Displaying items by tag: finance

The EU squandered millions on overseas projects last year, including paying for broken toilets in Haiti and providing computer systems for empty offices in Jamaica. Auditors examined the EU’s £138 billion annual budget. The budget for aid and overseas projects was around £720 million in total: 3% of this was misspent on items such as a Mozambican radio drama series. They found that a further £4 billion was misspent because the EU Commission had sometimes ‘assumed’ that cash was spent within the rules. The UK pays £9 billion to the EU annually, and the bloc is demanding £39 billion in a Brexit divorce bill - even if there is no deal. Tory MP Nigel Evans said, ‘While we’re in the EU, we have little control over how this money is spent. In fact, it looks as if no-one is in control.’ 2.6% of the EU’s total budget was misspent last year, up from 2.4% from the year before.

Children from richer families used to benefit much more from public spending on education than those from poorer backgrounds. However, a report from the Institute of Fiscal Studies, based on research in state-funded schools between 2003 and 2010, notes a substantial shift in this pattern. Due to new policies such as ‘pupil premium’, which aims to help disadvantaged pupils of all abilities in publicly-funded schools to perform better, education spending is now more likely to be skewed towards poorer pupils. Also, the socio-economic gaps in higher education have narrowed. The report concludes, ‘The realistic evidence suggests that focusing more education spending on poorer pupils should lead to substantial improvements in their life chances’.

The Just Finance Foundation published a report on the impact of its LifeSavers programme in 30 primary schools across England. It said, ‘Primary school pupils should receive compulsory lessons on how to manage money in response to growing levels of financial insecurity and problem debt in the UK. Learning where money comes from, when to spend, and how to save is vital to children’s ability to navigate adult life and should be a mandatory part of personal, social, health, and economic education in primary schools.’ Currently 40% of UK adults have less than £100 in savings. Difficulties managing money are becoming a mainstream issue. LifeSavers equips children to manage money wisely now and in the future, providing training, support and resources which aid teachers to deliver financial education to all year-groups. It helps set up and manage school savings clubs, and encourages parental and wider community engagement. It says today’s children face the most challenging and complex financial landscape of a generation.

Former education secretary Nicky Morgan will lead an inquiry into the rising costs of the student loans system in England and its possible replacement by a graduate tax. The investigation is needed because of the steeply rising levels of debt carried by graduates after leaving university. It will run alongside similar hearings on personal finance by the House of Lords economic affairs committee. A recent report from the Gambling Commission found that some students have £10,000 gambling debts. A 24-year-old who got into gambling at university said, ‘It went from spending a few days after coming home from lectures and going onto my laptop to suddenly saying no to going out with friends, maybe saying no to going to uni. I think you can be very vulnerable. I'd never budgeted before, and money was a whole new concept to me.’ See also:

It is half-term, but Tanbridge House School (in West Sussex) is open and teachers have come in to hold revision classes for pupils who will soon take their GCSEs. Another group is on a trip to Berlin, and last week pupils were taken to the West End to see The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. This state secondary school, specialising in science, maths, and computing, is rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted, and its results place it in the top 5% of schools across the country. However, the head teacher warns that it may have to go down to a four-day week because he can no longer afford to employ enough teachers, due to funding cuts. They have had to lay off three teachers and five support staff, and increase class sizes.

At a G20 meeting this week, financial leaders from the world's biggest economies failed to agree on trade, highlighting a global shift towards protectionism (for ten years, the finance ministers and central bankers of the world's top twenty economies have rejected protectionism and endorsed free trade). Failure to agree on a commitment to keep global trade free and open will have negative consequences. Watered-down free trade commitments reflect the mood of anti-globalisation that Donald Trump endorses. Another Trump ‘win’ is that the G20 dropped a reference, used last year, to its readiness to finance climate change, as agreed in Paris in 2015, because of opposition from the United States and Saudi Arabia. Trump has called global warming a ‘hoax’ concocted by China to hurt US industry, and has vowed to scrap the Paris climate accord aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions. Pray for his administration to reconsider its proposed 31% cut to the Environmental Protection Agency's budget. See also

Police Scotland has been called ‘an organisation in crisis’ after it emerged the force will face a £200 million funding gap by 2020-21. Auditor-general Caroline Gardner gave this figure, which she said was a conservative estimate, to MSPs during a scathing assessment of the Scottish Police Authority (SPA). Her evidence led to a call for the SPA, Chief Constable Phil Gormley, and the Scottish government to appear before the committee to explain the “financial mess”. Ms Gardner said there was ‘weak financial leadership’ in both Police Scotland and the SPA, the organisation which manages the £1.1 billion policing budget. She also said there may yet be wider financial implications as a result of the decision to scrap the controversial i6 computer system last year. SNP MSP Alex Neil, a former health secretary, told the committee the performance of the two organisations was ‘totally unacceptable’.