The Telegraph has an excellent leader today describing the absurdities of political management in the NHS: "There is something faintly absurd in the spectacle of Gordon Brown - who is, after all, a politician, not a medical professional - making detailed recommendations for clinical practice in healthcare. But in Britain,... Read more...
Stephen Carter, Gordon Brown's new Principal Special Advisor, may be familiar to assiduous students of TPA campaigns. Back in November, when we launched the 2007 Public Sector Rich List, Mr Carter came in at Number 32 with a stonking remuneration package of almost £400,000. Having come under fire, he... Read more...
It’s that time of year again, when we hear of our council tax and other local taxes going up and up. Yet we’re seeing more and more elected representatives standing up for the taxpayer and committing themselves to fighting against tax increases. First we reported how Hammersmith and Fulham council... Read more...
Victorian engineering wins So who's going to pay for the new Forth road bridge (nearest in the pic)?In case you missed it, the existing road bridge (middle one) is falling apart. And the damage is so bad, Scotland's SNP government has decided it will be cheaper to build... Read more...
The Telegraph reports that both Cambridge and the LSE have drawn up a list of subjects that are considered insufficiently academic to form a preparation for candidates to study at their universities. These include business studies, travel and tourism and media studies. The universities have confirmed what has been apparent... Read more...
Near the end of last month the European Services Strategy Unit released a study (PDF) looking at cost overruns in outsourced government IT projects. They looked at 105 contracts and found: "The average percentage cost overrun is 30.5%. 57% of contracts experienced cost overruns." Compare this with the results of... Read more...
The Better Government Initiative, a "grouping of top civil servants, ambassadors and former local government chief executives" with no relation to our own campaign, are set to report today. The Financial Times describes how they will argue that: "Gordon Brown's proposals for revamping the way Britain is governed address neither... Read more...
Which just leaves death and taxes Some waste stories from Christmas and the New Year:Outsourcing overruns cost £9bn- "Research by the European Services Strategy Unit shows that 105 outsourced public sector ICT contracts have significant cost overruns, delays and terminations. The unit examined large outsourcing contracts, PPPs, PFIs and strategic... Read more...
The OECD's new Health at a Glance statistics paint a picture of the poor value for money we get from the NHS. We spend almost exactly the OECD average amount on healthcare. The OECD average is $2,759 PPP wheras the UK's is $2,724 PPP. However, we don't get average... Read more...
From today's Financial Times: "German industrialists have urged Alistair Darling to rethink his “highly regrettable” tax changes for foreign residents. German Industry UK, which represents 250 companies in Britain, wants the chancellor to postpone the new tax measures and allow a period of thorough consultation... "Some German businesses have been... Read more...
The BBC reports fury in Germany at EU proposals to restrict emissions from new cars: "German Chancellor Angela Merkel has opposed European Union (EU) plans to cut pollution from new cars, saying it was "not economically favourable". She said the move would burden Germany and its carmakers disproportionately." It would... Read more...
We’d all prefer to spend Christmas Eve at home with our families, but should all of the employees of Stoke-On-Trent City Council be treated to the day off as a thank you for all of their “hard work” at taxpayers’ expense? This ‘thank you’ gift on behalf of the taxpayers... Read more...
This clip, from Friction TV, has the first five minutes. The full video is here. Read more...
Advantage West Midlands – our unelected, unaccountable but nevertheless extremely expensive taxpayerfunded quango – have been missing their targets left, right and centre. There’s an excellent blog by our friends at the West Midlands NO! campaign, detailing exactly how poorly our regional bureaucrats are performing by the standards of... Read more...
Wrecked on Granite As already blogged, yesterday's Treasury statement on the extended Northern Rock guarantee suggested taxpayers are now on the hook for all of the Crock's borrowings, except for a few billion of subordinated debt: ie we are guaranteeing around £100bn. Yet most of today's headlines... Read more...
There are two points surrounding yesterday's events at Northern Rock that really need to be cleared up. First, the BBC's Business Editor, Robert Peston, is very enthusiastic about Bradford & Bingley's offer to help out at Northern Rock: "In the worst case of the Rock being nationalised, it could... Read more...
Several papers report comments made by Shadow Chancellor George Osborne. He said: "I will approach each Budget thinking how I can reducetaxes; how can I prepare Britain's economy to compete with China in theworld economy. Lower taxes are good for peopleand the economy. Next year I hope to set out... Read more...
In the midst of the festive season, as we all splash our hard-earned cash on our nearest and dearest, it’s interesting to see what our local councils are choosing to do with our money… Staffordshire County CouncilFamily Group Conference Convener (£27,594 - £30,598 Pro rata, per annum (subject to... Read more...
The Guardian reports today on a National Audit Office report that criticises botched reforms to neonatal care: "Scores of premature babies may be dying unnecessarily across England because the NHS mismanaged a reform of neonatal units in 2003, parliament's spending watchdog reveals today." Most of the Guardian's account speaks for... Read more...
Darling's the one in the cap Today, Chancellor Darling has extended the taxpayers' guarantee to virtually all Northern Rock's borrowings: retail deposits, wholesale deposits, unsecured borrowing, secured borrowing where the security actually turns out to be insufficient, collateralised and uncollaterised derivatives, onshore and offshore. The whole kit... Read more...
Orwellian comparisons are always popular in political debate, but whilst surveillance cameras, biometric ID cards and politically correct "thought-crime" laws are certainly of some concern, it is in the field of language that Winston Smith would find the Britain of 2007 most recognisable. Newspeak is undoubtedly the policy area of... Read more...
How a pensions black hole works Yesterday our battered beleaguered rulers bunged £3.9bn more taxpayers' money into yet another pensions black hole. Now, all of us sympathise with the 130,000 people who lost all or part of their pensions when their companies went bust up to 2003.... Read more...
The bureaucratic procedure attached to the simple act of clearing up a broken lightbulb is more important than it might seem. It is important because it demonstrates just how unwieldy the procedures are becoming in too much of the public sector for even the most basic of task. All this,... Read more...
Not content with spending thousands of pounds a month on publicity and hiring a new PR exec on a bumper salary, Stoke-On-Trent City Council have outdone themselves again by blowing almost three quarters of a million on refurbishing their offices. The Sentinel reports that many have questioned whether £729,000 of... Read more...