This morning there is an article by Matthew Sinclair in City A.M. about Let them eat carbon. He discusses who will really be paying for investment in the energy sector to make it greener and concludes that it will be already heavily burdened households.He also highlights that:Benefits for poor and... Read more...
At the end of July, I commented that Oxford City Council was advertising for a Business Improvement Manager. I also commented that the council had previously advertised twice for a Performance Improvement Manager, and a Business Improvement Partner. This was on top of all the other jobs with similar titles. Once again,... Read more...
Yesterday the Manchester Evening News reported that binmen are to be given iPads by Bury Council. The council claim that the iPads will "help improve collection rates, customer service and boost recycling." It will achieve that objective by allowing binmen to do things like keep tabs on who is recycling... Read more...
This Saturday 3 September, members of the TPA team will be joining Liam BIllington, our coordinator in Tameside, Greater Manchester, for an action day. We will be meeting in the Market Place, Ashton-under-Lyne, at noon for a couple of hours of campaigning. We will be handing out TPA recruitment cards, and... Read more...
The Essex Chronicle reports that Essex County Council has released figures showing the Internet sites its staff have visited most over the past year. You can download the numbers here. Providing its internet history since last August, the figures are broken down in terms of the number of hits and... Read more...
Fairness is a concept most people rely on when thinking about how to set tax rates and who should pay what. Unfortunately, the quality of information about tax facts in the media is so poor that public understanding is frequently skewed and, as a result, people often argue for changes... Read more...
Today the TPA has published a new report looking at the costs of compensation claims for slips and trips in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. All the data comes from councils via Freedom of Information requests, and we focused on unitary authorities and county councils, as they have responsibility for maintaining highways... Read more...
The Sun has revealed that former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith used the services of two day release prisoners - detained at our expense - to decorate her £450,000 home in Redditch when they were supposed to be working to benefit the local community. You may recall that the former Labour... Read more...
Efforts to make Somerset County Council (SCC) more efficient and save taxpayers’ money backfired when it was revealed by the BBC that their automated computer programme had sent out duplicate payments totalling £4.6 million. IT firm Southwest One was supposed to improve payments made to council suppliers, but when the software... Read more...
The Department for Transport (DfT) has published online data for accidents, casualties and speeding at fixed camera sites. Statistics for the 75 local authorities who have so far provided their information shows that speed cameras have done very little, if anything, to improve safety for motorists and other road users.... Read more...
This morning the Daily Express has printed a comment article I've written based on the book. It looks at how green taxes ranging from Fuel Duty to the regulations driving up electricity bills are a burden families just can't afford with so many other pressures on their finances right now.Here... Read more...
It may be the silly season, but this hasn't stopped councils advertising more non-jobs, and this week is an 'Oxford City Council Free-Zone.' Our starter for ten is a Change Manager at Surrey County Council, paying £36,615 per annum. The council is looking 'for a well-organised, motivated and adaptable individual... Read more...
Here is an interesting video of Jeffrey Miron, Director of Undergraduate Studies at the Harvard university Economics Department, talking about capitalism. He answers three questions: Is being pro-business and pro-capitalism the same? Does capitalism generate an unfair distribution of income? Was capitalism responsible for the most recent financial crisis? We... Read more...
The Association of Police Authorities (APA) is not a well known organisation, although it does swallow-up over £1.5 million of our money from subscriptions from police authorities around the country, and an additional £282K in Home Office grants. In total over £1.8 million. It has a council which consists of... Read more...
Last week Warren Buffet, the phenomenally successful American investor, called on the US government to stop ‘coddling’ the mega-rich and to raise taxes on those earning more than $1,000,000 a year. In an article for the New York Times, the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc told us that his personal... Read more...
Last Friday the Wall Street Journal Europe ran an article I wrote about Let them eat carbon. It looks at the pressure climate policy is putting on families and how it makes it harder for our industry to compete. With so many pressures on European economies they can't afford to... Read more...
Another shocking story of public sector staff working for unions at the taxpayers’ expense has emerged today. Dominic Raab MP has found out that £7 million of our cash has been wasted on 1,200 Home Office employees, police officers and border guards to work for trade unions and Police Federations.... Read more...
Hopefully at some point environmentalist website Carbon Brief will continue the debate over excessive green taxes. You can see my response to their attack on those figures in the book here. Today they have attacked another set of figures, which address the cost of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme... Read more...
There is much talk of PFI in this morning’s news; the Treasury Select Committee has warned that many Private Finance Initiative (PFI) deals are poor value for taxpayers and the cost of those that have been badly negotiated has shot up. Read more...
The Government’s recently launched e-petition website is a small but welcome step towards giving people more say over the country’s affairs: the TPA believes that an online petition gaining sufficient support should be able to trigger a referendum, although for the time being we have to be content with it... Read more...
John Swinney, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth in the Scottish Government, has made a large profit on his taxpayer-funded apartment. The two-storey terraced property was recently sold for £430,000, after being bought for £355,000 in December 2003, while he was Leader of the Scottish National Party.... Read more...
The Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) have published a factsheet today on how much tax you really pay on your income. Ryan Bourne smashes the myth that tax rates in Britain are just 20, 40 and 50 per cent by combining the various taxes on income into a single “marginal... Read more...
I've written two new articles based on the book for the websites ConservativeHome and Public Service Europe looking at the politics of climate change and the effectiveness of a key regulation, the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme. In the article for ConservativeHome, I look at the political price that the... Read more...
A major national IT project in Wales has resulted in serious and costly failings. The Welsh Government’s Merlin Programme has come under heavy fire in a report released yesterday by the Welsh Audit Office. Of course, this is not the first example of serious maladministration and waste in national IT... Read more...