Let me ask you something. Do you think that someone whose salary you pay should be accountable to you? From your hard earned taxes, the government employs civil servants, bureaucrats and, what really gripes us, town hall fats. They live off your money, so they should be accountable - all... Read more...
The Audit Commission may well have promoted Stoke-on-Trent City Council from the very bottom of the council class, but it seems they may well be back to their old tricks... The Sentinel reported this week that the council spent at least £50,000 of taxpayers’ money demolishing a school when... Read more...
Lancashire’s taxpayers, after footing Council Tax bills that have doubled in the last ten years, better brace themselves to hear where their money’s going. We found this job at Lancashire County Council from the Guardian Society jobs page, which is our non-job of the week: “Woodlands from waste development... Read more...
Opening up the countryside The government's £250m pa eco-quango Natural England has just shredded another £4.5m. Discovering Lost Ways, a £15 million project, was set up by the Government six years ago to restore forgotten countryside rights of way. But: "Staff searched hundreds of land deeds, maps... Read more...
Tomorrow the seven West Midlands councils involved in the transport and congestion debate are expected to conclude that the plan to introduce unpopular charges on motorists in the area is flawed, and therefore banish the spectre of road pricing. At least for the time being (Birmingham Post). The conditions... Read more...
How progress happens So what should we make of the schools lottery fiasco? Brighton's attempt to impose Marxist-Leninist principles on school place allocation (originally blogged here) has backfired spectacularly, with an outright reduction in the proportion of kids getting their first choice secondary school. It's reportedly declined from... Read more...
The seaside city of Brighton & Hove suffers an endemic problem; a few excellent, over-subscribed schools, and many poor to average ones. A situation which characterizes state education in this country as a whole. Competition for places at the good schools in Brighton is predictably fierce, but last year... Read more...
There was a very telling poll of political attitudes out over the weekend, commissioned from Yougov by the Daily Telegraph - the full results can be found here. While the newspaper reports headlined on the growing pressure on Michael Martin, there were some very interesting figures on the question of... Read more...
Since the launch of our third Council Spending Uncovered paper last week, which looked into the cost of the Local Government Pension Scheme, there has been a lot of media discussion of the issue - which is, of course, exactly what we hoped for. This is a crucial issue and... Read more...
Regular visitors to this site will be well aware that we don't agree with every proposal coming out of CCHQ at the moment, but today's announcement on prisons was really excellent. The two key elements that the Shadow Justice team got right were incentives and managerial freedom and responsbility:... Read more...
TPA Activist Brian Sturman (see left) is a prolific letter writer for the low tax cause and consistently writes letters holding our wasteful politicians to account. His letters routinely find their way into the Eastern Daily Press and Norwich Evening News and have reached as far away as the Northumberland... Read more...
Independent East Herts Councillors Nigel and Deborah Clark have been hard at work fighting for taxpayers. Despite having their alternative budget rejected – a budget that would have lowered councillor allowances and cut the council tax rise in the borough – they are now fighting to save the local... Read more...
In what is becoming an all too familiar tale, the NHS has chosen to reward the failure of one of its senior managers. But this time it is not just a handsome payoff. The Telegraph reports that: "[Ruth Harrison], a former hospital chief executive who was at the center... Read more...
Here is TPA South West Surrey Organiser Peter Webb's February Campaign Diary. Hat's off to him, in one month he's been regularly quoted on the front page of the Surrey Advertiser, continues to hold Councillors to account and coordinates letter writing campaigns with other SW Surrey TPA Activists. IF you'd... Read more...
National pay scales in operation One of the reasons we get such poor value from our public services is that government continues to operate national pay scales for its employees. National scales ensure we pay too much and too little, both at the same time. In London and... Read more...
A huge share of Britain's GDP, tax revenues and exports are dependent upon financial services and the continuing ability of London to attract investment in this vital industry. It is one sector where we are a world leader. Take a look at the WorldMapper map with countries' sizes adjusted... Read more...
There are two issues in the news today that deserve a prompt and serious response. Hospital infections are proving more lethal than we thought: "Nearly 10 people are dying every day from the superbug Clostridium difficile. Official figures show 6,480 death certificates in 2006 mentioned the bug, compared with 3,757... Read more...
INDIVIDUAL DATA PROVIDED FOR EVERY COUNCIL IN THE UK Download Council Spending Uncovered No. 3: Pensions (PDF) £1 in every £5 of council tax spent on local government pensions 2006-07 saw a 13% rise on 2005-06 Average council spends £10 million a year on pensions ... Read more...
Hong Kong is to implement massive tax cuts: "Hong Kong's financial chief said Wednesday he will cut salary and corporate taxes and abolish duty on beer and wine after a booming economy pushed the city's budget surplus to a record high. In his maiden budget speech, Financial Secretary John Tsang... Read more...
Some rather dispiriting news today about the number of students still failing to meet basic standards in the core subjects: "More than a third of schoolchildren in England are failing to master the basics after three years of secondary school, according to results published today. Around 216,000 struggle in the... Read more...
Just be thankful they're not in charge of pie buying This morning we've got the NAO drains up on that GPs pay deal. We've blogged it many times of course (see collection gathered here), and we'll be doing a proper post on this report later. Meanwhile, here's the... Read more...
The race is on to fill Nick Paul’s shoes as the £80,000 per-year, 3-day-week Chairman of regional development quango, Advantage West Midlands. The Birmingham Post today profiled the candidates for the position, with Sir Roy McNulty, Brian Woods-Scawen, Bob Dover, Mike Beasley, Derek Harris and Barry Cleverdon being named... Read more...
Devon County Council thinks it right to spend £27k of your money on reducing its own carbon footprint. Perhaps they could have thought of a car share scheme or even ask their employees to take the bus instead of shelling out well over £30k on a bureaucrat, office space and... Read more...
Where to in a downturn? When Lord Forsyth's Tax Commission reported 18 months ago, it called for tax cuts amounting to £21bn. Ed Balls and the BBC immediately savaged it: "same old Tories - same old destroying the NHS - same old killing babies and pensioners in the... Read more...