Brace yourself for more money wasted in the NHS on curing consciences rather than curing patients. In an ode to the cult of equality and diversity, enjoy our non-job of the week from the Sussex Partnership NHS Trust: “Head of Equality and Diversity Service Improvement £36,112 - £43,335... Read more...
Yet again Stoke-on-Trent City Council has come under fire, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that this is a council in crisis. A report by the Stoke-on-Trent Governance Commission publicised in today’s The Sentinel has claimed that the council have ‘short-changed’ the residents of the city and a ‘catalogue of... Read more...
As reported in the Times and Mail today, Plymouth City Council is asking households to nominate a family member to be prosecuted should the wrong rubbish end up in the wrong bin. In addition, Town Hall snoopers want to know all sorts of personal information about their residents, including details... Read more...
From the Mail on Sunday: "A policing green paper out next month will propose centralising control over all 43 police forces. But concerns were raised that ministers may stuff the top ranks with chief constables who share their political agenda, and local people will have no say in who runs... Read more...
The Times reports that MPs are asking for a £23,000 grant so that they do not have to submit expenses claims and receipts, and can avoid the details becoming public: "Days after the High Court ordered the publication of every receipt submitted by MPs, a committee reviewing parliamentary expenses is... Read more...
Pick the bit you like... The TPA's paper on the Great British Taxpayer Rip-Off got quite a bit of press coverage, enough to elicit some dismissive comments from the Treasury. For example, asked about the TPA's calculation that Labour has racked up the real tax burden by 51%,... Read more...
What cost Birmingham City Council and Aston Pride £336,000 to fund, is staffed by six and boasts fifteen computer stations along with broadband and satellite technology? The answer is, the school/careers advice on wheels that will be creeping around Aston stalking those aged 16-25 who have dropped out... Read more...
"LONDON (Reuters) - Blunders in implementing a plan to make big efficiency savings at the Department of Transport through a centralised services system could end up costing it 81 million pounds instead, a report said on Friday. The department had envisaged saving 57 million pounds by amalgamating support services such... Read more...
The last seven days have seen a fundamental shift in the political debate - taxes have taken centre stage in politics, finally mirroring politically the importance that they have held domestically for some time in the lives of ordinary taxpayers struggling to make ends meet. Last Friday, PoliticsHome's PHI5000... Read more...
Tim Parker, a private equity executive who has run the AA, Boots and Kwik-Fit, has been talking about his new job overseeing large parts of the Mayor of London's empire, on a salary of £1: "Mr Parker, who will begin work on June 7, said: "Throughout my business career I... Read more...
Recently I wrote, for ConservativeHome's Platform, about Mancur Olson's The Logic of Collective Action. That landmark political text set out how minorities could impose their will on a majority in a democracy. People have an incentive to free ride on the political efforts of others and minorities find it easier... Read more...
They write in to newspapers justifying their own existence, apparently. Guy Attenborough, the Head of Communications for the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board has got a letter in today's Daily Express in response to Patrick O'Flynn's excellent article about our Unseen Government report. Read more...
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is an almost unbelievably large and complex organisation. It is has a budget of £6.8 billion, 21,380 staff and is responsible for 63 quangos. Its head has only been in position since January so, one presumes, he is still attempting the near insane... Read more...
Following a number of instances in which seemingly innocuous individuals have been stopped or even charged by police, there is growing concern that Section 5 of the Public Order Act is increasingly being used as a catch-all clause by overzealous police officers to disrupt perfectly legitimate protests. The latest case,... Read more...
Allan Asher, chief executive of Energy Watch, is making some rather dubious statements, reported in the Telegraph, about energy policy: "Allan Asher, the chief executive of Energywatch, told a parliamentary select committee that competition in the energy market is a "myth", with the six major suppliers operating a "comfortable oligopoly".... Read more...
Richard North over at EU Referendum has been discussing the importance of the EU in the tax debate - the "elephant in the room", as he puts it. It's definitely a problem, not only tax but in all areas, that the EU is often quietly left to one side by... Read more...
A harmless, yet wasteful, job this week from Luton Council courtesy, as always, from the Guardian (though afterwards you’ll see one we were sent from – gasp – The Times): “Community Development Service Manager £44,610 - £47,168 + £3,203 car benefit (pay award pending) Over 140 nationalities... Read more...
Last night's Newsnight debate in Crewe ahead of the by-election produced a wonderful image that embodied the gulf between politicians and the public on motoring taxes. After a heated debate on fuel duty in which all of the main parties steered clear of promising a cut in the taxes on... Read more...
Yesterday’s The Sentinel reported that Arts Council West Midlands and Stoke-on-Trent City Council will be pumping £35,000 of taxpayers’ money into a summer dance event named “A Game of 2 Arfs” in a familiar effort to “make dance a bit more accessible to those who wouldn’t normally go to see... Read more...
The Audit Commission's biennial National Fraud Initiative has made headlines today after uncovering £140m of fraud across England. Cross-referencing records from councils, public sector payrolls, GPs' surgeries and other bodies allows them to uncover fraud that had so far gone unnoticed, which is of course a welcome programme. Time... Read more...
Are you sure you can ride that thing? Hurrah! For the first time since 1472 the political cycle has turned. Tax and spend is out, and tax cuts are back on the centrist agenda. Yesterday, David Cameron finally summoned up the nerve to say taxpayers "can't take... Read more...
Michael Martin has, apparently, finally given up the futile courtroom battle to keep MPs' expenses secret - a battle that has so far run up a huge legal bill that we as taxpayers will be forced to pay. Good. Fighting the Freedom of Information requests regarding expenses was the wrong... Read more...
Even though Michael Martin – the Speaker of the House of Commons – has given up the fight to keep MPs expenses secret, he’s found another avenue with which he can waste your money to keep you less involved in the political system. According to this morning’s Today programme, Martin... Read more...
Government plans for a single, massive database containing records of all public internet activity, e-mails and phone calls, reported in the Times, are alarming. This system will be massively vulnerable to abuse and would allow Government officials to snoop, far too easily, on ordinary people. It is also likely to... Read more...