Treasury Ministers Research Articles

Polityk dwóch epok, taki, jakim (nie) był. Minister Tadeusz Matuszewicz i jego biografia

Tadeusz Matuszewicz was a politician, civil servant, and statesman. He lived at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, taking part in several important events of this period, the most significant of which were participation in the drafting of the Constitution of 3 May 1791 and its adoption, and holding the post of the Minister of Treasury both in the Duchy of Warsaw and the Kingdom of Poland. He also took part in the Civil Reform Committee, which prepared changes to the administrative system. The details of Matuszewicz’s biography should therefore illuminate a number of public and legal issues of the era. The reviewed book of Dominika Rychel-Mantur is intended as a biography of Matuszewicz’s public activities. In fact, it only slightly expands the knowledge concerning some aspects of Matuszewicz’s life between 1809 and 1815. Other public activities are either omitted or superficially elaborated. The author did not use the basic archival sources and omitted important pieces of literature on the subject. Many of the findings presented against the source materials used turn out to be untrue due to their misunderstanding or misreading. Unfortunately, Dominika Rychel-Mantur’s book can hardly be regarded as successful.

Between Depression, Stagnation and Development

After a century and a half of partition, Poland was reborn in the autumn of 1918, though its geopolitical and economic situ- ation remained precarious. On the one hand, there were armed conflicts during which the new borders of the Republic were being shaped, and on the other hand, the economy of the young state was plagued by an economic depression that undermined the foundations of its existence. It took several years to recover from the crises. The main difficulty that successive governments had to face was the need to integrate the three different fiscal and economic systems and policies that had been inherited from the partitioning states: the German Empire, Austria-Hungary and Czarist Russia. It is noteworthy that in the early 1920s two courses of recovery from economic depression were contemplated. The first (“the German course”) was based on the introduction of a new currency with extensive support for the economy with international loans. The second, called “the Austrian course,” relied solely on bolstering the economy with foreign loans. In the end, the Poles, under the leadership of Prime Minister and Treasury Minister Władysław Grabski, chose a third path: their own. It consisted of, in particular, a rapid collection of property tax, a sweeping currency reform, increasing the profitability of state monopolies, and implementing audits of public spend- ing. All of these measures, which underwent regular modifi- cations, yielded reasonably favorable socio-economic results. Their consequence was a long, arduous but steady recovery of Poland from the post-war economic slump.

Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands Joseph Daniel Foukona (bio) As in the previous year, Solomon Islands politics in 2021 continued to be fundamentally colored by the People's Republic of China (PRC)'s direct diplomatic presence in the country since September 2019 and the global upheaval caused by the covid-19 pandemic. The PRC is deliberately expanding its reach across the Pacific as it seeks to attain influence over what has long been a region dominated by other global powers. The deleterious effects of the covid-19 pandemic on economies across the globe have also caused some drawing back by countries hitherto deeply involved in the Pacific. These factors have been central to the policy of the ruling Democratic Coalition Government for Advancement (dcga) and the responses of domestic political actors, which have generated political divisions and mistrust at the national and subnational levels. The government's 2021 budget focus on funding key redirection policy priorities has prompted a Honiara-centric approach. Together, these policies, as well as infrastructure projects, have created a setting in which policy and political dynamics have become highly fragmented, with the dominance of the capital enforced by the declaration of a nationwide state of public emergency. This declaration was justified by the economic crisis brought about by the effects of covid-19 on Solomon Islands. The Central Bank of Solomon Islands' monthly economic bulletins for January and February indicated a decrease in the country's production index, which was due to the weak performance of all major commodities. The bank estimated that the domestic economy would "grow by 0.4 percent in 2021, down from the initially projected growth of 1.5 percent" (cbsi 2021b). Such change in the real gdp resulted from the "prolonged impact of covid-19 pandemic, border restrictions and weaker-than-expected performances across broad sectors of the economy" (cbsi 2021b). To manage the country's dire economic situation, the dcga introduced a new budget strategy in 2021 with the theme "Towards a Path to Economic Recovery: Advancing Growth and Services Delivery Through Better Partnerships" (Solomon Star 2021a). These "partnerships" included the hitherto less visible PRC. In order to implement the budget theme, the government used what officials called its "redirection policy," which they claimed aimed both to protect Solomon Islanders "from the spread of the covid 19 pandemic and to keep the domestic economy afloat and to accelerate recovery" (Solomon Star 2021a). The government faced a big income deficit in 2021 due mostly to the [End Page 490] effects of the pandemic. As a result of the drop in domestic income from taxes and weak economic production, the minister of finance and treasury stated in his 2021 budget speech that the new budget planned for an overall government deficit of si$329 million (us$41.1 million). This deficit meant that the overall revenue expected by the government, an estimated si$3.710 billion (us$460 million), would total only si$3.009 billion (us$380 million) of domestic government revenue. The remaining balance would have to be sourced domestically and from traditional multilateral and bilateral partners (Kuma 2021). "Budget Support Revenue from Donor partners is $259 million, $90 million support from the People's Republic of China, $12 million for the Economic Stimulus Package, and $341 million in development financing sourced from bilateral and development partners. The Total Development Budget for 2021 is $938 million of which $848 million is sig [Solomon Islands Government] funded and the remaining $90 million is funded by the Peoples Republic of China [sic] support towards constituency development projects" (sig 2021a, 3–4). It is here that China's key role in Solomon Islands' ruling party's politics becomes clear. Without detailing China's direct contribution to the budget, the government addressed this problem by offering both a new deficit budget and a slogan to justify this deficit. Because the government did not admit to collecting considerable funds directly from China, the public had no way of knowing how the redirection policy and its slogan worked. Thus, there was considerable confusion among the public. The Solomon Star reported that as "the Government prepares to bring down its 2021 $4 billion-plus budget, a huge 'mismatch' appears to...

Governor Ciampi and the “Ambrosiano Case”: International Banking Supervision and Monetary Policy

Following bank failures in 1974, notably in Germany (Bankhaus Herstatt of Cologne on June 16) and the US (Franklin National Bank of New York on October 8), the Central Bank Governors of the G10 countries decided to set up a Committee at the BIS in Basel to improve quality and enhance the effectiveness of banking supervision. The Eurodollar market and the rise of offshore financial centers had concurred to create an increasingly interlinked web of international banking transactions. The system of national supervision of domestic banking system had to be completed by incisive and coordinated action at international level, also to cope with the vulnerability to frauds and interactions with organized crime. The Basel Committee issued in December 1975 the Concordat, which provided a framework for international banking supervision and made a distinction between solvency and liquidity. It was within this emerging frame of reference that the Bank of Italy and the G10 Governors dealt with the crisis of the Banco Ambrosiano Group: the crisis had started in 1977 and was concluded with the formal liquidation on August 6 1982. The measures taken by Governor Ciampi and Treasury Minister Andreatta, the dialectical interactions with the Basel Committee, the G10 Governors (banking supervision and monetary policy) and the IOR in the Vatican City are analized and discussed in this article. In preparing the paper the author could benefit from the extremely competent support of the Historical Archives of the Bank of Italy and the access to documents only recently accessible for public consultation. As is shown, the action undertaken by Governor Ciampi and by the Bank of Italy in the Ambrosiano case contributed to the evolution of banking supervision as regards both the revision of the Concordat and, thereafter, the development of a system of mandatory risk-weighted capital ratios. A parallel lasting lesson is that capital adequacy requirements must be complemented by targeted effective supervisory guidance and oversight of corporate governance for banking firms to prevent, insofar as possible, inappropriate and illegal practices, while ensuring accountability of shareholders and top managers for their wrongdoings.

BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD?: AFRIBUSINESS NPC V MINISTER OF FINANCE [2020] ZASCA 140 AND THE POTENTIAL FOR RECONSIDERATION OF PREFERENTIAL PROCUREMENT LAW & POLICY IN SOUTH AFRICA

A 2020 judgment of South Africa’s second-highest court is the most significant in the field of public procurement law and policy since the landmark series of AllPay cases concerning the outsourcing of social grant payments. In the field of black economic empowerment more generally, where multiple and conflicting goals have been pursued, Afribusiness constitutes a distinct judicial intervention into disciplining the quite wide discretion that public bodies possess and have exercised across government since 1994 to adopt such policies in the pursuit of substantive equality and affirmative action. The decision is best understood as part of the ongoing process of reform of South Africa’s public procurement system that began around 2012. The Supreme Court of Appeal’s order that the procurement regulations providing for race and gender preferences are invalid has sparked interest in the upcoming hearing at the Constitutional Court both among regulatory bodies (including the broad-based black economic empowerment (BBBEE) body) and within business sectors.The court was specifically critical of the prequalification criteria mechanism but also struck down the 30% quota (mandatory sub-contracting) mechanism in the 2017 Preferential Procurement Regulations. The judgment has some ambiguity as to whether it is based on statutory, constitutional, or a combination of statutory and constitutional grounds. The case raises an important regulatory question: Does Parliament or the Minister of Finance and National Treasury have authority to issue a constitutionally compliant framework for the regulation of preferential procurement policy? Further, some components of the public procurement legislative framework are likely to be sent back to the drawing, hastening but also complicating government efforts already underway. And state owned enterprises and other public bodies aiming to achieve competitiveness, fairness, equity, transparency, and cost-effectiveness in public procurement will need to manage the legal risks posed by the judicial remedy, finding the regulations invalid but suspending that invalidity.

Activity of Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Treasury in Years 1935–1939

Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski acted as deputy prime minister and minister of treasury between October 13, 1935 to September 1939, directing the state economy and treasury matters. Kwiatkowski’s economic policy of the period 1935–1939 can be called a policy of careful mechanism of „giving impetus” to economy. This was achieved specifically in government’s investment policies compliant with government budget balance and investment initiatives, the construction of The Central Industrial District, the development of Warsaw Industrial Region and the investment in Communication Ministry.

Options for the restructuring of state ownership of South African Airways

Background: South Africa adopted an economic policy that included both deregulation and privatisation in line with the 1980s’ global trends. Economic deregulation of the domestic air transport market was implemented in 1991 and partial privatisation of South African Airways (SAA) 8 years later, in 1999. This was reversed in 2002. SAA’s poor financial performance since 2012, its insolvency and future funding needs resulted in mixed messages on the future ownership of SAA. Since 2004 the policy of full ownership of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) ruled out SAA’s privatisation. SAA’s escalating losses prompted the Minister of Finance and National Treasury to favour the introduction of a strategic equity partner (SEP) to invest in a minority shareholding in SAA. Objectives: This article examined options for the restructuring of state ownership of state-owned airlines in South Africa. Method: Contemporary privatisation trends and the level of state ownership of airlines in Europe and elsewhere were identified. The preferred methods of airline privatisation and their economic benefits were determined. Results: Contrary to the freeze of privatisation in South Africa, increased trends in privatisation were identified elsewhere. In particular, share issue privatisations (SIPs) on listed securities exchanges were favoured to SEPs. South African Airways’ financial circumstances demonstrate the need to eliminate SAA’s losses and to resolve its insolvency. Conclusion: The South African official definition of privatisation needs to be broadened to include SIP instead of being limited to the sale of shares in SAA. The SIP method of privatisation is ideally suited to resolve SAA’s capitalisation and subject SAA to market and regulatory disciplines.

Financial assets, public debt and monetary policy: an international integration perspective

This Report was prepared by a Committee chaired by Mario Sarcinelli (Director General of the Treasury) and was presented to the Italian Treasury Minister on 18 March 1987. The members of the Committee were Mario Arcelli, Corrado Conti, Felice Gianani, Lucio Izzo, Rainer S. Masera, Mario Monti, Antonio Pedone, Paolo Ranuzzi and Luigi Spaventa.

Auditing Government Institutions in Zimbabwe Frameworks, Processes and Practices

Public Audit Offices are the guardian of the national purse and the pivot of the system of parliamentary control over finance. They help to institutionalize and nurture a culture of accountability, integrity, legitimacy and value for money in the conduct of public business. This in the long term serves as antidotes against institutional corruption. Study findings indicate that Zimbabwe’s audit systems are in the main consistent with regional and global experiences. Efforts are being undertaken to reconstitute and strengthen legal frameworks governing public auditing. Notwithstanding this, legal frameworks did not go deep enough to strengthen the independence of supreme audit institutions. Appointment, funding and reporting frameworks still have peeling effects on the operational independence of the Comptroller and Auditor General. Scenarios aground also suggest that the political will to comply with extant frameworks is low note. Audit recommendations are not seriously taken by Treasury, Accounting Officers and government ministers. There is need to update legal and regulatory frameworks to strengthen the operational independence of the C&AG and also to give it sanction powers to compel Ministries and departments to observe and comply with the Treasury Instructions and other regulations regarding submissions of returns. Efforts should also be directed towards capacitating the C&AG in term of attracting and retaining skilled and experienced staff in the legal and accounting field.

Treasury and Economic Policy - Beyond the Dismal Science

‘Treasury advises and assists the Treasurer, and through him the Government, in the discharge of his and its responsibilities in relation to economic, fiscal and monetary matters. The Department's main responsibilities lie in the field of general economic management’, Treasury, Annual Report 1983. ‘The Treasury's mission is to improve the wellbeing of the Australian people by providing sound and timely advice to the Government, based on objective and thorough analysis of options, and by assisting Treasury ministers in the administration of their responsibilities and the implementation of government decisions’, Treasury, Annual Report 2010a. ‘You can't really evaluate the performance of Treasury in terms of “outputs and outcomes” in any formal or public way because most of the time we are dissuading Treasurers and governments from doing stupid things’, Senior Treasury Official 2000. ‘We once had a “Treasury line”, but now we are more pluralistic’, Senior Treasury Official 2010. ‘Treasury's executive board hunts as a pack, they trust each other and they’ve known each other for long times’, Senior Treasury Official 2010.

The Compatibility of the Polish State’s Golden Shares with EC Law

The paper deals with the issue of the compatibility of the Act on Special Powers of the Treasury and Their Exercise in Companies of Special Importance for Public Order or Public Security with the freedom of capital movements in the context of ECJ jurisprudence. The first part of the paper analyses the concept of the freedom of capital movements, as well as the concept of the golden share as a restriction on this freedom, on the basis of individual ECJ judgments. The next part covers legal solutions adopted in the Polish Act, namely its subjective scope, the rights of the Minister of Treasury in companies in which the State Treasury is entitled to a golden share, the nature of these rights, and the institution of Treasury observers. The final part of the paper examines the compatibility of the golden shares model adopted by the Polish legislator with ECJ jurisprudence. In particular, the authors seek to predict what the ECJ would hold if the European Commission were to bring an infringement case against Poland. This analysis deals with the following issues: the Polish Act as a restriction on the freedom of capital movements, the possible justifications of this restriction and the proportionality of the golden shares model adopted by Poland. As their final conclusion, the authors express the view that the Polish provisions governing the State Treasury’s golden shares in principle conform with the ECJ’s guidelines, although some features of the Polish golden share system can be questioned.

As viagens científicas realizadas pelo naturalista Martim Francisco Ribeiro de Andrada na capitania de São Paulo (1800-1805)

Martim Francisco Ribeiro de Andrada é conhecido da historiografia sobretudo por sua atuação política no período da Independência, quando integrou o Gabinete dos Andradas, tendo sido o primeiro ministro da Fazenda do Brasil. Sua obra científica, no entanto, foi pouco estudada. O objetivo deste trabalho consiste em resgatar o perfil de naturalista na trajetória de vida do personagem, contribuindo assim para a historiografia das ciências no período da Ilustração luso-americana setecentista. Martim Francisco realizou diversas viagens científicas pela Capitania de São Paulo no exercício do cargo de Diretor Geral das Minas de Ouro, Prata e Ferro. As viagens serão analisadas como fazendo parte do projeto político-reformista posto em prática pelo principal ministro da Viradeira, D. Rodrigo de Sousa Coutinho, que visava aproveitar racionalmente os recursos naturais, sobretudo os minerais, da sua principal colônia, o Brasil. Tais produções naturais eram vistas como fontes de riquezas imprescindíveis para a modernização do Império Português.

Budget worries cloud Europe’s science plans

Britain’s current presidency of the European Union is overshadowed by worries about the budget in the face of rejection of the new constitution by voters in France and the Netherlands. But the Commission is pressing ahead with science funding plans and its proposal for a new European Research Council. Nigel Williams reports. Britain’s current presidency of the European Union is overshadowed by worries about the budget in the face of rejection of the new constitution by voters in France and the Netherlands. But the Commission is pressing ahead with science funding plans and its proposal for a new European Research Council. Nigel Williams reports. Britain has taken over the presidency of the European Union at a particularly hard time. Tony Blair, the British prime minister, has ambitious plans to modernize the EU’s £80 billion budget following the constitutional problems in referendums held in France and the Netherlands earlier this year. Britain wants to shift EU spending away from farm subsidies, which dominate the budget, to areas that offer greater potential of creating new jobs, such as science. At issue is the planned budget for 2007–2013 but a row over next year’s budget has led to Britain being accused of double standards. As Jacques Chirac insisted he would block any reforms, the European Commission hit out at a British proposal to cut spending next year on research. “The rhetoric does not match the reality,” said the commission’s budget spokeswoman, Ewa Hedlund. Her remarks came after Britain unveiled plans to cut £306 million from the research budget next year. Ivan Lewis, the treasury minister, called for the cuts when he chaired a meeting of EU finance ministers in Brussels last month to discuss next year’s budget. In June, Europe’s summit collapsed after Britain called for EU spending to be shifted away from areas such as farming in favour of job-creating areas such as research. The commission, which was angered by a British change of tack after Blair signed up to a deal on farm spending in 2002, took delight in pointing out Britain’s inconsistency. In a briefing note it said that the British presidency wanted to cut next year’s budget by £0.8 billion. This would mean job-creating initiatives losing £368 million, with the majority — ‘a severe cut’ — of £306 million going from research. But Britain said ministers wanted to cut research spending because the Commission had been unable to spend all of last year’s money. “We accept that this is a priority area, but since you are already underspending, we don’t believe they’ll be able to spend more of it,” an official said. “It is unhelpful and unfortunate that the commission should choose to single out one country when, as presidency, we are representing the whole council and this is an agreed council position.” Meanwhile the Commission has announced the 22 founding members of the Scientific Council of the European Research Council, which will oversee the ERC’s scientific strategy and forms a key part of its Framework 7 research strategy. The ERC represents a new venture for Brussels that seeks to support the best researchers in the EU, a plan that many hope will survive the current budget wrangles.

The Penrose Report. A Discussion Meeting

The Report of the Equitable Life Enquiry, by The Right Honourable Lord Penrose, was delivered to Treasury Ministers on 23 December 2003, and was published on 8 March 2004 by The Stationary Office (also at www.hm-treasury.gov.uk).Members were encouraged to read the report in advance of the meeting, in particular Chapters 19 and 20; Lord Penrose's evidence to the Treasury Select Committee on 16 March 2004; and the statement issued jointly by the Presidents of the Faculty of Actuaries and the Institute of Actuaries, which appeared on page 4 of the April 2004 copy of The Actuary.

The Budget Process in New Zealand: Has Proportional Representation Made a Difference?

In New Zealand, as in most countries, the budget is at the heart of the political process. This paper examines the impact of the introduction of a mixed member proportional (MMP) electoral system in the mid-1990s on budget decision-making by focusing on two dimensions. First, it seeks to compare the budget process across five distinct periods of government. Second, it examines changes to two distinct stages of the budget process: the executive phase and the legislative phase. The evidence suggests that the move from single-party majority government to other governmental forms has made the formulation of the budget a more open process, and has increased the number of actors involved. However, Treasury ministers remain dominant, while the primary cabinet cleavage continues to be between them and spending ministers, rather than between coalition partners or between those partners and parties providing support on confidence and supply. To date, there has been no significant change to the legislative phase of the budget, little recourse to the financial veto provisions, and no serious threats to the capacity of governments to secure parliamentary endorsement for their budgetary intentions.

Engendering Economic Policy: The Women's Budget Group

In these days, when feminist theory has been replaced by gender theory and activism by the practice of deconstruction, it is refreshing to find a group of women academics and voluntary sector campaigners coming together to engage with day-to-day issues of economic and social policy. Such is the London-based Women's Budget Group (WBG), which has set itself the task of creating a dialogue with treasury officials and ministers. Many of the issues have not changed much since 1974, when the Women's Liberation National Conference adopted the 'fifth demand' - legal and financial independence for women - and the London Women's Liberation Campaign for Legal and Financial Independence (commonly known as the 'fifth demand group') started working on the tax, benefit and pensions policies that treated husband and wife as a breadwinner-dependent couple with no need of separate incomes. The style may have changed: the fifth demand group used to alternate its more business-like meetings with consciousness-raising sessions, and go away together for weekends and days out in the country, whereas the WBG does much of its communicating by e-mail. The fifth demand group never even contemplated employing anyone or applying for funding or recognition; the WBG has administrative backup from the Women's National Commission, which is autonomous but located within the Cabinet Office, and at present has funding from the Barrow Cadbury Trust to employ a part-time project manager. The fifth demand group met in the living rooms and kitchens of suburban flats and collective houses; the WBG holds its meetings in the corridors of power in Whitehall, thanks to the Women's National Commission. The fifth demand campaign was an eclectic mixture of the presentation of arguments to the ruling establishment and more populist agitation. It gave evidence to parliamentary select committees, to official inquiries and to the Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income and Wealth; it produced an accessible and forcefully argued pamphlet and discussion pack--'The Demand for Independence'--that circulated widely among feminist groups (no longer available, but see London Women's Liberation 1979); it launched the YBA Wife campaign that attracted a flurry of media attention and an enormous post-bag in 1977. The WBG, on the other hand, has the ear of government; it has regular meetings with treasury officials and some nowadays with treasury ministers; it produces a detailed critique of the annual pre-budget report and a response to each year'sbudget; periodically it holds public meetings that attract back-bench and front-bench MPs, social affairs journalists, social policy experts and people active in related campaigns (most notably the one reported in Robinson 1998). In the intervening decades, much of what the fifth demand group campaigned for has been achieved. Husbands and wives are now taxed separately and the married man's tax allowance has been abolished. Married women can no longer opt to make more limited national insurance contributions in return for more limited rights to benefits. People who are married or cohabiting still cannot claim means-tested benefits separately from their partner; but at least either one of them can now be the claimant, rather than just the man. So the assumption that women are dependent housewives has been gradually eroded, but is far from being destroyed.

The Election of Carlo Azeglio Ciampi to the Presidency of the Republic

At 13.04 on Thursday, 13 May 1999, on the first ballot, a joint session of parliament elected the seventy-nine-year-old Treasury Minister, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, to the office of the ninth President of the Italian Republic (tenth if the ‘provisional’ President Enrico De Nicola, in office from 1946 to approval of the Constitution, is included in the list). This was only the second time in the history of the Italian presidential elections1 that a candidate had been elected on the first ballot. On the single previous occasion (1985) – following adroit negotiations by the secretary of the Democrazia cristiana (Christian Democrats: DC), Ciriaco De Mita – the choice had fallen on the then President of the Senate, Francesco Cossiga, ex-Prime Minister, and Minister of the Interior at the time of the Aldo Moro kidnapping. The 707 votes gained by Ciampi (representing 71.4 percent of those entitled to vote) suggest a substantial majority, (albeit one not much over the quorum of 674 votes) in favour of the centre- left candidate. Yet the 183 votes lacking from the theoretical majority which should have sustained Ciampi from the first round of voting suggest that there were those who would have preferred matters to be much less clear-cut.

Dobbo's legacy - will it all add up for the man from the Treasury?

At the recent Labour Party Conference Jack Straw demonstrated that he could not count, asserting that 5,000 more policemen was an increase in staffing. But a leaked memo from a Treasury minister, Alan Milburn, pointed out that earlier announced cuts more than cancelled this out. In other words, the ‘increase’ might actually be a decrease. So Milburn can obviously count better than Straw, but does this incident tell us anything more about these disingenuous coves?!

An Update on the Work of the Tax Law Review Committee

This note looks at the work the Tax Law Review Committee (TLRC) has done since its inauguration in October 1994. The TLRC was established by the Institute for Fiscal Studies in the autumn of 1994. It is independent of government but has received cross-party support. Treasury Ministers and government departments have been fully consulted and apprised of the work, and they have been most supportive and helpful. The establishment of the TLRC was a manifestation of the depth of concern about the state of the UK tax system. The volume of tax legislation has been growing remorselessly, with the last four Finance Acts by far the longest on record. The Inland Revenue now estimates that there are 6,000 pages of primary and secondary legislation on the statute-book concerning direct tax alone, and behind this there are tens of thousands of pages of non-statutory materials: extrastatutory concessions, statements of practice, internal manuals and so on. Moreover, there was a perception that tax legislation was becoming ever more detailed and more difficult to comprehend. There was also increasing concern about a number of other controversial aspects of the tax system.

Individual Taste or Collective Decision? Public Policy on School Meals

ABSTRACTSchool meals today are provided on a compromise basis; some pupils are charged and others are not. The compromise thus rejects two types of universalistic principles: allocating private benefits by the market and provision of merit goods collectively free of charge. The article examines, empirically and conceptually, the changing meaning of school meals; the demand and supply of school meals and the allocation of public subsidies to non-needy children; conflicting goals of expert nutritionists, egalitarians, redistributionists, efficient managers, and parents and children. The article concludes by considering political constraints on rationalising the programme in the name of universalistic principles. These constraints include the inheritance of commitments from previous governments, collective responsibility of spending and Treasury ministers; intra-party divisions between frontbench and backbench MPs; and low political salience of charging as an issue.