Yesterday, the National Audit Office (NAO) released a fiercely critical report on the levels of severance pay at the BBC. It found that the corporation had given licence fee payers poor value for money with the £25 million it dished out in payoffs to 150 senior members of staff. Read more...
Great discontent has been stirred up by Bath & North East Somerset Council’s (B&NES) recent hike in parking fees and extension of pay-and-display to include the whole of Royal Victoria Park. Read more...
Islington Council’s at it again—and with a spectacular finale to its bungled road width restriction scheme that I reported in my previous blog. It’s already caused several accidents and had to be demolished and redesigned at a total cost to local taxpayers of about £110,000. On top of that, the... Read more...
Responding to today's statement by George Osborne, Matthew Sinclair, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: Read more...
A senior executive at Arts Council England has continued to take a six figure salary while being on leave and will pocket a £100,000 redundancy package despite already having a new job since October. Read more...
Bath & North East Somerset (B&NES) council are coining it from local drivers and visitors to Bath—thanks to their Pulteney Bridge ‘bus gate’ junction in the middle of the city that fines drivers for passing through it between 10am and 6pm. Some 10,000 drivers have been caught by the CCTV camera... Read more...
I wrote for City AM on the need for pensions reform if we're going to tackle the deficit in the long term: Read more...
In a report last week, the National Audit Office (NAO) revealed the shocking number of payments made by the Treasury using compromise agreements. Over a thousand people received payments totalling £28.4 million. The NAO also condemned the lack of transparency and accountability and said their work was 'hampered by incomplete... Read more...
Earlier in the month, at an event organised by YouGov in association with the Free Word Centre, I debated the issue of taxpayer funding of the arts with Harriet Harman, Shadow Culture Secretary; Sir Peter Bazalgette, chairman of the Arts Council; and Jude Kelly, Director of the South Bank Centre.... Read more...
Cardiff International Airport was recently purchased by the Welsh Government at a cost of £52m to Welsh taxpayers, a figure which many advise is above its true value. The airport has also seen the number of passengers drop below one million and several major routes have been dropped in recent... Read more...
Refuse collectors and street cleaners are going back to work in the interim whilst they consider a new offer from the Brighton's Green Council. It is hoped the council has done what is necessary this time to avoid a potential second week of strike action, however during the recent strike... Read more...
The Government has recently set aside £500 million to build a rail link between Heathrow and The West and is likely to agree a similar figure for a line running south from Heathrow. But Windsor Link Railway, a private company, is competing to build the route and for a fraction of the... Read more...
Students at Warwick University are fed-up with a sky-high public sector pay increase—and they’re showing their anger by occupying their university’s council chamber. Struggling under the burden of student loans and fees, the last straw came when they heard that their vice-chancellor had been given a pay rise of £42,000—the... Read more...
Our new Bumper Book of Government Waste, released last week, showed some of the ways our politicians and officials waste some £120 billion taxpayers’ money a year. This equates to £4,500 for every household in the UK. Read more...
Commenting on the Lough Erne Declaration, Matthew Sinclair, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: Read more...
Writing for the Yorkshire Post, Rory Meakin argues that the fundamental cause of all our tax woes is that our tax code is too complicated. Read more...
Following on from a long line of poorly managed NHS IT contracts, most notably the “National Programme for IT” scrapped in 2011 after costing taxpayers upwards of £11.4 billion, it has emerged that the Royal Berkshire Foundation Trust has lost £18 million on its computer booking system. The trust announced on... Read more...
Writing for The Times (£), Matthew Sinclair argues that before politicians cut popular frontline services they must tackle the inefficiency of Britain’s bloated government. Read more...
A leading expert in the field of Business Rates has slammed the Coalition’s half-baked proposals for empty property rate relief. Jerry Schurder, partner at a leading chartered surveyors and former President of the Rating Surveyors’ Association said they were "a waste of time and deeply flawed." Read more...
Well it’s official, Councillor Jason Kitcat, the leader of Brighton & Hove Council, has failed to avoid a strike by GMB refuse collectors and street cleaners. For residents of Brighton & Hove it could be time to hold their noses during these hot summer days. Read more...
The temperature is rising in Bristol over the Mayor’s controversial plans to impose Residents’ Parking Zones (RPZ) across the city. Traders in Gloucester Road are banding together and threatening to withhold their Business Rates unless Mayor George Ferguson acts on their concerns. Read more...
Residents of Stoke Poges are up in arms about a proposal to move a faith school into their village—partly because it is an imposition on their community without their consent, but also because, so far, it’s a giant waste of taxpayers' money—they claim some £5.5million! Read more...
I have been very busy of late travelling the length and breadth of the country meeting TPA supporters. Read more...
Reacting to Ed Miliband's speech on welfare, Matthew Sinclair, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: Read more...