Rupert Read has written a post for Left Foot Forward attacking the Daily Mail's reporting of our research note released yesterday. Unfortunately, he hasn't taken the time to look into the evidence we presented and makes some misleading assumptions. Even the very start of his article is a bit unfair:... Read more...
The massive borrowing revealed in the official figures today isn't a surprise. But the experts didn't expect it to be this massive, the BBC reports: "It is the first time the government has borrowed money in January - usually a bumper month for income from tax receipts - since records... Read more...
How people use the transport system should be a very important indicator in how the transport budget is prioritised. Two reports released recently have further contributed to this debate. The Transport Select Committee report Priorities for Investment in the railways assessed the value of further investment in future rail projects.... Read more...
TPA Climate Challenge Fund Video The original videos Material produced for many of the Climate Challenge Fund projects is still available online. Our press release and full research note, with further details on a number of projects including the ones below, are available here. This page links to... Read more...
Download the full research note (PDF). The 2010 annual accounts of local authorities and police forces will offer readers something new. After years of campaigning by various groups, and months of political posturing by all parties, these public bodies will be brought into line with equivalent organisations in the public... Read more...
Click to download the full research note. With the Government’s Act on CO2 campaign recently launching a controversial advertising campaign on climate change issues, there is an increased focus on how the Government is engaging with the public over climate change. Public information campaigns – like that warning people about... Read more...
The BBC reports that Sir Richard Branson has come out in favour of spending cuts to deal with the crisis in the public finances. He joins a number of senior economists who wrote a joint letter to the Sunday Times that I blogged about earlier this week. It's hard to... Read more...
Many of the non-jobs that we cover in this weekly slot are being hired by local government, but of course it’s not just our councils haemorrhaging money and frittering our cash on needless jobsworths. This week’s ‘winner’ proves that, in fact, priorities are skewed throughout the public sector. “Media... Read more...
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has released a survey on how tax is affecting unemployment. More than half of the firms responding say that UK taxes have prevented them taking on more staff. National Insurance, in particular, is a tax on jobs and the FSB recommend a cut in the... Read more...
Yesterday a letter was published in the Sunday Times from a range of senior economists from the LSE, Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, NYU, UCL, York, Birkbeck, the House of Lords and the private sector. They made it clear that action to curb the deficit needed to be dramatic and start sooner rather than later:... Read more...
An interesting letter was submitted to Chris Woodhead, former Chief Inspector of Schools, in this weekend’s Sunday Times. A worried parent asked Mr Woodhead if there was any evidence that the Department for Children, Schools and Families massive £1.65 billion IT budget was benefitting children in a way that truly... Read more...
There is much being made by the BBC this morning of the news that the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) will apparently have an annual budget of £6.5m. That's certainly a large sum of money, but is it an increase on what we spend now, and is it worth it? The... Read more...
Isn’t it ironic that the Government are increasing motoring taxes and punishing people for driving at the same time as introducing new policies to encourage us all to buy new cars? Well, in theory the car scrappage was meant to do just that. And there are some in Westminster who... Read more...
Do feel free to send in any recommendations for this ‘non-job of the week’ slot as it’s always interesting to read about what costly and unnecessary public sector jobs you’ve spotted in your local paper. Following on from last week’s ‘Neighbourhood Co-ordinator’, this week’s Guardian jobs site advertises for... Read more...
Charlie Elphicke, the Conservative Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Dover, has done some great work in the past. He wrote an excellent short report for the CPS last July for example, that showed how under this Government the rich are being paid more benefits and the poor are paying more tax.... Read more...
Stoke-on-Trent City Council have come under fire for using £8m-worth of consultants in just a year, with 33 individuals and 52 firms commissioned to provide services at the end of last December according to The Sentinel. The article states that the council refused to make comparison figures available from previous years.... Read more...
It will be even worse now As long as anyone can remember, Britain's old industrial heartlands have been a disaster area. Once they'd lost their traditional industries like steel and shipbuilding, something very bad happened to them - they seemed to lose the will to live.And as we've blogged many times (eg here),... Read more...
The Guardian reports that the Environmental Audit Committee think the carbon price in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is too low. The price is currently around €13 /t CO2. They want there to be a flaw under the price; at a massive €100 /t CO2. Earlier this year, we... Read more...
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Ipsa Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority MPs Expenses – Consultation Birmingham Friday 5th February 2010 Trevor Eames of the Solihull Ratepayers' Association gives us the lowdown on this public meeting: "While I found the overall arrangements, presentation and meeting content were quite good and balanced the attendance was not... Read more...
Amidst all of the revelations on MPs’ expenses, taxpayer funded lobbying, and bungled swine flu preparations, some further news was buried. The Cabinet Office released its annual Public Bodies list, detailing the Government’s version of what they consider to be quangos. Of course, year-on-year funding from Government has increased by... Read more...
In December, we reported that excessive green taxes now amount to between £10.2 billion and £23.6 billion, or between £408 and £944 per household. The ONS have just released new estimates of the amounts charged in environmental taxes. They put the total at just over £38.5 billion. By contrast, our... Read more...
Whilst the notoriously wasteful Sandwell Council attempt to keep their council tax increase to 1.4% or below (not a cut but a vast improvement no less), residents in Walsall look to be facing an enormous 3.9% rise following a budget meeting last night. According to the Walsall Advertiser the... Read more...
Hmm... on second thoughts... Everybody now agrees that public spending has to be cut significantly. But not everyone agrees on when. And despite what we may sometimes suggest on BOM, not everyone who says we can put it off is an out-and-out scoundrel. For example, the FT's respected commentator Martin Wolf... Read more...