Lobbying Government

Submitted by Hugo_Minney on Tue, 05/18/2010 - 22:30

"We send our representatives to Washington so that they can work for us.  When they get there, they work for big business" - so said a Time Magazine reader shortly before Obama was elected.  It felt exactly the same under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown - far far from the old Labour who represented the working class, these politicians enjoyed being wined and dined by bankers, owning many houses, picking up £30,000 for an after dinner speech.
So it is always interesting to see what's happening in USA.
Who’s really spending big in DC?
Wanna know who’s really going to town, buying your elected representatives?
Take a look at the following chart from OpenSecrets.org, reprinted with permission from the Center for Responsive Politics:

Could this be why the Health Care bill ended up being such a compromise - nothing to do with the needs of the people, and everything to do with the needs of the big healthcare companies?
The same site further says that whoever goes into the election with the biggest budget almost always wins.

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If I were running the country - encouraging business

Submitted by Hugo_Minney on Tue, 05/21/2013 - 09:33

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Minimum wage

Fantasy government - what would I do if I were in government?  Well how about reduce corporation tax, increase income tax, increase minimum wage and invest in job creation in the regions?  That would be a good start - create jobs where there are workers, then make sure that the right amount of tax is collected and at the same time reduce spend on benefits which are only used to increase profits of selfish organisations.

Would it work?  Have your say.

PwC Report on the Current State of Project Management

Submitted by Hugo_Minney on Fri, 05/17/2013 - 10:44

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PwC Project Management ReportPwC found that successful companies are getting more mature in their project management ability.  This raises the game – successful companies have lower costs from fewer failed projects, and less successful companies have to work harder to catch up.  There are some important lessons to take this report for everyone – Read more…

Joy instead of tedium

Submitted by Hugo_Minney on Fri, 05/10/2013 - 21:04

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The Office

Every office has them - the tasks that have to be done that nobody likes doing.  Whether it's the audit, the wages, standard letters, whatever it is - someone has to do it and it feels like a waste of time and money.

Why should you care?

So you employ somebody, so why do you care about how tedious the task is? Well they are costing money, to do something that could be done far more effectively.

Learning from the Past

Submitted by HugoM on Fri, 05/10/2013 - 20:27

Evidence for service improvement

Many public service changes have little basis in evidence. Their success (or otherwise) does not appear to depend on how 'good' the policy itself is, but rather on how it has been implemented. This relies on staff attitudes and relationships. My research falls into a number of broad categories: finding out what is currently happening; what people think about it; and what people think it will mean.

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Consumer Price Index (CPI) Calculator for SROI

Submitted by Hugo_Minney on Tue, 04/16/2013 - 10:05

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CPI components

When calculating a Social Return on Investment (SROI) evaluation or SROI forecast , sometimes you have to rely on published figures from reports.  But if these are from a few years ago, then they probably need adjusting for inflation.

There are calculators on the web to do this for you, but I found them cumbersome and it was difficult to keep a record of what calculator I'd used, and how, for which value - auditability and transparency is vital for SROI.  So here's a spreadsheet to do this properly!