Ian Ratcliffe

My annual complaint to anyone at @CIPFA or many professional institutes that you can rip off 'members' with mandatory charges with zero accountability, self-set budgets and no ability for consumer to switch. Immoral and the CMA really should do something.

@CIPFA 's "charitable status" doesn't stop them from being entirely unaccountable, setting mandatory fees based on whatever budgets they like, members fund their business class flights, etc. Immoral. But not much different from the other institutes racket tinyurl.com/5x5yjxek

@thomasforth And on that, it might be caused by other things. E.g. if an audience (or even organisation) is based in Taunton, Manchester & Darlington (made up example), poor alternative options for inter-city trains means you'd probably have the event in London? [2/2]

@thomasforth Interesting stuff, but I assume it's about the location of the speaking event rather than the base of the official. That's the important thing for the observation I think you're trying to make? [1/2]

My starting point is to quite strongly oppose the UK government restricting what civil servants can say at public events. But reading the arguments in The Times and the letter to The Times today, I'm coming around to thinking the ban might be good.

@scottygb Completely with you. The news headline bed banging out over the pan over the huge studio still gets me 25 years on - youtube.com/watch?v=gjVbne…

What event would you make the BBC show all over again in its entirety? I would choose BBC’s 2000 Today, their 28 hour coverage of the Millennium. Ambitious, ridiculous, bizarre television.

@AvantiWestCoast Thank you for the reply, most helpful. But for BHM-EUS on 16/3, why would Avanti make advances for every journey in standard premium available, but no advances all day for any journey in standard?

@IanR_256 Sunday 16 March's original timetable is accurate in online journey planners and tickets are back on sale further to the strike on this date being called off. Advance tickets are not released for every journey so you may need to adjust your times if you're flexible - Lucy

We’re pleased that the RMT has called off its strike action for Avanti West Coast on Sundays from 2 to 16 March inclusive. On all three dates (2, 9 and 16 March), we’ll now run our normal Sunday timetable and tickets are back on sale.

My annual tweet bemoaning @CIPFA and their completely unaccountable mandatory charges based on mythical (and undemanded) "help and support". Stick to the minimum. Be accountable. Have better values. But most of the professional registration racket is the same.

@CIPFA Out of interest as a CIPFA member, did your CIPFA attendees fly out economy class or business class?

(1/3) CIPFA is excited to be in Podgorica, Montenegro this week for a collaborative workshop with the @CEF_Ljubljana. 🌍 The event aims to provide a platform for networking, capacity strengthening, and the exchange of experiences.

@SW_Help That's really helpful, thanks for coming back so quickly

@IanR_256 Hi Ian, I think the information on our website is not up to date, the Off-Peak ticket will be fine for that journey; I will get this reported ^MC

@SW_Help In all the national rail planners (inc SWR) if you search WAT-FLW return Tue 21/5, 1812 out, 2224 back, it says an 'off peak day travelcard' is valid - but the Off Peak info page on SWR site says off-peak not valid 4-7pm from WAT?

@HMRCcustomers Thanks for your reply, but it's clearly disappointing. I'll join the 40 minute queue again then. How can the call be accidentally disconnected when the agent is mid sentence!? In other call centres when this happens, the agent would call the customer back.

@IanR_256 Hi Ian. I'm sorry to hear this has happened. I'm afraid they're unable to call back unless it has already been arranged. Can I help with anything in general here? Suchona

Good morning. We’re here until 8pm to answer your general queries. Please don’t post any personal details. Need help with Self Assessment? We have a range of useful online guidance available 24/7 💻👇 ow.ly/n1w950Qky8M

And yes I guess I mean the "professional regulation" industry, in a variety of sub-industries. When customers can't switch, surely they should be regulated. And separate core regulation vs additional bits. I wonder if the CMA have ever looked at it.

Time for the annual racket that is @CIPFA membership (and the other accounting institutes). £380 now. No other industry can set unregulated fees that are mandatory to pay, with no requirement to demonstrate value to customers because they can't switch. Plus we fund 4 day working.

Latest corporate buzzword irritation, edition 143: referring to things being launched on "an app" when they just mean a specific new website tool. And only on a webpage. (Or maybe this is just an internal NHSE thing!)

@DunelmUK Having used M&S, Oak FurnitureLand, Next, FurnitureVillage in the past, have never seen anything like it. But it’s the utter contempt for the customer that’s most staggering, like live chats just terminated + zero ownership. I’m £1k down and miserable. Avoid at all costs. (3/3)

@DunelmUK Supplier won’t talk to you because you’re not their customer. Dunelm just offer to email the supplier and never come back to you. From a 27/7 order, I have 2 damaged items, 1 entirely missing from delivery on 18/8. To deliver missing item the best offer is 22/9(!!!)(2/3)

PSA: Never buy furniture from @DunelmUK - You’ll have weeks of confusion of them arranging ‘delivery’ with a company that you then find out is not a courier but is the supplier, ‘dispatched’ email from Dunelm is fiction, you can’t arrange a delivery as the supplier does it (1/3)

It's that time of year- while it's not a race, it's fun to know which provider was first with audited accounts, right? This year it was @kmptnhs Kent+Medway Partnership FT. The prize is my team's thanks and admiration. (And thanks to every other finance team and their hard work)