NOT about News Corp.

I'll probably leave the furore around News Corp alone - mainly because for as long as I can recall I have refused to have anything to do with that corporation or its media products such as Sky, The Times, Sun, NoW and so on. The developing bandwagon of commercial and consumer deserters of the NoW is to my mind faintly absurd, although richly deserved by a corporation that has for a long time through its outlets displayed questionable and venal behaviours, if one cared to look. It is after all only a couple of months since Sky sacked two (although maybe not the only) sexist presenters, Keys and Gray. It's just a bad lot one might assume from these latest and far more serious and disgusting revelations.


How long will these desertions last? Probably until those companies/politicians need those organs to advertise their wares/lever them back into the limelight. A week is a long time in politics, today's news is tomorrow's fish and chip wrapper and so on. But if you have some decent principles then not getting into bed with them in the first place means you don't have to join any bandwagon when it starts. News Corp shows itself again to have significant disreputable elements that, taken across a long view, might lead the man on the Clapham omnibus to assume it is a dysfunctional and not fit-for-purpose corporation. Anyway, I said I'd probably leave this alone.


Now for some important stats to amaze your friends, improve your reports and impress your clients:

• In England, local authorities' total expenditure was £168 billion in 2009-10.
• In 2009-10 local authorities employed 1.8 million full-time employees staff and nearly 50 per cent of service expenditure (gross of income) was spent on these employees.
• About 64 per cent of local authorities' gross income in 2009-10 came from central government (through grants or re-distributed non-domestic rates). Other income from local sources included council tax, sales, fees and charges, council rents and capital receipts.
• The largest share of net current expenditure in 2009-10 was on education services with 37 per cent of the total. Social services accounted for a further 17 per cent, housing (excluding Housing Revenue Account) 16 per cent and police 10 per cent.
• Average Band D council tax, for a two adult household, in 2009-10 was £1,414 an increase of 3 per cent on 2007-08.
• In the North East, 56 per cent of dwellings are in the lowest council tax band (Band A) compared to just 4 per cent in London.
• Average in year council tax collection rates in 2009-10 stood at 97 per cent compared with 92.6 per cent in 1993-94.
• The average in year council tax collection rate in Inner London Boroughs has risen from 76.0 per cent in 1993-94 to 94.6 per cent in 2009-10.
• Revenue expenditure has increased by 149 per cent cash terms between 1993-94 and 2009-10. The corresponding increase in real terms was 68 per cent.
• About 25 per cent of revenue expenditure is funded through council tax.
• Revenue spending per head in 2009-10 was highest in parts of the North and London.
• All shire counties spend £500m or more a year, while most shire districts spend less than £40m a year.
• Local authority capital expenditure has risen from £14.3 billion in 2004-05, to £21.4 billion in 2009-10.
• Capital spending per head in 2009-10 was highest in London and the North East.
• In 2009-10 capital expenditure of £5.0 billion was financed by unsupported borrowing, under the new prudential system in place since April 2004 (23 per cent of the total).
• Local authorities' gross outstanding debt at 31 March 2010 was £54.4 billion, the largest proportion of which is owed to the Public Works Loan Board (75 per cent).
• Local authorities' investments at 31 March 2010 were £21.5 billion following a fall of approximately £4.5 billion during 2009-10; nearly 70 per cent of these investments were deposits with banks or building societies.