Heckler
Active member
And that is sexist in itself! "If HE refuses to remove it" or did you make that quote up?
RNLI vs Daily Mail
- Thread starter Thistle
- Start date
And that is sexist in itself! "If HE refuses to remove it" or did you make that quote up?
Uricanejack
Well-known member
If anyone were to post it they would probably get barred for posting something very rude and offensive
jordanbasset
Well-known member
If you read the link you will see it there. It was an example. Unlike the Dailly Mail I have no need to exaggerate
Heckler
Active member
Still sexist! So why no rant against the CA? Or do you only bang on against perceived right wing stuff?
Uricanejack
Well-known member
Most large organisation's have very effective rumor mill's including my own. The rumors are usually no more accurate or reliable than the gossip column from a tabloid.
Anyone actually involved in investigating the events and having direct knowledge should treat it as if it were privileged.
My experience, Harassment comes in different varieties and severities. Often people do not realise an action, comment or picture is a form of harassment. Often quickly and easily resolved by bringing this to the offenders attention. Who upon realising they were out of order simply stops, apologises and everyone lives happily ever after.
I have also experience of deep rooted, long standing behaviour which goes unreported or unacted upon for years. People affected are often very reluctant to report. Due to the fear of a backlash from their co workers. I have known instances which deeply divided a work place. With friends and co workers strongly defending an otherwise popular harasser.
There often is no easy answers.
Its unfortunate when it leads to termination. A close friend lost his job as a manger. Not because he was harassing anyone one. It was because he had not done enough to deal with a situation which was deemed serious.
The known facts in the mug case are very limited. Did the RNLI act reasonably or unreasonably is unknown.
As a general rule the more important an individual is within an organisation. The more is expected. The consequence of inappropriate actions by a supervisor or manager are often greater than those of an entry level position.
I expect the Coxswain position is often in charge of the boat and or the station which would bring a greater expectation to follow the organizations rules, policy and procedures. A failure to do so by an individual with this much responsibility would often result in a more severe response than to an ordinary crew member.
A coxswain is a position of greater power than most.
Persons in positions of power often go unchallenged on their behavior for long periods of time. Organisations are often very reluctant to act. Until the situation gets out of hand.
The RNLI is an unusual organisation. Some people are employed some are volunteers. I expect due to its nature it is non union. Even so if disciplinary action is taken. There should be some kind of internal appeal process. To review the decision to discipline to ensure due process was followed and reasonable.
If not their is the court system.
The newspaper is not considered a good way to resolve an employment dispute. I would expect it will just make things worse.
I would also say some of the worse harassment issues I have dealt with were rumors.
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Uricanejack
Well-known member
It does help being a trustee of a defined benefit pension scheme. For once, I know what I'm talking about.
Interesting comments about funded and unfunded liability pension scheme. Also having changed in 2007.
Which cause me to wonder about how the pension scheme is funded. Not because I know much but because I am a member of a defined benefit pension plan. which has some potential issues.
Primarily demographic. There are a lot more people approaching retirement than are starting out and joining the plan. However the plan I am part of is funded on the front end. a lot of public defined benefit plans are apparently funded on the back end.
So in my case the employee and company contribution are both invested up front. Quite a few government plans instead of investing the employers contribution up front opt to pay out of revenue at the end when the pension is drawn.
So now I am wondering what is meant by an unfunded liability in the case of a defined benefit pension plan. I have not seen this mentioned in the info I get from my plan. I do see a portion which is guaranteed and a portion COLA which is not guaranteed and is currently covered but may not be if CLOA rise faster than the investment portfolio.
There was talk of changing to a defined contribution plan. some years ago. also talk of changing only for new members. the plan itself refused to allow this on the basis the plan needs new members coming in at the bottom.
Sybarite
Well-known member
This is the basic point I was making : pension fund numbers tend to dwarf other activities and thus might be considered an inconvenient truth ....
As you rightly point out the schemes assets have shown a steady growth from 2015 through 2016 and on to 2017. Why then should the pension liability jump to such an extent in 2016 and then fall back in 2017 if the asset values were constantly growing. I haven't been following the UK bond market but I would be surprised if discount rates had swung to such an extent as to create such large fluctuations in the unfunded liability.
I'm not saying it's wrong but perhaps you might expand on the logic.
When I was saying that attention was being diverted away from assets one should look at the magnitude of such figures in the light of investments in life-boats ie around 7 - 10% of annual income and this range is more or less constant goiung back over the years.
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Sybarite
Well-known member
Without going into detail it would appear that the underfunded element is being amortized over a number of years by an annual charge of around £9m. This means as time goes on the gap should narrow.
grumpy_o_g
Well-known member
As one of the basic principles of accounting standards is to allow the comparability of different organizations there are NOT "many many different ways of expressing assets and liabilities".
Assets and liabilities are generated at historic cost. Judgements may then come into play with asset values for example in applying provisions for old stocks, bad and doubtful debts, or the period over which fixed assets should be depreciated.
You would appear to confusing errors with different accounting principles. And when you say I have no idea how many ways there are, you are ignoring the fact that I have a lifetime in financial roles, including audit and perhaps could teach you a few. Like for example when I found 13 frauds one year when auditing a bank.
I don't accept that for one minute. When a major organization publishes a rebuttal to an attack by a major newspaper they darn well should be sure that the information is straightforward and clear and correct. IMHO the person who authorized this rebuttal is not at his place in the organization. I feel that the response was intended to divert attention from the pension liability - but then that is only IMHO.
I also understand John Morris' knee-jerk defense of the RNLI. I had occasion to see the same sort of reactions when having to announce to an employer that a trusted employee was defrauding his business. An immediate refusal to believe until you explain that the typical profile of a frauder is someone with at least 10 years seniority and holding a position of trust in the organization .
I think you've missed the point - if a boxer has a long reach that is an asset, some people say things like a "sense of humour is real asset in this family", many people would purely cite physical things like cars, houses, jewellery, etc. when ask to list their assets. You've carefully described the ways an accountant or lawyer sees assets -the RNLI were silly not to use that terminology when talking about their assets from an accounting perspective I agree but I can understand why they try to perhaps dumb it down a little. Unlike the Daily Mail they twisted the literal truth slightly so that the average reader would get a truer perception of the situation rather than distorted one in the manner of the Daily Mail.
BTW I'm certainly not confusing errors with different accounting principles - as an example it's very common for a single large asset (such as a large computer) to be put onto a FAR quite correctly according GAAP only to find that it's actually not quite as simple when an upgrade is done to that asset. Or you may find many small and identical items from a single order listed on the FAR as a single asset - perfectly OK under GAAP until you want to write just some of those assets down, change the depreciation schedule or move them to another company/country perhaps. It doesn't help when your organisation has a significant presence in more than 100 countries nor that many countries have changed GAAP for Fixed Asset accounting over the last couple of decades or so. Nor am I pretending that organisations that spend billions a year on IT get their FAR's 100% perfect - even the Revenue accepts we sometimes make mistakes, though we have processes to try and catch them. You must have seen that many times when auditing Banks...
jordanbasset
Well-known member
It was an example relevant to the issue in question. It would be equally wrong to put pornographic pictures of men up and superimpose images of fellow employees onto it. This is not a left or right issue so not sure why you brought that up, I would hope whether people are Conservative, Labour or Liberal they would see this was wrong. Are you really saying you find it acceptable in a workplace to put naked pictures of people up and superimpose the heads of fellow workers. This is not life on Mars, we are no longer in the 1970's, such action is considered sexual harassment in law and as such would leave nay employer opening to a large discrimination claim.
You may not like this and some others may not but any employer has to take action to deal with it. I may have got it wrong, but thought you were a councillor at one point, so am surprised you did not know this very basic point of law.
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Sybarite
Well-known member
For me the point was that the RNLI had announced that their assets had fallen when in fact they had risen.
As far as accounting for large items such as main frame computers is concerned the treatment of updates will take account of the materiality of the update. It may be so significant that it is capitalised and depreciated as a separate asset. In this case the treatment must be explained in the notes.
With repect to assets held in other countries it is often required that assets be accounted for and depreciated with respect to local laws. When the group accounts internally for these in accordance with their own practice the captalization and depreciation need to be restated. The country's effective tax rate will not then reflect the notional tax to be attrributed to the group's accounting practice which gives rise to one of the most complicated aspects within group consolidations : the accounting for deferred taxation.
dom
Well-known member
Sybarite
Well-known member
What RNLI tax liabilities are we talking about here
Keep up at the back there ...
I was addressing GoG's point :
"......change the depreciation schedule or move them to another company/country perhaps. It doesn't help when your organisation has a significant presence in more than 100 countries nor that many countries have changed GAAP for Fixed Asset accounting over the last couple of decades or so. ..."
dom
Well-known member
Lol, with this much random drift we'll soon need a SIM equipped Shannon to find this thread
Sybarite
Well-known member
Lol, with this much random drift we'll soon need a SIM equipped Shannon to find this thread
Or, for the same price, a fleet of SNSM boats....
dom
Well-known member
And that lenthly discussion can be found by an entirely different search system, Google
Time to move on methinks
robertj
Active member
Well obviously John Morris thinks it’s him
john_morris_uk
Well-known member
Except that that isn't what RichardS said.
What he said was "As usual, it seems to me another RNLI statement full of lies, half truths and exaggerations
Editing a quote to suit one's own agenda ..... now that is a typical Daily Mail trick.
Richard
When you've got people quoting my quote of them and then quoting what they said and claiming that there's been an edit of the quote but they're EXACTLY THE SAME I start losing the will to live and can't be bothered to even answer their silliness.
In the case above, as the discussion was with me, I think I can pull the plug on my involvement with it at any time. It's an internet forum. Some people treat it as a playground. Some people try to make serious points. Some people troll.
Twas ever thus.
robertj
Active member
Stop trolling then and admit when you’re in the wrong regarding the post. No ones perfect not even you John.
Blue Sunray
Well-known member
It's not clear what you are drinking and/or smoking tonight but is it legal?