Further to my post last week showing which councils have published spending over £500, the excellent Guardian Data Blog have compiled the latest list of which authorities have joined the transparency revolution.They highlight a few problems with some of the releases so far - the biggest ones being that they... Read more...
Eric Pickles has announced that his Communities and Local Government Department will make up to 30 % in cuts as part of the government’s drive to alleviate Labour’s spending crisis. I recently attended a meeting of Conservative councillors discussing the measures they would have to take to accommodate these cuts.... Read more...
From 8-10th September, the TaxPayers' Alliance were proud to host the 7th annual European Resource Bank, a meeting of academics, free marketeers, think tanks, campaign groups and taxpayer groups from across Europe, the United States, and the rest of the world. We were honoured to have the Rt Hon Lord... Read more...
Britain's economy continues to do a pretty good job creating new opportunities and delivering relatively high employment. Our flexible labour market means that we don't have endemic mass unemployment on the scale seen in countries like France. Eurostat figures released yesterday show that Britain has recently been outpacing the eurozone... Read more...
Don't believe everything they tell you The skirmishing is nearly over and the coalition government is confronting the reality of public sector job cuts. Yesterday Theresa May stepped up to the plate, facing down the police with their colourful claims of imminent social breakdown, and leaving them in no doubt that the cuts are going... Read more...
For the second time in less than a week HMRC has had to u-turn on the handling of the PAYE debacle. After being hauled before the Treasury Select Committee, Dave Hartnett, the top taxman at HMRC, now says millions of people who underpaid tax as a result of his department’s... Read more...
Local councils are certainly feeling the pinch and there’s no doubt that this is being reflected in their recruitment, but although non-jobs are definitely thin on the ground this week, unfortunately they aren’t entirely extinct...On the jobsgopublic.com website, Charnwood Borough Council are advertising for a Physical Activity Development Officer (£19,521... Read more...
There is one delegate at the TUC annual meeting who has stayed clear of cuts scare mongering espoused by the rest. Tony McGuirk, the chief officer of Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service boldly stated that there were clear examples of waste in the public sector that could be cut and... Read more...
Sorry... what pay cuts are we talking about? Yesterday's research study from the Office for National Statistics confirmed what BOM readers have known for some time - Britain's public sector employees are on average paid much more than their private sector counterparts. Here's the summary table (click on image to... Read more...
In a move to further stifle the UK digital economy, the Department for Business, Innovation, and Skills (BIS) announced today that ISPs will be required to pay for 25% of the cost of tracking down illegal file sharers on their services.The Digital Economy Bill was passed last April in a... Read more...
Last week, I took part in a BBC London debate about cuts in the capital, intervening in the debate twice.First, Ken Livingstone made the ludicrous assertion that cuts were based on a lie, that we don't have an actual issue with the debt. He argued that we had a higher... Read more...
Yesterday the TUC annual meeting kicked off in Manchester and the trade unions are doing their best to argue that spending cuts will destroy Britain. Or as TUC chief Brendan Barber said big cuts would make Britain a "dark, brutish and more frightening place". It’s about time the unions took... Read more...
Yesterday Hammersmith and Fulham council released a list of 105 pieces of regulation that they would like to see scrapped. 105 – that’s a long list. Yet Cllr Harry Phibbs of H&F reckons it could be even longer. But they’ve put it together to get the ball rolling, and will... Read more...
Recently, in the middle of the night, I awoke from a dream in which I was being forcibly gagged. I quickly reassured myself with the thought that, while it may be known for many things, Norfolk is not a county markedly recognised for sheltering roaming gangs of serial nocturnal gaggers.... Read more...
I have recently learned of a radio broadcast – called Traffic Radio – run by the Highways Agency (HA) and Transport for London (TfL) that can only be listened to via a digital radio or online. Not much use when you’re driving! Indeed on the website for the radio broadcast... Read more...
Below is a short article I wrote for the Hull Daily Mail, published on Saturday 11 September. At this time of year, we learn how much our local councillors have been paid in allowances and expenses, and the perennial debate commences on whether or not they provide value for money.... Read more...
A study by the Institute of Development Studies has found that most people think aid spending should be cut to help deal with the deficit. 63 per cent of those asked, in fact. Considering its budget is ring-fenced, alongside health, this is currently not possible but it's yet another clear reminder... Read more...
Oh the joys of living in an old-fashioned shire county, with its two tiers of local government. I have previously bored for England – and at length on the TPA website – about Norfolk County Council (“NCC”) and its twin-hatter phenomenon. Fifty of the eighty-four seats on NCC are held... Read more...
The Telegraph reports today that the HMRC are considering a new way to deal with the pay-as-your-earn (PAYE) system after it emerged last week that hundreds of thousands of wage earners have had the wrong tax amounts deducted from their monthly pay cheques. Under the new system companies would pay... Read more...
Tens of thousands of taxpayers are today starting to find out if they have been affected by a catastrophic blunder at HMRC. Around 6 million people have either paid too much or too little income tax and letters will be going out to those concerned from now up until Christmas. ... Read more...
Back in 1999, charter schools began opening up across New York City. They are funded by the taxpayer, but with one crucial difference to traditional state schools: they are not run by the city. We've written about their success many times on this site. Put simply, kids that attend charter... Read more...
Allister Heath, Editor of City AM, makes an important point this morning:"One of the problems with Gordon Brown’s idiotic tripartite regulatory system was that powers and responsibility were divided; it is absurd, therefore, that the coalition is willing to sign up to a similarly fudged solution on a European level.... Read more...
Only 4% of new computer related jobs are being created by the public sector, says a report out by ReThink Recruitment today. Michael Bennett, Director at ReThink, said that “The cancellation of projects, coupled with worries over further cuts to come, has meant public sector IT recruitment has gone through... Read more...
Harry Phibbs over at the ConservativeHome blog has noted that more councils have decided to publish all spending over £500. The Coalition's Programme for Government document outlined the following:"We will require all councils to publish items of spending above £500, and to publish contracts and tender documents in full."Currently, councils... Read more...