Easy way to save money:
1.CEA...Severe tightening of entitlement rules.. I.E you need to be posted out of any instead of just being eligeable, OR complete stopping
2. Flying Pay...Only paid on days flown. No reserve rate for those driving desks.
3. Complete review of higher/lower pay band and realignment so that only those trades that truely deserve to be in the higher band actually are.
Are you freaking mad.....don't have a go at the last few retention positive aspects and no, I do not receive any of them! Minigundiplomat has hit the nail on the head.
Part of the reason for the gaps can be found in yesterdays Telegraph. The UK is now paying out more in Welfare payments than it recieves in Income Tax for the first time.
In 2008/09, gross income tax receipts were £152.5 billion. In the same year, social security benefits cost the Exchequer £150.1 billion.
£150.1 billion !!!!!!!!!!! against £36.9 (2010/11) for defence. That is where the real culprit is.
Whilst I have sympathy with the unemployed, there is nothing better than no income to concentrate the mind on getting a job. There is ample evidence of aversion to manual labour in this country (vegetable picking an example).
Legal aid, income support, jobseekers allowance, incapacity benefit for being too fat! etc etc and lets not get onto the NHS. Whilst it is a magnificent concept, it was supposed to be access to medical help for all, not access to the best and most advanced medicines and medical care for all.
This is where the next Government needs to concentrate. Generate industry with large civil engineering projects, including Defence, get the country working and get the slackers off the dole.
Just for the record, I grew up on a council estate, my child benefit was spent on Bingo by my guardian, I washed windows in the snow and worked in pubs for income and have never received a day of unemployment benefit or whatever it is called these days. (you tell today's kids that and...)
My only ring fence would be children and the elderly. They must be fed, clothed, educated and given proper medical and dental care.
Tin hat on!
