This week’s non-job of the week highlights how Councils continue to spend, spend, spend and ignore the realities in the British economy. As the economy slows down, slower and lower growth means everyone’s spending has to change. Except for government it seems. A prime example here from Essex County Council,... Read more...
Politicians don't have the experience or length of time in office to really try and run the education system effectively. In an attempt to look like they have some control they churn out initiative after initiative. Schools and children pay the price: "The sheer number of initiatives and programmes and... Read more...
In what is becoming an increasingly common event, Henderson Group, one of Europe's largest investment managers, said it was considering moving its tax base to Ireland, which has much lower company taxes. The FT continues: "Its announcement underlined concerns about the waning competitiveness of the UK tax system, which led... Read more...
We have had an excellent response to our report, with several newspapers supporting our message in their leader columns and a number of politicians voicing their support for our argument. Unsurprisingly, the response from the Government and Friends of the Earth has been less favourable. The Treasury said that: "The... Read more...
IPCC cost of carbon emissions estimate shows Britain pays £19.6bn too much in green taxes. Even the Government's own figures indicate that we are paying £7.9bn too much. Detailed area-by-area breakdown shows wide variation across the country - and the poor are hit hardest. Download the full... Read more...
Regular readers will recall that the last time I blogged about confectionery it was with good news, that the State and the taxman had shoved off and left chocolate teacakes alone, though not before a long fight. It's saddening, therefore, to see in today's Irish Times that the ratchet of... Read more...
I got an email from a supporter that I thought I’d share. This was a letter sent to David Miliband when he was Minister at DEFRA, beautifully articulating the absurdity of the Common Agricultural Policy: Dear Secretary of State, My friend, who is in farming at the moment,... Read more...
The Telegraph reports that Lord Forsyth and John Redwood, both former ministers who have written influential reports in recent years on economic policy, have called for the Conservative party to propose a lower overall burden of tax and government spending. Lord Forsyth said: "Just as the country is having to... Read more...
Saturday 23rd August saw the first of our West Midlands Action Days in Wolverhampton, with activists turning out to petition the city council for lower council tax. The weather held out long enough for us to to collect almost 100 signatures, and phase two – another Action Day at... Read more...
The LGA has published a survey today showing that the officials who manage electoral registers around the country believe that councils should stop selling the data to marketing companies. Too right - it's utterly wrong that councils are allowed to treat the private information of voters and local residents as... Read more...
It has been revealed this week by the Express & Star that Sandwell Council will soon be doing a considerable amount of jet-setting at the expense of their ever-tolerant residents, who have also discovered today that the multi-million pound The Public gallery has yet to lease out any of its... Read more...
Emblematic of a much bigger issue We've often blogged how many supposed "charities" are so dependent on state funding they are in reality little more than quangos (see previous blogs, eg here and here).According to the Charities Commission, around two-thirds of the larger charities now get 80% or more of... Read more...
Despite all of those claims that data security in the public sector had been tightened up so that the loss of the HMRC discs, the loss of secret files on laptops, and the leaving of top secret intelligence briefings on trains could never happen again, the Home Office have now... Read more...
Looks like the roof's worked loose again There's none so blind as he who will not see. And Schools Minister Lord Adonis seems to be as blind as they come.So once again it's time for the GCSE tractor production stats, and once again production has broken all records. We haven't... Read more...
A letter in today's Times from several council leaders and senior figures in local government makes a request that could have disastrous consequences for taxpayers: they are asking the Government to let councils offer mortgages. The question in response to that letter is this: if the thousands of experts... Read more...
Over twenty advisors at Business Link West Midlands are facing the chop as the quango is accused of underachieving and consequently failing the very business community it was set-up to assist (Birmingham Post). The staff have been put on 30-day gardening leave whilst the Institute of Directors carries out... Read more...
George Osborne made some interesting comments on the Today Programme this morning about equality and tax. Further to Ivan Lewis' misguided article in the Sunday Times arguing for higher taxes on the wealthy, he made the very good point that the way to help the poor is not to drag... Read more...
The Express & Star has revealed today that Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council spent almost £1m on public relations during the last financial year. Taxpayers’ shelled out £945,000 to promote the council’s image to…well…themselves. This included the total wage bill of £680,000 for no less than 18 press officers and... Read more...
An interesting op-ed in today's FT cites new data from Jacobs University Bremen and the University of Michigan , which finds that, contrary to the views of happiness economists, freedom is actually the key to happiness: "From 1981 to now, more than 350,000 people from 90 countries wereasked about their... Read more...
Rushmoor Borough Council have hit a new low in the already shoddy saga of councils attempting to withdraw bin services from overtaxed residents. Most readers will no doubt be well aware that despite council tax having soared across the country in recent years, well over a third of councils have... Read more...
The Times reports that the Police are struggling to control crime, even within their own stations. If criminals are willing to commit crime right in face of the criminal justice system, do we really think they take the law seriously elsewhere? "Figures obtained by The Times under the Freedom of... Read more...
There’s a sharp fall in the number of job offered by government this week. Yet our non-job of the week reveals a worrying development in Regional Development Agencies that local taxpayers should watch out for: “Thurrock Lakeside Basin Policy Officer£33,291 to £37,543 The East of England Regional Assembly... Read more...
Great news. London residents can now get crime maps providing information on crime rates in their local areas from a Metropolitan Police website. This is a huge step forward in giving ordinary people the information they need to hold the police to account. This service needs to be... Read more...
Of all stories this week, this one takes the biscuit as the most bizarre. You guessed right, it involves local government. Mat Taylor, a finance officer in Cambridgeshire, is moving to Australia and will still claim a taxpayer-funded salary to manage Fenland District Council’s finances. There are a number... Read more...