Interesting Facts

The UK government paid social media giant Facebook 113 times more in taxpayers’ money for advertising than Facebook paid in corporation tax in the UK. (Government departments spent £489,329 in the 2014-15 fiscal year for advertising on Facebook, who only coughed up £4,327 in corporation tax. They only had to pay such a tiny amount because they recorded a £28.5million loss in the UK, but at the same time they handed staff £35million in share bonuses. Increasingly it seems that the job of governments is to be cleverer than corporations, but I want to know the answer to one question, "What on earth were they advertising?")

You can be fined up to £150 for dropping litter in the UK.  (Previously fines had been set by councils, varying between £50 and £80, however now under guidelines drawn up by the Department for Communities and Local Government, litter bugs could face an on the spot fine of £100, and if they do not pay up within a designated period it could increase to £150. Fear of being fined shouldn't stop people from littering.  A wish to live in nice surroundings should be enough.)

According to a report from the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, the Saturday job is dead. (In the 90s, nearly half of sixth-formers (16-17-year-old students) in the UK had a Saturday job, but that number had fallen to 18% by 2014. Now, before you say it's because youths of today are a bunch of lazy so and sos, it seems it's because they prefer to spend their time studying.  And they could well be right for doing so, as research from the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex found that taking a part-time job  while studying for exams, helped students gain work skills and pocket money for those teenage essentials, but had a negative impact on their exam results. I would still take a Saturday job.  No one cares about your exam results after a few years, but people always value experience.) Source

nder plans set out by Schools Minister Nick Gibb, every state school pupil will be expected to sit at least five “hard” GCSEs to increase the number of state-educated students at the best universities and in the top professions, the government has said. (This means that all pupils starting secondary school in autumn 2015 will be expected to take maths, English, a foreign language, history or geography and at least one science subject when they begin their GCSE courses in 2018. If you have just sat your art and design, music and drama, business studies, communication and culture and citizenship exams, you can breathe a sigh of relief.)

According to the Local Government Association in the UK, they get some bizarre Freedom of Information requests. (Here are the 10 weirdest received since freedom of information requests were introduced in 2000:- 1. What plans are in place to protect the town from a dragon attack? (Wigan Council) 2. Please list all the types of animals you have frozen since March 2012, including the type and quantity of each animal. (Cambridge City Council) 3. How many times has the council paid for the services of an exorcist, psychic or religious healer? Were the services performed on an adult, child, pet or building? (Rossendale Council) 4. Please can you let me know how many roundabouts are located within your council boundaries. (Leicestershire County Council) 5. What precautions, preparations, planning and costings have been undertaken in the case an asteroid crashes into Worthing, a meteorite landing in Worthing or solar activity disrupting electromagnetic fields? (Worthing Borough Council) 6.

Bosses at the Charles Wells brewery have ordered publicans to ensure customers do not exceed the Government’s recommended health guidelines. (This would limit customers to three to four units of alcohol a day for men and two for women. Their flagship beer Bombardier contains 2.7 units a pint, which would limit pubs to serving about one and a half pints of beer per person. No more two beer photos!)

The British government has announced that all UK driving licence records will be put online. (The project, called My Licence, is due to be launched by the DVLA in March.  It will allow access to drivers' information through the gov.uk website using an individual's licence number, national insurance number and postcode. I guess that this is the only way they could go as their bid for id cards failed. The good news is that the paper counterpart to the driving licence card will be phased out by 2015.)

Well rip off Britain gets even worse on the disclosure that people in the UK spent around £56 million calling government helplines. (According to investigations by the Public Accounts Committee, people in the UK are being charged premium rate to access certain government departments.  They also take too long to answer. Most departments have no targets, despite an industry standard that calls be answered within 20 seconds, but of course there's no real incentive to answer quickly, as the longer they can keep you on hold, the more money they make. Of the 208 million calls made in 2012/13, some 63% were made to higher rate numbers at an estimated total cost of £56 million.  These included calls to the Department for Work and Pensions, the inquiries and complaints line of the Student Loans Company, and sickeningly to helplines for victim support and the Bereavement Service. It's like something out of Despicable Me.)

The UK government has a cellar that contains about £2m worth of wine and spirits. (The cellar contains fine wines from  the likes of Chateau Latour, Chateau Lafite, Chateau Margaux and Chateau Mouton Rothschild. Now I understand why people go into politics.)

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) has decided that MP's salaries in the UK are lagging behind that of Civil Servants. (So, are they going to bring Civil Service pay in-line with pay for British MPs? No, of course not; it looks like they're going to award themselves a £10,000 pay rise.  A massive 25%. MPs are currently paid £65,738 a year, and in a recent poll they (the MPs themselves) thought they should be paid £86,000 a year (some thought they should be paid £100,000). On top of that you have the "expenses". But before 1911 MPs weren't paid any salary, and in today's money that first salary would be worth, £39,000 - around Band 7 in the NHS for "specialist workers". An IPSA spokesperson told the Sunday Times: "There is no recommendation yet, there are no proposals yet. We are working on that. We are going to do this in a very public and proper way with consultation. We will be consulting before the end of June and a

According to The Telegraph, the Nepalese government charged 337 climbers £2.2 million in 2012 for permits to climb Mount Everest. (Climbing the highest mountain in the world is more of a jaunt nowadays. The base camp has wifi internet so that expedition members can telephone their families on Skype. Not exactly what I would have expected if I were ever daft enough to want to climb a mountain. Before you know it, they'll have built a cafe.) Source

Children who are eligible for free school meals are nearly 4 times more likely to receive a permanent exclusion and around 3 times more likely to receive a fixed period exclusion than children who are not eligible for free school meals (In other words, children from poor families struggle.  I wonder why the current government is so hell bent on creating more poor families?)

According to the US Office of National Drug Control Policy, in 2010 The U.S. federal government spent over $15 billion dollars on the War on Drugs. (That is a cost of about $500 per second, but that's just the federal government, state and local governments spent at least another 25 billion dollars. America is still the single largest marketplace for illegal drugs. One estimate is that around thirteen million Americans still occasionally buy illegal drugs, whist an estimated 5 and 6 million have more serious drug habits. The government estimates that users spend approximately $60 billion dollars a year.) You can follow an up-to-date calculator online.  http://www.drugsense.org/cms/wodclock

According to government records, the sale of more than 20 school sports fields in the UK has been approved by The Education Secretary, Michael Gove. (Isn't that a nice little Olympic legacy for our children?)

According to economist James Henry financial assets held offshore round the world are worth “at least” $21tn and perhaps as much as $32tn. (He calculated that £6.3trillion of these assets are owned by just 92,000 people – or 0.001 per cent of the world’s population. The international campaign group Tax Justice Network, which commissioned the research estimates that around $250billion is lost in taxes each year by governments worldwide as a result of the wealthiest individuals holding their assets offshore.) Source

According to a government report, Fair Access to Professional Careers, 41% of law undergraduates, 57% of medical students and 49% of journalism students in Britain come from the UK's 'highest socio-economic groups’. (The independent reviewer on social mobility (yes we really do have one), Alan Milburn pointed out that some middle-class graduates were also locked out of the job market and internships because their families did not have - the right connections. Birds of a feather stick together Mr Milburn.) Source

According to a report by    the liberal think-tank CentreForum, the UK   Government invests around £7bn a year on childcare support. (This is the fifth highest spending rate in the developed world, and only the Nordic countries spend more.  Funding is provided to very low income families and covers most of their childcare costs.  The crazy thing is that these low income families need help because even though they work, they don't earn enough to be able to pay for the childcare that allows them to work, so the tax payer is really subsidising low wages.  How about employers providing childcare for employees?)

A study by Cranfield School of Management has found that the number of women directors on top company boards has increased to a record 15%, but it is still well below a target of 25% set by the British Government. (There are now 141 women holding 163 board seats in FTSE 100 firms, while the number of companies with no women board members has fallen to 11, but when you cast a wider net, 89% of FTSE 350 firms still have no female board representation. That said, the percentage of board members in 1999 was 6.9%,  so we are making some progress.)

According to the Tax Payers Alliance, in the fiscal year 2007/2008 13 out of 20 UK Government Departments spent over £18.5 million in flights. (£10.6 million went on business and first class flights. But, when you include quangos and other bodies,the total bill for public sector flights was almost £70 million. I've never even been in first class, or business class, which is probably because so much of my income goes on taxes to pay for this.)