so what do I know?

Firstly, I know I haven’t blogged in ages and I apologise; and
Secondly, I know the following blog is so irrelevant to you all but I still wanted to share it with the world!

so much so, that I’ve actually logged back onto my PC, prior to going to bed…

So what’s it about?…. Ryan (4 year old) has been making me chuckle (again)….

We (husband and I) are really really struggling to get Ryan reading - doesn’t matter what we do, it doesn’t work…. so husband came up with a new idea…. if Ryan really really want’s something, he’ll have to read what it is before he gets it…. in this case “Pepsi”….

“Mummy” says Ryan, “can I have some of that drink please” (he’s a very polite boy I’ll have you know!)
“You certainly can Son…. but first of all what’s it called?”
“Coke”
“Not quite” (for we’ve been taught saying the ‘no’ word is unacceptable and stops them learning) “what’s the first letter?”
“Pah”
“Clever boy - next letter?”
“eh”
“well done, what’s next?”
“pah again”
“well done, Ryan…. what do you think this word might be?”
“coke”
“not quite…. it’s got five letters, but coke only has four…. what else could it be?”
“diet coke?”
“try again”
“coca-cola?”
“good guessing…. but remember it starts with ‘pah’…. let’s say all the letters together”
[here I speak alone while Ryan stares at me like there’s something wrong with me] “pah-eh-pah-ssss-eeee - would do you think it might be now?”
“coke”

And so it continues…. later Ryan had finally wised up to the fact that it wasn’t coke….
“Mummy…. can I have some of that drink that isn’t coke that Rachael’s having please?”

“of course you can Son”

Sadly, it’d taken him a while to get to accepting it wasn’t coke, and so by this time Rachael was having blackcurrant squash…. he wasn’t impressed…

On the 21st December (my 35th birthday for those of you who’d like to send me a card in future!) those lovely people at HM Revenue & Customs sent me a bill for just over £750 for underpayment of tax in the year 2000/01 which I was to pay by tomorrow. In other words 6 business days notice.

There was no explanation as to why nearly 7 years on I was suddenly liable for this amount of money. Much as I’d like it to be otherwise, I just don’t have that sort of money to hand to pay for bills with this little notice. I immediately phoned up the helpline to discuss what the bill was for, why I was suddenly expected to pay it with next to no notice and how I could extend the deadline slightly to give me a chance to come up with the money.

I pointed out that any other business would surely give more than 6 business days notice and if it didn’t (after such a long period of time had elapsed) the Government would come down on them like a tonne of bricks. This is especially bearing in mind that the letter was overtly threatening (non-payment by 3rd Jan would result in a fine and interest would begin to be accrued immediately), had no justification for the request whatsoever and was the first I’d heard. I asked the lady on the other end of the phone, that if I sent her a bill for £750, to be paid within a few days, would she send me the money immediately?

Apparently I was being ridiculous… what would the bill be for she asked? I asked her the same of my tax bill - what’s it for? I worked in that tax year and was part of a PAYE (pay as you earn) scheme - what’s suddenly changed? I was told she couldn’t tell me what it was for, but if I wrote in and allowed one calendar month for it to be processed, they would send me further information. However, I should be aware that fines and interest would begin to accrue immediately 3rd Jan had passed.

All over christmas, this has been at the front of my mind and worrying me desperately. So much so, that my lovely sister-in-law even offered to help out and loan me the money to avoid fines. I didn’t take her up on this kind offer though, as I couldn’t believe I could possibly owe them the money.

Anyway, I got in touch with my old company and asked for them to email me a copy of my P60 for that year which they did.

Armed with this information, this morning I went down to my local tax office (thankfully it’s in Maidstone). It turns out, I’d incorrectly added statutory maternity pay (which should not be taxed) to my income and all of a sudden they’d decided I should be charged additional tax. In addition, this was the year that I was made redundant. I’d filled in the amount of my redundancy in the appropriate box on the form (self-assesment). Any amount under £30,000 is tax free - mine was substantially under this amount, but a clerical error had meant that they now deemed this to be a taxable amount hence the sudden bill.

To cut a very long story short, it turns out that HMRC owe me money (to the tune of at least £500). All I had to do was put my request in writing - they told me exactly what to write - and post to my local tax office. At the time of this, I was on the phone to a national call centre whilst sitting in my local office. I got a piece of paper off a clerk in the office, wrote the letter and handed it in.

How long would it take to process I asked? This is bearing in mind that;

1. I had handed in the letter to my local office (so there won’t be any postal delays); and
2. They’d expected me to deal with this whole issue (and pay) within 6 business days.

The answer?
I need to allow one month for all post.

But it’s not really post I said - just hand it in to the person in the office next door (away from us pesky tax payers) and they can make the two amendments and process the claim immediately.

Oh no, I was told, all letters have to go via our postal system and you need to allow one month.

No doubt my letter is now sitting in someones filing cabinet for an alloted period of time, before being sent to the office next door, via Australia, for someone to file for another pre-determined period before anything’s actually done.

If I have to wait for a month will I still be fined and interest added to this non-existant bill? was my next question.

Yes. I will be fined for non-payment and interest will begin accruing on Friday morning. However, should it be that I do not actually owe any money, they will drop the fines and interest - how very kind!

Final question - Can I fine you for not paying quickly and how do I go about charging you interest?

Apparently, HMRC do not have to pay fines for being slow or making mistakes (surprise surprise) however, interest will automatically be added to my claim, backdated to 2001.

So, although the tax office managed to ruin my birthday, christmas and new year, at least I don’t owe them any money, and even better I’m going to get a lot back!

A happy ending for me, but what about the poor people that just bury their heads in the sand, knowing they can’t possibly afford bills like this and not realising that it may well be just a mistake by the tax office?

I’ve filed this post under ‘crime’ as I think it is one!

In a completely cheesey fashion I thought I’d list my resolutions that will probably fly out the window by tomorrow lunchtime….

1. Give up smoking (again)
2. Get down to 10stone…. was over 14 stone shortly after having Travis….
3. Get up to date on all the Lib Dem policies
4. Learn exactly what the Europe Union (and joining it) means
5. Go to conference in March (v. excited about this)
6. Spend more time playing with the kids, and less time nagging them.

That’ll do!

Hope you all have a fantastic 2008 (and indeed had a great 2007).
Julia
x

said lovely, four year old, Ryan shortly before I got out the clippers and shaved his head back to a grade one!

“Sweet heart… you’ve done nothing wrong… sometimes when you’re playing with your friends these little bugs jump into your hair”, I reassuringly told him.

“No Mummy… I know why I’ve got them”

“Oh yes… why?”, I asked, thinking I’d find out which child has caused tonight’s upset in the Batt household…

“Well Mummy…. It’s because I eat my snot”

What on earth do you say to that?!

Did you miss me?

Last week my beautiful children were all christened down at All Saints Church in Maidstone. I spent a week preparing for the celebratory party and now I’ve spent a week tidying up!

Normal service has now resumed!

Big excitement in the Batt household this morning, as I’ve made it to the front page of the Downs Mail town edition under the headline “The city of Maidstone”.

The story reads:

Tentative moves are being made to revisit city status for Maidstone.
Cllr Julia Batt raised the question at a borough council scrutiny committee meeting and inital enquiries will be pursued by officers.
Cllr Batt said she felt the issue had been dropped too readily after Maidstone’s bid for city status at the Millennium ended in failure.
Vice-chairman of the committee, Cllr Stephen Beerling, said any renewed effort had to carry more clout than the previous attempt.
He recalled: “When Maidstone went into it before, it seemed to be with the approach that we wouldn’t get it anyway - so it proved.”

I thought I’d take the time to explain this story in more depth, as in all honesty, prior to election, I wouldn’t have understood much of it myself!

Firstly, what is a scrutiny meeting?

Every aspect of the work done by the council is covered by an ‘Overview & Scrutiny (O&S) committee. There are currently four of these groups; Regeneration, Environment and Leisure, External and Corporate Services. The scrutiny group that I sit on this year is Regeneration - as the name implies this scrutinises all decisions to do with the regeneration of Maidstone. Topics that have been investigated so far this year include ‘Maidstone Market’, Maidstone’s Housing Strategy, closure of the Coombe Quarry Park & ride closure, and we’ve also touched upon Concessionary bus fares (more to come on this topic!).

Members of the public are welcome to attend these meetings and are invited to suggest topics for overview. They can also be viewed online. However, the truth is, for whatever reason, that no-one ever comes to meetings (unless the Tories rile them up!) and it’s very rare for people to offer suggestions for review.

As well as scrutinising decisions that have been made, topics can be reviewed by these committees. ANYTHING can be covered (providing it’s under the right group). As an example, the Borough Council could research the possibility of organising trips to the moon from the High Street. The committee would investigate this topic from all angles with interviews from relevant experts in their fields…

• would it bring in additional revenue via tourism streams?
• would there be a Health & Safety risk with people singeing their hair (from rocket fumes)?!
• how big would the launch pad exclusion zone need to be?
• could we advertise Maidstone on the sides of the rockets?
• would the rockets be reuseable?
• etc etc…

At the end of the investigation, a recommendation or policy suggestion would be made to either the borough or county council, or indeed to national government.

So that’s the O&S committee explained, the next part to explain is the city status application:

Occasionally, oppurtunities are given for Council’s to apply to be granted city status. Maidstone did apply at the last chance (for the millenium) but the bid was rejected - allegedly due to ‘lack of history’.

I honestly don’t know what (if any) the benefits of city status are - this would all be for the scrutiny group to investigate. However, should the chance present itself again, I wouldn’t want to think that we’d miss out on something that may be excellent for us, purely because we hadn’t fully prepared for it.

To see this meeting in progress, click here.

Good grief - I am addicted… to facebook that is…

For those of you who have not yet heard of it, Facebook is a “social utility that connects you with people around you”.

It’s sort of like an up-to-date friends reunited, without having to pay any money to subscribe. You join by entering a few details and then go searching for friends - you’ll be amazed how many you can find! It’s a bit harder finding old girl friends as their surnames may well have changed, but once you’ve found one, they’ll normally lead you to another. You can then message your friends, load applications, draw pictures, check out your friends political allegiance’s (good for me!) and a whole heap of other time wasting activities.

You can join groups too, and so I’m a member of the ‘Nick Clegg is more of a hottie than David Cameron any day’ group as well as (without wanting to give away my voting preferences) ‘Nick Clegg for leader’.

So, if you find yourself with time on your hands, I thoroughly recommend Facebook!

This morning I awoke at 9:30am. This meant I then had to gently break the news to the kids that we’d missed church today.

They love church - and they’re the reason we go in all honesty. Rachael has asked to be christened and so we felt it was important she went regularly to church. The first time we went, we were convinced Rach and Ryan would be bored silly so we packed lots of colouring books and pens and set off. As soon as we arrived, Rachael was herded off to Sunday School and Ryan to the ‘creche’ managed by two of the regular parishioners. Peter, I and Travis then spent the whole service nervously sitting on our own and wondering what they were both up to. - We spent the whole week finding out, with them begging for us to return the following week.

And that’s how it’s been now for nearly two months. Until this morning that is, when I broke the devestating news that we’d missed the service. There were many tears, and row’s. Rachael even told us off for letting her stay up late last night for a halloween party we’d been to that had resulted in her over sleeping. All this before I’d even had breakfast.

At lunchtime, Peter pointed out that the clocks had gone back an hour overnight. He then pointed out that this meant we’d actually all woken with an hour to spare before church…

Why oh why do we never remember before lunchtime?

Once again, I’ve reached the point in the year where I’m down in the dumps and less focused on what I normally manage to easily. And, once again, I haven’t realised what’s the matter for weeks meaning I haven’t really achieved anything for at least a fortnight….

For about eight years now (diagnosed five years ago) I’ve suffered from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Thankfully I don’t suffer too badly, but it does affect my working life (and now these days being a Councillor) a lot.

My main symptoms are;
I struggle to get out of bed and when I do get up I’m really tired no matter how many hours of sleep I’ve had. I feel miserable, fed up and then guilty because of all the stuff I haven’t achieved. I’m an even more grumpy git than normal and then to cap it all off I have no interest in talking to or socializing with anyone.

However, every year as soon as I actually ‘wake up and smell the coffee’ as it were and realise it’s just ‘that time of year’, I’m as good as cured! All I have to do is pop over to the chemist and buy some wonderful homeopathic solutions and ensure that I start making the most of every moment of daylight there is! This year, I’m going to buy some ‘daylight’ bulbs too, which I used to use, but have all since blown and need replacing.

So, to cut a long story short - I’m back! and here to stay (at least until this time next year…)

Lack of posts have been due to an overloaded schedule this past week. Four Council meetings, a few campaign literature meetings, a PTA disco (for which I’m treasurer) to help with arranging, a ‘Morsbag’ making session, attempting to arrange kids Christening, general kids taxi service, full-time mum and a fair few constituent problems cropped up this week as well.

I can honestly say that this week I’ve discovered what the saying “my feet haven’t touched the ground” really means, although it might be more honest to say “my backside hasn’t touched a sofa!”

So for all this running around, there should be lots of positive outcomes to report…

• Buying from Bookers for the PTA disco meant I discovered that Wispas are now being sold again - I’ve emailed Cadburys regularly for their return - ’bout time too!
• PTA disco raised £374.21 - well done everyone involved
• Lib Dem Members newsletter will be posted out in the next couple of days
• We’ve got about 20 bags made and have approached the Mayor’s office about help getting publicity when we hand them out.
• I attended a very positive “Fant/Heath MAPS” meeting this week. MAPS stands for Multi-Agency-PartnershipS”. These are meetings where all local agencies (Police, Primary Care Trust (PCT), Maidstone Housing Trust (MHT), Maidstone Council etc etc) all come together in one forum to share experiences and work together for positive outcomes in the area. There is a fair danger that these can just be talking shops. However, at this meeting we discussed the Springwood Estate in detail. It has been subject to a fair amount of Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) but this has finally ‘come to the top of the list’ and is now to become a ‘PACT’ (Police And Communities Together) area. There was a community day held on Barming Heath yesterday for this - more information will be updated when the ‘results’ are in. Residents should also be represented on MAPS, but we currently don’t have any. If you would be interested in attending, please get in touch and I’ll give you more information.
• I’ll post the link to the webcast of the Regeneration and Sustainable Communities Scrutiny meeting (when it’s available online) here. Topics under discussion were Maidstone Market and Maidstone Housing Trust.
• Constituent problems are being addressed
• Christening plans have been thwarted by lack of a postal service… must be number one priority next week…

And the negatives of the week:

• Bookers is a bulk sale cash & carry meaning that Wispa’s mentioned above were sold in packs of 48…. I have come out in a MASSIVE spot due to over-indulgence…

I’m glad Gordon Brown decided not to call a General Election last week - If he had, I think I’d be a gibbering wreck by now!