How much do 'Pilgrims' cost you?
Jane Pilgrim is a nurse, and is employed by the NHS, however she doesn't spend her day tending the sick. She spends her day working full-time for her union. Read more...
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Cardiff taxpayers forced to move home
Cardiff Council, the only council in Wales not subject to budgetary cuts, is failing to provide one of the most basic front-line services that taxpayers expect: refuse collection.In an article published by Wales Online on 7 June, it has been reported that families living in Cathays are now being forced to... Read more...
Non-job of the week
A different week, but the same old jobs being advertised at inflated salaries. Trafford Council is looking for a Programme Manager, on a 'senior manager pay grade.' The job advert states:Trafford Council is driving forward an exciting journey of Transformation to redesign services to become even more flexible, efficient and... Read more...
The Government must get out of the way to let entrepreneurship flourish
On Monday Duncan Bannatyne wrote about the life of a modern entrepreneur in the Financial Times. Among other things he discussed the overwhelming amounts of regulation and bureaucracy that blight today’s businesses, and the failure of banks to provide loans to those looking to start new firms. The myriad of... Read more...
Kent County Council publishes councillors' expenses and allowances
Kent County County Council regularly hits the headlines when we publish our annual Town Hall Rich List. The chief executive was paid a basic salary of £214,423 in 2009/10, and also received a bonus of £10,615. When you add contributions to his taxpayer funded pension scheme of £56,223, and expenses... Read more...
Keep cutting spending, says IMF. And cut taxes, too
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has backed the Government’s austerity programme and rejected calls for higher spending, borrowing and debt. It called the deficit reduction programme ‘essential’, praised the UK’s fiscal and monetary positions as ‘appropriate’ and recommended that any increase in the deficit in the event of deteriorating macroeconomic... Read more...
Southampton taxpayers being taken for a ride
On 6 June, headlines in Southampton read City Council billed for 80 taxis a day in mileage rate row. One round trip to Lee-on-Solent alone reportedly cost taxpayers £140. This has come about because Southampton City Council has reduced the mileage costs employees can claim from 54p per mile to the standard... Read more...
Taxpayers shouldn't be funding South Tyneside councillors to sue Twitter, and catch Mr Monkey
The Mr Monkey blog was a colourful account of local politics in South Tyneside. It is hard to say how much was accurate and how much was mudslinging, but it seriously upset the council. They initially banned access to the site from computers in their offices. When that simply drew... Read more...
Weekly bin collections may resume in North Lincolnshire
Some good news for residents in North Lincolnshire. It has been reported the council is considering resuming weekly bin collections which were changed to fortnightly collections in 2006. Rubbish collection is one of the essential front-line services we pay our council tax for. It is wrong for councils to force... Read more...
UK competitiveness weakened by rising tax burden
The Centre for Policy Studies have released a competitiveness briefing analysing the UK’s performance on three competitiveness indices since 1997. The CPS say:“over the past 14 years, our competitiveness has been undermined by excessive regulation, high taxes and mismanagement of government finances.”“In order to return the UK to its competitive... Read more...
Council clash of interests
Astonishingly, Bath & North East Somerset Council is, by far, the biggest landlord in the city of Bath, holding on to 1200 properties worth over half a billion pounds. Sometimes this can lead to a conflict of interests, as revealed by one local taxpayer. Our overpaid council executives repeatedly justify... Read more...
Whitehall's £25 million on taxpayer funded credit cards
The TaxPayers' Alliance reveals that spendaholic civil servants in Whitehall put a whopping £25 million on credit cards last year. Officials across 18 Government departments treated themselves to expensive meals and stayed in luxurious hotels at taxpayers' expense. The key findings in the research reported this morning in the Daily... Read more...
Merseyside councils working together to reduce costs
In February, the leader of Liverpool City Council, Cllr Joe Anderson, wrote to the prime minister withdrawing the city's involvement in the big society pilot scheme. He said it would not work as a result of spending cuts. I was therefore pleasantly surprised to read that the same council leader... Read more...
I'm alright, Jackie!
Prepare to enter (not for the first time, I hear you say) the bonkers world of public sector “business” models and remuneration policies. In 2010, the Chief Executive of Newcastle College Group, Jackie Fisher, received an eye-watering pay package of £293,764 at a time when the College knew it was... Read more...
Hull & East Riding round-up
On Tuesday, Liam Billington wrote about the taxpayer funding of unions in Tameside, Greater Manchester. In Hull, it is no different. You can see by looking at the photograph taken in Hull's Guildhall, that after the recent elections, UNISON feels it is in power, rather than the councillors elected by the... Read more...
TUC report on corporation tax
Having recently written a policy briefing on corporation tax for the 2020 Tax Commission I was interested to see a new study by Richard Murphy for the TUC. Here are some thoughts on what I've seen so far: • Murphy uses KPMG data to show that the UK rate of... Read more...
How many tickets to the Olympic Games are councils and Quangos snapping up?
This week, those who applied for tickets for next year’s Olympic Games in London, found out if their application was successful. Many people have spent hundreds of pounds to attend major events, but some councils have also been spending large sums to ensure they have tickets too. Read more...
Councils taking taxpayers for a ride with lavish credit card spending
This week The Daily Telegraph revealed that councils across the UK spent over £100million on taxpayer funded credit cards in the last three years. Government Procurement Cards (GPCs), as they are officially known, were intended to cut red tape and the costly bureaucracy involved in reimbursing employees for small expense... Read more...
Non-job of the week
On 19 January, my non-job of the week was a Performance Improvement Manager at Oxford City Council. It appears something has gone wrong, as the same job has been advertised again. You will see by clicking on the links, it is exactly the same job advert. In addition, the council is... Read more...
Union Funding at Tameside Council Rockets Up 48%
Last year, the TPA blew the whistle on how much councils were wasting on paying full time union staff. In 2009/2010 Tameside Council employed 8.4 full time equivalent union staff at a cost of £227,469. A year later the Daily Mail published an article which gave the figures for 2010/2011... Read more...
Bath traffic trap exposed
Bath and North-East Somerset Council may be forced to pay back thousands of pounds of parking fines raised by a notorious traffic trap in the centre of Bath—and the council’s new head of transport finally agrees there is something wrong with the system. For years, Bath taxpayers have been complaining... Read more...
Rising cost of council pensions eating up local government budgets
The Local Government Finance Statistics out today show the steady rise in the cost of employers' contributions to council pensions as a share of local government income. Those pensions consumed over 22 per cent of income from council tax in 2009-10, which shows the extent to which savings in this... Read more...
New Research: BBC and S4C spend millions on private healthcare
The TaxPayers' Alliance has uncovered that the BBC and S4C, the Welsh language channel, have spent more than £2.3 million on private health insurance for staff in the last three years. The figures were revealed through Freedom of Information requests to both organisations. S4C provide health insurance for the majority of... Read more...
Councils splash-out over £2 million on away days
A Sky News Waste Watch investigation has today revealed that councils spent more than £2 million on away days over the last two years. Laser tag, trips to the zoo, Centre Parcs and narrow boat outings are some out of office trips local authorities made when they should be eradicating... Read more...