it’s april madness once again. i drove to a few places close to home today. it took me 45 minutes to do one 5 minute journey, then something similar on the next trip. why? because of the government funding system. it’s plain nuts. the government used to operate a “vote” accounting system. basically, an amount was “voted” to a department, council, project etc. this is cash accounting. you spend the cash by the deadline or next year you lose it. the government financial year runs to 5th April and you have a small carry-over period. so in march and april you get councils digging up roads everywhere just to get rid of the money.
i’m not sure what has happened. vote accounting was supposedly phased out and accruals accounting introduced a few years ago. however, at this time of year everything goes nuts. there are plastic bollards and closed roads everywhere. it may just be that spring heralds roadworks, and that this merely correlated with the financial system. but i’d be interested to find out just how these allocations work now. perhaps april roadworks is a habit not easily broken.
