By: Joanna Marchong, investigations campaign manager
Ending the year with a bang, the TaxPayers’ Alliance’s war on waste campaign had a few explosive revelations of wasteful spending across the public sector.
The woke agenda now permeates every part of the public sector, at huge cost to taxpayers.The NHS is the latest example, where we revealed that £13 million has been spent on diversity roles in the latest financial year. For a health servicer in desperate need of increased funding, they sure do know how to waste it. Read more here.
And things get worse. After a year of section 114 notices and higher council tax bills, town halls for some reason thought they were in need of a celebration. Local authorities splashed out £350,000 to send staff to the “MJ Awards” where all manner of awards are given out over a three course dinner with wine and all the trimmings. From our investigation it looks like the only metric is how good they are at spending your money. When councils are strapped for cash, the last thing they should be spending on is a night of glitz and glamour.
When they weren’t spending hundreds of thousands sending staff to award ceremonies, several councils across the nation were splurging huge sums on heating and internet bills for staff working from home. It’s egregious to expect taxpayers to foot the bill incurred by remote council staff who choose to work from their beds. They should be paying their own utility and internet bills, as is the case for everyone else. Delve into the details in the Mail on Sunday’s report on our findings.
Speaking of home comforts, taxpayers will have another home cost to contend with. The BBC has increased their licence fee by £10.50, making the total annual fee £169.50. However taxpayers should wipe the sweat out of their brows, they were saved from a £15 increase! It’s no wonder the number of people paying the licence fee is falling (along with its revenue), the licensing model is outdated and no one wants to watch overpaid ‘stars’ preach their political agenda. More details here.
And for the finale our hugely impactful campaign to bring in a cap on public sector exit payments produced another startling piece of research. We found that a staggering £150 million was paid out in golden goodbyes to civil servants. No wonder over 10,000 people signed the petition that we handed into the Treasury just recently. Read more in the Daily Mail's report.
In the face of these examples of waste, there is an urgent need to prioritise spending on frontline services instead of pointless perks and vanity projects. Hopefully this year things will be better. Albeit we suspect not. Keep an eye out for the next war on waste blog to find out.
As always, If you suspect public bodies of wasting money and want us to investigate, let me know at [email protected]