We're taking a bit of a breather while the world rearranges its underpants. Meanwhile, the other blog is here.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Telegramme for Larceny Whipsnade!

How budgets work:

Q: John has £5. He knows that the book that he will buy in February will cost £4.50. In January he buys some apples for 50 pence. How much does John have left?

A: John has overspent by 25 pence. In December the Finance Department identified this as a budget with a projected underspend and accordingly removed £4.75 from the account without telling John that they'd done it.


Which is why Frog and Bronwyn are spending money they haven't got on an author event for World Book Day and not worrying as much as usual about how much it's going to cost.

8 comments:

Red Squirrel said...

Ah, reminds me of the County Council bridge department who built many pointless bridges purely to use up their budget in case Finance cut it the next year for underspending when they might actually need it.

The sight of qualified engineers poring over a map of the county saying things like 'can we put a bridge there?' will stay with me for life!

Kevin Musgrove said...

Squirrel: welcome back! I bet I can narrow that down to any one of three, one of which I worked for a while back.

Trying to explain local government spending to the layman is a nightmare.

Pat said...

It makes me want to cry.

Gadjo Dilo said...

In this case, if I were a tax-payer I'd want to know why I'm not getting apples at my library (and a share out of the 4.75 squid, obviously).

St Jude said...

I was a projected overspend from October to December of last year, then suddenly I became and asset and yipee I'm back in the budget... for now.

Macy said...

Well that'll teach him! He should have spent £5.50 on books and got an increased budget in the following year!

KeyReed said...

Eek!

Kevin Musgrove said...

Pat: don't take on so dear!

Gadjo: the apples will be in a box in a back office until they've gone off. The money will disappear into some municipal black hole.

St Jude: well done you! Neat trick!

Macy: you have worked for us before!

Tenon_saw: that's the ticket!