@TimWardCam

I had always assumed there was some logical reason for it but never bothered to research what it was. Having now lived in other countries where the tax year corresponds to the calendar year, I wonder why Britain does what it does!

Whatever the reason, wouldn't now be a good time to change it to the calendar year?

There are a few things like that: the British old age pension is paid not calendar monthly like just about every other country in the fückin world but every 28 days presumably because it is beyond the capabilities of Britain's useless civil service to devise an algorithm to convert the contributions made, historically, weekly into calendar monthly payments!

@TimWardCam

Trust the bloody UK civil service to think of something improbable like that!

This discussion of matters “civil service” reminds me of something that happened back in the 70s. I was desperately short of work and had some influential friends in the local office that dealt with authorization of treatment and payments to dentists.

I was offered a job there by the back door route, as it were, and started work as a humble clerk, but it paid the bills!
Eventually I rose through the clerical ranks and became a senior clerical officer meaning that I was authorised to deal with correspondence with dental surgeons.

There were a substantial number of staff at that institution who were known as ‘dental advisors’ who were, themselves, qualified and experienced dentists who for one reason or another were unable or unwilling to practise their profession on patients.

One day, I was writing a letter on behalf of one of these dental advisors. When I thought that the standard letter that we used that started
“Dear Sir
With reference to the attached estimate form in respect of the above-named patient…”

Was in fact rather impolite; verging on the downright rude in cases where the dental advisor had discussed the case with the dental surgeon involved, on the telephone. Between members of the profession, one would normally then expect something like:

“Dear Mr *dentist’s name*,
following our telephone conversation regarding *name of patient*…”.

So, I had the secretary type up a letter using my rather more relaxed form of wording rather than the terribly formal & clumsy wording normally used. The dental advisor in question was delighted with a new form of words and happily signed it however someone somewhere spotted the fact that it was not the standard form of words and passed it to my supervisor who went completely ballistic and ordered me to write a new letter using the accepted form of words and resubmit it to the dental advisor for signature. Moreover, I was on no account to have the temerity to attempt to change anything of the sort without passing it via senior management!

I duly did as I was told and took the amended letter to the dental advisor for signature he was obviously somewhat surprised as he was quite happy with the original version so I had to explain to him what had happened to which he replied “oh I see, well, we'll see about that”.
It was an oddly organised institution really, the quaintly named ‘Clerk to the Board’ (the CEO in all but name) was the ultimate authority in all matters administrative, however in matters professional, he could be overruled by the Chairman of the Board who was in fact himself a qualified dentist. The dental advisor with whom I was dealing had taken the matter straight to the Chairman of the Board who then overruled the administrative branch, saying that between professional colleagues who have spoken on the telephone the “Dear Mr…” form is quite correct and will be used henceforth. The administrative pen-pushers were absolutely livid but there was nothing they could do; the Chairman of the Board had spoken and that was that!