management

November 29, 2011 By mikemcsharry

We are all in this together – aren’t we?

A Personal View

This is an odd post to write. Over the last few weeks I’ve seen business owners in the sights of educationalists, politicians attacking public sector staff and everyone attacking journalists. Today I even responded on a blog about the whole subject – time to put pen to paper.

We appear to be on the edge of insanity. I heard it said that “Statesmen think of the next generation. Politicians think of the next election”. I spent 5 years supplying local governments in the UK – I met plenty of politicians and statesmen – oddly the statesmen were the officers (the employees of the councils) and not the members.

Update – our beloved leader (we did all vote for him didn’t we?) was drooling yesterday – December 1st – about Starbucks opening a batch of drive through coffee outlets. So, the road warriors can now balance a different brand of coffee in one hand and their mobile in the other – whilst messing with their MP3 players on the outside lane of the M4. That announcement really is going to help our balance of payments. Why can’t I get excited? If you can handle the excitement the link is here

I’m probably a baby boomer (born in 1960), but just too late to get the best pensions. That’s what these strikes are about isn’t it? Or are the strikes really about one final chip, the last straw, the eleventh hour? Probably got a few metaphors wrong there, doubtless I’ll be corrected.

Apparently we live in a ‘consumer society’. Excuse me – but how does that work? Let’s consume, but not produce. Let’s worry when the spending on the high street goes down. After all, we do HAVE to buy our quota of imported goods don’t we? That’s why VAT reduction exercises are so dangerous and why the car scrappage scheme was an amazing act of financial mismanagement.

Remember St. Michael? The patron saint of shopping.

It was the clothing brand of Marks and Spencer. In their store in Keighley they had a sign saying “93% of St Michael goods are made in the UK”. One day the sign went – so did the logo, so did the mills, so did the jobs, so did the exports and so did the tax revenue. But M&S profits probably went up, so that’s okay.

When the mills went, that wasn’t the end of the story – as this quick trip down the Worth Valley shows.

When I left school I worked in a company on the Worth Valley making plumbing fittings – like these.

The folks who worked there were fantastic but the frightening lack of investment had to be seen to be believed. But the bosses got new cars fairly regularly. I know because I’d filled them up 2 years previously. There was a very manual foundry, there were machines which had been donated by the good folks of Maine for our war effort (but I don’t know which war).

We were working in buildings with bricked up windows from the days of the ‘Windows Tax’. We had some very risky and dubious practices, then I went to University and learnt about the “Health & Safety (At Work) Act”. Oops. Those 500 folks have lost their jobs, and they’re not buying scrap steel, limestone or coke anymore. Nor are they using the services of the local metallurgy labs. There goes another load of income tax and exports. And, boy, did they export.

I spent 7 years around British Leyland initially working for a team who developed an analysis system to pinpoint troublesome machine tools. At Longbridge I saw first hand the way ‘wild cat’ strikes developed, and how the press gave a very odd sided story. I moved to Freight Rover and we made some huge strides with IT in a few years. You can see how Freight Rover has developed here. (Not for the faint hearted).

So, our industries reduced our needs for imports, provided exports, offered career paths and fed enormous supply chains.

Again, a consumer society? How exactly does that work.

Filed Under: management, personal

September 8, 2011 By mikemcsharry

The Demolition of Common Lane

The final days for Freight Rover

In the very early days of personal computers I had the fantastic experience to be in charge of PCs and mini-computers in Freight Rover. Since then it became LDV and sadly the company closed down in the last few years.

Today I had the opportunity to visit the site with my daughter, Sarah, and our cameras.

The site, known as Common Lane, was actually based from Drews Lane. When working there it was obviously a decent sized bit of land, this was difficult to appreciate because of all the buildings.

Sadly, without the buildings it’s easy to see how large the site really was.

The site originally started making small vans was an office block with assembly buildings – Bromford House was on Drews Lane. (It still is, but not for long, as this picture shows). This picture clearly shows how factories were often built East to West. The long side of the triangle in the roof line faces south to gain the maximum amount of light during the working day.

Without the landmarks of the buildings it was very difficult to orient.

Very few buildings were still standing – the last ones to be taken down are those around the many sub-stations in the site. A vehicle factory consumed huge amounts of power. In Common Lane there were four 110KV (that’s 110,000 volts) substations.

assembly track

This was the final assembly building – the huge pit is where the conveyor belt controls and return feed were housed.

The pile of rubble on the left hand side is where the main office block of Freight Rover was based (along with the fledgling IT offices). The buildings in the background were the manufacturing facilities of Metro Cammell. If you think you’ve seen that name before, look in the doorway of lots of underground trains.

During the Second World War the part of the site made gliders. These were made here. In the background is the M6 (between Junction 5 and Junction 6) – beyond that is Castle Bromwich – where Spitfires were built.

press shop

The space in the background was the Press Shop – huge presses which made body panels from rolls of steel. This was one of the largest press shops in Europe.
In 1985 we installed a very complicated PC/ mainframe solution here – this involved us IT folks working lots of night shifts and being there for the shift changes. The noise in this building was incredible, and the folks working there were equally fantastic.

This experience was strange and very moving. They say you shouldn’t go back to an old place of employment – this opportunity was quite incredible.

Filed Under: ICT Strategy, Imaging, management, PSHE Tagged With: birmingham, freight rover, manufacturing

June 20, 2011 By mikemcsharry

VAT is a very blunt instrument

And here’s why

Ed Balls has joined the debate on “let’s reduce VAT to stimulate the economy”. Probably as a knee jerk reaction to the fact that high street sales have fallen.

VAT is a tax on consumption. One day twenty or so years ago the mandarins in the civil service must have had quite a party. “Look chaps, in one fell swoop, overnight we’ve acquired a few thousand unpaid tax collectors, and we’ll not even worry about their pensions”.

I run a business. This blog post is my personal view. I’m also an active member in a few local business forums and I’m also a director of a charity. In addition, our customers include businesses, schools and voluntary sectors.

A huge amount of VAT collected is never seen by the Treasury. Why not? Because when we supply to VAT registered organisations they claim the VAT back. (Hint to school associations. Never, ever buy anything for your school. In most cases you’ll not be able to claim the VAT back. The school can).

So – if we reduce VAT then that will stimulate the spending on the high street. Maybe. And is that such good news?

Not good news for many thousands of businesses who only supply to VAT registered organisations. The customer reclaims the VAT so the rate of VAT is almost irrelevant. These businesses waste hundreds of thousands of man hours chopping and changing their systems to reflect these changes for no benefit to anyone.

So let’s stimulate the high street – that’s good for the economy, isn’t it? Possibly – or not.

Food is already VAT exempt. The vast, vast majority of goods purchased on the high street are manufactured abroad. So – a reduction in VAT has a negative impact on our balance of trade.

Here’s a thought if VAT tinkering is required.

Remove (not reduce) VAT on basic DIY materials for a year. Define basic materials as sand, cement, wood and primer paint. Why? Because the cost of these materials generally means that imports are not cost effective anyway. In addition, expenditure on these items will generally result in expenditure on other lines. (If you build a new patio, then you may buy some new plants).

A removal of VAT on base materials will also give the grey economy a much needed smack around the ear. The “Mr O’Reilly” offering to do the cash job “to save you the VAT” may have the hard time he deserves. (For no VAT actually read no warranty, no insurance and no income tax).

That’s my ideas – for what they’re worth. What do you think?

Filed Under: Blogging, management Tagged With: ed balls, hmrc, vat

May 29, 2011 By mikemcsharry

Councils and Credit Cards

May be innocent – but what about VATman?

The Telegraph has used the freedom of information act to obtain expenditure reports from many councils across the United Kingdom.

But do the figures disguise something else? Is there a VAT scam at play here?

Here’s how it could work – I’m not saying it does – just that it could.

Let’s look at Wrexham. This council has a population of 123,900 and spent £2,504,532 on credit cards for IT equipment (over £20 per constituent). If you live in Wrexham how does that make you feel?

Look deeper in those figures and we see that one particular supplier seems to have the bulk of the business – including one single credit card purchase of over £33,000. Look at the list and you’ll see the same supplier name also appear as www. …

The first thought this raises is that this procedure looks very, very strange. For a council to spend approximately £2 million pounds with one supplier on credit cards is strange – an explanation would be interesting. Unlikely, but interesting.

I have no proof of the next statement, but it is very likely that the council is hit with a credit card surcharge by the supplier. It’s also likely that the supplier pays a surcharge for transacting the credit card payment. It is also highly probable that the payment levied to the council and the payment made to the bank is different.

Here comes the VAT scam opportunity

As an estimate the supplier is taking £2 million pounds from the council. In the current environment I would expect the supplier to be running a mark up of 5% maximum. (If YOU would like to spend £2 million per year with my business on equipment on credit card payments please get in touch – TODAY!)

The council may be paying a credit card surcharge of 1.75% and the supplier paying a surcharge of 1.25%.
A difference of 0.5% – not much.

Bring on the man from the HMRC.

£35,000 – this is the credit card surcharge paid by the council

£25,000 – this is the credit card surcharge paid by the supplier

£10,000 – extra profit received by the supplier

No VAT is charged on the transactions as they are financial transactions.
So the man from the HMRC loses out by £2,000. Don’t try this at home.

I can’t prove any of the above is true – but the loopholes are there. It would be a great one for the Audit Commission to investigate as a swansong.
Could someone please explain why a government body with “responsibilities for overseeing and commissioning local audit” has an 0844 number? Do they actively discourage you from contacting them?

Filed Under: DfE, Esafety, ICT Strategy, management, School Business Tagged With: audit commission, computacentre, hmrc, telegraph, vat, wrexham

We are all in this together – aren’t we?

The Demolition of Common Lane

VAT is a very blunt instrument

Councils and Credit Cards

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We are all in this together – aren’t we?

The Demolition of Common Lane

VAT is a very blunt instrument

Councils and Credit Cards

An abundance of complacency

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Our Other Sites

Flickr

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