London Underground made an operating loss of nearly £500million last
year. Of course the logical thing now would be to give all staff
(especially) managers a pay rise.
--
CJG

CJG writes

Where did you get that figure from? LU's published accounts for
2002/2003 show an operating loss of GBP105.5million.

Well give an accountant enough time and a £500m loss quickly becomes
just £100m loss.

Ooh you cynic! ;-)

I can't tell you where I got my figures from.
However a quick check on a randomly picked news web-site gives up this
story.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/2945575.stm

Last Updated: Wednesday, 23 July, 2003, 15:13 GMT 16:13 UK
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------

London Underground has made a loss of £420m over the last year, new
figures have shown.

There's a *big* difference between GBP420million and GBP500million...
GBP80 million in fact!

What the BBC have done (for some strange reason) is to remove the cost
of depreciation and deduct the value of grants paid to LU.

It's odd that the BBC have chosen to extract certain items from the
generally accepted operating profit/loss value. If you do that you
might as well say that LU made an operating loss of GBP1664.3million,
before any kind of income.

--
Dave

In message , Dave
writes
What the BBC have done (for some strange reason) is to remove the cost
of depreciation and deduct the value of grants paid to LU.

Is depreciation not an operating cost then? Obviously L.U. don't think
so.
And grants shouldn't be included in accounts. They should be offset
against the costs of what they are provided for.
I live with an accountant. I know all the tricks.
--
CJG

CJG writes
What the BBC have done (for some strange reason) is to remove the cost
of depreciation and deduct the value of grants paid to LU.

Is depreciation not an operating cost then? Obviously L.U. don't think
so.

LU *do* think so. It was the BBC who removed the cost of depreciation
in the figures that they quoted.

Did you not read what I wrote? You even quoted it in your follow-up.

And grants shouldn't be included in accounts. They should be offset
against the costs of what they are provided for.

Well, yes. But as a public corporation, it's only right to show the
value of grants as a specific amount so we (the tax-paying public) can
see how funding we have provided.

I live with an accountant. I know all the tricks.

Indeed. But you have managed to successfully argue that the figure I
quoted (GBP105.5million) is more accurate than the figure you gleaned
from that news report (GBP420million).

--
Dave

In message , Dave
writes
Indeed. But you have managed to successfully argue that the figure I
quoted (GBP105.5million) is more accurate than the figure you gleaned
from that news report (GBP420million).

This mornings Metro. Same figures. £420million loss.
--
CJG

In message , Robin May
writes
That ticket prices should rise until they don't make a loss?

L.U. should look at how to cut costs. As they charge higher prices than
nearly any other mass city transit system in the world. But provide one
of the worst services in the world.
I don't know how. Because I don't know the company.
Maybe just have two idle station assistants hanging round the ticket
gates doing nothing instead of the usual three?

--
CJG

CJG wrote:
In message , Dave
writes

Indeed. But you have managed to successfully argue that the figure I
quoted (GBP105.5million) is more accurate than the figure you gleaned
from that news report (GBP420million).


This mornings Metro. Same figures. £420million loss.

Newspapers always report bad news. Given the choice between fairly bad
news and disastrous news, which are they going to report, even when the
disastrous news is unfair?

CJG wrote the following in:


In message , Robin May
writes
That ticket prices should rise until they don't make a loss?

L.U. should look at how to cut costs. As they charge higher prices
than nearly any other mass city transit system in the world. But
provide one of the worst services in the world.
I don't know how. Because I don't know the company.

Then it's a stupid thing to say, because you have no idea at all about
how it would be done, the effects it would have or even whether it
would be possible.

Maybe just have two idle station assistants hanging round the
ticket gates doing nothing instead of the usual three?

The language you use to describe anything about the tube is pretty
biased towards making it look bad. No doubt if there were only two
you'd be complaining instead that stations are understaffed and unable
to cope with demand for tickets.

--
message by Robin May, founder of International Boyism
"Would Inspector Sands please go to the Operations Room immediately."

Unofficially immune to hangovers.

CJG wrote the following in:


In message , Dave
writes
Indeed. But you have managed to successfully argue that the
figure I quoted (GBP105.5million) is more accurate than the figure
you gleaned from that news report (GBP420million).

This mornings Metro. Same figures. £420million loss.

They probably got them from the same place or calculated them the same
way. That doesn't make them any more accurate.

--
message by Robin May, founder of International Boyism
"Would Inspector Sands please go to the Operations Room immediately."

Unofficially immune to hangovers.

"Dave" wrote in message
...
CJG writes

Where did you get that figure from? LU's published accounts for
2002/2003 show an operating loss of GBP105.5million.

Well give an accountant enough time and a £500m loss quickly becomes
just £100m loss.

Ooh you cynic! ;-)



Ladies, please !

Can't we just say that they lost more money than they're ever likely to make
back in a decade ?