Who reading this can say they’ve had a 34% pay increase this year, or could expect one next year?  If you’re the leader of Bournemouth Council, you can because you just voted for it.  The decision by Bournemouth Council’s cabinet to increase their pay takes the leader’s salary to £36,000 a year.  Cabinet members  will also see an increase of 32%.  In fact, Bournemouth councillors can hand themselves a staggering increase of 17%, all coming from recommendations put forward by the council’s ‘Independent’ Remuneration Panel to be voted on at next week’s council meeting.

But the fight isn’t over.  Bournemouth Council’s cabinet may have approved this, but the Council hasn’t voted on it yet.  There is still time to fight this outrageous pay increase.

This is where you come in as independent campaigning taxpayers.  You’re paying for these snouts in the trough scrambling to fill their pockets with your money.  It’s time for you to stand up and make your voice heard.

First, call your local radio station to ask them to run a story on this.  BBC Radio Solent covers Dorset, so call their news desk on 02380 631 311 or send an email to [email protected].

You can contact BBC Dorset on 01305 250992 or by email at [email protected] to get them to run a story on this on the BBC website.

Write to your local newspaper urging Bournemouth’s taxpayers to complain to their councillor.  Simply send an email to the Bournemouth Echo at [email protected]

Hold your councillor to account and ask them to vote against this increase next week.  You can find your councillor by clicking here.  Ask them why they increased council tax, why they increased their pay but also plead poverty in claiming Bournemouth is a ‘cash strapped’ council.  It might be worth sending an email to the leader of Bournemouth Council, Stephen Macloughlin, by sending him an email to [email protected] asking why he deserves an increase of 34%.  If you get a reply, let me know by forwarding it to [email protected].  It would be interesting to see how he defends himself to such scrutiny.

Finally, recruit to the TaxPayers’ Alliance.  If Bournemouth sees a massive rise in TPA membership as a result of this, the politicians will know the people are fed up of their Gravy Train politics and want a fairer deal.  By joining the TPA you’ll tell the politicians you want lower taxes, you want transparent and accountable government and that you’re not going to sit by as professional politicians bleed scarce resources from frontline services.

You may recall that back in December we singled out publicity budgets as one area of council spending packed with savings just waiting to be made. The average council spends almost £1 million on publicity, with huge amounts going on local newspaper adverts and those glossy propaganda newsletters that everyone throws away as soon as they come through your letter box.

Hammersmith and Fulham, who have recently announced yet another 3% cut in council tax, much to the relief of hard-pressed taxpayers, are leading the way on making savings on publicity. In just one year they achieved savings of 35%, an example which other councils would do well to follow.

Their latest idea is using YouTube to publicise their activities – producing this video:

Now whether you’re a Status Quo fan or not, this is a great move – let’s look at the figures.

• The video cost £500 to make, and is hosted for free on YouTube. That is only half the price of a quarter page advert in their local newspaper (which has a circulation of only a few thousand).
• It’s been viewed online by 4,600 people already, and it was reported in a half-page article in the Evening Standard (circulation 300,000).

It is exactly this kind of original, innovative thinking that allows Hammersmith and Fulham to make massive savings from unnecessary expenditure. They are relieving the burden of council tax on local residents and achieving 4-Star status from the Audit Commission at the same time.

We should all be urging our councils to follow H&F’s example – they prove that it can be done, irrespective of the settlement provided by central government, and that there is hope for local government.

Councils have to realise that simply blaming Westminster for all their ills (and Westminster has indeed managed things badly) is no solution. If the Government won’t help, it is down to councils to knock themselves into shape. Don’t get mad, get even.

Over the past two weeks, you know how you can easily contribute to the TPA campaign from your home.  You can research into news stories to find anything for us to campaign on relevant to our crusade for lower taxes and better government.  You can follow this up with letters to your local paper, to kick start debates and turn your local community into a TPA supporter-base.

Now what if you want to do more…how can you actively recruit members to the TPA?

The first step, possibly the easiest, is to recruit your friends and family just by recommending us to them, inviting them to have a look at the TPA website where they can find taxpayers just like you campaigning for lower taxes.  Even if this comes up in casual conversation, whether talking about the price of petrol or the rubbish not being collected, plug the TPA because our message of lower taxes and smaller, better government is relevant because your money is being wasted! 

Furthermore, if people are complaining about taxes and the government, challenge them to do something about it.  Complaining won’t change anything, but recruiting, persuading and holding government to account will!

The next step is to get out there leafleting.  You can get TPA leaflets sent to you by emailing me at [email protected] and telling me how many you want to hand out so I can post them to you that day.  Our leaflets have the bonus of being freepost, giving you a greater return on your time volunteering for the TPA.  Simply leafleting your street, block of flats or leaving a pile (with permission, of course) at your local post office counter can make all the difference to our continuous recruitment strategy.

From then on in, if we have enough members to build a branch in your area, you can look to cover your ward or borough with TPA leaflets.  If you’re doing this, ask your council for a map of your council ward (it is your money after all, so may as well make some use of it) so you can mark off the areas already leafleted.  Furthermore, it’ll help us note which areas are good for us depending on leaflet returns.

In taking that valuable time out of your day to leaflet for the TPA, you could even recruit more activists willing to share the load and leaflet more often.  This is vital to our expansion as a mass movement the political class has to listen to.  We’ve been lectured for years on the need for taxes to go up to pay for better ‘services’.  What returns have we seen?  You need only look at hospital infection rates, falling standards in education and an inflated government bureaucracy to know where your money is being misspent.  The people are out there and becoming more receptive to our positive message, it’s up to you to help us pass on that message, to engage with the public and force the politicians to lower our taxes and cut wasteful spending.  Every bit you do really helps the cause.

…just not in English

The above was found on the Freedom of Information page at North Lincolnshire Council’s website.  From their census in 2001, 2.5% of residents were from an ethnic minority, who this service is aimed at.  Needless to say the Freedom of Information request is in the post to see how much is spent on this service for what is barely 3,000 people.

The Audit Commission today released its performance evaluation of councils in the UK.  They report that 83% of councils received a 3 or 4 (maximum) star status, a 3% increase from 2006.  Surprisingly, no councils were in the lowest ranked category with 13 Councils achieving the 4 stars and ‘improving strongly’ grade from the Commission.

Is this accurate?  Is this how you feel about your council?

Ten years of council tax rises leading to well over 100% increases in council tax.  The average Council spends a million pounds on their own self-promotion and councils have seen an explosion in middle managers earning over £50,000. 

Looking deeper in the statistics, let’s see how some of these ’4 star’ councils compare to the research we’ve produced:

Kent County Council, ranked 4 star and ‘strongly improving’ by the Audit Commission spent £6.5million on its own publicity (a 357% increase in ten years) and employ 713 bureaucrats earning over £50,000 a year (that’s up from only 37 in 1997).

Tameside Council, 4 stars, employed only 10 middle managers earning over £50,000 in 1997.  Now they employ 147.

Camden, another 4 star council, spends £3.5million on its publicity and employs 191 middle managers on over £50,000, costing Camden’s taxpayers £12.3million a year.

Value for money?  Worth four stars?  Of course not!  One council, Hammersmith and Fulham, deserves 4 starts because it’s cutting council tax; it’s cutting their self promotion budget.  It’s delivering frontline services, like 24-hour policing.  That is worth four stars because it’s got the basics right, it’s giving people the services they expect. 

The others, week on week, advertise for middle management, filling their council offices with more and more drains on public finances.  Government is growing, taking more of our money in tax to create more excuses for its own existence.  Our services are declining because the politicians and bureaucrats cannot manage the provision of services from a monolithic, top-down superstructure.  We don’t need a report to be told what our councils are like.  On the streets people know what their councils are up to; the people are over-taxed, see their bins collected less and less and yet find councils continuously advertising for middle management.  And no amount of propaganda from councils or commissions is going to convince us otherwise!

Here is something for our Kent supporters from Dr. Sean Gabb who has passed on this interesting opportunity from Kent.

The "Kent on Sunday" newspaper has arranged a question and answer session with Gordon Brown. Apparently, Mr Brown has promised to answer any questions the people of Kent may feel inclined to ask by sending e-mails to [email protected].

If you want to ask a question, you need to live in Kent, and you need to prove this by giving your address. You also need, for some reason, to give your age.

This is a good chance to put Gordon Brown on the spot over tax. 

Ask him why he has put up stealth taxes yet hospital infections are at record levels.

Ask him why Council Tax has doubled since 1997 yet councils still charge for rubbish and bin collections.

Ask him how he can spend so much inflating the public sector whilst pensioners struggle to pay such high council tax bills.

Do let us know how you get on and if Gordon answers you!

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TPA Activist in Norfolk Tony Flynn, pictured, delivered over 150 leaflets in Harleston, over the weekend.  We’ll keep you updated with how many leaflets we see returned from Harleston.  As it stands our Norfolk branch has well over 80 members and is becoming a very, very strong campaigning unit for the TPA.  We’ll see over the year whether they get much competition or run away with it.  If you would like some TPA leaflets to hand out, please email me at [email protected] and I can put them in the post to you.

You can never write enough letters as a TPA activist.  Our goal is to make a majority of taxpayers in this country support lower taxes, so it’s up to you to help us focus local and national political debates on our issues.  Letters to newspapers, be they on local or national issues, do just that.  Never underestimate their importance.  Letters represent the views of ordinary taxpayers; they give you a forum to express your views.  As a community forum, sometimes you see debates emerging and issues rising in their importance because on local ratepayer highlighted an issue on everyone’s mind.

As you can no doubt see from the majority of our current crop of politicians, politicians shouldn’t be left alone to do the politics.  We have to have our say and this is where you come in.

So this week, our activist guide will first of all urge you to write that letter that can trigger a local debate.  But we’re also here to offer you titbits and hints to write letters that hit the mark, what letter editors look for and how we can increase the profile of the TaxPayers’ Alliance in these debates.  Here are our tips this week:

1. First and foremost, keep it brief.  Making a point in less than 300 words has a better chance of getting printed, read and understood.  Look at your local letters page and see the size of the average letter.  Editors try to fit in as many letters as possible, so have a look at how much is being written before handing in an essay to the editor.
2. Send two letters, one on a national tax issue, and perhaps one on a local issue to add variety to the coverage we get.  If you don’t have the time to write two letters, then just send one.  The important thing is to get the issues out there and to show how active our campaign is.
3. Always sign off as a TaxPayers Alliance supporter.  This is your campaign to see you keep more of your money, be proud of it and make people aware of the campaign for lower taxes.

In all those hints should give you some idea of the ideal campaign letter.  Short, concise and always mentioning the TPA.  Name recognition brings issue saliency.  The more people know about us, the more they’ll know what we stand for and, potentially, join us and continuing the cycle.  But the content, naturally, matters too.  Try and get in two to three killer facts, facts that stand out.  TPA Activist Brian Sturman is very adept at getting in facts that make the statement for him.  See below for an example:

Sir,
Many pensioners will be unhappy to lose a third of their basic pension paying council tax, under duress and sacrifice to their lowered standard of living, knowing it is all to be squandered on the disgraceful pay levels for county council senior bureaucrats?   For example, the Chief Executive (Report, 3 Feb), receives every month about £17,000, (equal to over three times annual basic pension!).

Yours sincerely,   Brian Sturman.  (Taxpayers Alliance supporter)

That is the ideal TPA letter.  It makes a statement, provides examples to reinforce the argument and can be read within a minute.  Above all, it can get people’s attention and spur them into joining the campaign, writing more letters and getting more people involved.

So, in sum, keep those letters straight and to the point.  More importantly, keep ‘em coming.  Bit by bit we’re getting our message out and showing that even by giving us 10 minutes of your time a week, you can have a great impact in the campaign as a TPA activist.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance today welcomed the decision by South Norfolk District Council to freeze its Council Tax for the coming year.  This should hopefully set a precedent for future councils in Norfolk to follow South Norfolk’s lead and work to trim budgets, make efficiency savings and cut taxes. 

As we have shown, and will continue to do so, non-essential spending is running out of control.  The average council in Britain spends a million pounds on its own self-congratulatory publicity.  One hundred pounds out of the average Band D Council Tax bill goes to inflating council middle management on over £50,000 a year.  Although South Norfolk have done well in announcing a freeze in Council Tax, Hammersmith and Fulham have gone further in cutting Council Tax by 3% for the second successive year.  As the saying goes, “there’s still work to be done”.

Congratulations should also go to TPA Campaigners in Norfolk who have tirelessly campaigned against high Council Tax for so long, including our allies from Folk Against Council Tax.  Any councillors and council officials reading this, however, should know they’re not being let off lightly.  We want tax cuts, and we’ll continue to hold councils to account to see that we get the essential services at minimal cost to the taxpayer.

This is exactly the tide in opinion we are looking to secure – the majority for lower taxes, a majority who will not vote for any party whatsoever that increases taxes.  We’re out to change the political culture and, bit by bit, we are.

If you would like to join our Norfolk branch of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, do contact me on 0203 051 8144 or by emailing [email protected] and I can put you in touch with our hardworking activists in Norfolk.