Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden have taken a look at the amounts spent on cancer care in the UK and have found that the Department of Health's picture of low cancer survival rates but low costs isn't quite accurate. The Department of Health's analysis apparently fails to include... Read more...
Just a thought - after a week which has seen sell-out and apparently legendary concerts by the reformed Led Zeppelin and The Verve, the O2 (as the Dome has been renamed) is now being described as the world's best entertainment venue. All this success only makes it more amazing that... Read more...
During the research for a project I'm working on I found myself looking through GlaxoSmithKline's accounts. Remembering the debate over the Public Sector Rich List I got curious and wondered just how much JP Garnier - the reputedly well-paid boss at a big private company like GSK - gets paid. ... Read more...
Barbara Lockwood is an experienced campaigner for lower taxes, and runs the campaign Folk Against Council Tax (F.A.C.T) as well as being a supporter and active member of the TaxPayers’ Alliance. She has a well-known reputation in Norwich battling against greedy government and the unfair council tax, with a host... Read more...
Is this what you want? So just let me make sure I've got this right. We're paying our policemen better than they've ever been paid, yet they're going on strike (or at least, intending to come down en masse with Blue Flu). Having perused the stats, we can confirm they're... Read more...
An interesting piece by Arthur Laffer (of the famous "Laffer curve") and Stephen Moore in the Wall Street Journal shows how US states with higher taxes and regulations have lost people and businesses to states with lower taxes and regulations. The authors write: "The American Legislative Exchange Council has just... Read more...
Funeral costs and, increasingly, inheritance tax put huge financial strain on bereaved relatives, and now a leading Stafford funeral director has complained to the Staffordshire Newsletter about the 100% inflation in charges from burial and cremation agreed by the borough council. Chris Emery of William Emery and sons is quoted... Read more...
Braving the cold, several TPA supporters have been active campaigning for lower taxes. Tony Flynn has recently been out in Diss and Tivetshall handing out TPA recruitment leaflets and has set up a low tax campaign site in Norfolk www.atflynn.co.uk. We’ve also had several recruitment leaflets back from Alpington, Norwich... Read more...
There is little doubt that the staging of a nativity play is a stressful experience, and that the prospect of directing tens of small children to present one of the oldest stories of all time is a daunting one. Well, for the teachers at one school in Shropshire the annual... Read more...
There are going to be a few changes... No wonder they don't want him to retire. This morning President Putin has even found time to help us beleaguered British taxpayers. He's ordered the closure of no fewer than 15 offices of the totally useless quango the British Council. BOM readers... Read more...
If this were simply another case of public sector workers complaining about a poor deal from the Government because they weren't going to get another inflation-busting pay increase the TaxPayers' Alliance wouldn't be particularly sympathetic. Public sector workers have had a pretty good deal over the last decade and most... Read more...
The world of quangos' is one ripe for ridicule. Unfortunately, the jokes are often expensive ones. Much has already been written on the excesses of some quangos, the massive public expenditure that supports them (nearly £120 billion) and the bizarreness of some of their remits. What is not always considered... Read more...
Despite having made headlines in The Sentinel for spending £23,000 on publicity, Stoke-On-Trent City Council have now recruited a new head of public relations and communications on a £75,000 salary. The current head of news at ITV Central will be taking the position which has caused many readers and residents... Read more...
"1. Local authorities should be charged with a statutory duty to facilitate local democratic engagement by: a) proactively disseminating clear and accessible information on how local governance works: what councils and councillors do; what theresponsibilities of other agencies are; how local agencies relate to one another (or not); even how... Read more...
At the Northern Crock, taxpayers remain on the hook for £25bn of loans and a further £15bn plus of guarantees for depositors (see previous blogs here, here, and here, and this Treasury statement which spells out that the guarantee applies not only to retail deposits, but unsecured wholesale deposits as... Read more...
Not the only hangover from Mr Hoon's time at MOD Last week your correspondent attended the Public Accounts Committee hearing on MOD's bungled 2003-06 sale of QinetiQ (transcript here and see previous blogs, including here). BOM readers will be familiar with the huge profits made by the purchaser- Carlyle- and... Read more...
Stoke and Staffordshire newspaper, The Sentinel, gave the West Midlands TaxPayers’ Alliance some great coverage on Tuesday as their own findings about Stoke-On-Trent Council spin coincided with the TPA’s council spending report. We found that Stoke has increased publicity spending by 279% over the last ten years, and The Sentinel... Read more...
When discussing the education system's poor performance it is common to focus on the costs to the economy, the children concerned and their chance of making their way in the world or even the waste of taxpayers' money thrown at an underperforming system. However, the education system's failure also wastes... Read more...
Carbon Trust meets the real world: why businesses don't implement its carbon reduction measures The National Audit Office recently reported on the Carbon Trust (here), and this week the Public Accounts Committee questioned officials from the Trust and Defra. The Carbon Trust likes to describe itself as a private company,... Read more...
Southwark Council have had a nightmare couple of weeks. Last week they admitted that almost every single one of their departments had gone over budget and predicted above-inflation council tax rises for the foreseeable future. After that bad news, this week the TPA's first Council Spending Uncovered paper revealed that... Read more...
A telling fact came out in answer to a parliamentary question from John Leech MP the other day. He asked Caroline Flint, Minister for Employment, how many Job Centre Plus staff had been sacked for not turning up to work in the last year. Whilst it would have been... Read more...
Only mere days after our report highlighted massive overspend in council publicity, Coventry City Council have pledged to lower their publicity spending next year. What a breakthrough, especially on a day where Hammersmith and Fulham council announce yet another council tax cut! It shows how our activism, combined with... Read more...
The Times reports that the government is to overhaul the primary school curriculum after progress in English, Maths and Science stalled. Earlier this week the PISA reported that we are falling down international rankings and poor performance is starting to show up even in the Government's own tests; debased by... Read more...
Congratulations to Hammersmith and Fulham Council, who have announced today that they are delivering another 3% cut in council tax. Across the country, council tax has doubled in the last ten years and yet councils claim they still don't have enough money. Taxes, they claim, must be raised further.... Read more...