Not really a surprise that Tesco like minimum pricing for booze really!

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Since we know that the OFT think minimum booze pricing is a daft idea let's return to the biggest issue - who gets all the windfall:

According to a study by the Centre for Economics and Business Research for drinks giant SABMiller, a 50p minimum unit price in England, Scotland and Wales would hand supermarkets a collective increase in profits of £1.8bn-£2.2bn. 

So says the big brewer. Who have a point - unless the supermarket is to allow the brewer to (shall we say) 'share' the windfall from the government's nannying fussbucketry? And supermarkets don't have a good track record in that regard! So this response from Tesco isn't a big surprise now:

“We are very keen to play our part in the fight against alcohol misuse.

“We are committed to engaging constructively in discussions with government on ways we can help, including minimum pricing, and look forward to doing so in the coming months. The level of the price is a matter for government.” 

The supermarkets will enforce the government's health fascism in return for an equally health upwards nudge to their profits.

Now about that moonshine.

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On abolishing income tax...

It was a dream I know but I retain a picture in my mind of ‘Surrallan’ (or Lord Sugar as is has grown into now) gruffly – for he is gruff – telling his aspirant apprentices; “your challenge for today is to abolish income tax.”

And what a challenge!

Income tax raised (net of tax credits) £134bn in 2009/10 – which is about a third of HMRC revenue. However, it is only about 20% of total government spending for the same year. So, were we to maintain borrowing at the levels of 2009/10, a 20% reduction in public spending would be sufficient to remove the need for an income tax? And there are several ways to reduce government spending:

We can ‘marketise’ the area of spending – in simpler terms shift all or most of the spending from fiat spending (where the government gives a grant and the service is free) to consumer discretionary spending. It is possible to require consumers to purchase the product – as we do, for example, with third party motor insurance – but most people would buy the product or service. We have successfully shifted most utilities to private provision – and there aren’t many people who don’t buy water and electricity are there? This model could apply to such services as refuse collection where the service (as is the case with utilities) is delivered directly to individual households.
We can deliver services more efficiently – we can all given a few minutes identify examples of ‘waste’ within public services (and I guess within a large private organisation). Much attention has been given to this activity since it does not constitute a “cut”, avoids restructures or legislative change and gives the impression of success – but as we has seen with “Gershon” savings the results are largely fictional! The problem is that ‘waste’ within the public sector reflects (along with high levels of total remuneration) what would, in a well-run private business, be profit. The best driver (other than a real market) of efficiency is outsourcing.
We can deliver services more effectively – this is similar to ‘marketisation’ (we could call it an ‘artificial market approach’) in that is uses consumer choice models to drive effectiveness in supply. This is more likely to achieve better outcomes – especially in terms of customer service – since the consumer is in control of the spending decision. We are seeing this model emerging (too slowly) in education and the NHS has blown hot and cold on this approach for a long while. Senior producers (doctors, headteachers, etc.) will resist such a model as it removes their ability to capture monopoly profit in the form of inflated earnings.
We can stop doing something – let’s indulge the campaigners and call these changes “cuts”. The problem with this is that, in most cases, public services are doing something because the decision-makers (in theory if not often in practice) have made a positive decision to undertake that activity. We have ‘diversity outreach workers’ and ‘five-a-day co-ordinators’ because politicians have voted the cash for these activities to take place – even if (as I sometimes feel) we really haven’t the faintest hope of really knowing what we’re voting for!

To eliminate income tax we need to identify – on top of the currently announced reductions needed to reduce the deficit – savings amounting to around 20% of revenue spending (so it wouldn’t include, for example, not replacing Trident). It strikes me that, using the four approaches outlines above this should be achievable. It should surely be possible for anyone on or below average earnings to no longer be robbed blind by a venal government!

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Profit-taking and the NHS - inevitable or avoidable?

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The inspiring and sceptical legal blogger Jack of Kent asks whether part of the problem with the NHS relates to ‘profiteering’:

Huge profits are made by pharma and PFI contractors under NHS model. Surely we should not have such a profit-based approach to healthcare?

Now this rather begs the question since in addition to Jack’s examples we could identify thousands of other ‘for-profit’ businesses – large and small – making good money from providing goods and services to the NHS. It is not a matter of the NHS being wholly isolated from the private sector. A moment’s thought would show that (assuming we are not in the process of establishing a soviet system in the UK) you cannot insulate the NHS from private, for-profit enterprises. It would be unreasonable to expect the NHS to manufacture its own toilet tissue, sew all the operating theatre gowns, make the scalpels, produce the swabs and provide all the equipment required to operate a modern healthcare system.

What Jack is really asking is whether the profits taken by suppliers (however defined) to the NHS are excessive? And, if this is the case, whether the system itself is in some way to blame for such ‘monopoly’ profit? Finally, we need to ask whether such profit-taking is an acceptable price for maintaining a free, national service?

Are profits for NHS suppliers ‘excessive’? I’m not in a position to answer that question with anything other than an anecdote – after all to answer the question would require a definition of ‘excessive’ and an assessment of the profitability for all suppliers or contractors! However, some years ago I undertook a substantial piece of consultancy for a specialist NHS supplier. My conclusions were that the NHS was (and is) a cash rich organisation and that procurement decisions were determined by budgets, past costs and bureaucratic trip wires (e.g. ISO9001, IIP) rather than by understanding the costs of producing supplies or the sustainability of the supplying industry. The net impact of this was that suppliers – especially in specialised areas of production like that of my client – were able to take higher margins than they could in sectors driven by market forces rather that procurement regulations.

So we can see that the system is, almost certainly, contributing to ‘excess’ profits for (some) suppliers. Jack mentions PFI (private finance initiative) contractors which represent a special case in that public sector risks were retained so as to allow an accelerated programme of development. We got more hospitals, more quickly than would be the case under a more regular construction model – but at a considerable cost in the form of excess rents. The most obvious alternative to this approach – allowing hospital trusts to leave the NHS and self-fund development – was rejected because of the political risk and the perception of threat to the founding principles of the service.

Which brings us to the “price” of a service free at the point of need – and whether this cost is set right or indeed whether we can accept that part of the cost is in the form of private profit. Plainly this is a value judgment rather than a matter of economic rationality. However, ‘private’ systems such as that in the USA get a pretty bad press since they exclude too many (mostly poor) people. But the idea of a single national service – however tidy and attractive – was always something of a pipedream. We reflect on bureaucratic incompetence and bemoan the profits of ‘Big Pharma’ but fail to realise that the model we adopted promoted monopoly supply (over the short-run which is all that matters) and built in inevitable procurement inefficiencies that could be exploited by suppliers.

Finally, we should recognise that in producer-oriented systems such as the NHS, there is a hidden profit-taking in the form of higher wages, larger establishments and perks or privileges. British doctors – while less well paid that those in the USA – are well-paid (the popularity of medicine as a degree course reflects the economic truth that graduates in the discipline have the highest average income prospects) and complemented by a large establishment of support. We regard this as being ‘inefficiency’ and wail about ‘too many managers’ but it is what would be ‘profit’ in a private organisation.

None of this is intended to suggest an alternative – there are many different models – but to suggest that providing a universal service has costs beyond those we would expect from a free market system. But those costs appear inevitable if we are to deliver healthcare to those not able to pay for it – and part of that additional cost will, as night follows day, end up either in the pockets of healthcare employees or else in the profit columns of healthcare suppliers.

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