Couriers Revisited
I had a parcel delivered today by Parcelforce.
- They sent me an e-mail, so I could track it.
- I was phoned by the driver at 8:30 to check that someone would be there.
- The parcel was delivered at 9:00 by the usual cheery driver.
So if they can do it so professionally, why can’t others? APC can and delivered my repaired Nokia 6310i later this morning.
Is Good Service A Benefit Of The Recession?
Yesterday, I got exceptional service from Vision Express, but this is becoming part of a pattern. O2, Homebase, PC-World and other companies have all given me excellent service in the last week. Have companies increased their staff training in this area because they find that good service means increased sales, even in a recession? Perhaps and in some places I’ve dealt with in the past, it’s about time! But then the most often-quoted example of bad service, Woolworths, went bust!
A Budget To Create Jobs in an Unexpected Way?
One of the provisions in the budget is that if you start a business outside of the South East, you will get a discount of up to £5,000 on NIC for each of the first ten employees.
This is very generous compared to other parts of Europe, such as France and The Netherlands, where social costs are a big cost of starting a business. Remember that over the last twenty years, the French have been one of the larger groups to move to the UK.
So will it mean that entrepreneurs will look favourably on the UK, as a plsce to start a new business, especially as UK income tax is lower than many places in Europe. For instance we have a tax allowance of £7,400 before we pay tax.
The more I look at this measure, it sticks out as a very good idea. It will be interested to see what the rules are and how they are interpreted.
But just imagine, you are something like an Australian or American software company, who needs a European support office. Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle or Manchester, all of which possess good air links to the rest of Europe, must have moved several steps up the list of where to site that office.
Why We All Hate Couriers – 2
I’ve just seen on the courier’s web site that my phone won’t arrive until between 16:55 and 17:55 today. So after waiting in all day yesterday for a non-delivery, I now have to wait in all today, for one at an inconvenient time. I do have other things to do, you know!
At least though, I have been able to charge up an old Nokia 6310i, so I have a phone. But I think, I’m on a tariff far more expensive than the one I need for such a device.
Why We All Hate Couriers
My new phone was supposed to be delivered today, but the courier loused up. If people use DHL, ParcelForce or the plain old Royal Mail, goods always appear on time and usually with a joke and a smile. O2 in the past have used DHL, but this time they didn’t.
The courier actually did turn up, but didn’t come to the house. He claimed on the company’s web site, that he had texted me and left a card at my red front door. I didn’t find the card and didn’t receive the message on my phone. But he did talk to one of my stud staff and didn’t even ask him where I was! I was actually sitting in the garden.
After three calls to O2 on a landline, I got a promise of delivery tomorrow. We shall see! O2 incidentally were very helpful and polite, despite the fact I cut myself off twice, as you do with a gammy hand. I’m sure that they will complain on my behalf to the courier!
At least though they did get to roughly the right place. There are several farms and two studs on my postcode, so in some cases, I find couriers assume, that as I’m the biggest farm and the one at the centroid of the post code, that I am someone else and they just dump the goods and run! I wonder what proportion of goods ordered over the Internet never end up where they should?
Remember though that for outgoing letters and parcels to exotic places, Royal Mail have an excellent on-line system for printing postage and customs declarations. Today, I sent a book to Hong Kong and it took me just a few minutes. It’s ideal in my current situation as I can’t drive to the Post Office. As the stamps are a complex bar code, everything is fully-traceable and so far nothing has gone astray.
Health and Safety
Health and Safety is in the news today, with the government announcing a review by Lord Young.
Strangely, all the Health and Safety training that I got at ICI in Runcorn in the late 1960s, is kicking in to help me protect myself from my weak left side. You have to assess threats in just the way you walked around chemical plants with noxious substances like HF dust all over the place. I still remember the charming and sensible Charlie Akers, who showed me over the BCF plant at Rocksavage Works and still follow his rules on climbing ladders and metal stairs. But Rocksavage in those far-off days had an impeccable safety record and it was all down to everybody working to a sensible philosophy not hard and fast silly rules dreamed up by bureaucrats.
Thank you, Charlie!
Lord Young’s investigation needs to have input from people like you, who are at the sharp end and get hurt when accidents happen.
Zopa Rates Around the Election
Let’s assume that this election without a full outcome has put a lot of instability into the money markets. According to all the commentators it should. But then those traders in the City are in business to make money in the short-term and not place money for the greater good in the long-term.
So is there a real measure of what real people think about finance?
I lend money on Zopa, which is a peer-to-peer lending site. I’m not interested in short-term gains, but sensible and safe long-term growth. I get about 5.5% before tax taking everything into account. It’s also fun and a bit like gambling without the risk.
So how has Zopa performed over the last few weeks? And specifically what have their rates done?
Zopa Rates 2010 – 11th May 2010
If you look at the rates, the pattern appears to be very similar to the last few months. There has been a slight upward trend of rates, with a squiggle around the turn of the month. The latter is because most Zopa loans pay around the beginning of the month and this affects the rate as most investors reinvest their returned payments.
So does this mean that most Zopa users have just been carrying on as normal and letting the lunatics in Westminster and the City get on with their high-profile nonsense?
I shall report on this in about seven days time, as I think it will still be nice and stable despite the politics.
Birmingham’s Sexist Employment Practices
That’s the only way to describe them.
The tribunal didn’t describe them as sexist, but felt they were a massive injustice. But then reports, I’ve heard have said that few if any women got the bonus and the best paid jobs went to those in favour with the union. That surely must be wrong, as trade unions look after all their members.
I though blame the managers. They must have known what was going on and didn’t take any action to correct it.
What I also find very strange is that some employees were earning a lot more than their managers. Surely the managers would have complained.
Cloud Cuckoo Politics
I listened to Chris Giles of the Financial Times last night on BBC Radio5’s Drive programme. He said that the various parties promises on the deficit don’t add up. They have promised saving in the order of ten billion or so, when documents from the Treasury show that we need to save around three times that much.
I’ve been in Newcastle over the weekend as you have seen and up there, they are worried about losing jobs when the new government cuts and cuts hard. After all large numbers of jobs in the North East are either directly with the government or strongly supported. Many too, are in-line for savage cuts because of new technology.
So would NuLabor tell the truth in the North East? No! But the Tories and the Lib Dems have nothing to lose there, so they would at least do the dirty deed after the election.
So what can be cut, what can be improved and how can we raise more revenue?
There are government programmes that can go like Trident, ID Cards, the two aircraft carriers, the Joint Strike Fighter and some other defence projects. Most though will not show up until about 2017.
I have one bitch on what can be improved in the NHS. Every time I go between my GP and Addenbrooke’s I have to tell the other doctor what the previous one, as the two doctors do not have access to the same database. How much does that cost the NHS? And how many other systems show a total lack of joined up thinking?
When we talk about efficiency savings, that is what we’re talking about and it will cost jobs in the NHS and agencies like the Police. But these will mainly be in back-office clerical areas. Well! They should be, but will government really bite the bullet.
Most taxes don’t raise more than about five billion.
So if you want to raise large amounts of taxes, then you increase the big ones like Income Tax, National Insurance, VAT, Corporation Tax and energy taxes.
Income Tax needs to be restructured with perhaps a 50% top rate and very much higher thresholds at the bottom. But I would allow tax relief on any salary you pay to others. So if you employed a nanny or a gardener, then this would be allowed. This may seem something for the well off, but it would also enable anybody to investigate ideas without having to go to the expense of setting up companies and finding loopholes in the tax system.
In other words you restructure Income Tax so that it is basically tax neutral for individuals but creates more jobs, which therefor will increase the tax take and also decrease the benefit take.
I’d also abolish National Insurance and combine it with Income Tax, as that is what it is, a secondary Income Tax.
At the same time, I’d also abolish Inheritance Tax and put three pence on the top rates of Income Tax. This would mean that a lot of rich people would move here and they would create employment. It would also have other employment benefits as people would do what was best at the time, rather than spend fortune avoiding Inheritance Tax.
I’m afraid VAT will probably have to go up. There is no other way to raise significant revenue. As VAT is generally only paid by consumers, as companies offset it, I would prefer that the tax rises were here, than before people got their money.
Corporation Tax is already high compared to other countries in Europe. If it is raised we are in danger of losing companies abroad. So raising it is a no-no, but lowering it may well raise more revenue as other companies would move here.
Now we come to energy taxes. They should be raised substantially. If coupled with increases in Income Tax thresholds they would publish the profligate. I would abolish Vehicle Excise Duty and just have a Vehicle Registration Fee for every time a vehicle changes hands.
Now, I am a control engineer by training and a lot of this is standard control theory, where you do something and you get lots of secondary effects. You just have to make sure that the secondary effects create jobs and thus raise Income Tax take and reduce benefits.
NuLabor has dug us into a big hole. We will only get out by being radical. Correct that; very radical.
The Anonymous Widower 