The recent termination of Fijutsu's involvement in the NHS's National Programme for IT (NPfIT) will mean yet more delays to this most ill-advised and expensive of government IT projects. Now almost three years behind schedule, and over £ 10 billion pounds over budget, delivery of the NPfIT is now likely... Read more...
The Today Programme had an interesting piece on crime mapping this morning, which you can listen to here. I've written before about the TPA's support for crime mapping - it's a great way to make the police more accountable to the public they are meant to protect and serve, and... Read more...
Last Friday, Matthew Elliott wrote here about the events of the previous seven days as "The week that taxes took centre stage". Opinion polls, speeches from Cameron and Clegg and then the Crewe by-election, fought squarely on the issue of tax, had put taxation at the top of the political... Read more...
This study by Civitas looks excellent: "The police, in their turn complain of central control and ill thought out government policies. All interviews were characterised by a high level of bitterness and frustration. Bonuses are paid to senior officers based on how they comply with targets. As in the NHS... Read more...
"Death rates of patients undergoing major surgery at NHS hospitals are to be published on the internet. [...] Death rates are expected to be at a disproportionately high level in hospitals where fewer operations are performed and surgeons have less opportunity to improve. The government believes publishing the figures will... Read more...
The EU diplomatically supports a two state solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict based on two democratic entities which have secure borders and are at peace with each other. An honourable objective we should all support. Given this objective it is strange that the EU funds groups diametrically opposed to this... Read more...
Can anyone tell me why this is anything other than a crime? Some councils have earned hundreds of thousands of pounds by enforcing unlawful traffic and parking restrictions, the BBC has learned. Fines are said to have been levied despite incorrect road markings and on parking bays which are too... Read more...
An excellent new video from the Centre for Freedom and Prosperity presents the international evidence on flat taxes, listing the 24 countries, from Slovakia to Mauritius, that have adopted low flat rates and showing how economic growth and tax revenues in these countries have soared. It's well worth a watch... Read more...
Roger Helmer, MEP for the East Midlands (Conservative) and a TPA supporter, blogs at http://rogerhelmermep.wordpress.com/ Imagine that we had an income tax rate of 10% (wishful thinking!), and we reduced the rate to 5%. Chances are tax revenues would fall by roughly half. But what if we had... Read more...
Brace yourself for more money wasted in the NHS on curing consciences rather than curing patients. In an ode to the cult of equality and diversity, enjoy our non-job of the week from the Sussex Partnership NHS Trust: “Head of Equality and Diversity Service Improvement £36,112 - £43,335... Read more...
Yet again Stoke-on-Trent City Council has come under fire, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that this is a council in crisis. A report by the Stoke-on-Trent Governance Commission publicised in today’s The Sentinel has claimed that the council have ‘short-changed’ the residents of the city and a ‘catalogue of... Read more...
As reported in the Times and Mail today, Plymouth City Council is asking households to nominate a family member to be prosecuted should the wrong rubbish end up in the wrong bin. In addition, Town Hall snoopers want to know all sorts of personal information about their residents, including details... Read more...
From the Mail on Sunday: "A policing green paper out next month will propose centralising control over all 43 police forces. But concerns were raised that ministers may stuff the top ranks with chief constables who share their political agenda, and local people will have no say in who runs... Read more...
The Times reports that MPs are asking for a £23,000 grant so that they do not have to submit expenses claims and receipts, and can avoid the details becoming public: "Days after the High Court ordered the publication of every receipt submitted by MPs, a committee reviewing parliamentary expenses is... Read more...
Pick the bit you like... The TPA's paper on the Great British Taxpayer Rip-Off got quite a bit of press coverage, enough to elicit some dismissive comments from the Treasury. For example, asked about the TPA's calculation that Labour has racked up the real tax burden by 51%,... Read more...
What cost Birmingham City Council and Aston Pride £336,000 to fund, is staffed by six and boasts fifteen computer stations along with broadband and satellite technology? The answer is, the school/careers advice on wheels that will be creeping around Aston stalking those aged 16-25 who have dropped out... Read more...
"LONDON (Reuters) - Blunders in implementing a plan to make big efficiency savings at the Department of Transport through a centralised services system could end up costing it 81 million pounds instead, a report said on Friday. The department had envisaged saving 57 million pounds by amalgamating support services such... Read more...
The last seven days have seen a fundamental shift in the political debate - taxes have taken centre stage in politics, finally mirroring politically the importance that they have held domestically for some time in the lives of ordinary taxpayers struggling to make ends meet. Last Friday, PoliticsHome's PHI5000... Read more...
Tim Parker, a private equity executive who has run the AA, Boots and Kwik-Fit, has been talking about his new job overseeing large parts of the Mayor of London's empire, on a salary of £1: "Mr Parker, who will begin work on June 7, said: "Throughout my business career I... Read more...
Recently I wrote, for ConservativeHome's Platform, about Mancur Olson's The Logic of Collective Action. That landmark political text set out how minorities could impose their will on a majority in a democracy. People have an incentive to free ride on the political efforts of others and minorities find it easier... Read more...
They write in to newspapers justifying their own existence, apparently. Guy Attenborough, the Head of Communications for the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board has got a letter in today's Daily Express in response to Patrick O'Flynn's excellent article about our Unseen Government report. Read more...
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is an almost unbelievably large and complex organisation. It is has a budget of £6.8 billion, 21,380 staff and is responsible for 63 quangos. Its head has only been in position since January so, one presumes, he is still attempting the near insane... Read more...
Following a number of instances in which seemingly innocuous individuals have been stopped or even charged by police, there is growing concern that Section 5 of the Public Order Act is increasingly being used as a catch-all clause by overzealous police officers to disrupt perfectly legitimate protests. The latest case,... Read more...
Allan Asher, chief executive of Energy Watch, is making some rather dubious statements, reported in the Telegraph, about energy policy: "Allan Asher, the chief executive of Energywatch, told a parliamentary select committee that competition in the energy market is a "myth", with the six major suppliers operating a "comfortable oligopoly".... Read more...