House of Commons credit card. There was a considerable amount of money, well into five figures that was unaccounted for. The penalty for this, his credit card was temporarily stopped. Now if one of his claimants were in a similar position all sorts of sanctions would have been imposed.

I feel very strongly that as a society we are not being fair and that we are losing sight of our humanity. We are also taking actions that seem to be totally ineffective in trying to fulfil their objectives.

Old Friends and a Shock

Today I entered full retirement by severing my last links with my old job. I travelled to London to return my IT kit. This was both an enjoyable occasion and a shock. Lets get to the shock first; I had to put on socks. No big deal you say, but I have not worn socks for about six weeks, and it feels good. This allied to getting out of bed at 6am made me realise how good retirement is. I do not like socks, it has taken me 60 years to get to this life affirming opinion.

Actually returning my computers was just an excuse to see former colleagues and good friends Mark and Rodney for lunch and a good talk. I swiftly concluded when I retired that it was not the work that I missed but the people that I worked with, at least the good guys. Over tapas we had a good talk, about personal things and inevitably some gossip about work. It was great to catch-up and reminded me what good guys Mark and Rodney are.

Inevitably with time train tickets there was quite a lot of downtime in London. I occupied that fully by walking the streets (21,000 steps today), drinking coffee and generally observing things. I noticed one stunning simple improvement. For what seems like forever they have been renovating the public spaces in the Barbican. Now finished the most magnificent beds of wild flowers have been planted. They contrast brilliantly with the brutalist architecture of the Barbican

However even walking the backstreets as I mostly did, I could not but notice the incessant traffic and in particular when you are around such road hubs as Kings Cross the pollution. It certainly makes a constriction in the throat. Do you know the first thing that hit me when I got of the train in Scarborough tonight, the smell of the sea. The tangy, salty aroma hit me immediately, bliss. Retirement is pretty good!!!!

Targets

There has been much debate in many fields as to whether targets are effective. Some would say that they encourage manipulation of work and cheating. Others would say that they provide an objective way of measuring effectiveness and are a vehicle for improvement.

Myself I think that the jury is out, but I would like to relate my personal experience with simple targets to further the argument. As those of you who know me will realise I have always liked exercise, although I perhaps have not been as dedicated to it as I maybe ought to have been.

Back at the beginning of the year I upgraded to an IPhone 6, not something that was important as an event. However another user pointed out to me the health app that comes as a free add-on to the phone. This measures the number of steps that you take in a day, the distance that you walk or run, and the equivalent of the number of stairs that you climb. At first I took little notice of this referring to it when asked but most of the time ignoring it.

However it has gradually become something of an obsession, I have been aiming to complete 10,000 steps a day. Now this is not a problem on a normal day but something of a challenge when I am travelling. But I have gone beyond the 10,000 steps target, I want to try to improve my weekly average, and month on month improve the cumulative number of steps that I have taken. This positively drives me to alter my behaviour patterns, so this evening I took a walk before tea; I now walk to the local shops rather than take the car. Incidentally the other indices follow on for the number of steps. The more steps you complete the more distance is covered.

So target setting and importantly my ability to monitor those targets are influencing my behaviour. Also the targets and their measurement are relatively objective, however I get immensely frustrated that my work on the rowing machine at the gym does not seem to count. All that effort for nothing. Also it is only my own pride that is keeping me to the targets. It is also quite encouraging at the moment because I am improving period on period. What will happen when I plateau or decline? Will I keep the same enthusiasm?

Well watch this space and I will report, at the moment I think that target setting is having a positive influence.

Grandchildren

We had a fantastic day with the grandchildren today. Full of fun. feel nicely tired now so the blog will wait for another day.

Leeds Bradford – Airport or Money Making Machine?

Today we drove to collect Marion’s parents from Leeds Bradford Airport, for those of you who do not know LBA is our local airport and is on the small scale for UK airports. There are low cost airlines flying to the usual destinations in near Europe, together with short haul flights to European hubs and Heathrow. Its attractiveness to us has always been the ease of using it and we have preferred it to the much larger Manchester airport.

However it is steadily trying our patience. First of all its drop off restrictions is the most restrictive of any airport I have used in the world. Although it has an extensive concourse for parking or drop-off. This is completely closed so that to get to the terminal from the nearest parking you have to cross a bus way, a taxi rank and then three empty roadways. The argument that the airport uses is that this is for security, why then can you get much closer to other airport terminals including those at Heathrow and Manchester?

With those airports it is also possible to get to the terminals by light or heavy rail, at Leeds you travel by car or bus so there is no alternative to the long walk. It is extremely difficult if you are collecting or taking disabled or infirm travellers. I have also experienced to my cost that if it is raining there you just get very very wet.

So ok this is a small regional airport and as such it is low cost. Oh no to add insult to injury you are charged £3 just to use the drop off facility, if you should stray over the 30 minutes it costs £9 and becomes astronomical beyond an hour. Again at all the major airports I have used you pay for short-term parking but it is free to drop-off.

Leeds wants to become a hub for the Yorkshire economy, however it is driving travellers away with primitive facilities. To add the last insult there were only four seats to sit on outside of domestic arrivals one of which was out of order.

Come-on Leeds as Yorkshire’s gateway you must be able to do better than this.

Politics

In the current atmosphere I am finding it very hard to get interested in politics again. I find the present situation profoundly depressing. When we were on the continent in June there was general consternation at the British approach to Europe, on the one hand nobody wanted Britain to leave the EU, at the same time they could not understand the British renegotiation at a time when Europe faces two big crisis, GREXIT and the refugee issue from North Africa. Any renegotiation is a pinprick when compared to those major problems. Increasingly I am of the view that it is all being carried out to appease the Euro-sceptic wing of the Conservative party and has no benefit to the nation or to the EU.

So we come to this week’s political set piece in the UK the Budget. I do not know what to make of it. In many ways it looks as though the Conservatives have adopted policies that only a few weeks ago in the election campaign they were rubbishing. In some ways that is fine until you start to examine the minutiae of their proposals. I will take as my example tax credits or the wage subsidy. Now you will realise from some of my pre-election blogs that I think that tax credits are indeed a very bad idea as they allow employers to pay low wages that are subsidised by the state. However they are a fact of life so how as the Conservatives want to, do you reduce dependence on them. Their answer is the National Living Wage, gives rise to yet another three-letter acronym. They are correct because if wages increase than the need for tax credits decrease proportionately. It is a perfect symbiotic relationship. However if the government decreases tax credits while increasing the minimum wage then overall people are going to see an earnings reduction. This is not rocket science; it is not dependent on any other variables than a simple equation. So then why do we not see more transparency about this?

It is typical politicians obfuscation, they surmise that if things are made more complex then the general populace will not realise what is happening, while it is fiendishly difficult for an opposition to oppose in the sound bite era in which we live. So more than ever it is appropriate to say, “Beware Greeks bearing gifts or an NLA”.

The move on inheritance tax is more nakedly partisan. It gives a tax break to the already rich. Now I am in favour of tax breaks as the next man, but is it right that the government is decreasing the benefits in the form of tax credits to the working poor while giving tax breaks to the already rich. I will leave my readership to decide on the equity of that.

Well that is good just by writing this blog I am getting the old fire in the belly back. Watch out!