Teresa Pearce MP

The power supply to most of Bexley and some parts of Dartford was cut off yesterday at midday due to suspected vandalism. Since then EDF have worked around the clock to try to get supply reconnected. A few areas are reconnected but most postcodes are being supplied on a rota basis, for instance we had power switched on in our postcode at 3.00 this afternoon  it will go off at 6.00 pm. There are two surprising things, one a happy surprise the other not.

First the happy surprise , the traffic lights are out but motorists are being very courteous and self regulating themselves at junctions. In fact its been much more polite motoring than when the traffic lights are fully working!

Second not so happy suprise is that tory  Bexley Council appears to have no Business Continuity Plan. There was no telephone tree for staff and no plan for working at alternative sites. The website is kaput and heaven knows how they are managing to deliver social care to the vulnerable…my fear is that its chaos.  Bexleys slogan is “Listening to you, working for you”. Well they are nt working at all at the moment and as for listening…it appears there is no one home!

I will be asking questions at the earliest possible moment.

We are reading in the papers about the expenses claimed by BBC executives for such things as dinner parties and gifts. However the amount claimed is not the actual cost to the BBC, this is because the tax treatment complicates matters.

Items that are not “necessary” for you to perform your job such as expensive dinners and gifts are taxable. However it’s highly unusual for executives to be taxed themselves and what is  normal is for the employer (in this case the BBC) to settle the tax and NIC on any staff entertaining or gifts.

This is usual  for large business but it’s extremely expensive because of the way the tax is “grossed up”.

Let me try to explain it in layman’s terms. If you  are a 40% taxpayer and bought something for  £100  out of your salary you would have to earn around £180 before tax and NIC to have the £100 you needed to spend, therefore if a BBC executive has £2000 of taxable expenses the BBC has to account to HMRC as if that £2000 was “after tax and NIC”.   In short every £100 of taxable expenses costs the BBC an additional £80 in taxes.

It’s accounted for annually in something HMRC call a PAYE  Settlement Agreement (PSA) and means that when you read that £360,000 has been spent by BBC there could also be £288,000 of taxes.  So the true costs to the licence payer of those bottles of champagne and executive dinners is a whole lot more that it appears at first glance.

Sorry to be a tax geek but its all those years of tax training and auditing!

We have had months of press coverage about MP’s expenses, with headlines and headline about taxpayers  money being wasted. And it’s not just  public money spent by MPs that have so outraged our newspapers, we have had numerous articles about the amount the BBC spends on its “key talent” like Ross and Wogan, and only a couple of weeks ago there were front page stories expressing outrage about BBC parties, flights and a £100 bottle of champagne given to Bruce Forsyth as an 80th birthday present by the BBC.

These reports all made valid points about greed and waste but hang on what do we have here…………leading politicians are holding summer drinks  parties.  Night after night during July cabinet members and shadow cabinet members host free drinks parties but there is not a peep in the press about who is footing the bill. That may seem strange until you realise that the guests at these free drink soirees are the very same journalists that were so puritanical about “our” money being wasted.  Seems to me an indefensible waste of money that Westminster free parties are held for Westminster journalists whilst the dole queues grow.  Its reminiscent of Nero fiddling whilst Rome burns.

I want to know how much these Summer parties cost , not to mention the ones they also hold at christmas….I feel a freedom of information request coming on as its the only way we will ever know as I am certain there wont be any outraged front page s exposing it!. Funny that eh?