Waste of taxpayers' money

Having been out since mid day I have just logged on to find my comment has been deleted. I apologise unreservedly for any offence I caused

It would put a lot of civil servants out of jobs!

Yes then we could have a referendum for each type of expenditure! Wonder what that would turn out like?

I normally abstain from politics- but
It would be nice if taxes and expenditure were spent on what they appear to be for.
NI just goes into the general budget as does VAT road tax and all the rest!
Perhaps there should be just one income tax that then gets divided into all the outgoings.
I'm being naive I know! But!

There is nothing personal - nit picking or otherwise in my comparison of the DM plus insiders figures with the year end accounts - just trying to get to the truth of the matter.

I have no opinion regarding to whether people are being unreasonable they are entitled to their argument on the subject as am I.

ana

You weren't being unreasonable to expect that taxpayers' money should be used for the purpose we expect, margaret.

Blimey, no wonder people are discouraged from posting when there's such cross-examining and nit-picking going on!

My OP asked if I was being unreasonable. Obviously the consensus is that yes I am.
So I have the answer to my OP and will leave you to it.
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Thanks for all the blue notes. I have just been skimming through their end of year accounts for 2012/3 and unfortunately none of what the Mail has reported is evidenced there. I did note that for the year ending 2011/2 the flood grant was 544.6 and for 2012/3 is was 524.5 so down year on year

With regard to the note from "insiders"

£395m staff costs -the largest cost in any company is always the cost of staff.
However whilst the insiders are correct in the capital costs they omitted to include other costs which will be the flood maintenance so the total £645m quite a lot omitted from their argument there.
With regard to Directors emoluments it would seem that they are muddling directors and managers so not sure what figures they are using.

Staff levels

permanent staff 11177
temp staff 576 (by their nature - temporary)
Contractors 539 (also temporary staff)

total 12252

The comment that this is more than 6 countries combined is so ridiculous as not to be worth a consideration
In the forward there is a paragraph relating to the dredging issue which states that the EA is aware of the "considerable concern raised by farmers and land managers about channel maintenance" it goes on to explain that £22m was allowed for this work during the year covered by the report and that this was in partnership with the NFU and DEFRA. So the EA NFU and DEFRA partnered the work that was carried out.
Vehicles - I haven't looked at this (beginning to lose the will to live) but of course there will be a high number of vehicles employed because of the nature of the Agency.

I won't go on any more as it is probably boring but there is sufficient doubt in the figures to question both the DM and insiders report

www.insidetheenvironmentagency.co.uk

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ninny Thanks for that I will try to see if I can source the original documents myself and get back to you on that.

No I am not into Gay Pride as such but I do have gay friends, and the annual march here is extremely popular with a huge attendance both as participants and audience !!

ninny no I don't.

If you are into Gay Pride I expect it would be nice to see, like it would be good to go to see anything that interests you.

ninny thank you for that what I really meant was - do you know how I can look at the original document this report is based on?

Interesting to see the Gay Parade pictures - the Police and a number of other organizations always get involved in Brighton too. Nice to see don't you think?, and the marches are always such fun

www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-history-of-the-lord-mayor%E2%80%99s-show

No, I don't get the arithmetic either

"Whilst the Show is extremely good value, with a budget of only just over £35032,000; its total cost has been estimated in the region of 3 million pounds, the same as a major West End musical. So, as you watch it from the pavement it passes you at the rate of £60,000 a minute."

Gay Pride is peanuts.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2560300/Why-did-floods-agency-spend-hundreds-equali-tea-gay-awareness-mugs-30-000-gay-pride-marches-As-Britain-counts-cost-shoddy-defences-reveal-bizarre-spending-quango-bosses.html

Just out of interest, what does the Lord Mayor's parade cost?

Can someone let me know where I can read about the Gay March and lavish entertaining please so that I can join in with the debate Cheers!

I don't think anyone was getting annoyed about that, Jess.

Well ana if someone wants to start a debate, and other people challenge the validity of the basic information which they wish to discuss, not unreasonable to come back with corroborative evidence that supports the information that they assert to be true. Isn't that how debate works?
Makes for a better debate than just carrying on regardless or getting annoyed that the validity of the first source not accepted?

margaret didn't claim to have read the report, she just said it was online for anyone to view, and presumably examine in minute detail if they were so inclined.

Sorry that you think i sound patronising ana but I think citing that something is in the EA annual report and then not coming back and saying where it can be found (it is very long) does not reassure me that the original story is true. I have stood next to my DH while he was interviewed on the phone by a DM reporter who was trying to get him to corroborate something they were planning to print and heard DH say "That is not true. If you print that it will be a lie." But they printed the scare story anyway which was based on a pack of untruths. So I have first hand evidence that they deliberately lie. There are many other examples that are in the public domain. Not saying other papers don't do it too. The Express runs a shock horror story about the weather about once every 10 days which rarely proves to be true e.g "massive heatwave" turns out to be one day with temperatures in mid 20s.

I do not know if money that should have been spent on direct environmental works was diverted to try to counter the bullying gay people have to put up with in all walks of life. What I do know is that sloppy journalism, and political propaganda dressed up as journalism, needs to be exposed. I don't care which paper it is all headlines need to be backed up by facts.

I see that there is now evidence that significant flood defence work was cancelled, greatly reduced or postponed by the government against the advice of the Climate Change Committee and EA et al. That had nothing to do with spending a few pounds on 'Some People Are Gay Get Over It ' mugs if that is what happened!

As for the 'b' word, I'd say the tone was more hectoring than anything!