Foreign Perspectives

To strike or not to strike for public service pensions

Arnold — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:54:07 PDT

Pension payments for all but the lowest paid in the public sector are going up (mostly doubling) and they’re going to have to work longer before they are entitled to the maximum pension. Surely it must only be right that the well paid public servants in secure jobs pay more for their gold plated pensions? Why should the rest of us pay for their pensions anyway?

The snag with public sector pensions is that the employer is the government so therefore, yes, the rest of us do have to pay for their pensions. Unless you’d rather that they get no pensions at all (in which case, I hope you don’t mind doing without schools, hospitals, etc.) then the government (ie taxpayers) must act as responsible employers and pay for those pensions. The other snag is that, unlike private sector pensions, the public sectors operate on a pay as you go system which means that the current workers pay for the pensions of the current pensioners or rather taxes do (that’s how the normal retirement pension operates too).

OK, so we should pay them a pension, but surely we shouldn’t be paying the well-paid public servants gold plated pensions? Actually, well-paid public servants are very much in the minority with a considerable number getting close to the minimum wage. Courtesy of a number of changes in recent years, that “gold-plating” is looking distinctly tarnished with three separate schemes being introduced over the last 10 years, the prior schemes being closed to new members and each new scheme being markedly poorer than the one before. The latest offering is a lurch towards an average salary rather than the current final salary scheme which will be a major, major drop in the pensions that people will be eligible for though, as usual with pensions, a magnitude of a drop that most people wouldn’t realise until it was far too late.

In some ways it could be a good thing. The net effect, for public servants who realise it, is that their lifetime earnings is being cut quite dramatically so it might encourage more to leave for the private sector. The only snag with that is that we need those public services that the people most likely to leave provide. On the whole, those most likely to leave would be the higher earners. Do you really want to have an exodus of teachers, nurses, etc.? What about the well-paid Whitehall people perhaps? Surely they can be done without? Certainly, if you’re happy to have poor advice given to the government on all kinds of matters, you could do without them.

Should you strike? Despite being what I’d say was one of the most right wing union representatives ever, I think, yes, this is a time to show that you support your union negotiators.

Should you support the strike as a taxpayer? I think yes too as it’s really going to impact on the quality of public servants and hence public services that you get over the years to come.

Incoming search terms:

should public servants have the right to go on strike

The ups and downs of offering free holiday accommodation listings

Arnold — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 01:36:47 PDT

We’ve been offering free listings for holiday accommodation for over seven years now with quite a few changes to what we offered over that time.

Initially, we did the site by hand, taking in emails with the text and a photo then adding the property to what was then a simple list. That worked just fine ’til we got over 50 properties when it started to become a bit of a chore to keep up with the growing number of updates. That’s when we moved to the original database driven version of the sites (which had become plural by then) with a rise in the amount of text and the number of photos. As the years went on, we filled out the sites by offering more options for text and photos and variations on how we presented them with the general aim of producing a professional site but without the cost overheads. Depending on how you count them, we’re now on the fourth or fifth version of the site and possibly the sixth if you count the Android version that we’re trialling out at the moment.

One problem that we have which fully commercial sites don’t is that we need people to upgrade their entry now and again as we implement new facilities on the sites. Most noticeable is the resolution of the photos where we’ve moved from 150 pixels wide to 500 pixels at the moment yet still have some of the early properties using photos at the original low resolution. However, we’ve added heaps of sections from room descriptions, through local attractions to GPS co-ordinates which also need attention. We do prompt people to update their entry in our, slightly irregular, newsletters but it’s an uphill battle: people won’t update their entry without receiving more bookings yet they won’t get the extra bookings without updating their entry!

Along the way we’ve grown from the initial band of 20 property owners to six or seven thousand across the various sites. Although the original game plan was to offer totally free listings, we were prompted by a number of owners to add a charge. No, really! They felt that “free” meant that the listing had no value and there are a number of people who feel that way if the quality of the adverts we receive when we mention “free” is anything to go by. What we do these days is to say that it costs £40 or so but that there’s a free trial period. In practice, our listing is actually better than free as we do a free SEO review of your own website and we tidy up your entry so that it’s well presented on our sites. That free SEO review has been enough to increase the traffic on a fair number of sites around 30 fold so it’s definitely worth having!

The timing of the arrival of the adverts is still confusing though! I would expect them to turn up when the properties aren’t that busy so in principle we should have had next to no new entries over Easter but we received a good deal more than we normally do and pretty high quality entries at that too.

One big advantage that we offer over commercial sites is that all the development work is in-house. The effect of that will be increasingly clear over the coming year or two as we will be rolling out a series of updates. Commercial sites generally contract out their development work and therefore only update their sites every three to five years. In principle, that should mean that we will gradually overtake more and more commercial sites in the markets in which we operate. For example, we’re in the process of writing a native Android app that would ordinarily cost around £15,000 or so which is a lot of money even for fairly large listings sites.

What’s been particularly sad to see over the last year is the massive rise in the number of people dropping out of the business. For us the drop out rate has historically been tiny but it’s around ten times the normal rate over the past year or so. Equally sad is the jump in the number of listings sites which have ceased operations: up from one to over 20 in a year.

Quite a full Easter

Arnold — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 03:56:20 PDT

With starting the new job the week before Easter, this is my first week of work holidays in over eight years!

As we normally do, it was off to Portrush on Easter Monday. Usually, there’s a mass of traffic along the way, a traffic jam a mile or two long going into the town, pretty much nowhere to park, wall to wall crowds everywhere regardless of the weather and no money in the cash machines. This year the traffic seemed a bit light on the way up, there was no traffic jam at all, loads of parking spots even quite close into the town, hardly any crowds and money in the cash machines even in the late afternoon as we were leaving. We didn’t even have to queue in the café and there was next to no queuing in Barry’s either. Methinks that Portrush is going to have a tough time financially if they can’t fill up even on Easter Monday.

Ongoing throughout the holiday has been the assignment for SD329 a biology cum psychology course that runs through to October. Although it was very much a last minute thing, it was a much easier assignment than the chemistry one which I’ve been ruminating over for weeks. I wasn’t too keen on the breakdown of every section of every question into a specific word count but it did prompt me to write a little more on some questions than I otherwise would have done which, hopefully, will improve the marks. Anyway, it’s off so it’s just the final chemistry question to complete tomorrow.

I came across a neat site which converts any website into an Android application so I’ve put on four trial ones. They look fine on the ASUS tablet but I’ll need to rejig the style sheet a bit to tidy up their appearance on Android phones. I may need to get myself an Android phone to really try them out too. No downloads as yet but then they’ve only been on a couple of days.

The materials for the Infectious Disease course arrived yesterday. No big surprises there as I picked up a copy of the pre-course briefing last year. I’ll have to get going on reading it properly soon as I want to get that well underway before I need to start the chemistry revision and indeed the pre-course work for the chemistry summer school for that matter. Oh, and the two assignments that’ll fall due in the midst of that revision time too. It’s going to be a hectic time for me in May and June.

Incoming search terms:

easter quite

A busy run-up to Easter

Arnold — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 12:35:13 PDT

The last couple of months have proved to be a very hectic time indeed.

The web design course finished at the end of February and turned out to be far more helpful than I could have imagined. What it let me do was to implement a massive upgrade to the inns sites and alongside that to similarly improve the SEO. Both tasks are still ongoing but only because the initial upgrade made it a whole lot easier to implement subsequent improvements. That in turn has made it viable to really ramp up the promotion of the sites and we’re pulling in new additions pretty much as fast as we can cope with them.

Following on from that course there’s a placement with a web company. In my case, it turned out to be what was seemingly the perfect job for me, aside from the salary. Unfortunately in many ways a full-time job came up just a couple of weeks after I started there so I was off to that at the start of April. Not nearly such an inspiring job but the pay is welcome.

In between the two we managed to finally get around to our major moving exercise from France. Somehow our estimate of half a Luton van of stuff (which we took from the photos taken when we first arrived in France) was way off and not only did we have pretty much a full Luton van but also a very packed car and still need a final car-run to clear out what we had to leave behind.

The job is causing a major readjustment for us all. For John, it’s the first time in his life that Daddy hasn’t been around all day every day for him. James is nearly as bad as he was only two when we moved to France. It’s an adjustment for Wendy too as I’m not around to look after the kids. And for me, notably in the study time which just ain’t there which is going to make the next few months very difficult indeed as the study doesn’t drop down to part-time until September.

To easy us in a little, I’ve taken the Easter week off which, hopefully, will give me a chance to catch up on some things.

A seriously busy start to the year

Arnold — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 14:35:21 PST

I’ve managed to pile in a massive amount of stuff into the first couple of months of the year, hence lack of updates on the blog.

To begin with, the Chemistry course assignments have proved to be both more time consuming and less rewarding than expected. That’s had be starting to rethink the possibility of future chemistry courses. Essentially, I’m shelving them for the moment apart from the residential that’s already booked. That in turn frees up a chunk of time in the coming year so I might do the bio/psych course in October.

The Autism course is barely noticeable in terms of time required. Just this evening I finished the final iCMA with a 100% score in under 10 minutes and without even glancing at the book. All being well the EMA will be equally easy.

I thought I was behind with the signals & perception course but it turns out that I was running at a 60 point rate for a 30 point course so I’m well ahead of the official timetable.

The web design course being fairly full-time has forced me to rejig the times that I do the OU courses and it’s just as well that the workload this year was lower than last year or I’d have had to drop something I think.

The first fruits of the web design course are a radical update of the listings sites producing a major improvement in the look and feel of OurBedAndBreakfasts.com, OurHolidayRentalHomes.com and WholeEarthGuide.com . I’m hoping to double the number of properties listed over the course of the coming 18 months or so and as step one of that I’ve a bunch of adwords campaigns running. Upcoming tasks include refining the adwords campaigns, getting the B&B marketing guide assembled into book form and increasing the coverage of the Whole Earth guide which’ll keep me busy for the next month or two I expect.

Incoming search terms:

Doing chemistry (S205) in the computer age

Arnold — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 05:56:02 PST

After getting over the mountain that was the S204 exam, I feel that I’ve been really getting into the chemistry course over the past month or so.

I’ve the third assignment away this morning and it’s the first one that I feel reasonably confident about (though ’til the results come back it could easily be false optimism). Interestingly the biology course is proving increasingly useful as the course moves more into proper chemistry or rather moves away from the largely theoretical side of things and into dealing with how various chemicals react together.

One problem continues to dog progress and that’s that chemistry doesn’t fit easily into the computer age. Actually doing the assignments doesn’t take overly long for the most part but getting the various symbols and diagrams onto the computer eats up the time. To begin with you need to pick up an entirely different font from the normal ones to even be able to type the symbols required and, of course, those symbols aren’t on the keyboard so every one needs to be inserted as a special symbol. The diagrams themselves are equally easy on paper but need a range of software to prepare them for the computer. Even what would appear to be a simple graph can’t be done with normal spreadsheet software because you need to put sub and superscripts on the titles and axes labels.

Still, the plus point of that is that the course team need to make the assignments a little easier to do than they might do otherwise although with the large potential for a few errors to creep in between paper and computer screen, the marks haven’t (yet) reflected that slightly easier aspect.

Also this morning was the third iCMA for the autism course. As usual, it was four questions that could be answered by finding and reading a few paragraphs of the book for each one. Another 100% mark for me which means that I have passed the continuous assessment part of the course already with two more iCMAs left which, for me, are now effectively optional.

In comparison to the chemistry, the autism course is very much a stop-start affair. It’s around one iCMA per month covering one or two chapters of the book and with each chapter only taking a couple of hours to read it’s working out at two or three hours per month to do the course (compared to the official 8 hours a week). The net effect of that is that I generally do an iCMA then read the chapter(s) for the next one and then there’s nothing to do for three weeks. The problems with that approach are that by the time the next iCMA comes around, I’ve to revise the relevant chapter(s) before doing the questions and that overall it’s a very annoying way to progress through the course.

Incoming search terms:

A sensible pass for S204 (biology)

Arnold — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 03:19:40 PST

As usual, the Open University results were in earlier than planned so yesterday I found out that I’d passed S204 and was well clear of 40% too.

Just as well really as there’s no way that I’d have been able to fit in even more revision for the resit in April. From the 297 students around 50 will be eligible for a resit though I suspect that there will be a good deal fewer than that who will actually do it as the revision is something of a nightmare in terms of sheer volume and indeed difficulty in parts too.

It looked like it was a little harder than usual as only 2% picked up a distinction rather than the usual 10% for exams generally.

Incoming search terms:

Adjusting to a new subject

Arnold — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 01:58:48 PST

I’ve been plugging away with biology for a couple of years now. Starting from scratch, biology was seriously difficult at the start but a couple of years down the line I’m thinking like a biologist.

Thus, despite having done quite a lot of chemistry a long time ago, it was a bit of a jolt to restart the chemistry straight after the biology exam. That said, the resulting mark was slightly higher than the biology marks.

What’s quite noticeable is that I’m getting back into the swing of the chemistry. The texts are a lot easier going than the biology ones were, so much so that after just over six weeks into a seven month course, I’m over half-way through the books. It’s a slightly different story with the assignments which are taking ages to do although to be fair most of that is down to the time it takes to draw the various molecules and to get the relevant characters picked out of the chemistry font.

Next up is an iCMA which I hate as even the tiniest mistake is a problem and you can’t even print out the questions beforehand.

Quite what progress will be like when the biology/chemistry/psychology course that’s Signals and Perception starts up next month is another matter, of course.

Tidying up the finances when someone goes into a nursing home

Arnold — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 01:09:29 PST

Mum’s journey into a nursing home was largely unplanned for and constantly suffering from delays on the part of social services but she’s been there for several months now. That’s created a much greater involvement with social services and social security than we’ve had up to now and it’s something of a nightmare on the whole.

First off, the financial assessment people want a whole bunch of information about her finances. That sounded like it would be simple when they demanded it (“ask” isn’t in their vocabulary) but in fact it isn’t. Even getting information from their colleagues in social security proved extremely difficult. In fact, that difficulty should really be obvious: you’re phoning up to ask about someone else’s financial situation. Naturally, the answer is along the lines “we can’t provide that information to you”.

On the other side of the coin their colleagues in social services are concerned about protecting her finances. Well, protecting them for themselves really as their view is that all her assets were built up to pay for nursing home fees. However, there’s a conflict in their demands and those of the financial assessment people.

Then there’s the matter of transferring numerous direct debits built up over a period of time. Not quite so simple really although that at least appears to be doable for the most part with the exception, so far, of Sky who can’t get their head around needing to cancel Sky because the person using and paying for it has moved into a nursing home. I look forward to their demands for payment now that I’ve canceled the direct debit. Well, actually, I won’t get them as they insist on speaking to the bill payer, who ain’t here any more.

Anyway, I think I’m on the home run with moving the bills to appropriate places.

Incoming search terms:

Recession or depression?

Arnold — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 10:08:43 PST

Nobody is openly calling it a depression but then it’s a difficult call to say whether you’re in a depression or not when you’re actually in the midst of one.

Aside from the obvious financial difficulties that a growing list of countries are finding themselves in, signs this time around are seemingly all around on the smaller scale too. The list of bankrupts seems to be growing although that’s not really a terribly reliable sign in these days of financial engineering.

What’s perhaps more obvious is the number of small shops gradually disappearing. The smaller shops are more dependent on the local economy than the large chain stores and they tend not to have a large financial cushion to help them ride through the bad times either. Indicative of this too is the rise in the number of charity shops which can operate through financial difficulties as they don’t pay their staff nor do they pay for their stock. Thus in difficult times, charity shops tend to replace small shops.

Slightly strangely in some ways is that the chip shops and home bakeries are closing up. Two different reasons are working here with the chip shops suffering as they’re popular as cheap food outlets and thus have a fall-off in trade when those at the bottom end of the income levels have to make cuts. To some extent that affects the home bakeries too but there’s also the element of their products being a bit of a treat and that “treat money” is in shorter supply these days.

Will we all look back on this period ten or fifteen years from now and call it a depression? Somehow I suspect that the answer to that will be yes and that there are even more difficult times lying ahead.