HM Prison Service is Failing: A New Approach is Urgently Needed
The first paper in the Failure of Politicians series is written by Lord Ramsbotham, the former Chief Inspector of Prisons. Read more...
Council Spending Uncovered: Pensions
The third part of the CSU series reveals that local authorities are spending £1 in every £5 of council tax revenue on employer pension contributions in 2006-07. Read more...
How to Save £3.3 Billion a Year from the Civil Service
There has been justified concern over recent decades that the huge size of the Civil Service constitutes government waste. This paper sets out how substantial savings can be made through reducing the numbers in the Civil Service without needing to make compulsory redundancies. Read more...
Wasting Lives: A Statistical Analysis of NHS Performance in a European Context Since 1981
The report sets out the ongoing failure of the NHS to match European levels of healthcare performance and the inability of new money, since 1999, to rectify the situation. Read more...
Quango Communication Spending
The report shows that many of the biggest quangos have significantly increased their spending on publicity. Read more...
Council Spending Uncovered: Middle Management Pay
The second part of the CSU series examines the increase in town hall spending on middle and senior management in 2006-07, giving details for all local authorities in the UK. Read more...
Funding Hate Education
In the first of a series of papers analysing the effectiveness of expenditure on overseas aid, the report reveals disturbing evidence showing how British taxpayers’ money has been spent helping to fund hate education and promote violence in the Middle East. Read more...
The Tax on Christmas
The research note, authored by former Treasury economist Mike Denham, shows that the average household pays £225 in indirect taxes over Christmas, making a total of £5.65 billion. Read more...
Council Spending Uncovered: Publicity
The first part of the CSU series examines the doubling of council publicity spending over the past decade and gives details for all local authorities in the UK. Read more...
Public Sector Rich List 2007
The second edition of the annual Public Sector Rich List presents a list of the 300 most highly paid people in the public sector, all earning above £150,000 a year. Read more...
Council tax in the Pre-Budget Report
PRE-BUDGET REPORT PROJECTS COUNCIL TAX RISE OF ALMOST 30 PER CENT OVER NEXT FIVE YEARS HUGE RISE EQUIVALENT TO £370 PER YEAR FOR A BAND D PROPERTY IN ENGLAND Buried in the small print of the Pre-Budget Report is some very worrying news for council taxpayers, who have already seen... Read more...
Council Mileage Allowances
The survey of councils in the West Midlands reveals that all but two pay their staff more per mile than the HMRC approved rates. Read more...
The Case Against Green Taxes
The first comparison of official and academic estimates of the social cost of Britain’s carbon emissions with the revenue raised from green taxes shows that environmental taxation is already above its optimal level. Read more...
Response to the CQoLPC Report
The TPA attacks the intellectual assumptions behind the report and argues that the Policy Group’s recommendations would lead to more tax, regulation and bureaucracy, would curb vital infrastructure development and would undermine free trade. Read more...
The Non-Courses Report 2007
The TaxPayers’ Alliance has compiled Britain’s first ever list of university “non-courses” – university degrees that lend the respectability of scholarly qualifications to non-academic subjects – and calculated their annual cost to students and taxpayers. The huge expansion in student numbers in recent years, encouraged by the Government’s 50 per... Read more...
Olympics 2012 Hidden Costs
The research note calculates that the London Olympics will add £4 billion to construction inflation in London and the South East. Read more...
Green Tokenism: Government Cars
The research note finds that if the Government had not bought hybrid cars, it could have planted 74,000 trees with the money saved, a far better environmental move. Read more...
Cost of Government Day
The research note extends the concept of Tax Freedom Day and estimates the date in the calendar year when the average person has earned enough to pay of his share of government spending and regulation. Read more...
Beyond the Dome: Government projects £23 billion over budget
The TaxPayers' Alliance today reveals for the first time the scale of cost overruns in public sector capital procurement projects. We have investigated the official record of over 300 schemes, including roads, hospitals, science facilities, IT systems, art galleries and defence systems, which have been completed since the start of... Read more...
Town Hall Green Industry
The research note gives details of employees working to reduce carbon emissions in a random sample of 25 local authorities. Read more...
Today Programme balance
This note presents the results of 4 days of analysis of the bigger government/smaller government balance on the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4, and finds that the "more government" messages dominate the "less government" messages. Download Today Programme balance (PDF) Read more...
Poorest fifth pay the highest tax burden
This report analyses official data for the last 20 years and finds that the gap between the tax burden facing the poorest fifth and the richest fifth of households has widened under Gordon Brown. The poor pay higher taxes than the rich. Download Poorest fifth pay the highest tax burden... Read more...
Budget 2007: tax cuts abroad
In advance of the Budget in March 2007, the TPA detailed a large number of countries abroad that had cut taxes in the past two years, putting pressure on Gordon Brown to follow suit. Read more...
Who wants to be a Tax Millionaire?
...Nobody, but if current trends continue, by 2015 the average houshold will be paying £1 million in direct and indirect taxes over a lifetime. Download Who wants to be a Tax Millionaire? (PDF) Read more...