It was the Tories' Spring Forum in Cheltenham over the weekend, and the keynote speech from David Cameron featured some encouraging proposals. Indeed, some of them were so encouraging that the Guardian reported that it seemed like "the TaxPayers' Alliance is now writing Conservative party policy". So what were the pledges that so horrified the Guardian, and so gratified taxpayers?
Spending must be cut to deal with the debt problem.
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- Abolish Regional Development Agencies.
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- Abolish the ContactPoint Child Database.
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- Cancel ID cards.
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- Replace top-down IT monsters like the NHS database with more individualistic ways of working.
Localise Government
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- Publish performance indicators, and give people the freedom to choose their hospital or their school.
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- Allow public services, such as prisons, to be run by independent bodies or companies and pay them by their results, such as rehabilitation rates in the case of prisons. This is the proposal from our prisons report LINKLINKLINK
Reward saving money, not wasting it
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"It’s not government money, as Labour like to say. It’s your money."
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Mod Refurbishment cost £2.3 billion - straight off our recruitment postcards.
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Proper financial controls.
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Greater Government Transparency
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- Cameron reiterated the Tories' plans for Google Government, under which every item of Government expenditure over £25,000 will be published online for all to see. Interestingly, he extended this to local government - in that field, Windsor and Maidenhead have already demonstrated that it is possible to publish council spending in far more detail. Hopefully Cameron will extend his ambitions to W&M's level of £500.
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The Town Hall and Public Sector Rich Lists which the TPA has pioneered will become official policy, with every public servant earning over £150,000 having their full remuneration published for the taxpaying public to decide if they are worth the money.
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