The ABC has complained to the DWP about a scheme operated locally by the Colchester Jobcentre Plus that buys all clothing and shoes from Matalan via the Flexible Support Fund. The funds management does not seem to very flexible in our view, and by making the payments discretionary, ‘parking’ is bound to occur as managers decide who they will support and they will not. We have evidence of individuals, the long term unemployed - being deprived of assistance to get to job interviews.

This is particularly so in IT where the JCP will not fund support to an interview for contract work.

In regard to support for purchasing clothing, for interviews and to starting work – claimants have to buy from Matalan with a voucher.

We have a suit maker in Colchester for example, however with a local JCP office specifying one provider only, taxpayer’s money is involved in a scheme that is a ‘restraint of trade’ and contrary to the principals of the EU. At the very least there should be a panel of providers, and a transparent open bidding process, for a company to be selected as a DWP provider.

Matalan’s founder John Hargreaves currently resides in Monaco with his partner. This alleged non-residence in the UK has enabled him to claim that he is not liable to Capital Gains Tax on a gain of £200 million arising on the disposal of Matalan shares. This claim was resisted by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs and the matter has been subject to litigation. We believe Mr Hargreaves lost his appeal.

Mr. Hargreaves sons and daughters Jason Hargreaves (now head of the family firm) Jamie his brother, and his sister Maxine, are also residents of Monaco, to the best of our knowledge and the firm is registered in Guernsey.

The ABC asks why should benefit claimants, who are being prosecuted for failing to pay Council Tax in many cases through hardship, or those on other benefits, be forced to place business with a private Company and its owners, who are involved in very aggressive tax avoidance?

Jason Hargreaves has married Tara Palmer-Tomkinson. According to Wikipedia, in 1999, Palmer-Tomkinson was treated at the Meadows clinic in Arizona for a cocaine addiction, In 2006, Palmer-Tomkinson received extensive publicity after her septum nasi collapsed due to her former £400-a-day addiction to cocaine. In 2014, Palmer-Tomkinson appeared on the celebrity special edition of The Jeremy Kyle Show in which she revealed the depths of her cocaine addiction and the truth behind her reported relapse.

Taking Class, A drugs is a criminal offense, and is it right and proper that Iain Duncan Smith, the DWP and Colchester Jobcentre, should be forcing claimants to place business with the owner of private company, whose spouse is involved, or has been involved, with taking Class A drugs? While at the same time nationally the DWP and Iain Duncan Smith are suggesting that claimants with drugs and alcohol issues could have their benefits stopped, if they refuse to accept treatment?  

This smacks of double-standards. However, the main issue is the fact that local traders are excluded from getting business from the DWP, while a company whose founder and Chairman has claimed non-domiciled status, in a bid to avoid paying tax on a substantial Capital Gain, can benefit in an exclusive arrangement. This is a private company whose family executives, have planned their affairs in order to deprive the UK tax base of revenue, that now has to be collected from the unwaged, and those on low incomes. This does not seen right?

Claimants should have the right of free choice to make ethical purchases based on their free will and conscience and we feel this exclusive arrangement between the DWP and a private family firm is unethical and is potentially a breach of the EU concept of free trade. 

Monaco - Tax haven for the super-wealthy. 

Reproduced from: The Week Magazine

According to official figures quoted by the BBC last year, in the 2012/2013 tax year the shortfall of tax that should have been collected by HMRC versus what it actually brought in had risen to £34bn.  This eye-watering figure includes £14bn in uncollected income tax, national insurance and capital gains tax, and £12.4bn in uncollected VAT.

Personal evasion and avoidance was a significant part of the problem. The Financial Times says tax evasion, which is defined as the illegal act of deliberately hiding information about your finances to reduce your tax bill, amounted to £4.1bn. A smaller £3.1bn was lost to tax avoidance, which is the legal use of tax loopholes, while £5.4bn was lost as a result of criminal activity such as smuggling.

Benefit Fraud the article pinted out 

Overpayments are often the result of errors on the part of the Government rather than criminal intent. 

Pay slowdown set to continue

Risk that real pay could fall back below 2 per cent for first time since February 2015

Official figures published later this week are expected to show that average wages grew by 1.9-2 per cent in November, representing a further slowdown in the pace of Britain’s pay recovery, according to independent think tank the Resolution Foundation’s latest pay projection published today (Sunday).

The analysis, which models recent labour market data to forecast short-term trends in regular (non-bonus) pay, predicts that the rate of growth in pay will have fallen by almost 1 percentage point from its post-recession peak of 2.8 per cent in May 2015.

While the figures should mark a 14thstraight month in which pay has outpaced inflation, real wage growth is expected to fall short of its pre-crisis trend rate of 2.2 per cent. Following an unprecedented six-year squeeze on pay, wages experienced a limited rebound between April and September last year, growing above this historic trend. However, that bounce appears to be over and the Foundation has warned that it expects pay growth to continue to stall in the coming months, particularly as inflation starts to pick up over the course of 2016.

It is a concern echoed by the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, which voted on Thursday to keep interest rates at their historically low rate of 0.5 per cent. Following this month’s meeting, the MPC, noted that “pay growth remains restrained and appears to have dipped slightly in the most recent data” and predicted that inflation would “rise modestly further in the coming months”. Given these trends, the Foundation argues that productivity will need to rise if real wage growth is to get back on track.

Adam Corlett, Economic Analyst at the Resolution Foundation, said:

“This week’s pay figures are likely to provide further evidence of a worrying slowdown in the pace of the pay recovery.

“We already look unlikely to regain the six years of pay growth lost during the unprecedented squeeze on earnings that followed the financial crisis of 2008, but the prospect of a sustained period of below-trend wage growth pushes even the restoration of pre-crisis pay levels further down the track.

“2015 brought much good news, with the combination of ultra-low inflation and interest rates providing a boost to the living standards of many households. Conditions are set to gradually alter in 2016, meaning that pay growth must now do more of the work. Crucially, that will depend on a return to sustained productivity growth in the UK.”

The Western Front Via Sacra Walk - 2016 -

Could we get a an ABC team together?

From the event website:

Inspired by a letter from a soldier in WW1, Historian Sir Anthony Seldon will undertake a walk across the Western Front, as it was in 1916, from Switzerland to the English Channel, in homage to this soldier, Alexandar Douglas Gillespie and to the millions of soldiers that lost their lives in WW1 1914-1918.

The walk will take place during the Summer of 2016 and will coincide with the 100th anniversary of the battles of the Somme and Verdun.

We have been talking to the Nephew of Historian Sir Anthony Seldon and have all the information. A Facebook page is being launched soon.  

Much of the route will be along the Western Front as it was in June/July 1916, exactly 100 years ago.

This route passes through areas related to the battles of Alsace and Lorraine in 1914, the French Champagne and Artois offensives in 1915, Verdun and the Somme in 1916, Loos in 1915, Vimy Ridge in 1917, and the Ypres Salient.  

The walk will begin on the 22nd June 2016 near the Swiss border and finish approximately 12th July, being at the Somme for the 29th June. 

We would love to put together a team of disadvantaged young people, or from the millitary but we would need sponsors, a project manager and a vehicle with driver and crew to support the team.

If you have an interest in this project, please contact us: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

This is the event website here: www.viasacrawalk2016.org.uk 

Chris Grayling seems to be preparing to lead the EU BRITEXIT faction in the Conservative Party.

If we left the EU it could cause the break-up of the United Kingdom as Scotland would almost certainly want to stay in the EU and so would Wales. If the financial services sector moved to Frankfurt or even Scotland - Edinburgh for example, how would we fund benefits and retirement pensions in England etc?

If we left, how keen would the EU be to see trade with the UK. What if the door was shut and bolted behind us, with tariffs and regulations that simply made doing business with the EU that much more difficult?  

In military matters how much clout have we got with an army of just 70,000 odd servicemen and women against China as an example with two million troops? How could we tackle international terrorism or trade wars on our own? International crime, such as money laundering, tax evasion and drug trafficking.

The argument that people come to the UK to claim benefits is largely a myth. We find most legitimate foreign workers doing just that [working], driving taxis, washing cars etc. The wages paid are helping their own countries in Eastern Europe grow and become better business partners for the future and prospects for own manufacturers, sadly the few we have left.  

The EU is the most democratic organisation in the world. It does not chortle the benefits of EU membership to the UK public because that’s not what it does. If there are problems the EU is made a scapegoat by politicians.

The EURO as a currency has caused unforeseen issues. The fact that the EU is so successful has caused it to be a magnate for migration. In time these problems will find solutions.

After the ‘War to end wars’ we have seen how conflagrations can ignite, even in civilized Europe, take Ukraine as an example or the Balkans. As part of the European family we may have our differences but it is better to ‘jaw, jaw than war, war’.

The ABC recently wrote to all the European Countries in the EU via their Embassy’s in London regarding WORKTV. Here is the list:

Work and Pensions Committee launches major new inquiry on “intergenerational fairness”.  

 The Commons Work and Pensions Committee is today launching a major new inquiry on “intergenerational fairness” – the question of whether the current generation of people in or approaching retirement will over the course of their lifetimes have enjoyed and accumulated much more housing and financial wealth, public service usage, and welfare and pension entitlements than more recent generations can hope to receive.

For example, the group born in the middle of the baby boom (between 1956 and 1961) have been forecast to receive from the welfare state 118 per cent of what they contribute; while recent research shows that younger people are on course to have less wealth at each point in their lives than earlier generations had acquired by the same age. The Committee’s inquiry will investigate the extent to which this disparity is a consequence of government policies, such as the “triple lock” which protects pensioners’ incomes, and/or broader economic and demographic trends. It will consider steps which could be taken to address any intergenerational unfairness.

The Committee intends to:

• Assess trends in, and the sustainability of, the intergenerational distribution of income, wealth and public expenditure.
• Assess the impact of recent developments in welfare policy on intergenerational fairness and the interaction of pensions and welfare with other policy areas.
• Produce a cross-party assessment of the sustainability of the existing welfare system, in its wider context.
• Take a view on the long-term viability of policy measures such as the triple lock in the context of financial pressures on younger groups.

Questions the Committee is looking to address include:

• What has been the collective impact on different generations of policies in recent years, including welfare reform and deficit reduction with areas of protected spending?
• To what extent is intergenerational fairness a welfare issue?
• What effects are these changes projected to have over time? Are they sustainable? What have the long-term trends been?
• How does the welfare system interact with other areas of public expenditure and income and wealth in the wider economy, including issues of health, education and housing.
• Is the triple-lock necessary to prevent future increases in pensioner poverty?
• What would be the effects of reforming the triple lock and how might the worst of these be mitigated?
• How might other benefits such as Winter Fuel Payments be reformed?
• To what extent will existing policies encouraging work and savings ensure a more sustainable system?
• What are the options for reform?

The deadline for written submissions is Friday 19 February 2016

Rt Hon Frank Field MP said: “Voters have two priorities for welfare reform: ‘is it fair’ and ‘is it affordable’. Politicians of successive governments have ducked both of these fundamental questions when it comes to the different levels of income afforded to those above and others below retirement age. Is it fair and affordable to divert a large and growing sum of public expenditure toward pensioners – regardless of their circumstances – while mainly poor families with children face year-on-year restrictions on their income? Can the “triple lock” pension increase pledge be sustainable? Or are these policies necessary to guard against pensioner poverty? The Select Committee hopes to learn from voters of all ages what they believe to be both fair and affordable, so we can propose ways of restoring confidence across all generations in the welfare state.”

Richard Graham MP, Committee Member and Chair of the APPG on Pensions, said “At a time when there is significant pressure on public spending, people are living longer, pensions are starting later and care costs rising there will also always be issues about relative fairness between generations. 

“How has public spending between generations altered over the years and what are the implications? The Committee will look at these issues."

House of Commons

Work and Pensions Select Committee

EVIDENCE SESSION: Bereavement benefits

 9.30am, Wednesday 13 January, Wilson Room, Portcullis House

The Committee is holding the second of three evidence sessions in its inquiry into Bereavement benefits.

 Purpose of this session

The Work and Pensions Committee takes evidence from the Childhood Bereavement Network and members of the Social Security Advisory Committee as part of its inquiry into bereavement benefits. The Committee will look at the current system of bereavement benefit payments as well as proposals for reform.

• Inquiry: Bereavement benefits
• Work and Pensions Committee

Witnesses:

At 9.30 am

 Paul Gray, Chair, Social Security Advisory Committee

• Professor John Ditch, Social Security Advisory Committee
• Alison Penny, Coordinator, Childhood Bereavement Network

 FURTHER INFORMATION:

Committee Membership is as follows:

Frank Field (Labour, Birkenhead) (Chair); Heidi Allen (Conservative, South Cambridgeshire); Mhairi Black (Scottish National Party, Paisley and Renfrewshire South); Ms Karen Buck, (Labour, Westminster North); John Glen (Conservative, Salisbury); Richard Graham (Conservative, Gloucester); Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour, South Shields); Craig Mackinlay (Conservative, South Thanet); Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham Selly Oak); Jeremy Quin (Conservative, Horsham); Craig Williams (Conservative, Cardiff North

The debate over women’s pensions, those born in the 1950's has created a hot debate.

 Over 100,000 people have signed a petition. You can sign too. Just click on the link.

Petition

Make fair transitional state pension arrangements for 1950’s women

The Government must make fair transitional arrangements for all women born on or after 6th April 1951 who have unfairly borne the burden of the increase to the State Pension Age (SPA). Hundreds of thousands of women have had significant changes imposed on them with a lack of appropriate notification

Westminster Hall

Wednesday 2 December 2015 

Meeting started at 9.30am, ended 11.33am

The Work and Pensions Select Committee announces publication of a response from the Financial Conduct Authority to its report on Pension freedom guidance and advice and the Government response to its report on Welfare-to-work. 

The Pensions Freedom debate at the DWP was met with a lot of interest. 

Pension Wise is the Government’s free guidance service on defined contribution pension options. This move is in line with a recommendation by the Committee in the previous Parliament.

Frank Field MP, chair of the Committee, said:

"Our predecessor Committee saw that it made more sense for the Department responsible for pensions to also oversee this important service providing guidance on the new pensions options. We are very glad that the Treasury now agrees and we welcome this move. It will be important that the Department maintains close links with FCA to monitor the progress of the reforms. We will be keeping a close eye on this over the course of the Parliament."

We have re-published the DWP Pensions Discussion:

You can download these reports here: 

All the European chatter is about migrants currently,

Germany — refugees no magic labor market solution: Germany desperately needs more workers, and the German government hopes Syrian refugees will fit the bill. There are problems, notably that “Less than 15 percent of refugees from Syria and other war-torn countries have completed vocational training or a university degree, according to a September 2015 study by Germany’s Institute for Employment Research. Even those with training often don’t have the skills expected in Germany. On average, an eighth-grader in pre-war Syria had a similar level to a third-grade student in Germany, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).” And while German unemployment is very low, for the lowest-skilled workers up to 20 percent are without a job. 

In Serbia: “It is -8c yet the trains and the refugees never stop … We get text messages from the IOM teams in Greece and Macedonia when trains leave so we know how many are coming … Many townspeople have purchased ‘Taxi’ signs that fit atop their cars and park, in droves, on the dirt road at the opening of the town but around the bend from where the free buses wait … so they can charge the refugees for a taxi ride to Presevo (up to 50 euros), which is about 20-30 minutes’ drive away … Right after I arrived for my shift a Syrian family of 12 — from grandparents to grandchildren of perhaps 5 or 6 — arrived with a little girl in a wheelchair. In the meantime, it turns out the wheelchair has lost a bolt holding part of the suspension together; we see this reasonably frequently.” 

Meanwhile in Norway: Kristian Adolfsen, 55, and his brother Roger, 51, run 90 immigration centers in Norway and 10 more in Sweden. Refugees represent a huge opportunity for them; the Adolfsens’ Oslo-based company, Hero Norway, is the leader of a burgeoning Scandinavian industry that charges the Norwegian and Swedish governments a fixed fee—$31 to $75 per person per night in Norway—to house and feed refugees.

For 2015, Hero Norway expects revenue of $63 million, with profits of 3.5 percent. In the rest of Europe, where asylum seekers typically are cared for by nongovernmental organizations such as the Red Cross, only one for-profit is larger than the Adolfsens’ operation, ORS Services, a Swiss company that in 2014 generated $99 million in profit caring for refugees in Switzerland, Austria, and Germany. (ORS won’t disclose its 2015 profits.)

The Adolfsens have succeeded in part because they have a background in hospitality. In the three decades since they founded Adolfsen Group, Kristian and Roger have built an $800 million-a-year network of businesses that includes preschools and nursing homes, as well as hotels, apartment buildings, cruise lines, and ski resorts. The two entered the refugee sector in May 2014, when they paid a Danish company, ISS Facility Services, $22 million for Hero Norway, a 27-year-old company that ran 32 refugee centres.

David Cameron has found a more receptive audience in several European countries this week as he continues to push for a controversial ban on welfare benefits for EU migrants.

After getting encouraging signals from key German and Polish politicians that they would be willing to accept some restrictions on the benefits, the British prime minister will travel Thursday to Budapest, where he will discuss the issue with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

For the moment Cameron is sticking to his proposal for a four-year restriction on benefits, which he says will be crucial to convincing the British public to vote to stay in the EU in a referendum.

But he has also been leaving some wiggle-room as he talks to EU leaders, saying that he is willing to entertain other proposals. And he has been spinning the benefits reform proposal as something that’s good for all governments, not just Britain’s. That will be central to his message to Orbán, according to officials.

“Cameron’s argument is that it’s in the self-interest of Eastern European member states to limit the high level of immigration of skilled workforce towards the U.K.,” said one source familiar with the discussions.

That message may resonate with Orbán, who has said he wants to stem the flow of migrants from Hungary to other EU countries.

Sourse: Politico & Bloomberg

According a BBC article today: The UK faces a "cocktail" of serious threats from a slowing global economy as 2016 shapes up to be one of the toughest since the financial crisis, George Osborne is to warn. The chancellor will later on Thursday lay out a litany of risks the economy faces over the next 12 months. His message will be in contrast to the positive tone of his Autumn Statement, when he said the UK was "growing fast".

People must not be "complacent" that the economy is fixed, he will say. Significant challenges - including tension in the Middle East, slowing growth in China, and low commodity prices - are all weighing on global confidence, he will say in a speech in Cardiff. It comes as trading on mainland Chinese markets was suspended for the day, after shares plunged more than 7% for the second time this week. On the domestic front, the first interest rate rise since 2007 could come this year. Treasury sources point out that is not a decision for the chancellor - interest rate.

Source: The BBC

I am afraid we have more interest in what Gerald Celente or Trends Research has to say about 2016. Celente called the decline in shopping malls [Dead Malls] in the US that we featured in an ABC article recently. Some doom mongers are selling gold or silver as an investment (or Nuclear Bunkers) but on the whole Celente makes very sound predictions. Osbourne’s London property bubble could well pop: