The Top Ten Things That Hardworking Families Pay For.

Today the Prime Minister said

“Let’s never forget we are talking about households that are paying higher fuel bills as a result of global oil prices,  we’re talking about small businesses that are lacking capital because of a global financial crisis, we’re talking about couples and families that cannot get mortgages because of a global crisis, we’re talking about families and communities hit by unemployment because of this global financial crisis.”

This is good news from our Prime Minister who has acknowledged that during this difficult time his priority must be to “do what I can on the side of hardworking families”.

Is this the recognition that tax payers have being looking for years, the “hardworking families” that Gordon Brown is talking about are the normal, everyday, real people that pay the mamouth bills that this country pays every year in providing vital services to everyone, taxpayer, or not.

The top ten- So where does tax payers money get spent?  Here’s a quick guide through 2007-8 estimated expediture.  Are you happy with how your money is being spent?

1.   We spend over £103 billion a year on the National Health Service, this works out at £1,490 per person per year.

We have one of the best health services in the world, with some of the worlds highest skilled doctors and nurses at our service.

Are we as tax payers getting the service that they pay for, or are we having to pay for private treatments because the health service is snowed under with non-contibuting patients from other countries getting free treatment, and others that use the NHS to service their addictions problems?

Do you think that you should only get out of the health service what you put in?  Should treatments be restricted to the people that have paid for it?  And who should come first in the queue tell us what you think?

2. We spend £100bn on Social Services and other forms of Social Protection. 

And this doesn’t include pensions.  £27bn of this is personal social services, another £35bn relates to sickness and disability, £28bn goes on families, and £22bn goes on unemployment and social exclusion.  These are all huge numbers which would explain why policies which look to cut back on incapacity payments, and get people on benefits back to into work are always top of the election manifestos.  Do you agree that this is an area where easy savings can be made?

3.  We spent £79bn on Pensions & Old Age

Again, the UK stands tall in the world in providing a standard pension that everyone is entitled to, regardless of their financial status.  Many groups argue that the pension is too low, and can’t properly support an elderly person who has this as their sole means of income.  The stock market crash has wiped billions off the values of stocks and shares, and with it billions off peoples personal pension funds.  And together with an aging population this figure is only set to rise.  Can we continue to afford to pay everyone a pension, regardless of their other sources of income?  Do you think that Fred Goodwin (Lately departed RBS head) will truely appreciate his £90.70 a week or do you think it would be better spent elsewhere?

4. We spent Just over £70 billion on Education and Training each year, that’s £1,160 per person per year.

Falling class sizes, choice of schools, record exam pass rates every year, more people attending university than ever before……  The Government has spent a lot of money over the last decade on improving education, infact 20% more than 5 years previous.  Do you think we are getting value for money out of the eduction spend?

5. We spend £34bn on defense spending.

This is three times more than the total annual spend on the environment.  Should be be protecting our environment through military defense? Do you this those priorities are correct?

6. We spend £32bn on public order and saftey

Included is this £2bn on managing immigration claims and £5bn on the prison services.  The law courts cost us another £9bn.  Are we paying the costs of being a lawless society?

7. We pay £30bn on interest on government debt.

This is equivalent to £500 per person in the UK.  But given the bank bailout this is likely to rise next year.  We may be lucky, Northern Rock has already repaid 57% of it’s government loan, but how long are we going to be paying interest on the debts used to finance the banks.  Tell us what you think.

8. We spend Just over £21 Billion a year on transport.

Just over £6 billion a year that is spent on our roads, upgraiding them to be safer to drive on. The government is also spending over 20 milliom on road safty. Of this, £15 million was used to support all of the activity on the THINK! campaign. this covers media spend, PR work, sponsorship, partnership work creative work, e-communications and evaluation. The budget is spread across a number of issues such as drink-driving, child road safety. £3 million per year is spent on paid advertising for the THINK! Drink Drive Campaign. About £850,000 per year is for the THINK! Christmas Drink Drive Campaign. And  the rest of the money is spent on public transport,  bus, railways etc. Tell use what you think.

9.  We spend £21bn a year on things we never see.

£5bn gets spent on International Aid, should charity begin at home? Is it time we started looking after number 1? and what could we use that money for that would benefit the tax payers – after all, that’s more than we spend on under 5’s education, or over half of the secondary school budget each year.   This could provide state funded childcare for all of the those hardworking families who see huge amounts of their weekly pay disappear in childcare costs.  An amazing £16bn gets spent on legal, executive and non departmental bodies and organisations.  What do they do with it?  Who knows?  We don’t even know who they are?  Our guess is that this must be the civil service pay!  Tell us what you think, maybe this is the number that everyone jumps on as “wastage”.

10. We spent £12bn on Housing

This must be a minefield for the government, large amounts of houses that are occupied by people who may have never worked, or may never intend working for some reason.  Should we accept this, or should we ask our councils to do something about it.   Should tenants be evicted, and not given other accomodation, if they fail to look after and maintain their properties propertly, and made to pay the bill for fixing the property up?  Do you think that priority should be given on the waiting lists to the hardworking families that Gordon Brown is talking about, instead of them ending up down the bottom of the queue behind those with no earned income.  Even newly arrived assylum seekers are assured of accomodation somewhere or other.  However many working families find themselves stuck on the list for years and years in damp and inadequate accomodation simply because they don’t have enough “points”.

This is the top 10 areas of exenditure as extracted from the Functional and Economic Category Analysis of Public Sector Expenditure, April 2008, table 5.2 Total Expenditure on Services by sub-function 2007-08 estimated outturn.