Category: theguardian

‘You can’t really win’: 4m Britons in poverty despite having jobs
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The Guardian 14 May 2019

“I’m a bit scatty with things like this,” Gemma* admits when talking about her finances. It was not scattiness that meant she struggled to make ends meet when taking home £399.69 a month for working 18 hours a week as a cashier at Betfred. Even with tax credits and child benefit topping up her meagre wages, it was a constant struggle to pay for the essentials and Gemma fell behind on her bills. She was already receiving letters, phone calls, texts and emails threatening legal action over previous unpaid bills, as well as £400 of benefit overpayments that had to be repaid.

NHS body ‘wastes millions on flawed financial advice’
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The Observer 21 July 2018

A large NHS body has spent millions of pounds on management consultants for a plan designed to save money – but which could cost more than £1bn to put into practice. Over the past six years, the North West London Clinical Commissioning Groups has spent £66m on 41 different management consulting firms – including the big four: McKinsey, EY, Deloitte and PwC – for a five-year programme to improve healthcare in the area while closing a £1.4bn budget gap forecast by 2021. However, costs have ballooned and the trust said it now needs £1.3bn to implement the programme. It declined to quantify the savings that have been made to date.

Portugal at flashpoint as austerity lights fires in mild-mannered populace
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The Guardian 28 September 2012

We have reached the limit. People are tired of making sacrifices because you don’t see any improvement whatsoever. Quite the opposite.” Marina Padeiro, 36, is one of Portugal’s estimated 1.3 million unemployed – a number that has shot up in the past year and a half, as a result of the stinging austerity measures imposed on the country in exchange for a €78bn (£62bn) bailout.

The Friday Interview: Dennis Nally of PwC
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The Guardian 15 December 2011

Dennis Nally, global chairman of PwC, is a master of dodging tricky questions. Asked about his salary, he looks at his PR man, who quickly steps in to say it is not disclosed. We can presume it was in the millions, as PwC’s UK chairman, Ian Powell, took home £3.7m this year. “I would say I earn every dollar I make,” says Nally, a fit-looking 59-year-old. It is a bold claim in a climate where executive pay is under scrutiny. But Nally knows all about scrutiny: for three years, the European commission has been investigating the big auditing companies, culminating in recent proposals for a radical overhaul of the industry.

Five years on, did first mass asbo succeed?
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The Guardian 27 August 2008

They were dubbed the Malevolent Seven. At the height of asbomania, a group of youths earned what is thought to be the first mass antisocial behaviour order for terrorising their local area, urinating on doorsteps and stealing. The media leapt on the story, keen to reprint tales of these “monsters” who had racked up more than 100 convictions between them, and the new “get tough” powers of the police. Asbos, it was hoped, would stop the criminals of tomorrow falling deeper into crime.