In the second instalment of our Public Sector Rich List, today we lead with the revelation that at least 50,000 employees of NHS organisations and General Practitioners received total remuneration in excess of £100,000 in 2013-14. Compiled in an easy-to-search spreadsheet, we tell you what middle managers, chief executives, practitioners... Read more...
This morning our latest TaxPayers’ Alliance ‘Public Sector Rich List’ hit the press. In an exclusive investigation in conjunction with the Daily Mail, we reveal how town hall fat cats, NHS chief executives and police chiefs have been rinsing taxpayers with ludicrously high salaries and lucrative pension pots. Leading on... Read more...
A leader in this morning's Times calls for Stamp Duty to be abolished, after reports that the reforms to the tax are not having the desired impact. The TPA has long said that Stamp Duty should be abolished, first in the final report of the 2020 Tax Commission, The Single... Read more...
This morning we came across one of those stories of council waste at which we simply didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. That is, one Glasgow newspaper has revealed today that Glasgow City Council and its arm’s-length organisations have spent a shocking £425,000 on self-congratulatory staff award ceremonies since... Read more...
With the new larger Local Councils up and running in Northern Ireland there have been a number of stories in the local news about the cost of rebranding - new logos or, in this recent case, at Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon Council a new coat of arms. There are many arguments... Read more...
Dudley council is under fire for the cost of its agency staff. In just one year (2014-15) they spent £6.5 million on agency staff while other services such as museums and art galleries face the axe. The Council argue that they haven’t been able to find suitable candidates to fill... Read more...
This morning Allister Heath has written for the Telegraph that the NHS, in its current form, is unsustainable, noting: “Nothing will ever be enough when it comes to the NHS: it will always need more resources than any government can ever afford. The government is actually being disproportionately generous to health,... Read more...
The Public Accounts Committee has rightly criticised the shocking customer service at HMRC, accusing them of “failing UK taxpayers”. HMRC are increasingly struggling to pick up the phone, let alone prosecute those evading tax. Of course, much of HMRC’s work would be far more manageable if only we had a simpler... Read more...
In yet another example of shortcutting at the expense of taxpayers, a local news source in Kent revealed this month that Kent police have massively overpaid for a set of 1,600 body-worn video cameras, used by their officers to record their day-to-day activities on the beat. Each unit, a five megapixel full... Read more...
Today the National Audit Office has published its report into the government funding of Kids Company – though of course it was really taxpayer funding. Despite coming after months of concerning revelations, the report’s findings are nonetheless shocking. Despite concerns being raised as early as 2002, the failed charity received... Read more...
The TaxPayers' Alliance seeks the best value from every penny collected by the Treasury. It isn't just national government that needs to be sure to spend your money in the most prudent and efficient way possible, but regional and local government too. Wales has seen its budget soar since the... Read more...
Junior doctors' contracts are being discussed in the House of Commons today as part of the Opposition Day Debate. Here's what our Research Director, Alex Wild, had to say on Channel 4 News. Read more...
The DWP released figures for the Access to Work programme which is very similar in scope to the programme the TPA suggested in our report Work for the Dole. Thus far, 162,000 people have taken part in one of the three regimes on offer, which seems an encouraging start. 40,000... Read more...
This morning, HMRC have published their estimates of the UK's tax gap, and it turns out to be rather short of the ludicrous £120 billion figure which is cited all too often. The headline figure is that the tax gap is estimated to be £34 billion - 6.4% of total... Read more...
First Redcar and then Tata Steel announced further job cuts in the steel industry. Exactly what is going on and is there a case for the government to intervene using taxpayer cash to prop up the current price of steel or bail out the suffering plants to protect British jobs?... Read more...
We often have people contacting us with stories of wasteful spending. We are always extremely grateful for the input and they contribute to research like the Bumper Book of Government Waste. We've been working on a tool to make that process easier - somewhere our supporters can go to log... Read more...
The Welsh Government’s ambitious plans to make Wales a ‘One Planet’ nation are in full swing. They have established numerous environmental schemes and advertised the non-job of the Century ‘Future Generations Commissioner for Wales’. The Welsh Government, which is seen more of a talking shop by most of the electorate,... Read more...
John McDonnell’s u-turn on the fiscal charter is worrying. The Shadow Chancellor may, one day, have control of the nation’s finances and taxpayers present and future deserve to know whether or not he will not rack up bills he cannot pay. Fighting this Bill is not going to inspire public... Read more...
Yesterday our Chief Executive, Jonathan Isaby, gave evidence to the Trade Union Bill Committee, making the point that taxpayers' money should not be going towards subsidising trade union activities. You can watch Jonathan's evidence here (from 3:45pm to 4:15pm) or read the transcript here. Read more...
Yesterday I made some comments at a fringe event for which I want to apologise. They were crass, offensive and made 'off the cuff' - I made a mistake and I want to say sorry for that.Not only did I let myself down, but the result has been that most... Read more...
In an intriguing article, Guardian columnist and National Trust chairman Sir Simon Jenkins says there is no housing crisis, implying it is all a figment of the media class’s imagination. It is intriguing because he states many unpopular truths yet simultaneously misses the point in a spectacular fashion in some... Read more...
This week saw the introduction of the country's first monthly bin collection. Fife council in Scotland will collect waste just 12 times a year as part of a trial in some parts of the district, in order - we are told - to encourage residents to recycle more. We obviously... Read more...
There has been a certain amount of noise recently suggesting that Local Government Pension Schemes (LGPS) divest from (sell so they are no longer part of the fund’s portfolio) fossil fuel and other supposedly “sinful” stocks. This Guardian article suggested that “millions of UK public sector pensions were ‘exposed to... Read more...
In a recent poll by Survation, respondents were asked to list the first word or phrase that came to mind when seeing the words “European Union.” Only 21% wrote a response that could be considered positive while 39% wrote something negative - words such as bureaucracy, waste and money were... Read more...