During the tenure of Sir Peter Housden, who stepped down as Permanent Secretary to the Scottish government last month, a campaign was launched with the aim to urge people to ‘leave a car when it’s not far’. Ironically, it has been revealed that Sir Peter, in his Chauffeur-driven car, took... Read more...
The Summer Budget was a fiddly affair with sixty policies being implemented.The value to the treasury of each policy can be considered by: Its net value to the treasury – where revenue offsets spending. Its absolute value – ie its cash value. In 2020-21, the net value of all 60... Read more...
Manston Airport is an old RAF airfield on the eastern tip of Kent which, when run as an airport, loses up to £10,000 a day. It has been bought by developers with the intention of converting it into a mixed use business and residential park. Well that all seems reasonable... Read more...
A new TaxPayers' Alliance report, written by leading barrister Francis Hoar, demonstrates significant flaws in Direct Recovery of Debts legislation Principle of the right to justice through the courts, laid down in Magna Carta 800 years ago, at risk due to badly designed legislationDirect Recovery powers would see HMRC given almost unprecedented power over individuals, and oversights in legislation... Read more...
It has come to our attention that an event headed by GovKnow is taking place in order to help local authority persons better their understanding of Parliamentary procedures, with the aim of helping them manage their local governments. The event, to be held on the 10th of November, is about ‘Understanding... Read more...
With HSBC, the UK’s largest bank, and Standard Chartered debating whether to move their domiciles outside of the UK, the chancellor announced cuts to the Bank Levy and a change in its scope at his budget yesterday. What is being briefed as a positive response to competition concerns is in... Read more...
The Chancellor has announced substantial increases in spending in his first Conservative budget, compared to the plans he published in March under the coalition, before the election. Until today, spending was scheduled to stay roughly flat over the next three years, falling slightly from £743 billion this year to £740... Read more...
On the 7th July 2014, Theresa May, established an enquiry into the failings of public bodies in light of the nationwide paedophilia scandal of the preceding years. Nearly a year later, the website for The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse was “declared to be formally opened”. The moral questions of... Read more...
The poor use of European taxpayers’ money spent in Cornwall has been strongly criticised by a recent report. Key findings by an independent analysis of £465m of EU convergence money, meant to grow the economy in the South West between 2007 and 2013, highlighted the fact that 10,000 new jobs... Read more...
With the budget less than a week away, speculation is rife as to what will and won’t be included by the Chancellor. One issue that may now re-emerge from the proverbial long grass is that of bringing income tax and NI rates in line with each other. A simpler tax... Read more...
Another day, another sorry tale of a government IT project going horribly wrong. When announced in 2009, the General Practice Extension Service (GPES) was supposed to collate information from all GP practice computer systems, and make that information accessible to other NHS organisations. In theory, it would begin to centralise... Read more...
Last year the average UK household paid over £13,000 in taxes, the ONS revealed yesterday. The sheer scale of the Government’s tax and spend policies was highlighted by the fact that 51.5% of households received more in benefits than they paid in taxes, the equivalent of 13.7 million homes. Read more...
Yesterday’s Sunday Times reported how ministers at the Foreign Office were warned by the International Development Secretary nearly two years ago that taxpayers' money is going into ridiculous projects around the world in the name of aid. The Foreign Office's £343 million aid fund supported projects including an Ethiopian gameshow. It... Read more...
HMRC, it has been reported today, fails to pick up the phone to one in four people. Last year alone almost 18 million phone calls have gone unanswered. Meanwhile, earlier this year almost 900,000 people faced £100 fines for failing to file their tax return on time. A failure to... Read more...
This week, the Welsh Taxpayer has witnessed yet another waste of their hard earned money. Three top managers have opted to take lavish redundancy packages after yet another restructuring exercise by the Welsh Government. The Devolved Government which hasn’t even been operational for twenty years has seen several restructuring plans... Read more...
A while ago we wrote about about why the TaxPayers' Alliance are worried about the current state of government debt and why you should be as well. More than one person pointed out that we can inflate away or use quantitative easing to magic (at least part of) the debt... Read more...
Public services, in many cases, are no longer provided by single monolithic bodies. The range of providers has grown with an emphasis on public choice. While this is broadly positive, it has created a need for effective and efficient complaint and redress procedures – things do occasionally go wrong and... Read more...
Barts NHS Trust is paying £47,000 a month to their temporary Director of Finance, Ian Miller - an annual total of £561,000. This is despite being on a temporary contract and in the wake of calls from Jeremy Hunt, the Health secretary, to end excessive NHS pay. Worryingly for taxpayers, the trust has... Read more...
Simon Stevens, Chief Executive of NHS England, stated in the Five Year Forward View that the NHS would face a £30 billion funding gap by 2020. Of this £30 billion, £8 billion is to come from increased funding and £22 billion is to come from efficiencies. Lord Carter of Cole... Read more...
The SeaCity Museum in Southampton, opened in 2012, has seen its visitor numbers halve in the past year. Despite projecting visitor numbers at 115,550 for the year, there have been only 78,000. It is Southampton taxpayers, however, who have had to foot the bill. Although the £15m museum received a... Read more...
Yesterday our last 'Spending Plan Explained' post was published and with it is the end of this blog series. Thank you to all of you who commented, liked, retweeted and questioned our policies, even if you didn't agree with everything that was said it has been appreciated. To wrap up our campaign... Read more...
Here's a little happiness for your pre-Monday blues Read more...
If you missed the Queen's Speech today you can read the full text here. You can find our press release here. Broadly, we were happy with the speech. Our Chief Excutive Jonathan Isaby said: "The Conservatives were elected on a mandate of protecting taxpayers and reducing spending, and the Queen's Speech delivered... Read more...
The Welsh Assembly’s Remuneration Board has forced a 18.5% pay increase upon members of the devolved government taking the pay of a back bench Assembly Member (AM) from £54,000 to a staggering £64,000. The Welsh Assembly’s Remuneration Board is an independent body established in 2010 to ensure that AM’s have... Read more...