An excellent article in the Edinburgh Evening News earlier this month used Edinburgh’s problematic new tram system, to begin running in 2011 at a cost of £1billion, to highlight a much broader predicament. Councils are undertaking huge, complex schemes at great expense without first successfully delivering basic services. Edinburgh... Read more...
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that the UK’s compulsory retirement age does not necessarily breach age discrimination legislation (Case C-388/07 of 5 March 2009). The ECJ says that the age limit is legal if it is there for a “legitimate social policy objective” relating to employment... Read more...
The weekend saw another victory in the drive for transparency in how taxpayers' money is spent. After the Conservatives a month ago and the Labour Party a fortnight ago, the Lib Dems have completed the hat-trick by committing to publishing the details of senior public employees' pay and perks. This... Read more...
While the Treasury attempts to kick-start the British economy with interest rate cuts and quantitative easing to the tune of £75 billion, last week the Department of Health revealed plans to raise the cost of NHS prescriptions in England to £7.20 from April, while cancer patients would now be exempt... Read more...
Timms: HM Treasury doesn't have the answers Over the weekend we got news of the latest bank bailout. Taxpayers are being landed with another £260bn of toxic assets to add to the £325bn we've already taken on from RBS (see this blog). And for providing this insurance, we're not being paid a... Read more...
The Axe The Beer Tax campaign, which is opposed to the Government's excessive tax on beer, has produced a nifty Beer Taxometer that lets you calculate how much beer tax you currently pay and how much you will have to pay under the Government's planned tax rises: The punitive... Read more...
Centro, the West Midlands Public Transport Authority, truly seem to be a law unto themselves, and this week the Express & Star reported how they’re planning to use £12million of taxpayers’ cash (£5million from Centro itself and £7million from local councils) to procure land for the Midland Metro extension –... Read more...
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) reported back in January that: “Despite the Department (for Innovation, Universities and Skills) spending £5 billion between 2001 and 2007 on trying to improve the levels of literacy and numeracy, England still has an unacceptably high number of people who cannot read, write and... Read more...
It emerged last night that the Welsh Assembly Government plans to spend £42 million refurbishing its headquarters in Cathays Park. Yes, £42 million. A staggering amount of money. More than it cost to build the Synedd, or the Liberty Stadium in Swansea. And this is for refurbishment, not building... Read more...
Further to my earlier post about the greed of some local councillors, and the Councillors' Commission's shoddy call for snouts to dig deeper into the trough, I'm glad to see that one council at least is doing the right thing. According to the Local Government Chronicle, Scarborough Borough Council... Read more...
In a bid to boost trust in the police, Jacqui Smith has unveiled a new scheme whereby victims of “minor” crime can send a text message instead of calling 999. The police will reply with a non emergency number and details of your local police and community support officers. ... Read more...
The Ministry of Defence's delay in introducing eight new Chinook helicopters to troops in Afghanistan has endangered the lives of British troops, a report said today. The report, issued by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, says the delay has been a colossal disaster in nearly every way; the... Read more...
Reform of the civil service is a hardy perennial in the garden of political issues. Groups campaign for it, parties discuss it, Governments promise it. But rarely does it actually happen, beyond tinkering at the edges, and the cycle inevitably repeats itself. Yesterday Reform (cross-party think tank, and a leading... Read more...
It’s that time of year again, and the Birmingham Post have given a full run-down on just how our local council’s have faired in the Audit Commission’s annual assessments of their performance. And, for the most part, it isn’t great news. Amongst those who’ve dropped a star is would-be... Read more...
The self indulgent, self rewarding class of politicians is strongly represented today by Dame Jane Roberts, Chairman of the Councillors Commission. Having been charged with looking at how to improve local democracy, she has studied our newly released figures showing that a staggering 3,500 councillors have jumped on the Local Government... Read more...
We’ve been informed that there are now two vacancies at the East Hertfordshire Council Independent Remuneration Panel to be advertised in the local newspapers today (5 March) and tomorrow. You can find the advert at the bottom of this blog. Independent Remuneration Panels are citizen panels set up to... Read more...
I was shocked to read in this week's Economist about the problem that diabetics are facing disposing of their insulin needles. As things stand, if you are a heroin addict you can ditch your used needles and get new, clean ones with no questions asked and no cost incurred through... Read more...
In the news today is the judgement by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner that Caroline Spelman did wrongly, if unintentionally claim the salary of her nanny on her Parliamentary allowances. Unfortunately, this is unlikely to be the last case of an MP abusing taxpayers' money - the general opinion doing the... Read more...
Criticism is often raised that the NHS employs more managers and back office staff than frontline doctors and nurses - rightly. Whilst Government Ministers and NHS officials predictably huff and puff that all the office jobs are essential cogs that keep the machine running, what actualy are all these jobs?... Read more...
This week there are 500 government jobs on offer as you can see from the table opposite. It all has to be paid for, all the above average salaries, gold plated pensions, car allowances, benefits, paid holiday and even, as we found out in Cheltenham and North Tyneside, paid leave... Read more...
It has been reported today that Essex County Council are thinking of privatising their public services. They estimate that the plan they are considering (remember that word, it will come in handy later) could save taxpayers up to £200 million. So far, so good. ... Read more...
Since Private Finance Initiatives (PFIs) were introduced by the Major government in 1992, they have been fraught with controversy. Despite promising to reduce costs and improve efficiency, projects have tended to go over budget and overtime. PFI allows the Government to pay for the building – and often the... Read more...
The TPA has long been campaigning for disclosure of public spending to be the norm, rather than the exception. The Freedom of Information Act is extremely useful, but it still relies on getting lucky with shots in the dark, and it's an arduous process at times. We have been applying... Read more...
A National Audit Office report – ‘Helping Government Learn’ – was released today outlining the need for Government departments to learn from past failures. Several projects were noted for their success, but just as many were flagged up as cases where lessons had not been heeded. For instance the... Read more...