We keep hearing about under funding for the NHS,schools and social care but where do you think this country wastes money that could go towards improving those things and others like education,pensions and public services?

For me I'd start with scrapping the House of Lords and reducing the numbers of MPs .
Within the NHS I have seen waste just in respect of how food is dumped in front of patients and then taken away and thrown away.

Let's not scrap the Royals but do we need to subsidise them as much as we do?

General spending of so called public money with a I don't care it's not my money attitude should stop and would save a fortune,so would excessive salaries-pension pots and pay offs for senior people in public services.

That sounds like a few million to start with....any more?

Civil servants and their flexy hours!

loads of things.
i agree house of lords...
plus legal aid.
too high housing benefit for well off people and landlords
its endless

Schools - when I went there was one teacher per class, the headmaster taught, there was a part time secretary, one old dear who used to cut card all day and two old dears who worked in the kitchen.

Nowadays, there are at least 3 classroom assistants per class, plus the teacher, about 7 women in the office, nurses and a load of special needs types we were able to cope without 30 years ago. The "who's who" board on the way in has over 60 staff on it for a primary school with a similar number of kids that I went to that got away with employing about a dozen.

Personally, along with the rest of the public sector, I would sack every single employee, and call them back in when it is clear their job is essential. Too many non jobs these days being funded at the taxpayer expense.

Tax loss

The attached shows the rates for corporation tax since 1971. This has gone from 40% down to 20%, and is scheduled to go down to 17% by 2020.

Alongside this, we have the biggest corporations pay little or no tax, with 5 companies avoiding £1 billion in taxes in 2015 alone.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news...-apple-7251746

Then we have the off shore investment funds, such as the one run by Mrs May's hubby. Or money laundering as it's more often know. Another $1.4trn worth of assets stolen.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...-a7133231.html

We've basically had governments and major corporations working in unison to steal from the investment & infrastructure pot.

A 2013 leak showed $23 trn moved to the British Virgin Islands alone.

Then we have my old favourite, the £4bn in annual subsidies paid to private train operators, from which they pay out dividends.

The bankers who are still benefiting from the bailouts and quantitative easing which is going straight into their bonus funds.

If you think about all the stolen wealth and the progress this country could have made over the last 40 years, it's an absolute scandal.

I'd say the UK has probably lost close to £50trn in stolen/ offshore funds and even more in the subsequent lost business advantages, improved infrastructure, better healthcare, better housing etc.

It's probably cost each individual an average of £20,000 pa in real terms over the last 37 years through suppressed wages, increased taxes to cover lost corporation tax receipts, pass on costs (ie costs which used to come from our taxes, but we now pay privately, such as dental care, increased cost from privatisation).

Incompetent corporate welfare companies such as Atos, Maximus, Capita, G4S. Tax breaks & soaring housing benefits for private landlords. HS2. £36bn pa of uncollected tax. The salary of the MP where I live (she doesn't respond to polite questions or requests for help). There are other areas, such a nuclear weapons & the triple lock, where I think the money would be better targeted.

The subsidy has steadily been reduced....

Save money? It's easy! Claw back public ownership of all, yes all, the public utilities that have been given away to fat cats in the private sector to milk for profits. Run those services for the public, by the public, and provide proper training and jobs. Shatter the cosy world of tax avoidance and evasion by simplifying and fairly enforcing the tax regime. Cut down the number of politicians, simplify the monarchy, control credit and encourage saving. Start building affordable houses for ordinary people. In other words, turn the clock back to the best of the past, whilst staying with and helping out our friends in Europe to work for our common good. Pie in the sky? Probably, we've gone too far up the creek to paddle back, even if we had a paddle!

I do find it annoying that people insist the public services should be run on a shoestring and wasting billions...as a justification to cut their budgets and ignore the consequences on the service provided.

It is Christmas so it's expected the misers will be out and about.

Public sector workers should not be paid "sick pay". If they don't work, they don't eat.

That's a bit of a shabby way to treat our nurses, policemen, firemen and soldiers!

(of course, I know you're joking)

Please elaborate!

Good grief. How is flexi time wasting tax payers money? They're working the same amount of hours over the year.

If anything it saves money as it avoids paying overtime when people work over their standard daily hours.

I'd scrap all benefits except for emergency safety net.
People must learn to stand on their own 2 feet.

Perhaps if we devoted more efforts to money coming in we would have more to spend on other things.

What might help is boosting instead of cutting back certain departments like HMRC (at least it's an arm of government responsible for getting revenue and not just spending it ! ) - so that they could devote far more resources to going after tax evasion and VAT fraud etc. Billions being lost apparently by their own estimates. Also perhaps they might be more able to answer the bloody phone whenever individuals or businesses need to speak to them!

Cutting staff and resources from HMRC or even UKBF totally counterproductive.

Rant over

Long term projects that seem sheltered and secure which ever party is in power.
The biggest current "money pit" is HS2. Knocking 20 minutes off the northern journey time does not warrant the vast costs involved. SCRAP IT NOW!!

The BBC has an extraordinary number of highly paid executives as well as performers on contract.

However, if we didn't pay the BBC to make TV and radio programmes that wouldn't mean more money for the NHS and social care.

It would just mean fewer TV and radio shows were made in the UK.

If people didn't have to pay the TV tax they would use the money saved to buy other things and pay VAT on those things and that money would go to the exchequer.

The welfare system

For all people receiving means tested welfare to pay their rent or mortgage, gas, electric, water and sewage, phone and internet, etc. Have the UK government either make massive group deals for the lowest cost rates or impose a statutory obligation on suppliers to automatically provide their lowest rate with a discount as a mandatory social responsibility obligation.

Also for provision to the ill, disabled and elderly on means tested welfare have mandatory social responsibility obligation include companies crediting money as a massive expansion of principle currently used to justify schemes like warm homes discounted money for heating paid for by energy companies and free TV licence paid for by the BBC.

In addition for people on means tested welfare have the government impose maximum amount of debt interest and interest limited to inflation. In effect acting as if all the poor people had gone to court and got rulings on their debt repayments. As this would also mean no commercial lender would be willing to lend to those on welfare have the government act as a lending bank at interest rate equal to inflation to the poor with automatic deductions from benefits to ensure repayment.

The above would help end the exploitation of the poor for profit at the expense of the poor and the states welfare system paying for the poor.

The state could also use cost of living data for households on means tested welfare to calculate benefits on a basket of goods. So having benefits that meet need or provide a standard of living. Rather than having benefit rates that are all over the place based on legacy rates that often bare no resemblance to recipients actual cost of living.

Why should people that don't work get cheaper utilities and credit to those that do?

Bit hard if you're disabled.

Because they're poorer?

it is is not people who do not work it is people who do not work and are so poor they are on means tested benefits. Most of whom are going to be those incapable of working due to ill health or disability or old age or caring responsibilities. They should get cheaper utilities and credit because companies should have social responsibility obligations. And ultimately because the money is being paid by welfare, that is lower costs to those on welfare can mean lower cost to the state.

It is something already done in the UK to a limited extent.
Warm homes discount is a statutory obligation imposed on energy suppliers.
Free TV licence is a statutory obligation imposed on the BBC.
Many utility providers for example phone and internet have social tariffs, lower tariffs for those on means tested welfare. Some due to statutory obligation.
For people in debt there is already a fast track system for the poor to have their debts voided, and there is already a process through which courts can impose low repayment schedules and limits to maximum interest so reducing the amount made by the companies who are the owed money. There are also already laws against predatory lending.

What I have suggested is a massive expansion and standardization of the above and crucially making it automatic. Then making benefit amounts based on cost of living data for those on means tested benefits. Making benefit rates make sense in terms of the cost of living or standard of living the claimant is deemed entitled to.