Andrew K on the DCSF spend

I am grateful to a reader, Andrew K, who has been doing some digging into the DCSF spend on my behalf. I should note in passing that John Redwood has been picking up on this story too - I'm not sure if prompted by my blog posting or not though.

Rather than rewrite Andrew K's comments, I'm just reproducing what he has reported to me with minor edits. I'm particularly intrigued by the enormous benevolence of DCSF to postcode NW5 1TL.

A text filter on "Connexions" gives a total of £11.8m, almost double the amount you quoted [in your earlier post].

Similarly Educational Digital Ltd (£7.8m) also appears to be Teachers' TV, making the total paid to them £16.4m.

A total of £14.3m has been paid to postcode NW5 1TL. Of this, £181k has gone to Brook Advisory Centre (two credirors for this) and £14.2m has gone to six creditors who are variants on a theme of National Family & Parenting Institute/Parentline Plus

Mange on the Move (£1,927.92) is not, as you might think, a travelling vet but rather a catering service http://home.btconnect.com/mange/mange.html

A4E £378k http://www.mya4e.com/getdoc/8e78217e-8134-4ccb-a9f7-56bbcedbf4d9/The-A4e-Story.aspx They talk the talk, but what exactly do they do?

Adfam £51k For families of drug users: latest turnover £638k Seems fairly worthy, but this looks like posturing http://www.adfam.org.uk/index.php?content=our_work_cb&include=no

4PS £492k This is the Local Government Association by another name http://www.4ps.gov.uk/

A National Voice £230k an organisation run for and by young people who are or have been in care http://www.anationalvoice.org/about/about2.htm Latest turnover £277k, so most of income apparently from DCSF

Africans Unite Against Child Abuse £90k "an organisation concerned about cruelty against the African child" Latest turnover £218k

Aldeburgh Productions £195k http://www.aldeburgh.co.uk/about_us

Alligan/Alligan Ltd(two creditor numbers) £337k "Alligan exists to ensure the successful transformation of organisations in the education sector. We have considerable experience in providing specialist services tailored to the needs of our clients." Consultants http://www.alligan.co.uk/

Alpine Consortium £256k Seems to cover a multitude of sins: procurement/recruitment/consultancy http://www.alpine.eu.com/consortium.shtml

Amateur Swimming Association £994k WTF?

SW12 9DQ "Annual Maintenance Grant" £160k Postcode is for Bank of Ireland, Balham.

Appleyards Ltd £2.6million Consultants? "Appleyards are delighted to have been chosen to act as Project Managers for the feasibility stage for two proposed new academies in Richmond." http://www.appleyards.co.uk/home

Ark/Ark Conferences Ltd/Ark Educational Ltd £26.5million http://www.arkonline.org/education/ Academies?

Partnerships for Schools £16.7million Quango Partnerships for Schools (PfS) is responsible for delivering (sic)the government's secondary school renewal programme. http://www.partnershipsforschools.org.uk/

Substance 2005 Ltd £1.0 million Vewy pwetencious "We gather information – engaging, listening, reviewing, searching and consulting. We use participatory qualitative research techniques. This involves being with people, interviewing, observing and facilitating dialogue. We develop and make use of a range of new technologies and web based tools in our desire to go beyond the simplistic collation and dissemination of statistics.

We analyse, process and communicate information – through web based monitoring and evaluation, mapping and consultation exercises. We organise conferences, seminars and public events. We publish research reports, articles, guides and web based materials. We are always exploring new ways to communicate our findings and ideas."

"Substance 2005 Limited is registered under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act 1965 Register No. 30017 R
Registered 14 November 2005Substance is also a member of Co-operatives UK - the union of co-operative enterprises"

http://www.substance.coop/us_company_info

More meteorological spin

Simon Jenkins in the Graun takes a pop at Met Office forecasters for getting their predictions for the summer wrong. There's been a lot of this over the last couple of days ever since the Met Office put out a self-justifying press release:

In April our seasonal forecast for the summer (June, July and August) stated that there was a 65% probability of a warmer-than-average and near- or drier-than-average summer. Our news release stated: “The coming summer is ‘odds on for a barbecue summer’... 

Read that carefully. Apparently they stated that there was a 65% probability of a warm dry summer. Now go and look at the original press release from the start of the summer, where the figure of 65% is nowhere to be seen. There is only the reference to "odds-on".

What does the expression "odds-on" mean? In mathematical terms it means in a range from 50% right up to 100%. So while technically it includes 65%, in terms of communicating a meaning, the use of the term suggested a much higher level of certainty than was warranted by the underlying tealeaf gazing science.

I would say that it is "odds-on" that the Met Office are not being straight with us.

Spinning a dull story

There's a piece in the Guardian today, marking the publication of the AA's insurance premium index. Dull stuff, I'm sure you'll agree.

Patrick Collinson, the piece's author seems to have thought so too. Fortunately he seems to have found an exciting angle to the story to liven things up:

Global warming pushes up building insurance costs

Flash floods and giant hailstones help increase claims by 15% and insurance premiums by 10%.

Golly.

Thing is though, if you actually refer to the AA pages on the index, there is not a word of global warming. In fact the only comment on matters meteorological in the explanatory sections is this:

Simon Douglas, director of AA insurance, points out that historically, home insurance has not made the underwriting losses that have been a feature of the car insurance sector.
“However, this is changing: even though house prices have been falling, the cost of rebuilding and repairing homes to the higher standards required by building regulations, has been steadily rising.
“Also, the recent harsh winter brought an upsurge in claims for buildings damaged by snow and ice while the legacy of the 2007 floods remains.” 

So if anything it's cold weather causing the problems - it's nothing to do with global warming at all.

Patrick Collinson must have got his information from somewhere - he makes specific quotes from Simon Douglas of the AA which don't appear in the index pages, for example:

Simon Douglas, director of AA Insurance, said: "Insurers are beginning to reflect concerns about climate change in their premiums. The industry is expecting rising cost and frequency of claims for flooding, subsidence and storm damage. 

One can only assume that there was a press conference or press release of some kind, although there is no sign of this in the AA's website. And note that Simon Douglas is talking about "climate change" and not "global warming". The actual index document refers to the effects of the "harsh winter". It's all a long way from global warming isn't it?

Either way it's remarkable to compare the official AA story to the heavily spun version released by the Graun. And I'd dearly love to know if the Graun version was spun into its final shape with the collusion of the AA or whether Patrick Collinson was working alone. Certainly, there is abundant evidence that the insurance industry is investing heavily in global warming (ahem) marketing, the scare being undoubtedly good for business - Collinson quotes Simon Douglas saying as much - "Insurers are beginning to reflect concerns about climate change in their premiums ." You don't need to be a rocket scientist to realise that if they are only reflecting "concerns" about climate change rather than actual claims by their customers, then they have just had a boost to their revenues with no corresponding increase in costs.

Ta very much.

And as far as I can tell, none of the other big media outlets have mentioned the global warming angle (there are a couple of electronic outlets covering the story in the same way, but it's possible these have just cannibalised the Guardian story). This then leaves us with the juicy possibility that a factual version of the story went out to insurance industry readers, while a fictionalised version was released to a sympathetic journalist at the Guardian. Would the Guardian stoop so low?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Standard issue kit

Michael Yon is an American freelance journalist, currently embedded with British troops in Helmand.

I know the boys out there don't have enough helicopters, but from the look of Yon's photographs, there aren't even enough desert uniforms to go round. I mean, we've only been out there for eight years... What is going on out there?

Take a look.

Another BBC 'mistake'

I was just listening to the BBC coverage of the Norwich by-election on Radio 4. The reporter was talking about Labour holding on to second place, "ahead of the LibDems and the Greens".

The problem with this is that UKIP were in fourth place, 600 votes ahead of the Greens.

Can't mention UKIP on primetime, can we?

Update on Jul 24, 2009 by Bishop Hill

I notice that UKIP are complaining that the BBC froze them out in favour of the Greens during the run up to the election too. There's a clear pattern emerging isn't there?

Update on Jul 25, 2009 by Bishop Hill

Daniel Hannan has noticed this too and is calling for people to join the boycott of the licence fee.

Climate cuttings 29

Climate Audit had a fascinating post showing how the IPCC removed all hint of how clouds might mitigate any CO2-induced warming from their Fourth Assessment Report. Truly scandalous.

A new paper in Science found that the effect of soot in the air is less than previously thought. The implication is that the IPCC's estimates of how CO2 effects us is overdone.

Another new paper concludes that recent warming in the Arctic is due to natural variation rather than climate change.

One the warmist side of the argument, a new paper claimed that uncertainty over the impact of the various inputs into the climate system made it more likely that the climate was sensitive to CO2.

The El Nino-related warming flagged by GISS for June started to appear in the satellite data.

The horrors of global warming struck again, with... record low temperatures for July recorded in the North-East US.

Sea level rise seems to have paused since back in 2006. This was the source of some contention between Pielke Snr and the warmers at RealClimate a week or so ago. Looks like Pielke was correct.

DCSF - payments to individuals

The DSCF has now agreed to provide some information about payments to individuals. While the names have been redacted, this does give a feel for how much some suppliers are able to extract from the department. Here's the top ten:

Individual	180,380.73
Individual	158,024.80
Individual	154,867.29
Individual	148,018.92
Individual	146,219.84
Individual	145,387.90
Individual	133,552.14
Individual	121,233.36
Individual	102,823.95
Individual	85,440.75

There's good money to be made from DCSF.

More DCSF snippets

Still going:

Why on Earth would the DCSF be paying £1.5m to the International Centre for Financial Regulation?

Mystery suppliers to the DCSF

I'm soldiering away at the DCSF suppliers, with some interesting results. For example, I'm coming across a series of "mystery suppliers": companies about whom there is no information on the internet beyond the company registration details. Here's a few:

• Ann Berger Ltd £135k
• Kate Daly Ltd £60k
• Kevin Mcaleese Ltd £6k
• M & E Lovett Ltd £80k
• M&F Jaffrey Ltd £40k

I wonder what they do? Perhaps they are HMIEs? Who knows? Whatever it is, it looks like there could be quite a good living to be had.

Laban Tall on the cultural revolution

Laban Tall: People used to worry about the effect the good state education the were receiving would have on children's working class sensibilities. 

O tempora, o mores....

Snippets from the DCSF spend

I'll post anything interesting I notice on the DCSF spend here. Feel free to add other things in the comments if you like.

Guardian Media Group £1.1m.

Gypsy Media Company £7,500 ("Britain's only media company run by and for Gypsies")

Total paid to firms with "Consultancy" (or similar) in their name £28m. Some of the amounts are eye-watering. Ecotec Research & Consulting are good for £1.4m. Make that £3.2m!!! They seem to have two accounts. Must have been a bloody good report they wrote.

Cap Gemini £44m

Capita £132m

£2,643 for the BBC's Mike Baker.

Children's Workforce Development Council £89m ("exists to improve the lives of children...by ensuring that all people working with them have the best possible training and advice").

School Food Trust £10m

Association of Chief Police Officers £81k

Chetham's School of Music £5.1m. This is an independent school with 290 pupils. That's £17k per pupil.

Hotels £2.5m.

The Book Trust £13m

Common Purpose £13k (well someone was going to ask....)

Connexions £6m

National Academy for Parenting Practitioners £4.7m (works to transform the quality and size of the parenting workforce across England, so that parents can access the help they need to raise their children well).

 AEA Technology (That's the Atomic Energy Agency) £135m!!!!

Teachers' TV £8.6m

 Congress Centre - Trades Union Congress £21.8m!!! This looks like a bung, does it not? Update: It's probably the Union Learning Fund. Definitely a bung then.

Early Years Development Partnerships. There are two of these - one in Blackpool, one in Middlesborough, both getting about £8m each. Why only two?

The Sorrell Foundation. £740k. Ooh this looks like fun. SF is a charity which does design stuff. It was set up by someone called Sir John Sorrell. Their most recent accounts (for December 2007) have income of £768k, so it's more than likely that they are near-completely funded by the DCSF. So much for charitable status. There is an interesting contingent liability in the accounts: "As at the year end, The Sorrell Foundation was in discussions with HM Revenue & Customs regarding the employment status of certain individuals".

Netmums £481k. What for?

2012 Organising Committee £356k

The Public Teat

Some time ago, I rather idly suggested to DK the idea of a companion website for fakecharities.org. This would look at those companies that were living off the taxpayer. It would essentially be a searchable database, where you could look up how much a company was raking in from which bit of the state. It would be called The Public Teat.

By way of an experiment, I applied for the type of information I was envisaging from the DCSF - a department picked pretty much at random. I was a bit surprised to find that I got a response indicating that the information would largely be forthcoming. Bitter experience had suggested that most civil servants will try a refusal first, just to see if you will go away.

I had formulated the request quite carefully. Obviously, I was asking for a lot of data, so I asked for spend only through the main system, with the data restricted to supplier name, postcode and spend for the year.  This meant that it was essentially a simple query through the purchase ledger, perhaps with a join of to the supplier data file to pick up the name and postcode. I asked for the information as an electronic file too, so there were no cost implications.

The response arrived today and as so often in these cases, what was missing was almost more interesting than what was included.  DCSF had raised concerns over privacy as a possible issue in their acknowledgement, and I had said that I would be happy for them to redact the names and postcodes, leaving just a list of amounts.

I was therefore disappointed to see that despite this, they had decided to removed all information about individual suppliers in its entirety. Why would they do that? My guess is that there are probably some individuals who are taking very large sums from DCSF and the disclosure of even the amounts would be embarrassing. But then I've got a nasty suspicious mind. I've reverted to DCSF for the missing information.

The response file is here.

Jock on Somalia

Jock Coats has written a really interesting piece about how life is improving for people in Somalia. They still have no government, but life expectancy is now ahead of that of their "civilised" neighbours.

Climate cuttings 28

Climate Audit's research into Stefan Rahmstorf's smoothing technique continues. There has been a valiant defence of Rahmstorf from CSIRO's Nick Stokes, although it's hard to make substantive defences when your man has misrepresented what he did.

McIntyre also tells us that Rahmstorf's confidence interval calculations are "bogus", with an explanation to follow.

Global temperatures, as measured by satellite, were still low. The IPCC's global warming hypothesis of warming at 2oC per century is therefore still being falsified.

This hasn't put a stop to the nervousness among enthusiasts for AGW. Things just ain't hotting up enough. Cue a new paper which claims that warming will stop till 2020 and then resume again. Expect to hear a lot of this in coming months. Not everyone is impressed with this latest contribution to the scientific literature though.

The world slipped back into El Nino conditions, so we might expect things to warm up in coming months.

There was a wave of intensely cold weather in Peru. The BBC put it down to climate change.

Richard Murphy on libertarians

Dickie's all upset with us:

I would love, for example, to see far-right libertarians thrown off the Guardian bogs as a matter of course...

I wouldn't sully my backside with your nasty socialist latrines anyway!