Down the drain.

You may have seen the story in the papers of the woman who was sent to prison for refusing to pay her Council Tax. Her beef was that her local authority had allowed her street to degenerate into a no-go area where drug dealers and yobs proliferated. The council's response was to say that they had put more than £750,000 into improvements in the street. A bit reminiscent of the Government's answer to recent criticisms of the NHS, pointing to all the extra millions they had put into the Health Service. Why is there this assumption that money equals improvement? As one who was involved, on a very small scale, with Civil Service finance, I can assure you that there is no such connection. What matters is not how much money is directed at a problem, but how that money is managed. A well managed small sum can work miracles - a badly managed large sum will make no difference. It may even make matters worse!