The excellent WhatDoTheyKnow online tool, developed by the MySociety group, makes it easy for members of the public to submit Freedom of Information requests and find out what public sector organisations are doing with their money. It then makes the responses public so that we're all a little better informed... Read more...
What price would you pay for your local councillors elected to your local district, borough, metropolitan or county councils? A few points that we’ve noticed here bring us to ask this question. The first issue must be the shocking increases in councillors’ pay. Windsor and Maidenhead Council this year increased... Read more...
Today The Stirrer followed up on a story reported there yesterday about children at Birmingham schools having their fingerprints taken in order to eat a school meal. The website became aware of the procedure after being contacted by a parent who felt concerned that this contravened civil liberties. As is... Read more...
This week reveals a steady – and welcome – decline in public sector recruitment. As you’ll see on the right, this is the second week that there are fewer jobs on offer in local government, saving you and me money. Sadly, there’s always one too many and you’ll see what... Read more...
There's nothing like a bit of political campaigning from someone who's meant to be impartial and restricted to their given task. Trevor Phillips, the Chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is charged with ensuring that laws on race, gender, age, religion, sexuality and disability are enforced and... Read more...
One small step On the face of it taxpayers should join the Tories in welcoming the welfare reforms announced yesterday by James Purnell. The headline reforms are: Incapacity benefit to be scrapped... well, actually, it's not being scrapped, it's just being renamed to the Employment and Support Allowance. But as... Read more...
The Telegraph reports serious concerns at the readiness of the Armed Forces: "Less than half of all military units are able to deploy on operations in an emergency, the lowest number ever recorded by the Ministry of Defence. MPs rounded on the Government accusing it of endangering national security and... Read more...
Fiscal Götterdämmerung - but the fat lady hasn't quite sung yet As we've noted more than once, back on the doorsteps in 2005 the proposition that tax was too high just didn't land. You couldn't give it away. In those dark days, the tax and spend consensus seemed all-powerful, especially... Read more...
Network Rail has its debts guaranteed by the Government and enjoys a monopoly. It may not be entirely owned by the state but it is hardly a private sector organisation either. Taxpayers have a very real stake in how the company is run both as its guarantors and as rail... Read more...
It’s been a fascinating week. The Government announces plans to re-write the fiscal rules to allow even more borrowing (like they weren’t ignoring their rules anyway); the Conservatives say hysterically that they may have to raise taxes to sort the economy out (like that works!); and the Liberal Democrats pledge... Read more...
Like manna from heaven for the campaign, but a pain in the neck for Thurrock’s taxpayers, Thurrock Council have decided to turn one job – costing taxpayers £30,000 a year – into 4. No, it doesn’t mean 4 bureaucrats earning £30,000 between them, it means a whopping £130,000 bill for... Read more...
A very recent TPA report explains how our current crop (using the polite term) of ministers are unfit to run large organisations. Asking top CEO’s their opinions, it shows how they rate business and management experience as a key factor in being able to run a government service. In layman’s... Read more...
An interesting piece by Samuel Brittan in today's FT looks at the Blairite choice agenda, also promoted by, as he puts it, "the self-styled progressive wing of the Conservative party". It's worth quoting from the article at length: "Whenever a particular idea appears to have captured the centre ground of... Read more...
The big wigs at Coventry City Council are pretty serious about climate change. They’ve developed a comprehensive Climate Change Strategy, they have Nigel Lee and Gary Ridley acting as two of the country’s first very ‘climate change councillors’ with specific responsibility for climate change issues, and the website is dotted... Read more...
A leaked World Bank report has already alerted us to the fact that biofuels have pushed up food prices by 75 per cent. Now, the direct financial cost of biofuel subsidies is becoming clearer. Yesterday, the OECD released a study on biofuels showing just how expensive and ineffective the subsidies... Read more...
A survey by the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) of the UK’s 100 top business leaders has revealed that Government management practices fall far short of the minimum they believe is necessary to effectively manage large organisations. Download the full report here (PDF) The survey, which asked the Chief Executives... Read more...
Last week the new Tory-Lib Dem coalition at Wolverhampton City Council announced that they were going to have to borrow £700m in order to rectify the financial mess inherited from the former Labour ruling group, and as a consequence, Wolverhampton residents were told to expect a council tax hike of... Read more...
Today 600,000 local government workers go on strike. It’s quite an apt day seeing as we publish the non-job of the week. As you’ll see from the bar on the right, there’s fewer jobs on offer this week, but still it's a staggering to see the public sector recruiting at... Read more...
An interesting new report from the think tank Reform analyses the results of focus group work with members of the 18-34 IPOD generation (which stands for Insecure, Pressurised, Over-taxed and Debt-ridden). It finds that young people are turned off by business as usual politics. As Reform put it: "This generation... Read more...
After the disgraceful vote in the Commons a couple of weeks ago to keep the John Lewis list and reject external auditing of MPs' expenses, parliamentarians have today voted through a pretty half-hearted substitute for the accountability and transparency that is so urgently needed to restore faith in Parliament. ... Read more...
Madness is defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The government, I can therefore announce, is bonkers. It’s the one who flew over the cuckoo’s nest, one it built with taxpayer’s money. So that poses the question - how long is this... Read more...
Nigel Holder, ex-RAF fighter pilot, election candidate, management consultant and TPA Supporter gives his views here as to how government can return power and wealth to the British taxpayer. Taxation is a necessary evil – but it should be minimised at all costs. Why? – because taxation involves the... Read more...
Last year we commented on news that Devon and Cornwall police were handing out stickers featuring themselves in the style of those early 90s football sticker albums as a promotional gimmick to try to improve the respect young people had for them. Today, it emerges that Hampshire Police have gone... Read more...
£306,883 plus £2 million pension potFOR IMMEDIATE PUBLICATION Full details have been released of the massive financial package given to Paul Gray, the former Chairman of HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) who resigned over the loss of computer discs containing the personal details of 25 million people.... Read more...