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UK Government To Slash £500 Million Advertising Budget

The coalition government has today issued figures relating to the previous Labour government and a £532 million advertising bill for the year ended March 2010. While this figure is £8 million less than the previous year, advertising spend under the Labour government increased from £344 million in 2005 to a record £540 million in 2009. So is the coalition government right to slash this particular expense?

Are Local Authorities Still Outsourcing Their Services?

Despite the fact that a number of local authority service providers have stepped forward with concerns about the major cuts in the UK public sector budget, leading outsourcing company Capita has indicated that business is still fairly strong and many local authorities continue to outsource their services. So how long can this continue for?

Cornwall Council Owed £9.5 Million In Unpaid Taxes

It has been revealed that Cornwall Council has failed to collect £9.5 million in back taxes consisting of £6 million in council taxes and £3.5 million in business rates. This equates to around 2.5% of total income for the Cornwall Council and remarkably it is actually less than the 3% average across English county councils. However, this comes at a time when budgets are under pressure and the council has been forced to reduce its expenditure by £14 million in the current tax year.

Coalition Government Backtracks On Death Tax

The UK government today stands accused of backtracking on an election pledge to resist the temptation of a so-called "death tax" to cover the cost of care in the later years of life. We all remember the very prominent and controversial election campaign which ridiculed and demonised Gordon Brown's idea of a death tax although remarkably the Health Secretary has implemented a review of the health care system in later life with the death tax one option under consideration.

HM Revenue And Customs Faces Huge Backlog

HM Revenue and Customs today stands accused of creating an 18 million backlog of unsolved income tax cases with around £4.4 billion at stake. The report by the National Audit Office confirms that the £4.4 billion at stake is made up of a variety of underpayments and overpayments and HM Revenue and Customs is struggling to make headway with ongoing funding cuts set to cause more problems.

Is The OBR Truly Independent?

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) is again in the news today after outgoing chairman Sir Alan Budd confirmed that the running costs for the OBR will be in the region of £1.5 million a year and the office will still use UK Treasury forecast data and around 100 Treasury staff. The very fact that this close relationship with the Treasury is to continue in the future is a major bone of contention amongst many experts in the UK. To be truly independent does the OBR not require its own offices and its own permanent staff?

Could The Death Tax Make A Comeback?

Despite the fact that the new coalition government effectively ruled out a death tax on the elderly some months ago it seems that a commission set up by health secretary Andrew Lansley may well again recommend the implementation of a death tax to pay for the cost of elderly care. So would the coalition government dare to bring back the suggestion of a death tax?

June Public Sector Borrowing Higher-than-expected

Figures from the government showed that there was a £14.5 billion shortfall in the public sector budget during June and total public sector net debt has now topped £900 billion. When you consider that this is 63% of GDP for June, and the highest on record, this perfectly illustrates the very difficult situation materialising in the UK. So is the worst over?

George Osborne Criticised By Committee Of MPs

The Commons Treasury Committee has today issued a damning indictment of George Osborne's emergency budget which has seen an increase in UK tax rates and a reduction in the public sector budget. As a consequence, the influential committee of MPs believe that the UK will slip back into recession in the latter part of 2010 and may struggle to pull out of this downward spiral in 2011. So was George Osborne wrong to introduce an emergency budget?

Bonfire Of The Quangos

Vince Cable, the business secretary, has this week announced plans to abolish a number of quangos looking into intellectual property, international trade and the disposal of electrical waste. While many of these quangos operate behind-the-scenes, and very rarely invite publicity, the four business quangos under review cost in the region of £8.6 million year to run. So who will replace these operations?

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