During the last year, behind the scenes, I’ve been agitating on what I believe is a scary major public policy hole with Childcare Vouchers and Childcare Tax Credits. In a nutshell, some people using these government schemes designed to make childcare more affordable are actually potentially £100s or even thousands WORSE off and they don’t even know...

After opening my in-box to a number of e-mails about it, I’ve just read an article in the Guardian about the proposed new consumer advocate the government wants to appoint. Most were people asking “is it you?”, “are you going to do it?” Well no. It’s the first I’ve heard of it. If there was a consultation,...

A bit of lawyer humour on bank charges… spotted in the New Law journal “Civil Way” column. Comment and discuss

I wrote in my ‘getting political’ blog a few weeks ago about how I’d had a half hour phone chat with Nick Clegg, the leader of the Lib Dems, about debt policy. I’ve often berated politicians for knee-jerk unpractical solutions that bear little resemblance to the realities people face. So I was rather pleased today to see...

In the last few weeks I’ve been contacted by a couple of politicians/advisors wanting to talk policy issues. While in the past the site has been cited as a model for web based info (see my the power of info blog) it’s interesting to see things are starting to push on. What I’m pleased about is the...