On the 7th July 2014, Theresa May, established an enquiry into the failings of public bodies in light of the nationwide paedophilia scandal of the preceding years. Nearly a year later, the website for The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse was “declared to be formally opened”. The moral questions of... Read more...
The poor use of European taxpayers’ money spent in Cornwall has been strongly criticised by a recent report. Key findings by an independent analysis of £465m of EU convergence money, meant to grow the economy in the South West between 2007 and 2013, highlighted the fact that 10,000 new jobs... Read more...
With the budget less than a week away, speculation is rife as to what will and won’t be included by the Chancellor. One issue that may now re-emerge from the proverbial long grass is that of bringing income tax and NI rates in line with each other. A simpler tax... Read more...
Another day, another sorry tale of a government IT project going horribly wrong. When announced in 2009, the General Practice Extension Service (GPES) was supposed to collate information from all GP practice computer systems, and make that information accessible to other NHS organisations. In theory, it would begin to centralise... Read more...
Last year the average UK household paid over £13,000 in taxes, the ONS revealed yesterday. The sheer scale of the Government’s tax and spend policies was highlighted by the fact that 51.5% of households received more in benefits than they paid in taxes, the equivalent of 13.7 million homes. Read more...
Yesterday’s Sunday Times reported how ministers at the Foreign Office were warned by the International Development Secretary nearly two years ago that taxpayers' money is going into ridiculous projects around the world in the name of aid. The Foreign Office's £343 million aid fund supported projects including an Ethiopian gameshow. It... Read more...
HMRC, it has been reported today, fails to pick up the phone to one in four people. Last year alone almost 18 million phone calls have gone unanswered. Meanwhile, earlier this year almost 900,000 people faced £100 fines for failing to file their tax return on time. A failure to... Read more...
This week, the Welsh Taxpayer has witnessed yet another waste of their hard earned money. Three top managers have opted to take lavish redundancy packages after yet another restructuring exercise by the Welsh Government. The Devolved Government which hasn’t even been operational for twenty years has seen several restructuring plans... Read more...
A while ago we wrote about about why the TaxPayers' Alliance are worried about the current state of government debt and why you should be as well. More than one person pointed out that we can inflate away or use quantitative easing to magic (at least part of) the debt... Read more...
Public services, in many cases, are no longer provided by single monolithic bodies. The range of providers has grown with an emphasis on public choice. While this is broadly positive, it has created a need for effective and efficient complaint and redress procedures – things do occasionally go wrong and... Read more...
Barts NHS Trust is paying £47,000 a month to their temporary Director of Finance, Ian Miller - an annual total of £561,000. This is despite being on a temporary contract and in the wake of calls from Jeremy Hunt, the Health secretary, to end excessive NHS pay. Worryingly for taxpayers, the trust has... Read more...
Simon Stevens, Chief Executive of NHS England, stated in the Five Year Forward View that the NHS would face a £30 billion funding gap by 2020. Of this £30 billion, £8 billion is to come from increased funding and £22 billion is to come from efficiencies. Lord Carter of Cole... Read more...
The SeaCity Museum in Southampton, opened in 2012, has seen its visitor numbers halve in the past year. Despite projecting visitor numbers at 115,550 for the year, there have been only 78,000. It is Southampton taxpayers, however, who have had to foot the bill. Although the £15m museum received a... Read more...
Yesterday our last 'Spending Plan Explained' post was published and with it is the end of this blog series. Thank you to all of you who commented, liked, retweeted and questioned our policies, even if you didn't agree with everything that was said it has been appreciated. To wrap up our campaign... Read more...
Here's a little happiness for your pre-Monday blues Read more...
If you missed the Queen's Speech today you can read the full text here. You can find our press release here. Broadly, we were happy with the speech. Our Chief Excutive Jonathan Isaby said: "The Conservatives were elected on a mandate of protecting taxpayers and reducing spending, and the Queen's Speech delivered... Read more...
The Welsh Assembly’s Remuneration Board has forced a 18.5% pay increase upon members of the devolved government taking the pay of a back bench Assembly Member (AM) from £54,000 to a staggering £64,000. The Welsh Assembly’s Remuneration Board is an independent body established in 2010 to ensure that AM’s have... Read more...
The astonishing amount of money generated by just one speed camera was recently revealed in Weston, North Somerset. In just 48 days, between 11 February and 31 March 2015, the single camera raised £191,200 in fines, which works out at nearly £4,000 a day! All speed cameras in North Somerset... Read more...
The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s excellent paper, the 'Ten Thousand Commandments' is an annual snapshot of the regulations within the US and it should serve as a reminder of the dangers of an overburdening state. The total annual cost of US regulation is now estimated to be $1.9 trillion which, if it... Read more...
Good news for taxpayers in South Gloucestershire as their new council administration pledges to phase out a controversial ‘bin tax’. Last year, local residents had to pay a £36 annual levy to have their garden waste removed - and the new waste collection regime cost £650,000 of taxpayers’ money to... Read more...
In the aftermath of last Thursday's surprise election result, the new Conservative government should reflect on the priorities for taxpayers and what needs to be done both now and over the course of the next five years until elections return in May 2020. These priorities can be categorised into three... Read more...
This afternoon in the immediate aftermath of the General Election, The TaxPayers' Alliance, Business for Britain, ConservativeHome and the Institute of Economic Affairs will be hosting a major conference to consider the implications of the result on the next five years. With the internal politics of the Coalition now a thing of the past,... Read more...
With just two days to go until the election, the parties are once again focussing on the Health Service - specifically, how much they'll pay for it. Labour are warning of an impending "cash crisis" in the NHS. Read more...
Responding to Ed Balls' comments on the Garden Bridge yesterday and the Chancellor's statement that it would be 'deeply depressing' to question the project, Jonathan Isaby, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: Read more...