According to an interim report by the NHS Health and Wellbeing Review, NHS staff work absences are affecting patient care. The review, headed up by Dr. Steve Boorman, suggested that high rates of staff sickness and workplace related stress were to blame. The report found that annual NHS sickness levels... Read more...
The road works at Burnt Tree Island are underway despite objections from business leaders and the general public who dubbed the £12.3m project costly and counter-productive and, right from the off, it’s looking as though there may well be another sting in the pocket for taxpayers. Chris Kelly, the Managing... Read more...
The relationship between government spending and economic growth is quite well established, higher spending tends to mean lower growth. A TPA study (PDF) found that Britain's GDP could be £12 billion higher if it weren't for the big increase in spending under the present Government. Dan Mitchell, in a new video... Read more...
Our erstwhile Surrey Organiser Peter Webb has produced yet another outstanding report detailing his campaign activity across the county for June and July. For reference, we publicised the Frater report on our blog here, showing how it exposes the mismanagement rife within Surrey County Council. 4th June County Council election... Read more...
It brings tears to your eyes, doesn't it? Just when taxpayers thought things were looking up for our little involuntary foray into banking, after RBS announced that parts of its business are now in the black earlier this week, they went and did it again. Read more...
The Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) has today released a report on the affect quangos have on schools. Culling some bodies and reforming others would yield savings of over £630 million, according to the CPS. But this is not about simply abolishing quangos to save money; there is an arguably... Read more...
George Osborne once again laid out the Tory’s ‘progressive’ vision for the public sector yesterday. In his speech held at the Blarite think-tank Demos – a calculated choice of venue – the Shadow Chancellor described how the “the torch of progressive politics” has now been passed to the Conservatives. "By... Read more...
News emerged over the weekend of Government plans to ‘head start’ disadvantaged pupils in the scramble for university places (BBC, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph). The plan – to be presented in the Higher Education Framework released in the autumn – will see applicants from schools in disadvantaged areas (high proportions of... Read more...
HMS Royal James - serious cost issues Dateline Woolwich Dockyard - 21 July 1662 - "While the Royal James was bringing towards the dock, we went out and saw the manner and trouble of docking such a ship, which yet they could not do, but only brought her head into... Read more...
New investigation reveals true picture of generous Westminster salariesFirst comprehensive comparison with European politiciansA new research note from the TaxPayers’ Alliance seeks to put paid to suggestions of a pay rise for Members of Parliament by revealing the true scale of their pay packets, and comparing them to Parliamentarians abroad.... Read more...
I want to point out here that I apologise for the use of acronyms; the alphabet soup of our government just gets more absurd by the day. Onto the plot…Yesterday I was back in Bath for yet another Bath and North East Somerset Council Development Control Committee meeting (the planning committee... Read more...
Yesterday the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) released a report that criticised the Government on its emissions policy. The report, Greening Government, suggests that the Government is unlikely to meet its 2011 targets for reducing CO2 emissions; carbon output has dropped by 6.3 per cent on 1999 levels – just half... Read more...
There are nearly 500 jobs on offer in the government sector, plenty offering final salary pensions gold plated with taxpayers’ money. Compare that with the £100 billion deficit in FTSE 100 private sector pensions and you can see the problem.The tip of the iceberg this week is the non-job of... Read more...
Stoke, a council that could probably count itself amongst those with the worst reputation in the country, has treated some of its communications team to an evening of booze and back-slapping in London, all courtesy of the very taxpayers who are currently facing cuts in frontline services (The Sentinel).The council... Read more...
According to an article in the Walsall Chronicle (23rd July) sent over by a WMTPA activist, Walsall councillors claimed £830,923 in expenses over the last year, making them the third biggest claimants in the Black Country and Staffordshire, beaten only by Staffordshire County Council whose elected members claimed £988,637, and... Read more...
Yesterday, the Annual Report of the Commons Administration was released, revealing the generous pay increase given to staff in the last 12 months. Included in this is Malcolm Jack, Clerk to the House, whose pay shot up nearly 11%- meaning he now earns more than the Prime Minister. Also of... Read more...
We often hear about huge amounts of waste in the public sector: quangos; MPs’ expenses; extravagant executive pay. What tend to go unnoticed are the smaller examples. Talking to a Chartered Accountant this morning, I was informed that HMRC recently sent out pension coding forms to accountants’ offices for completion.... Read more...
The new TaxPayers' Alliance report Taxpayer funded lobbying and political campaigning reveals the extent of taxpayer funded lobbying and political campaigning in the UK. The Conservatives have pledged to stop public bodies spending taxpayers’ money on lobbying, and this report reveals for the first time that over £37 million a year... Read more...
Today the Secretary of State for Transport, Sadiq Khan, gave the go-ahead for the introduction of a Workplace Parking Levy (the Levy) in Nottingham. The Levy, to be introduced in 2012, is the UK’s first tax on parking spaces. Initially; it will place a charge of £185 on businesses that... Read more...
Today the WMTPA released a story in the local media about the £12,500 expenses claim filed by Suzie Norton, chief executive of film quango Screen WM, which included her membership of the Ivy Club in London, and asked whether taxpayers should be footing the bill for her enviable lifestyle? Read more...
Juxtapose these two points. 1. Barking and Dagenham was crowned London’s most unhealthy borough last year.2. Health and safety officials at Barking and Dagenham council have forbidden swimmers at the local pool from swimming lengths – instead forcing swimmers to swim widths instead. Who in their right mind, without any... Read more...
A unique collaboration between the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) and leading economic forecaster the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) reveals the worrying vulnerability of the public finances, and the dangerous reliance of the Treasury on optimistic predictions of the future economy. Given the Treasury's track record of making highly... Read more...
According to this blogger the West Midlands will soon see the demise of one of its many many quangos as Shropshire’s own Transforming Telford looks to be nearing the end. The powers of this regeneration quango are being repatriated to Telford & Wrekin Council, and although the local authority... Read more...
Here at the TPA we always advocate the benefits of transparency in the public sector and yesterday this policy was justified by the findings of a health statistics report. Published by the Society of Cardiothoracic Surgery, the report has found that an increase in transparency and availability of data has... Read more...