Public pension liabilities rise

13 July 2011 Last updated at 10:43 GMT The report is designed to give a more accurate picture of the liabilities facing future generations The UK's total liability for funding public sector pensions has reached ?1.13 trillion, according to official data.

The figure, for the end of March 2010, is ?332bn higher than the previous year, although ?260bn of the rise is due to a fall in bond yields.

Ministers are expected to use the data to reinforce their argument that pensions must be reformed.

The data was published by the Office for Budget Responsibility.

The OBR report also disclosed that the total liabilities for Private Finance Initiative contracts were about ?40bn, or 2.9% of GDP, as of March 2010.

Only ?5.1bn of these were on the public sector balance sheet in the National Accounts.

Publication of the first OBR Fiscal Sustainability Report is designed to give a more accurate picture of UK liabilities that that have been built up for future generations.

Future payments

Most public servants, with the exception of local government staff and university lecturers, are members of unfunded pension schemes in which the pensions are paid for out of general taxation.

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If you're the kind of person that likes a good fiscal horror story, you'll find plenty of scary sounding numbers in today's report”

End Quote Stephanie Flanders Economics editor, BBC News The OBR's figure for pension liabilities, at ?1.13 trillion, is an estimate of the stock of assets the government would need now, if an investment fund had to be established to generate the cash to make all the future pubic sector pension payments.

The OBR makes that point that its calculation of the taxpayers total liability to pay public sector pensions "had nothing to do with changes in the size of prospective pension payments".

Instead, its calculation is heavily influenced by a recent government decision to assume that, in theory, it would need more assets than before to fund the pensions.

The OBR points out that if future pension payments are compared to the size of the UK's total economic output (gross domestic product) the cash value of public sector pensions will probably fall from 2% of GDP in 2015-16 to 1.4% in 2060-61.

"These costs fall as a result of the decision to up-rate pensions in payment by CPI rather than RPI, the current pay freeze and planned workforce reductions," the OBR said.

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Is leafleting a public menace?

30 June 2011 Last updated at 11:08 GMT By Tom de Castella BBC News Magazine Councils are cracking down on leafleting. Is it a public menace or part of a buzzing town centre?

Before bands and comedy acts establish themselves, they need an audience. The tried and trusted method has always been handing out flyers. But now councils are cracking down in a bid to clean up the streets.

A new report claims that since 2005 more than a quarter of councils have brought in charges and restrictions on handing out leaflets.

The survey by civil liberties group the Manifesto Club says 45 local authorities, including Birmingham, Manchester, Leicester and Leeds, have created "no flyer zones" or required leafleters to buy a licence.

Unsigned bands and struggling comics are not the only people who use the humble flyer.

In the tradition of the pamphleteers of the 18th and 19th Centuries, political, religious and pressure groups regularly hit the streets to hand out campaign literature.

But perhaps the biggest recent development has been the army of professional leafleters setting up outside stations and shops to distribute phone cards, drinks and music promotions.

Disaster zone

"In the digital age, it's harder to get people's attention," says Nigel Muntz, commercial director of leafleting firm Out of Hand.

Professional leafleters often employ distraction techniques

Who could refuse?

"If you send them a message on their smartphone they can delete it. Whereas with a flyer they have something in their hand that they have to decide what to do with."

In Basildon the council has introduced a complex pricing structure to reflect the different types of leafleting. Distributing flyers for one hour a day for a week costs ?72 for community causes and ?120 for commercial purposes. Charities like the Salvation Army are exempt from paying.

But even with the reduced rate, it is small arts venues that suffer, says the Manifesto Club's Josie Appleton, leading to the commercialisation of leafleting.

"It's not expensive for a full-time leafleting company. But for artists promoting their own event it's really going to hit them hard."

In Leicester the leafleting licence application fee is ?103, on top of which an organisation must pay ?26 per distributor per day. Appleton says that during the Leicester Comedy Festival, which has 200 acts, it would mean a total of ?5,200 per day.

But Leicester City Council says it had no choice but to take action after the battle between leafleting clubs and bars escalated. "Every entertainment venue was handing out flyers to people who would then drop them in the street," says Mike Broster, the council's head of licensing.

"The city centre looked like a disaster zone in the morning."

But he says an exception has been made for the comedy festival. Organisers are given 50 badges for ?100 and promoters are allowed to share the badges around between them. Without a badge, leafleting is an offence that is policed by city wardens and repeat offenders can be prosecuted.

DIY spirit

Keep Britain Tidy welcomes the crackdown. "Leaflets handed out in the street contribute to the litter problem, which costs the nation ?885m per year," says spokeswoman Jill Partington.

But some commercial leafleters complain the rules are not being enforced.

"When the students come back, people ignore the law and flyer without it," says Jonny Graves, managing director of Flyerettes in Newcastle.

"And because the fine is so small they're no worse off if they get caught."

Local arts groups who struggle to get covered by the media say leafleting is their best tool for publicising events.

But Max Mason, founder of the Oxford Jazz Festival, says next year's festival is threatened by Oxford City Council's recent decision to impose a monthly ?100 per person charge on leafleting. The jazz festival usually relies on 20 volunteers handing out flyers but the new rule will make this almost impossible.

"My concern is about keeping culture alive," Mason says. "This is another cost for brave folk who put on unsponsored, unsubsidised events."

Comedy clubs are another group who may lose out. Comedian Stephen K Amos says small venues like the 99 Club in London's Leicester Square, where he recently played, rely on flyers to attract passing trade.

For young aspiring comics it's part of the DIY spirit of stand-up. "Up in Edinburgh (Festival) leafleting is what all comics do. It's part and parcel of the job."

He questions whether these leaflets cause a litter problem.

Nine out of ten people don't accept them, he argues. But isn't it annoying to have leaflets thrust in your face by strangers? "No, because it takes me about three seconds to walk past."

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Why do people play music in public through a phone?

14 June 2011 Last updated at 10:46 GMT By Alex Hudson BBC News For many, teenagers playing tinny music to each other on public transport on their mobile phones can be intensely irritating. Why do they do it?

With mobile phones in many a teenager's pocket, the rise of sodcasting - best described as playing music through a phone in public - has created a noisy problem for a lot of commuters.

"All you can hear is 'dush, dush, dush, dush'. It's irritating. So many times I end up with a headache," says Tracey King, who has signed up to the Shhh! Scheme set up by bus company Arriva Yorkshire to stop the noise on their services.

"As teenagers, they don't seem to have the capability to think about others. I have heard older women turning round and saying 'will you turn that down?' and sometimes they will… and other times I've heard them with abuse and swearing at other people."

As mayor of London, Ken Livingstone called for the "absolute prohibition on playing music from a mobile system" as far back as in 2006. Young people can now have their zip cards - which allow them free travel in the capital - revoked for "anti-social behaviour", which includes playing loud music.

The issue has even been discussed in the House of Lords. In 2006, the Piped Music and Showing of Television Programmes Bill was presented to Parliament, calling for "the wearing of headphones by persons listening to music in the public areas of hospitals and on public transport" to be made compulsory, although it never made it into law.

Continue reading the main story Sodcasting is described by The Urban Dictionary as "The act of playing music through the speaker on a mobile phone, usually on public transport. Commonly practised by young people wearing polyester, branded sportswear with dubious musical taste."The term is believed to have been first used by Pascale Wyse in the Guardian in his series Wyse Words, a list of words that do not exist but should. He stated that sodcasters were terrified of not being noticed, so they sprayed their audio wee around the place like tomcats.So why do people do it? Is it just an act of youthful rebellion?

"I don't think it is intrinsically anti-social, what I would say is that it is a fascinating human phenomenon of marking social territory," says Dr Harry Witchel, author of You Are What You Hear.

"With young people, usually loud music corresponds very strongly to owning the space.

"They are creating a social environment which is suitable for them and their social peers. But for those not in this group - a 50-year-old woman for example - instead of confidence, she'll feel weakness and maybe even impotence as there's nothing that she can do about it."

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With young people, usually loud music corresponds very strongly to owning the space”

End Quote Dr Harry Witchel Author, You Are What You Hear But hasn't this always been the case? Most people who remember the 80s can remember someone with a boom box perched on one shoulder, pumping out the latest songs to anyone within earshot. Some take this tradition back even further.

"I reckon I was an early sodcaster," says the poet and broadcaster Ian McMillan.

"It was way back in the distant 1970s. As a teenager I was a big fan of the kind of music that made my mother say 'Will you turn that rubbish off?', and my dad hiss 'I wouldn't mind if it had a proper tune.'

"The fact is that I wasn't allowed to listen to [my favourite artists] in the house so I had to listen to them outside using a tape player."

But Dr Witchel says something slightly different was happening back then.

"When people went around with their ghetto blasters, you could argue that it was for the pure pleasure of the music they loved," he says.

"There is no excuse for why you would want to listen to tinny music, except if you were establishing territory. It just sounds rubbish. It must sound rubbish to them."

'Elderly people'

A group of schoolchildren on the 277 bus in Hackney, East London, don't all think that what they are doing is wrong.

"I wouldn't agree [that it was anti-social]," says one.

"The people who think it's anti-social don't really listen to this type of music."

A second agrees that the bus would be dull without a little bit of music.

"Fair enough, it might be anti-social but the bus is always quiet," she says. "You need something to listen to, right? We give you [something] to listen to."

Some youth workers argue that what the youngsters are doing is largely innocent.

"I don't think they [the sodcasters] are being selfish at all," says Dmitry Fedotov, of the Youth Association.

"I think if young people see sound as preferable to no sound then, if anything, they're going to be thinking they're doing people a favour."

And something is changing within the music industry itself. With the increase of songs being played through phones, more attention is being spent on the parts of the music that can be heard loudest though phone speakers.

"I think we're starting to see evidence that musicians and producers are thinking about the technology by which their music is listened to," says music journalist Dan Hancox, who has written extensively on the subject of sodcasting.

Rapper Giggs is said to be the most sodcasted artist, though quantifying this is very difficult

"It's something that has been described as treble culture.

"It is the idea that in this particular technological era, things that are transmittable on low fidelity (low quality) speakers are being heard more and more in pop music, quite a bit of R&B and hip hop - things which traditionally had a large and important bass element to them."

So, if this phenomenon is here to stay, what can be done by those who want a little bit of peace and quiet on their journey?

"Legislation is not the answer, and nor is citizen power, as anyone who has ever approached a sodcaster to ask them to stop will know all too well," wrote Julian Treasure, chairman of the Sound Agency, on his blog.

"I believe the heart of the solution is in teaching listening skills in schools. If we teach our children how to listen properly to the world - and especially to each other - they will understand the consequences of their own sound and be far more responsible in making it."

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