The Independent quotes a Department for Transport source as saying,
“There is money around for things when we think they are worth it, such as [weekly] bin collections.”
This caught my eye in Ben Brogan’s always excellent morning email (sign up here, he reads all the papers so you don’t have to).
Leaving aside why central government mandating and funding weekly bin collections is wrong and counter-productive (though I suppose if they mandate it, they should fund it), I think this illuminates an essential truth about public spending.
Taxpayers’ money should only be taken for and spent on things that bring a greater good. As Nick says, the state should be no bigger and no smaller than it needs to be. It is indefensible that the state wastes so much money – for example, I still cannot believe that we spend a median of over £5,200 per pupil each year and there are still so many children leaving unable to read and write at even a basic level. It’s wrong that we spend money on things that don’t produce a good enough outcome – and equally wrong that we don’t spend money on things that can really make a difference.
A further thought, however. Despite us all knowing that we’re basically out of cash (as Liam Byrne so delightfully put it, “Dear Chief Secretary, …There’s no money left”) I continually hear from MPs ‘hurrah for £X million for my constituency’. Obviously it is their job to champion their constituencies but it encourages us all to think that the only way to pay attention to something is to throw money at it.
I have just read Fraser Nelson’s article in Friday’s Telegraph, about the summer riots, David Lammy’s new book (which sounds surprisingly good) and the play at the Tricycle Theatre which I’ve just booked tickets for. In it, he says:
“This problem is – fundamentally – all about people, not money. Relationships and education matter far more than handouts… The riots were an invitation to see things differently, to look at families and how government bankrolls their breakup.”
As we argued again and again (over the riots but also before and since), there is a real and significant opportunity for the government to demonstrate how the Big Society can and should revolutionise our country. For that, however, it will need to also make some big decisions about what it spends our money on, how it talks about what is and isn’t possible and indeed desirable for governments to do, and – vitally – how it decides what is and isn’t worth it.
Hear hear. If you look at a list of things that bring happiness, relationships, family and religious or charitable service always come at the top
Sadly, we have been brain-washed into thinking that money and celebrity bring happiness. Every newspaper,news report and tweet tells us exactly the opposite.