caddyman: (glare)
caddyman ([personal profile] caddyman) wrote2003-09-17 04:47 pm

(no subject)

It has come to that time again, when I am called upon to examine potential housing subsidy overclaims from hapless local authorities in England.

By and large this is a boring technical exercise which compares anticipated need to spend against anticpated income, nets off what they actually spend and receive, factors in a few random numbers and my birthday and cross-references with the Secretary of State's current bio-rythmns.

In short it's dead scientific (and if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you).

Anyway, if we just run the numbers without querying them for unanticipated changes in housing stock levels and such, we can have enormous fun.

For example, a chap might be tempted to take the raw data and apply an abatement of £135 million on a claim for £77 million for one unnamed northern authority just to see if the Chief Exec's coronary would register on seismographs 200 or so miles away.

But I quite like the place in question and know why the figures are so fanciful, so there'll be no abatement.

But Gad, the temptation...