Many would consider an iPad a luxury, non-essential item but this week it was revealed that all 650 MPs could soon be getting one, paid for by taxpayers. This was the recommendation of the Commons Administration Committee chaired by John Bercow, the Commons Speaker who called for the “rapid roll-out of suitable mobile tablet hardware”. Continue Reading

I was talking to a supporter on the phone this morning and during the conversation he mentioned that the one thing the government will never admit to is that they spend £x billion on bureaucracy. And there lies the problem. We see questionable jobs advertised every day, yet finding out exactly how many there are is a nigh-on impossible task.

Both of the examples today have been sent in by supporters. The first is on the NHS jobs website – the NHS in the South of England requires a part-time Leadership Consultant. Here’s part of the job description:

The role supports individuals and organisations to create an environment that enables employees to understand, engage with, develop and deliver organisational objectives, often in tandem with managing organisational change.

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Lucrative pay-outs followed by new contracts of employment are not uncommon in the public sector. However at a time when essential savings must be found, it is even more important that the so-called public sector merry-go-round grinds to a halt.

Only last week we exposed the record number of council employees receiving pay and perks packages worth more than £100,000. Staffordshire county council had 25 people receiving over £100,000 and of these at least 8 received loss of office payments. In order to find savings of £120 million over the next four years redundancies will be inevitable, on top of the £3.1 million in redundancy payments already paid out over the last three years. Continue Reading

It is six months since the Welsh Assembly introduced a 5p tax on each plastic bag given to customers in shops—and not everyone is happy with it. Plus, there are plans afoot to expand it to the whole of the UK. The TPA is organising a protest petition against the bag tax in central Cardiff on Saturday May 19^th at 11.30am. Please let us know if you can come along and support us.

In the face of concerns from the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) and other retail business groups, the Welsh Assembly had to backtrack on part of its implementation, saying that shops with less than 10 members of staff would not have to keep records of the plastic bag charge. ‘The complexity, as well as the added time and cost, in administering this would add further pressure on small businesses,’ said the FSB’s Welsh representative. But their customers still have to pay the tax. Continue Reading

Ask a council leader or government bureaucrat about the need to cut spending and chances are they will at least acknowledge that money is tight and that budgets have to be reined in. They may sometimes act like money grows on trees but there is at least now a weary acceptance by politicians from all parties that the waste that still persists in much of government must be cut out.

Yet despite the pressing need to cut spending and consensus over tackling wasteful expenditure, there is still one group demanding yet more taxpayers’ money while everyone else tightens their belts. So who, in an age of austerity, would be deluded enough to think they need more money? Step forward the Eurocrats. Continue Reading