The deadweight cost of tax and subsidies

The Public Accounts Committee lays into Train To Gain:

The report acknowledged that the programme had helped 1.4 million learners - about 5% of the workforce - by the summer of last year summer...

Success rates for too many providers had been lower than expected, the MPs' report said. It also said £112m spent on skills advisers was not good value for money. Half of the employers whose staff received training under the scheme said they would have arranged similar training without the public subsidy, the report said.

So there we have it. Half the money was wasted (employers would have paid for it anyway) and the other half was probably wasted as well (if it's not worthwhile training somebody without a tax-break, then it's probably not worth training them, full stop), and then they wasted another dollop in administration costs. And of course, the costs of this are paid by taxes, thus taking money away from consumers and businesses, who thus have less money to spend on things like ... er ... training.

If somebody could be bothered to do the maths, we'd probably find that programmes like this reduce the amount of economically useful training that takes place. OK, it might not be formalised with a pretty certificate at the end of the course, but it would be training nonetheless.

Mr Edward Leigh, I hereby award you a 'rock' for all your invaluable work on the PAC.