Recently, the TaxPayers' Alliance released a report Council Spending Uncovered II: Middle Management Pay. In this report, we showed that local government had increased the number of jobs paying £50,000-plus per year by 22 per cent, increasing the public bill by more than 20 per cent. Take that in stride... Read more...
If you think the furore going on up in Lincolnshire is bad, just look at this story sent into us by a supporter this cold Monday morning: “ALMOST £40,000 of taxpayers’ money is being spent on rented accommodation for surf reef workers from New Zealand – even though they are... Read more...
The Times and Computer Weekly bring us an update on the government's ongoing IT fiascos. BOM readers will be familiar with all of them, but to see them added together still brings on a scream: Over-runs on the 8 largest projects now total £18.6bn - about £750 for every single British... Read more...
Our Surrey TPA branch met with County Council leaders recently to discuss the budget. Here is a report of the meeting by our organiser Peter Webb: A Surrey TaxPayers Alliance delegation led by Peter Webb met County Councillors and Officials at County Hall on 28th January, alongside Business and Voluntary... Read more...
New TPA report shows how BERR is now little more than a £1 billion a year political platform The UK is now less business-friendly it was a year ago Only 4% of small businesses used one of BERR's 3,000 business support programmes in 2006 If RDAs were scrapped too, taxpayers... Read more...
Many people, including me, are getting heartily sick of the Government's health nannying. Don't do this, don't do that, binge on as many Goji berries as possible etc etc ad nauseam. The underlying fallacy of their patronising approach seems to be an utterly flawed assumption that it is possible to... Read more...
The TPA and Global Vision have just held a great protest to publicise the findings of our new report on the disaster that has been the EU's Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). Under the slogan "For cod's sake, stop the EU fish disaster!" TPA supporters joined with famous botanist and environmental... Read more...
This week’s non-job handed into us by a supporter comes from Sandwell Council: “Director of Strategy & Community Engagement£66,765 You will provide strategic and creative leadership on business planning, policy development and research and lead on a range of areas critical to the delivery of a holistic regeneration... Read more...
The European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) has been a complete mess (Open Europe, PDF) since it was created in 2005. While it has cost NHS hospitals a fortune oil companies have made profits out of the scheme. Countries were allowed to set their own limits and then sell any spare credits, most... Read more...
During Terry Leahy's time at Tesco, it has done extraordinarily well. Yesterday, in the Telegraph, he wrote a powerful case for the market and competition: "Competition has, as Adam Smith observed, converted "the private interests of and passions of men" into consequences "most agreeable to the interests of the... Read more...
The Government have announced plans to assist the British car industry, the Times reports that car chiefs say they need more. Unfortunately, not so long ago they were announcing plans to put in place crippling new taxes on already overtaxed motorists, particularly on the owners of larger cars. Those larger cars are... Read more...
This news, reported in the Times, is a complete indictment of the Keynesian stimulus Alistair Darling unveiled at the Pre-Budget Report. It also highlights the huge costs of ruinous policy choices in the last decade - from high corporate taxes to regulations that make energy more expensive - that have hurt other industries and left Britain overly reliant on... Read more...
Here's the Arts Council statement, courtesy of The Stirrer website: The National Council of Arts Council England met yesterday (27 January 2009) to consider a request for additional funding for the Public Gallery Ltd and The Public building. After lengthy consideration of a business plan and independent assessments of... Read more...
The Express & Star website is already reporting today that The Public arts centre in West Bromwich could be fed up to another £3million, despite the fact we have no confirmation as to when (and if!) the main gallery will open. The national Arts Council met yesterday to decide... Read more...
I returned home to Wales yesterday, to give evidence to the Independent Panel Review on AMs' pay and expenses. Some of you may remember that I gave evidence at the first public meeting in Llandudno, back in December. The panel, headed up by Sir Roger Jones, after taking on board our... Read more...
A truly disgraceful story from the Express today (not online, page 22 for reference) perfectly describes the inhumane, bureaucratic nature of local government at its worst. Wealden council have rejected a planning bid for a grandfather to build a specially designed bungalow for his grandson on his own property. Why... Read more...
Just because Brighton and Hove Council acts as if there isn’t a recession doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. The economy’s down the pan and what do the numpties running the council do – they shell out half a million of your hard-earned pounds to the chief executive so he can... Read more...
Stoke-on-Trent City Council have once again demonstrated just how skewed their priorities can be by announcing that they will be axing a “lifeline” support service to disabled children and their families the same week as they establish two ‘inquiry panels’ to look at modifying residents attitudes to junk food and... Read more...
There are bad ideas and then there are utterly disgraceful ideas. This weekend it was reported that the Government's advisory group on the legacy of the Troubles in Northern Ireland has come up with one of the latter. The families of victims killed in the Troubles, they said, should be... Read more...
It is reported in the Telegraph today that the Tories are going to make civil servants accountable for wasting taxpayers money. In a speech today, George Osborne will set out plans to punish or sack government employees who knowingly waste public money. Well done, George! As we have argued for years... Read more...
On Wednesday the WMTPA took to the streets of Birmingham to petition for a cut in local council tax. The sun may well have been shining but our determined TPA activists braved severe cold to collect signatures from passers-by down next the indoor and outdoor markets by the Bullring... Read more...
Yesterday in a speech to Demos, David Cameron said that the recession has “hammered the final nail in the coffin” of big government. He went on to claim that Gordon Brown had allowed the financial crisis to develop by accumulating exorbitant amounts of public debt. He called for more restraint... Read more...
In response to today's TaxPayers' Alliance report on the rocketing numbers of council staff earning more than £50,000 a year, London Councils - an apparently taxpayer funded PR group for London's councils - has attacked our numbers: "This is a surprising move from the Taxpayers' Alliance at a time when... Read more...
The average local authority employed almost 22 per cent more middle managers in 2007-08 than 2006-07. The number of staff on £50,000-plus remuneration packages has risen from 31,000 to almost 37,000 in one year. The total bill for those council staff on £50,000-plus was nearly £2.4 billion last year –... Read more...