Somerset County Council (SCC) continues to be in thrall to expensive consultants. This time it is being accused of wasting money on making council officers redundant and then employing consultants—at a £1000 a day—to carry out their work of streamlining the authority! ‘Seeking voluntary redundancies before shaping the organisation was... Read more...
We know through our research, when it comes to matters of equality and diversity councils respond in different ways. The Equality Act 2010 imposed heavy burdens on employers, however we also know hiring specific staff is not necessary. For example, Birmingham City Council employs 28 Equality and Diversity Officers at... Read more...
Executives at the taxpayer-funded and guaranteed Network Rail are set to receive bonuses worth up to £650,000 each in a newly proposed £2.6 million pay scheme. This comes only five months after senior executives in the firm rejected their bonuses after a public outcry and intense political pressure. But five... Read more...
The full extent of taxpayer-funded trade union activity in the public sector continues to unravel following the release of damning new findings by the Cabinet Office. The investigation into the actual time spent by civil servants on trade union duties revealed that 248 employees spend all of their time solely... Read more...
Last Friday we named Cllr David Parsons, the Conservative leader of Leicestershire County Council, as May's Pinhead of the Month. He had been censured for keeping hold of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money paid to him for trips to Europe which should have been reimbursed to the council, and... Read more...
A Scottish NHS quango has spent more than £1 million on a fleet of luxury cars for its employees. National Procurement spent £971,000 on leased executive cars for staff deemed “regular users” since October 2008. Read more...
Four weeks ago, we launched our StopFundingArgentina.org campaign, urging the Government to follow the lead of President Obama’s administration in the US and to oppose any further World Bank loans to Argentina (which are, of course, partly underwritten by the British taxpayer). Over 8,500 of you have already signed our... Read more...
There are massive differences in the basic allowances paid to councillors in local authorities across the UK. To find out how much your local politicians receive, simply enter your postcode below. For full details, you can download the complete dataset here. Read more...
Earlier today I spoke to Al Jazeera about the scandal being exposed in the banking sector and, while trying to stop the earpiece falling out of my ear, told them that the critical thing was to establish how it might have affected the scale of the taxpayer bailout. Was more... Read more...
Speaking to the TaxPayers’ Alliance at the St. Stephen’s Club, Westminster, on 2nd July 2012, Rt Hon Dr Liam Fox MP said: British Conservatives are often caricatured both at home and abroad for having a political obsession with the European Union. Yet, anyone who watched the recent G 20 Summit... Read more...
We have today joined Andrea Leadsom MP in demanding an investigation into the effects of the Libor rate-fixing scandal on the cost of the bank bailout to taxpayers. Our Director Matthew Sinclair will write to the Comptroller and Auditor General, arguing that the National Audit Office should look into whether "law abiding families are on the... Read more...
Taxpayers in Peterborough have been handed a £4,300 bill to feed their councillors at nine council meetings. The Peterborough Telegraph discovered that over a 17 month period, from January 2011 to May 2012, the total bill for buffets at seven full council meetings and two annual meetings cost £4,303.25. Light... Read more...
Senior Liberal Democrat MP David Laws praised for his call to reduce tax rates for all and cut state spending to 35% of GDP Conservative leader of Leicestershire County Council David Parsons under fire for breaking code of conduct and using taxpayer-funded chauffeur for hundreds of trips to London Today... Read more...
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) has wasted billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money storing old equipment and holding onto unneeded stock. The National Audit Office examined the MOD’s inventory which consists of a massive 710 million items broken down into 900,000 different types of equipment. The NAO calculated that between March... Read more...
When North Lincolnshire Council implemented two hours free parking in its car parks in Brigg, it was an immediate success. The increased footfall gave a boost to businesses struggling during these dire economic times. In 2010, I commented on Sheffield City Council's decision to offer 15 minutes free parking in... Read more...
It has been some time since I last wrote about Oxford City Council, but once again they have come on to my radar. The council is looking to recruit a Workplace Travel Coordinator. Here's part of the advertisement:Main Duties & Responsibilities • To be responsible for the development, promotion and... Read more...
Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Matthew Sinclair looks at the latest Happy Planet Index. According to the New Economics Foundation, Iraq's small ecological footprint makes it happier than Britain.In what league does Iraq beat Britain, Haiti beat the United States and Afghanistan beat Denmark? Political corruption? Violent crime? Temperature? No, welcome... Read more...
Yesterday, the Local Government Association (LGA) published a report which modelled the funding outlook for councils until 2019-20. It is, in a word, grim. Councils’ income is projected to gently slide from around £50 billion last year to around £40 billion in 2019-20. Meanwhile, net expenditure is projected to rise... Read more...
At a recent Bristol City Council (BCC) cabinet meeting it was identified that the council needs to reduce spending by £70m by 2014/15 — and so hopes to achieve this by spending £70m on revamping its offices…It may seem crazy, but the headlining aims of this plan seem to point... Read more...
We welcome today's move by the Chancellor to freeze Fuel Duty until the end of the year. We strongly opposed the planned 3p rise this August but believe that simply deferring the increase until January next year is not good enough. Last year we produced research, showing how excessive motoring... Read more...
In an article for Taxation, the UK’s most prestigious journal for tax professionals, I’ve explained how the structure of the 2020 Tax Commission’s Single Income Tax means that all sorts of decisions would no longer have tax implications. It proposes to abolish transaction taxes and National Insurance, both employer’s and... Read more...
The imperatives that drove countries to join the EU, in many cases, no longer stand despite federalist forces pushing for more integration - argues Dr Lee RotherhamOf all the friends and allies of European integration, the greatest has been time. The founding fathers counted on it, when they set up... Read more...
The Government should cut spending and tax further than current plans, David Laws has said in a chapter for a new Institute for Economic Affairs book on the Liberal Democrats’ approach to public spending and economics. Echoing the conclusions of the 2020 Tax Commission’s Single Income Tax, the Yeovil MP... Read more...
Many column inches have been taken up in the papers today considering David Cameron's speech on the welfare system, in which he proposes further ways to reduce the burgeoning benefits bill. Today’s Independent (not a fan of the proposals, by the way) summarises them thus: Removing or restricting some benefits... Read more...