Tim Worstall

Polly and Ken

You know, looking at Factchecking Pollyanna, it appears that her 140,000 squids a year from The Guardian simply isn’t enough to live on in London. Not for her, anyway :

In order to raise the profile of childcare in London and to publicise
        my London Childcare Strategy, I have agreed to commission Polly Toynbee
        to draft an article in an accessible style setting out the key issues.

Given her respected knowledge and expertise I have agreed not to seek
        any other verbal quotes from other potential contributors. Polly Toynbee’s
        book Hard Work: Life in low-pay Britain published in January 2003 is an
        important study of poverty and exclusion in contemporary London. In addition
        to this, she has written on the subject for a number of years. The estimated
        cost of the article will be £7000.

A no bid contract even.

In

5 responses

  1. angry_economist Avatar
    angry_economist

    Hmm how does this stack up against public procurement regulations. Where I work (only for 4 weeks more!), not so far from Ken, according to our own procurement code:
    we must either go through a competitive procurement process
    or for ease of administration for small contracts:
    1. < £5000 - no quotes required, secure value for money 2. £5001-10000 secure 2 written quotes and secure value for money 3. £10001-50000 - secure three written quotes and SVFM 4. £50,001 up to 20% below EU OJEU (competitive procurment limit) - minimum of three formal tenders for five or six invited and SVFM 5. From 20% below EU OJEU limit - OJEU tender process (fully competitive, adversised in EU via EU website). So at the minimum - Ken probably should have at least 2 written quotes for the work.

    Reply
  2. Mark T Avatar
    Mark T

    Someone, somewhere (Scott?, DK?, even your good self?) pointed out that what she gave was a stright cut and paste from previous Grauniad articles.
    Tim adds: At the link at Factchecking P.

    Reply
  3. Bob B Avatar
    Bob B

    Compare and contrast the following quotes:
    “London has the highest rates of children, working adults and pensioners living in income poverty.”
    – from above.
    http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/mayors_report/oct22_2003.jsp#case_2210
    “London is a major net contributor to the Exchequer: Our estimates suggest that London continues to be a substantial net contributor to UK public finances, by between £6 and £18 billion in 2003-04, despite the deterioration in public finances at a national level, with the mid-point of the range of estimates implying a net contribution of £12.1 billion.”
    Oxford Economic Forecasting: London’s Place in the UK Economy 2005-6
    http://www.oef.com/On-Line%20Services/ClientsTriallists/LPUK05FULL.pdf

    Reply
  4. angry_economist Avatar
    angry_economist

    They are both substantively true with plenty of evidence to back up both statements.

    Reply
  5. Bob B Avatar
    Bob B

    Some facts about London and Londoners that don’t seem to be widely appreciated:
    According to the 2001 Census, 24.81% of London residents were born abroad:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/uk/05/born_abroad/around_britain/html/overview.stm
    “In 2001 minority ethnic groups were more likely to live in England than in the other countries of the UK. In England, they made up 9 per cent of the total population compared with only 2 per cent in both Scotland and Wales and less than 1 per cent in Northern Ireland. The minority ethnic populations were concentrated in the large urban centres. Nearly half (45 per cent) of the total minority ethnic population lived in the London region, where they comprised 29 per cent of all residents.”
    http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=263
    “In 2002, GDP per capita, expressed in terms of purchasing power standards, in the EU25’s 254 NUTS-2 Regions ranged from 32% of the EU25 average in the region of Lubelskie in Poland, to 315% of the average in Inner London in the United Kingdom.”
    Eurostat 25 January 2005
    “Before the second world war, London’s population grew steadily, along with that of most other British cities. After the war, along with that of most other British cities, it shrank—first because of the policy of shifting people out of the slums into new towns, and second because of the decline of the heavy industries which had brought people to the cities in the first place.
    “In the 1990s, other cities went on shrinking. Manchester’s population dropped by 10% in 1991-2001, Liverpool’s by 8%, Newcastle’s by 6% and Birmingham’s by 3%. London grew by 4.8% over the period, partly because it has a high birth rate, but mostly because the foreigners started arriving. . . This has helped keep London’s economy buzzing. According to Experian Business Strategies, a consultancy, the city’s average annual growth rate in 1995-2002 was 3.3%, compared with 2.5% for the country as a whole.”
    The Economist 7 August 2003

    Reply

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