evidence based policy-making: the ilo loses out March 2, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : transparency , add a commentAccording to Andrew Mitchell, the ILO is either “performing poorly” or has not demonstrated its “relevance to Britain’s development objectives”:
the review found that four agencies performed poorly or failed to demonstrate relevance to Britain’s development objectives. The review therefore concluded that it is no longer acceptable for taxpayers’ money from my Department to continue to fund them centrally. I can therefore tell the House today that the British Government will withdraw their membership of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, and that DFID will stop voluntary core funding to UN-Habitat, the International Labour Organisation and the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. That will allow more than £50 million of taxpayers’ money to be redirected immediately to better performing agencies. We are working closely with other countries to build a coalition for ambitious reform and improvement of all multilateral agencies.
Denis McShane criticises the decision in the New Statesman. But how can he complain, after all, the decision is an example of evidence-based policy-making:
These reviews have been thorough, rigorous, evidence-based and scrutinised by independent development experts.
Looking at the Multilateral Aid Review, UNESCO, which is not being defunded, scored even lower on the value for money index and on the contribution to UK objectives than did the ILO. But, despite this, UNESCO will continue to receive funding whereas the ILO will not. The UK will demand that UNESCO improve its performance.
Here’s the bottom line on the ILO from the report:
The ILO is making progress on gender issues and there is some evidence of good partnership behaviour. It has limited impact on UK and international poverty objectives and needs to reform its field structure to improve delivery. It also needs to improve its results reporting, transparency and cost effectiveness.
And on UNESCO:
UNESCO has high quality expertise in many areas important for development and produces useful reports and data for policy making in education. It has made some progress reducing administration costs. It needs to continue improving cost consciousness, and make a sustained effort on management for results, streamlining its strategic focus and on transparency.
So a 200 plus page report concludes that one agency which will continue to receive funds performs less well and responds less well to UK development priorities than another, which is to be defunded, and this is an example of transparent and evidence-based policy-making?
how to save money on healthcare March 1, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : markets , add a commentA news story discusses a plan to save money on healthcare in the UK by turning underspends on patient care into profits which might be distributed to investors. Think how much the shareholders could get if the doctors gave up spending money on patient care altogether.
jotwell: bradley recommends affolder February 7, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : jotwell , add a commentIn today’s Jotwell corporate law posting I’m recommending Natasha Affolder’s article: The Market for Treaties 11 Chicago J. Int’l L. 159 (2010).
everyone knows that…. January 27, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : games , add a commentmixed up world January 22, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : lies , add a commentIn the UK, a driver who (truthfully) flashes their lights to warn other drivers of a speed trap can be found guilty of wilful obstruction of a police officer in the course of her duties. But the police seem to think it is OK for police officers to pretend to be demonstrators, and for their superiors to lie about this after the event. It is OK for undercover policemen to have affairs with the people they are investigating, but not OK for a policeman to have an affair with the wife of a politician he is charged to protect.
protecting consumers of financial services – or not January 17, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : consumers , add a commentReading the UK consultation on reforming the consumer credit regime which was issued on 21 December (clearly not designed to be published in prime time for attracting consumers’ attention and probably noticed even less than it might have been because of the disruptive snow falls which pushed Heathrow airport to the top of the news for days (although the closing date is 22 March)) I am not at all sure what is being proposed, except that there seems to be a sort of doublespeak going on. The UK is going to have more effective protection for consumers of financial services, but it will also be “appropriate”, and “proportionate and cost effective” and there will be opportunities for “simplification and deregulation”. Shifting functions away from the OFT doesn’t seem to me necessarily to be a pro-consumer move, and there’s a suggestion (in para 2.11) that the Treasury plans to gut consumer remedies:
The Government does not expect there to be any overall dilution of current levels of consumer protection under option 1. However, it is unlikely that there would be a direct replication of the existing formulation of all CCA consumer protections in the rulebook. The regulator would need to conduct analysis of the consumer protections provided for under the CCA and would consider how best to ensure that a FSMA-style regime for consumer credit delivers at least equivalent levels of consumer protection (including whether this might require any changes to legislation). This would also include consideration of the important differences between the CCA and FSMA enforcement regimes. For example, under the current FSMA regime, breach of a rule does not make a transaction void or unenforceable or constitute a criminal offence (although it may give customers a right of court action for any loss suffered, and firms and individuals can be prosecuted for carrying out regulated activities without authorisation). However, the broader range of sanctions under FSMA may provide an equivalent level of consumer protection. It is also important to note that, to the extent that many consumer protections are enshrined in EU law through the CCD, there would in any case be limited scope for amending requirements relating to many types of credit agreements.
This suggestion that the remedies under the two regimes are broadly equivalent seems to me to be misleading in the extreme. A regime which treats certain types of agreement as being void or unenforceable is quite different from one which might give rise to a claim for losses suffered.
guidance through metaphor? January 15, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : disclosure , add a commentThe FSA is consulting on guidance on financial promotions. Specifically, the FSA is concerned with advertising by financial services firms. The FSA describes such advertising as the firm’s “shop window”:
In the financial services sector, financial promotions (we shall use the term here interchangeably with advertising or adverts) are a firm’s shop window. And, just as consumers go ‘window shopping’, they use financial advertising to shop around. This is particularly true of the internet.
If shop windows were vigorously regulated this might make some sense. Later the document talks about the consumer’s “journey” through a firm’s website:
When you comply with advertising rules, you are enabling consumers to make informed decisions. No one wants to trick consumers into buying something that is not right for them! In seeking to give consumers a clear and fair impression of your product, consider their ‘journey’ through your website, or how their eye might run over a press advert. To explain what you have to offer to them, this journey must be clear, while giving them fair and not misleading information along the way.
And then firms are cautioned not to serve “risk sandwiches” to their customers:
Usually unhelpful, the ‘risk sandwich’ comprises a section on benefits, followed by a section on risk warnings, followed by another section on benefits.
If your fund invests overseas, for example, you could talk about the currency risk at the same time as introducing the overseas feature of the fund. Be careful not to diminish or obscure important statements or warnings: that’s a creative challenge. But how you structure your communication – again within the framework of the rules – is up to you. And how much detail you go into depends on the advert – from a website, where you have almost limitless space, to a ‘teaser’-type ad. But remember that all promotions must be balanced and therefore stand-alone compliant at each stage.
I’m not sure what any of these metaphors adds to the message the FSA wants to convey, or why the FSA thinks they improve the “guidance”. The term risk sandwich seems to be used by the FSA more than anyone else or at least more than anyone else with a similar google ranking. And surely the issues about allowing consumers to assess risks are about more than avoiding “risk sandwiches” – there’s some danger that the requirement to “explain products and services clearly and give consumers fair and clear information, which is not misleading” is seen as being reduced to slogans, despite the FSA’s warnings that consumers avoid what they do not understand and that the FSA will be focusing attention on firms which don’t take their financial promotion obligations seriously.
european union bill January 12, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : eu, Uncategorized , 1 comment so farMPs were arguing (and arguing… they carried on for hours) about parliamentary sovereignty yesterday. Proponents of amendments to the European Union Bill to strengthen and emphasise parliamentary sovereignty (they lost) are most bothered by the EU itself (characterised by one speaker as having “tentacles”) and by judges who don’t seem to know their place (and who should see themselves as subject to removal by MPs if they don’t behave themselves). Here’s Bill Cash:
The threat comes not only from the common law radicalism of such judges but from the EU law itself, which claims constitutional supremacy over member states’ constitutions. We have also seen cases of terrorists appearing to get away with things and people not being deported when they should have been, as well as a whole range of other matters occurring under the European Human Rights Act, which, as I have said, is mirrored by the new charter of fundamental rights in the Lisbon treaty. We are witnessing a vast increase in the volume and impact of such legislation on the British people, and this is resulting in the anxieties I have described. Those anxieties could be allayed by my amendments, however, and it is time for us to turn the tide and make it clear exactly where we stand.
But Malcolm Rifkind made a pretty good point when he said:
The sovereignty of Parliament was not created by an Act of Parliament, and it has never depended on an Act of Parliament. How can its restatement in an Act of Parliament given any real added value to its legitimacy?
And others noted press reports suggesting the whole thing is a matter of shadow-boxing or smoke and mirrors. And, although Dennis MacShane tried to inject some truth about what the UK’s membership really involves:
I put it gently to hon. Members that they should be careful before getting what they wish-the disaggregation of the European Union, with every country rejecting European Court of Justice decisions that they do not like. France believed that it was sovereign when it refused to accept a pound, or a kilo, of British beef, at the time when the whole world thought that the beef was contaminated. We could not export it to Australia, and Canada would not accept it. The Commonwealth would not have it. Hong Kong, our Crown colony, would not have it. But the European Union had to accept British beef because the European Court of Justice accepted our scientific arguments that the beef was fit for sale in the common European market
the debate involved a lot of rhetorical flourishes and veered between competition to see who could quote more Latin to discussions of dead parrots. Not an inspiring read. And not a great legitimation of the concept of parliamentary sovereignty either.
gordon smith recommends john armour January 7, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : jotwell , add a commentIn the latest Jotwell Corporate Law post.
commission consultation on technical details of a possible eu crisis management framework January 6, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : consultation , add a commentFollowing its October Communication on financial sector crisis management, the Commission is consulting on technical details of the framework before publication of a formal legislative proposal. The closing date is March 3rd.