Are they taking the piss? Yes, but only once a month.

[Strudel]

There is definitely waste, but just cutting funding isn't going to change that (as we've seen over the last eight years). The critical barrier to this functioning as they claim it should is that the people who decide where the cuts fall are the people who make all the money. Things are never going to become more efficient when the people deciding what needs to go are the people generating all the excess. Trying to get someone with more objectivity to decide is also fraught with problems because that usually entails bringing in one of the big auditing/accountancy/whatever firms and they're horrific for just doing whatever keeps them in a job (a job that is decided by those in charge, and we're back to square one).

In terms of taxation, I'd be happy to increase income tax for higher earners. And I say that as someone who (briefly) did earn quite a bit - when I did some contracting work for Sky, out of a month's gross pay of £9300 I saw £5200 after tax, NI, and student loan repayments. Unfortunately I wasn't earning like that for very long

I also think there needs to be a lot greater resource poured into making sure people do pay what they owe (at the top) because far too many very well paid people are dodging the tax they owe through (often perfectly legal) tax vehicles. Whether it's corporate or personal, HMRC is woefully under-resourced, under-powered, and under-motivated to really make a dent in these entities.

[Achtung Englander]

I recommend the Govt just be radical. 1% tax on a company UK based revenue and zero on profit - there job done, no company can avoid tax and it will rake in tens of billions more. Small companies will get a massive boost to net income and huge cooperations will end up paying billions more offsetting the loss from the smaller companies.

[Mantis]

Would it actually rake in billions more though?

It also wouldn't work even with revenue tax set as low as 1% because you have to consider the low margin businesses that make their money from selling in high volumes, like agriculture, grocers, car dealers, alcohol retailers etc. In some instances you're looking at profit margins as low as 2% for some goods, they simply sell a shedload of the stuff to make their money. Slap a 1% turnover tax on that and suddenly their old corporation tax bill of 20% on profits has suddenly turned into a monster that eats potentially 50% of their profit away. It would almost certainly put a lot of the smaller companies that you'd expect the policy to benefit out of business.

[Achtung Englander]

........I'll have another beer please. And another thing......

[Medicine Man]

It would seem I am in one of the 2 councils currently operating a 4 week pick up for landfill rubbish. AMA

We have:
A bin for recycling (Paper, metal, cardboard, plastic) collected every 2 weeks
A food waste bin collected every week
A black box for glass bottles, jars, household batteries and small electrical items.
A textile bag that goes out with the black box for clothing, shoes and other textiles
A bin for garden waste collected every 4 weeks and on demand through teh winter months
A bin for non-recyclable items collected every 4 weeks. That's the one everyone is getting all raging about.

Also available is an AHP (Absorbent Hygiene Products) collection every 2 weeks. Basically nappies and all that. We have no need for such a service any more.

So out of that little lot 3 are what you would class as full size wheelie bins (landfill, recycling and garden). The black box is a decent enough size I've never had a problem with it overflowing likewise with the food caddy which is roughly half the size of it. Our landfill bin has never been full since the whole process started we could honestly get away with one of those wee half size wheelie bins the auld folk get.

All in all I have never seen or heard of any of the predicted carnage currently in the news around here. Fly tipping seems to be almost non-existent and as for people burning rubbish I can't say I've seen, smelt or heard of anyone doing that. Granted our council seems to have their shit together when it comes to recycling, but its really not that difficult once you get over the initial shock.

We now have another recycling bin! This time in a fetching shade of burgundy.

What they have done is split our recycling bin (paper, metal, cardboard, plastic) into 2. Now it's one for paper and cardboard and another for plastic and metal picked up every 4 weeks instead of every 2 that it was before.

I believe we are now at maximum capacity as far as bin space goes. If they want any more granularity in the process we're going to need a much bigger garden.