Last week the TaxPayers’ Alliance submitted its response to the latest consultation on MPs’ Expenses and Costs undertaken by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. You can read the TPA submission below: Read more...
Wiltshire residents and TPA supporters Jenny and Tim Stevenson are furious at the loss of their weekly rubbish collections. ‘I don’t know how Wiltshire Council has the nerve to change to fortnightly bin collections in order to save money,’ says Jenny, ‘especially in view of the salary being paid to... Read more...
Today we have released a report on council pension contributions, you can read it in full here. We found that council employer pension contributions were equivalent to £1 in every £5 of council tax receipts in 2010-11. UNISON issued a lazy response to this earlier, strewn with factual errors. They... Read more...
Yesterday evening I took part in a debate on Radio 4's PM programme, with the IPPR think tanks's Nick Pearce, about high marginal taxes rates, particularly on income and capital gains. You can listen to it here: [soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/34403379" params="auto_play=false&show_artwork=false&color=669933" width="100%" height="166" iframe="true" /] Last year Nick wrote that, the... Read more...
The TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) reveals that the equivalent of £1 in every £5 of Council Tax raised in the UK is spent on council pensions. A new TPA report also details the explosion in the number of councillors claiming council pensions. Despite supposedly being volunteers, there are now 4,548 councillors... Read more...
Last year TaxPayers' Alliance research revealed that 2,840 full time equivalent public sector staff were working for the unions, instead of front line services. Today the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has released a new study looking at facility time, arguing that it provides benefits in excess of the costs to... Read more...
Today the TaxPayers' Alliance gives its backing to Ben Gummer MP in his attempt to introduce a small change to the law which would massively increase public awareness of how much we pay in tax - and how it is then spent. Ipswich MP Mr Gummer will tomorrow (Wednesday 25th... Read more...
A great success this week for Tim Newark and his team in Bath and the South West. They have been campaigning for a reduction in salary for the new Chief Executive of Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES) Council. They held a campaign day, got signatures on their petition, and... Read more...
Response from the TaxPayers’ Alliance to the IPSA Consultation of November 2011 into its Annual Review of the MPs’ Scheme of Expenses and Costs Read more...
The University of Salford has just spent more than £130,000 of taxpayers’ money on a new logo. This comes shortly after the university had announced 200 job cuts as part of measures to save money. Presumably the new logo came in at this spectacular figure partly because the design agency’s... Read more...
Social care is a valuable and difficult service dealing with some of the most vulnerable people in our society. It includes child protection, adoption and fostering. As part of this service, children or their parents have sometimes be transported around the country. This all sounds very reasonable and what taxpayers’... Read more...
All the way back in February 2010, I submitted a Freedom of Information request to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) about the cost of climate policies. The Government had backed the European Union's plan to increase its target to cut emissions from 20 to 30 per cent,... Read more...
Our starter for ten today is not a non-job as such, but another example of why so many government projects go wrong. The Department of Health is looking to recruit a Chief Executive for Public Health England. The salary is circa £180K. Nowhere in the job description does it cite... Read more...
Our latest research reveals that the number of middle managers at Midlands councils (defined as those receiving £50,000 a year or more excluding pension contributions) has gone up - despite a public sector pay freeze and widespread redundancies amongst lower-paid staff. Click here to read the report, including a full breakdown by... Read more...
Two years ago, I commented on East Riding of Yorkshire Council's car parking review panel. After many meetings, including a roadshow to gauge residents' opinions, councillors decided to postpone making a decision until there were two consecutive quarters of economic growth. It was reported last week that the council is... Read more...
Last week the BBC Daily Politics ran an interesting discussion of crony capitalism between presenter Giles Dilnot and Jesse Norman MP, who has written a concise paper about the subject for the Free Enterprise Group in the Conservative Party. Unfortunately the discussion is much too narrowly focused on the extent... Read more...
The Prime Minister recently said that the British film industry should support "commercially successful pictures". The statement has obvious important implications for the British Film Institute, which takes taxpayers' money and subsidises film-making in Britain. Mr Cameron's assertion makes sense, but many have pointed out the difficulty in selecting successful... Read more...
As part of a campaign for more transparency and accountability in Britain's quangos, the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) has used Freedom of Information requests (FOI) to uncover the the millions that Scottish Enterprise has spent on credit cards over the last two years, including luxury hotels and restaurants.Click here to see... Read more...
Yesterday the Independent reported that RBS and Lloyds are retaining the services of a number of high priced lobbying firms. Given that they are largely owned by the taxpayer, this is our money and spending it on lobbyists is a ridiculous waste. How is it in our interests to fund... Read more...
Back in 2008 when the MPs' expenses scandal was unravelling, we discovered that many MPs regarded their expenses as an additional source of income. They felt they were underpaid and, as a result, abused the lax regime in charge of administering their expenses to rake in extra cash. This was... Read more...
Last year's Census was estimated to have cost around £500 million. The costs are still mounting up though. Advertising in the Guardian, a government agency is looking for a PR manager on a temporary three month contract. The pay is £180-£220 per day, and the job is 'developing and implementing... Read more...
There is no respite from waste for the residents of Stoke-on-Trent. Not content with spending £330,000 firing and re-hiring the same workers, nor satisfied with paying over half a million pounds to employees suspended from work, the City Council now plans to hire an assistant Chief Executive on a salary of £132,000 and a new assistant... Read more...
The campaign to end taxpayer funding of trade unions, building on pioneering TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) research, is gathering momentum as it is again raised in a major House of Commons debate. After PMQs today Jesse Norman MP (Hereford and South Herefordshire) is bringing a motion for a Bill to end... Read more...
Torbay TPA supporter Dave Grylls draws my attention to his council’s inadequate provision of parking in and around Torbay Hospital in Devon, which they have made worse by introducing controlled parking zones (CPZs) in nearby streets. ‘As there are limited spaces in the Hospital itself,’ says Dave, ‘this greatly affects... Read more...