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Pressure continues to grow for action to cut taxpayer funding of trade unions

Dec 19th, 2011
by Jonathan Isaby.
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A new dossier of evidence demonstrating how trade unions are abusing the subsidies they get from the taxpayer has today been published by Witham MP, Priti Patel.

Citing our recent research note, Taxpayer funding of trade unions 2011,  Ms Patel’s dossier – as previewed over the weekend in the Sunday Express  – makes the case for urgent reforms.

Ms Patel has uncovered:

  • Examples of how unions encourage their members to abuse taxpayer-funded facility time by stretching the definition of what counts as legitimate union activity. She cites a Unison guide to facility time which instructs its members: “…Although you’re entitled to unpaid time off to attend conference, branch meetings, etc., why not try to get those activities covered by your paid time off?”;
  • Examples of trade unionists with public sector jobs using taxpayer-funded time for political campaigns against the cuts being implemented by the Government. Cases highlighted in the dossier include a PCS union official abusing taxpayer-funded resources to promote the “Blackpool Against the Cuts” campaign (alongside evidence that the PCS trade union has formally advised its reps to abuse facility time);
  • How the taxpayer subsidy to the unions is increased further when councils or other public sector organisations provide them with free office space. Camden Council has been providing free of charge a disused council building for nine taxpayer-funded union officials organising anti-cuts campaigns – resources worth hundreds of thousands of pounds;
  • Abuse of the money given to unions by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills via the Union Learning Fund – with over £20,000 now being repaid by the TUC, by order of the Skills Minister, after the cash was found to have been used to publish politically inappropriate material;
  • Details of the millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money channelled to unions through European Union funds, some of which is merely paying to train trade unionists in organising and activism, and for which they are then awarded Diplomas and Certificates.

Ms Patel’s dossier – which you can download here – has been passed to David Cameron and Cabinet Office Minister, Francis Maude, for further consideration and is an extremely valuable contribution to the ongoing debate about taxpayer funding of trade unions.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance will continue to make the point that while it is perfectly legitimate for trade unions to represent their members’ interests, it is simply unfair and wrong that taxpayers’ money should be subsidising them: all union activities should be funded by their members’ subscriptions.

Pressure continues to grow for action to cut taxpayer funding of trade unions

Dec 19th, 2011
by Jonathan Isaby.
Comments are off for this post

A new dossier of evidence demonstrating how trade unions are abusing the subsidies they get from the taxpayer has today been published by Witham MP, Priti Patel.

Citing our recent research note, Taxpayer funding of trade unions 2011,  Ms Patel’s dossier – as previewed over the weekend in the Sunday Express  – makes the case for urgent reforms.

Ms Patel has uncovered:

  • Examples of how unions encourage their members to abuse taxpayer-funded facility time by stretching the definition of what counts as legitimate union activity. She cites a Unison guide to facility time which instructs its members: “…Although you’re entitled to unpaid time off to attend conference, branch meetings, etc., why not try to get those activities covered by your paid time off?”;
  • Examples of trade unionists with public sector jobs using taxpayer-funded time for political campaigns against the cuts being implemented by the Government. Cases highlighted in the dossier include a PCS union official abusing taxpayer-funded resources to promote the “Blackpool Against the Cuts” campaign (alongside evidence that the PCS trade union has formally advised its reps to abuse facility time);
  • How the taxpayer subsidy to the unions is increased further when councils or other public sector organisations provide them with free office space. Camden Council has been providing free of charge a disused council building for nine taxpayer-funded union officials organising anti-cuts campaigns – resources worth hundreds of thousands of pounds;
  • Abuse of the money given to unions by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills via the Union Learning Fund – with over £20,000 now being repaid by the TUC, by order of the Skills Minister, after the cash was found to have been used to publish politically inappropriate material;
  • Details of the millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money channelled to unions through European Union funds, some of which is merely paying to train trade unionists in organising and activism, and for which they are then awarded Diplomas and Certificates.

Ms Patel’s dossier – which you can download here – has been passed to David Cameron and Cabinet Office Minister, Francis Maude, for further consideration and is an extremely valuable contribution to the ongoing debate about taxpayer funding of trade unions.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance will continue to make the point that while it is perfectly legitimate for trade unions to represent their members’ interests, it is simply unfair and wrong that taxpayers’ money should be subsidising them: all union activities should be funded by their members’ subscriptions.

Public Data Corporation Killed

Dec 15th, 2011
by Dominique Lazanski.
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Today I attended the Government’s meeting on their open data plan. The measures were announced in the Autumn Statement and include opening up more data, allowing for the releasing of transport and health data as a priority, and the creation of the Open Data Institute. The Government made even more of a commitment to open already created data that it holds in various forms. This is good news for many reasons, including public service efficiency and the growth of the innovation economy.

The most important aspect of the Autumn Statement was the omission of the Public Data Corporation. A consultation was launched late in the summer to discuss the proposal to set up a fee charging organisation which would aggregate government data and charge for open data which we the taxpayers have already paid for. The Public Data Corporation proposal would also seek out private sector investment to eventually privatise a public body with open data. There were many other details discussed in this consultation, but the bottom line was that the government sought a way to seek direct revenue from open data instead of indirect revenue through innovation of free and freely available open data.

In our consultation response we made the argument for the free release of open data and discussed the fact that the Public Data Corporation did not need to be created. We cited a number of compelling case studies in our argument – further details can be found in our report here.

So today at the Government meeting Francis Maude said that the government itself is moving away from the charging model proposed in the Public Data Corporation consultation. Instead, the Open Data Institute has been created to bring together academia, public sector, and private enterprises so that new ways of opening up data can be discussed and implemented. We will need to keep close watch and make sure that any vestiges of the Public Data Corporation don’t creep into the Open Data Institute or the newly announced Open Data Group. But for now the Public Data Corporation will not be created.

David Cameron challenged at strike day PMQs about TPA report on taxpayer funding of trade unions

Dec 1st, 2011
by Jonathan Isaby.
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There has already been much publicity in the media for our report last week into Taxpayer funding of trade unions. We found that at least £113 million of taxpayers’ money was last year given to trade unions either in direct grants or through taxpayer-subsidised “facility time” – and we believe that it should be stopped.

At yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Questions – coinciding with the strike by many of the unions which are benefiting from that taxpayer funding – Tewkesbury MP Laurence Robertson cited our research as he raised the issue with David Cameron.


The Prime Minster agreed in his answer that it was indeed time to review the situation and said that he would end the practice of “full-time trade unionists working in the public sector on trade union business”. The exchange is the subject of a report in this morning’s Guardian and you can watch if for yourself above.

This is the second week running that TPA research has been discussed at Prime Minister’s Questions. Last week our report into excessive motoring taxes was raised with David Cameron.

Union myths unravelling

Dec 1st, 2011
by Matthew Sinclair.
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Following up on our release yesterday confronting union myths, and TPA Research Director John O’Connell’s blog for this site, I wrote for the Spectator Coffee House about the TUC using a poll which showed the public had a good idea of the value of normal public sector pensions to try and sell their misleading average pension statistic.

Since then the Institute of Fiscal Studies have estimated that public sector workers are 7.5 per cent better paid, even after “allowing for the higher age and qualifications of public sector workers”.  Their work confirms the figure from the Office for National Statistics which we have been quoting.  The unions just can’t defend the strike except with misleading claims that fall apart when challenged, like they did when I debated the issue with the ATL President on Sky News:

 

David Cameron challenged at PMQs over TPA report on motoring taxes

Nov 24th, 2011
by Jonathan Isaby.
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In case you missed it, our recent report into the excessive motoring taxes paid by British drivers took centre stage in Parliament on Wednesday. We found that the residents of Maldon in Essex are clobbered by higher motoring taxes than anyone else in the country, so their local MP, John Whittingdale, asked David Cameron at Prime Minister’s Questions what he was going to do about this “intolerable burden”.

The Prime Minister replied by saying that he is “absolutely committed” to helping people with their motoring expenses at this time of economic difficulty – and you can be sure that we at the TPA will hold him to that. The Prime Minister added that the TaxPayers’ Alliance was doing “a good job” of highlighting the issue. Here’s the full exchange:

Brighton & Hove Council to increase council tax

Nov 11th, 2011
by Darren Rutland.
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A BBC Politics Show South East report last weekend explained how Brighton & Hove City Council plan to increase council tax by 3.5 per cent. They are one of the only councils to publicly admit to rejecting money from the Government to freeze tax instead.

As Helen Drew explains, the council could have accepted £3 million from central government. However, this was turned down in favour of raising council tax to gain £4 million.  The council said that the extra £1 million was necessary in order to maintain local services. This misses the point somewhat. As many innovative councils have shown, it is possible to make savings which don’t affect local services – take Newham for example.

Admittedly it is a little disappointing that councils need an incentive to freeze council tax in the first place, but the measure is a welcome one for struggling families. However, Cllr Jason Kitcat, Cabinet Member for Finance and Central Services at Brighton & Hove City Council, wrote:

“Brighton & Hove is not the kind of place where we want to give up on the elderly, marginalised or vulnerable – those most in need of help. We believe in civilisation, in public service and the greater good.”

This rhetoric does not address how the council can make savings in other areas while prioritising key local services. They could, for example, look at cutting executive pay and leading from the top. Our Town Hall Rich List, released earlier this year, revealed that five council officers, including the Chief Executive, received total remuneration in excess of £100,000 in 2009-10. In addition, the council employs three political advisers and three European Officers. Removing unnecessary jobs like this could save the council around £225,000 per year. They could even shift mileage rate claims down to HMRC recommended levels from the 65p a mile they are at now. These bills currently cost the council over £800,000.

In addition to hitting local taxpayers with a 3.5 per cent rise in council tax, another proposed measure is to increase parking charges. Leaked papers seen by the Brighton Argus disclosed the council’s revised tariff, which will see increases of more than 100 per cent. It could cost £15 at weekends for four hours at one city centre car park – a huge increase on the current £9.50. The measures have united the local Conservative and Labour groups, both describing the idea as an unwelcome blow to business at a time when they are already struggling. As Cllr Kitcat notes, inflation is running at 5.2 per cent, so yes, times are tough, but they are also incredibly tough for taxpayers. With VAT at 20 per cent, as well as staggering fuel and energy costs, the last thing they need is an increase in council tax, and more parking charges on top.

In the BBC piece, Tony Travers of the London School of Economics suggests that the country’s first Green controlled council wants to “stand out from the crowd to show they are different”. Whether this is the case or not, they have the same responsibility as other local authorities across the country. Councils need to be making savings while at the same time giving taxpayers a break. It is safe to say this deal is anything but a good deal for taxpayers.

Click here to watch the piece on the BBC Politics Show South East (from 38m 30s, available until Sunday 13th November). On this Sunday’s programme, there will be a feature on plans to change the amount councils get from business rates.

 

** UPDATE** Councillor Jason Kitcat has been named the TaxPayers’ Alliance’s Pinhead of the Month for boasting this month about his administration’s decision to refuse the Government funding which would allow for a freeze in council tax next year and to instead impose a 3.5% increase in council tax for Brighton and Hove residents. **

Weekend homes are cash cows for greedy councils

Nov 2nd, 2011
by JP Floru.
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Why is Eric Pickles doing favours for fat local councils and class-struggling LibDems?  His announcement that local councils will be able to abolish the council tax discount for the 246,000 second homes in England makes no sense whatsoever.  The measure will raise insufficient funds to cut the council tax in any meaningful way.  LibDems will still demand a tax on so-called mansions. What is the point?  The second home tax rise is just another tax, with all its usual characteristics: unfair, excessive, to pursue political rather than rational goals, and to punish success.

Today, councils can offer second home owners up to 50% discounts on their council tax bill.  Few do; four in five opt for the statutory minimum discount of 10% instead.  If you think about it, this is grossly unfair: second home owners use very few local council services.  They use some public infrastructure, but only on the days they are in residence.  In view of their disproportionately low use of the services which pay for it, a 10% discount is in itself laughable.  Now Eric Pickles wants to do away with even this meagre concession.  Second home owners are already a cash cow for greedy local councils: now they will become even more so.

Often second home owners only use one council service: the rubbish collection.  But even then, the council collects far less rubbish from them than from full time residents.  And as we all know rubbish collections have been reduced to bi-weekly in many councils.  A friend recently calculated that with his £2,500 council tax for his second home, and bi-weekly collection of, on average, just one bag, he is effectively paying £69 for each rubbish bag he puts out.

The proposal has been portrayed as a re-distributive measure: it would allow councils to cut the council tax.  In fact, it will do nothing of the sort: the scrapping of the discount will raise virtually no money at all.  Each English council will receive something in the region of £174,000 in additional revenue.  The measure is basically aimed at keeping the LibDems quiet about a tax on so-called mansions.  Not that it will calm them down.  To the LibDems the new measure will be welcome: what is more just than punishing those who work hard and are well off as a result?  LibDems love aspiration, as it enables them to tax more.

One wonders how many voters voted Conservative in order to see re-distributive measures enacted.  Perhaps Mr. Pickles thinks he needs left wing votes – to compensate for his traditional right-wing voters who may very well decide to jump ship at the next general election after last week’s three-line whip against a referendum on Europe?

The council tax is ridiculously high in most places in England.  Many local councillors never question the size of local government.  To fund the empire building and the endless stream of vanity projects which they hope will catapult them to political B-stardom, they are on a never-ending quest for more revenue.  Another friend told me the value of his second home is one third of the value of his London home.  Yet the council tax for the second home is three times that of his London home.

The problem is not second homes.  The problem is fat local government.

 

JP Floru is Director of Programmes, Adam Smith Institute & a Councillor for the City of Westminster

MoD to pay £14,000 to a contractor for every new soldier

Oct 13th, 2011
by Paul Harwood.
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Thomas Harding at the Daily Telegraph reports that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is proposing to outsource Army recruitment to a civilian company in a deal worth £1 billion over 10 years. At a cost of nearly £14,000 for each soldier recruited, the contract will offer generous returns for the company that wins the bid, especially while there are over 2.5 million people unemployed in the UK. The RAF and Royal Navy are also believed to be developing similar plans.

Over the next three years the MoD intends to make 12,000 soldiers redundant while recruiting 7,500 a year through the external agency. That means that in three years we will have recruited nearly twice as many people as are being made redundant.

The MoD needs to be careful to avoid the double cost of paying redundancy costs and paying to recruit new soldiers at the same time. Is there no way those being made redundant couldn’t be retrained for the new roles? They need to explain why it isn’t possible to save money in both redundancy and recruitment whilst keeping the experience of older soldiers and the supply of new soldiers for the future. There are limits, and we certainly wouldn’t want to see the absurdities of the “surplus” scheme they have in the Royal Mail, but all we have at the moment is the simple claim from an Army source that they “still have to recruit”.

The MoD argues this deal will save £250 million over a ten year period but Air Commodore Andrew Lambert, of the UK National Defence Association, has questioned the savings, and the Telegraph reports that serving officers have described the decision as “perverse”.

With just under half of the 17,000 new entrants each year who go through training for the Army failing to finish the course, there is plenty of room for more efficiency in the recruitment and training system. It seems like common sense that having people on hand who have experienced Army life will lead to better recruitment outcomes. But civilian involvement might be a good thing if they can take some of the administrative burden off the shoulders of soldiers.  And recruiting firms in the private sector might have new ideas about how best to reach good candidates.

Just like with PFI, the problem here isn’t the principle of involving the private sector. But the price and the objective needs to be right, otherwise soldiers and taxpayers will wonder whether they are getting a very bad deal.

Busted! Public bodies at party conferences

Oct 13th, 2011
by Emma Boon.
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Conference season was just as frantic as ever this year, with the usual rotation of speeches, receptions and events in Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham. Now the dust has settled it’s time to share with you some interesting discoveries we made.

We caught a number of public bodies exhibiting and campaigning at all three of the major party conferences.  We’ve reported on this previously here and here and we estimated the cost of RDAs at party conferences back in 2008; the Conservatives have in the past pledged to end taxpayer-funded lobbying but our photographs below prove that it is very much still alive and well. Just this week The Daily Telegraph exposed how bureaucrats at the Olympic Delivery Authority spent £4515 on the three main political parties for conference tickets last year.

Every part of the public sector needs to do its bit to cut spending. It is fine for a wide variety of groups to set up a stall at a party political conference to have their say, but what’s not okay is when that stall is at taxpayers’ expense.

Conservative Party Conference

Welcome to Yorkshire describes itself as the official Destination Management Organisation for Yorkshire. In 2010 Yorkshire Forward gave them £9,246,000 of taxpayers’ money and Local Authorities topped that up with another £285,600. Welcome to Yorkshire is already known for its high profile advertising, such as its sponsorship of the Paul O’Grady Show.

The University of Northampton, like other higher education institutions is kept afloat in part with taxpayers’ cash. Nothing wrong with that, but what if it wasn’t being spent on research and education at the university but in a conference hall.

Two bored-looking employees put in an appearance on the costly looking Centro stand too. For those of you not from the West Midlands this is the body responsible for promoting and developing public transport across the region.

Labour

Digital UK was at the Labour party conference. They were set up supposedly to assist people by offering impartial advice about the digital switchover, however it’s unclear why that requires them to attend a party political conference.

Royal Mail were also present, despite the dire state of their finances they managed to scrape together enough of our money to pay for a stand.

And the more obscure pteg (the passenger transport executive group) also had a (rather empty looking) display. Centro (remember them from Tory party conference?) are a member of this body that represents six passenger transport bodies, all paid for by you and me.

Royal Mail Group and pteg also popped up at the Liberal Democrats party conference, along with several unions who have cash to spare for things like this thanks to the taxpayer-funding they receive.

A victory in the campaign to stop taxpayer funding of the unions

Oct 4th, 2011
by Robert Oxley.
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Last year our ground-breaking research revealed the true extent of taxpayer funding of trade unions. For the first time we calculated the cost of paid time off that union reps working in Whitehall and local government are granted – a staggering £67.5 million. Fast-forward a year, and in an announcement heavily trailed by Guido Fawkes, Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, declared an end to what he called the “ultimate non-job”, taxpayer funded union activists.

In government departments and town halls up and down the country union activists work full time for their union but are paid for with taxpayers’ money. And it’s happening elsewhere in the public sector too; the case of Jane Pilgrim was highlighted in the media, she was meant to be working as a hospital nurse looking after the sick. Instead she worked full time for  Unison helping to organise political campaigning. Public awareness of the case led to her going back to doing the job the taxpayers paid for her to do, looking after patients.

If trade union reps want time off to do union work, the unions should pay for that time, not taxpayers. They can afford to pay their leaders six figure sums and they collect membership fees from their own supporters, yet they are allowed to keep milking taxpayers. As they don’t have to pay for this staff time they can use the money they save for political campaigns and donations to political parties. Taxpayers shouldn’t have to fund organisations that work directly against the best interests of the taxpayer. It is unacceptable that taxpayers are funding unions while they organise disruptive strikes to defend overly generous pension packages that many taxpayers could often only dream of. Yesterday’s announcement was an important victory for taxpayers and for us and will save millions.

The true cost today of subsidising the unions could be much higher than the £67.5 million in our report. Many departments, councils quangos, NHS trust and other public bodies don’t record the amount of time off they provide for union duties. In his speech Eric Pickles said the cost to the taxpayer each year was £250 million.

We have reported on the efforts of some local authorities and councillors who have taken a lead trying to reduce the subsidy councils give to the unions. In many local authorities the cost of union activists has continued to rise. Only recently an already overwhelmed York city planning department lost one of its planning officers to union duties. Efforts to save money wasted in this manner have faced fierce opposition from councillors who have been funded by the unions, local taxpayers will be relieved to see an end to these cosy arrangements.

The unions are likely to resist these moves with dubious claims that they are assisting the role of the HR department or simply revert to form and employ bully boy tactics. The Government must stand up to opposition from vested interests. It’s time to end taxpayer funded trade unionism.

Conference Diary

Oct 3rd, 2011
by Robert Oxley.
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The Conservative Party Conference started yesterday and you will be able to find us in the Freedom Zone. You don’t need a conference pass to get into this area, which is just outside the secure zone in Bridgewater Hall. If you are in the Manchester area before Wednesday do come and say hello and meet the team. We are hosting a number of exciting events at conference and we have top quality cast of speakers appearing:

Monday 3 October 11.30am
Cutting Council Spending and Delivering Lower Taxes
Emma Boon (chairman) – Campaign Director of The TaxPayers’ Alliance
Cllr David Burbage – Leader of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Council
Cllr Stephen Greenhalgh – Leader of Hammersmith and Fulham Council
John O’Connell – Research Director of The TaxPayers’ Alliance
Bob Neill MP – Minster for Local Government

Monday 3 October 2pm
We Need to Talk About Europe (an event with the Daily Express)
Matthew Elliott (chairman) – Chief Executive of The TaxPayers’ Alliance
Douglas Carswell – MP for Clacton
Patrick O’Flynn – Chief Political Commentator of The Daily Express
Tim Montgomerie – Editor of ConservativeHome

Tuesday 4 October 1.45pm
The TaxPayers’ Alliance: Digital Policy Under the Coalition
Dominique Lazanski (chairman) – Head of Digital Policy at The TaxPayers’ Alliance
Jeff Lynn – CEO of Seedrs Limited and Chairman of The Coalition for a Digital Economy (Coadec)
Andrew Orlowski – Technology reporter at The Register
Nick Pickles – Director of Big Brother Watch

Tuesday 4 October 2.45pm
The TaxPayers’ Alliance: How to Cut Taxes
Andrew Allum (chairman) – Chairman of The TaxPayers’ Alliance
Allister Heath – Chairman of the Tax Commission and Editor of City AM (pictured on the right)
Sajid Javid – MP for Bromsgrove
Graeme Leach – Commissioner on the Tax Commission and Chief Economist and Director of Policy of The Institute of Directors
Matthew Sinclair – Director of The TaxPayers’ Alliance

You might also be interested in this event which features our Chief Executive Matthew Elliott, discussing his recent sabbatical:

Tuesday 4 October 4pm
NO to AV: Winning Campaigns: How the AV Referendum was Won and Lost
Jonathan Isaby (chairman) – Political Director of The TaxPayers’ Alliance
Lewis Baston – Political Analyst and author of Don’t Take No For An Answer: The 2011 referendum and the future of electoral reform
Matthew Elliott – Chief Executive of The TaxPayers’ Alliance
Nick Wood – CEO of Media Intelligence Partners

And as if that isn’t enough of a selection for you, there’s also the chance to catch the TPA team speaking at a variety of fringe events across conference including:

Monday 3rd October

10.15am Fringe: Freedom Association on Climate Change with Matthew Sinclair and Roger Helmer MEP. Venue – The Freedom Zone, Bridgewater Hall

12.30pm Fringe: Conservative way Forward on the Tax Cutting Agenda with Dominic Raab MP, Matthew Elliott and Conor Burns MP. Venue – The French, Midland Hotel

5.30pm Fringe: Woodland Trust on The Future of England’s Forests with Matt Sinclair and others. Venue – Chester Suite, Midland Hotel.

7.15pm Fringe: SMF and Which? On Energy Prices with Matt Sinclair and others. Venue – Committee Room 2, Manchester Town Hall

Welsh prisoners claim Sky Sports as human right

Sep 29th, 2011
by Liz Holliday.
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Prisoners in Wales are alleging their human rights have been violated – not due to vermin or filth, but because they only have access to Sky Sports 1. That’s right, this week it was publicised that a group of Welsh prisoners are threatening legal action if Sky Sports 2 and 3 aren’t added to their sets. Apparently merely watching one subscription sports channel – in the privacy of their own cell I might add – is no longer a good enough treat for ‘good behaviour’.

Good behaviour or not, the notion that taxpayers ought to pay for premium TV in prisons is absolute insanity. The fact that these prisoners assert a refusal to do so as a ‘violation of human rights‘ confirms the notion that perhaps they should watch less sport, and spend more time reading up on the world around them.

Prisoners should be reminded that their time in jail is not about luxury at the taxpayers’ expense, but reflection and rehabilitation. At a time when most households are looking for savings, there are no doubt many law-abiding families whose budgets do not stretch to premium sports packages (mine certainly does not). What then makes prisoners think they should get it at taxpayers’ expense?

And if paying for Sky wasn’t enough, if this ludicrous request makes its way to court it will be taxpayers who foot the legal bills too. I am all behind people sticking up for genuine human rights, but to say Sky TV falls into that  category is twisting the definition beyond all recognition.

According to Wales Online, the cost of a Sky Sports One package in a prison costs approximately £100 per month already - that’s £1,200 per year for one prison. The full Sky Sports package would cost an extra £78 per month, bringing the total to about £2,100 a year for each facility!

Clearly prisoners are getting too comfortable with their lives inside and have lost sight of what the purpose of jail time is to begin with if they think a Sky subscription is a right worth fighting for. Conservative MP David Davies has echoed similar sentiments in the media this week, claiming “it beggars belief they are complaining about this…”

Beggars belief indeed! These Welsh prisoners should quit their belly aching and consider themselves lucky to have TV privileges at all. The focus should be on more constructive activities that use inmates’ time to educate them or teach them a new skill that will be useful to them once they are released (charities like Fine Cell Work offer excellent opportunities for prisoners to learn). Sitting in a cell watching the footie at taxpayers’ expense ticks none of these boxes.

Emma Boon also discussed this on BBC Radio Humberside yesterday, you can listen to the interview below:

Public bodies need to take Freedom of Information more seriously

Sep 16th, 2011
by Darren Rutland.
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Freedom of Information (FOI) laws help expose wasteful spending. They have also helped to put pressure on public bodies to publish spending data. Organisations subject to the Act are obliged to respond to requests within 20 working days of receiving them.

However, such laws continue to be ignored by a number of bodies, and they sometimes deliver incorrect or late information.

Most FOI officials are helpful, and do their best to send the correct information out on time. But our friends at Big Brother Watch wrote about some frustrations they encountered earlier this year, citing the example of Northamptonshire Police.

In late 2010, the Information Commissioner’s Officer named and shamed more than 30 public bodies, including the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence, for their continuing lack of adherence to FOI rules.

I recently submitted an FOI request about a local GP surgery in Crawley which is due to close over the next few weeks. I wrote to the local Primary Care Trust, as well as the surgery itself. It was public knowledge that the surgery had building work done on it over the last few years, so I asked the PCT how much money they had given the surgery for this – making it crystal clear the building I was referring to.

At the same time, I asked the surgery how much money they had spent refurbishing their building. The request was submitted on 1st August, but to date, I have not received a response. What was more interesting was the reply from the PCT. They said that they over the last three years, they had given almost £55,000 to the surgery for building work, which is now due to shut.

However, when this figure was questioned by a local newspaper, it turns out that the PCT had actually given the money to a nearby surgery operated by the same group. With seemingly little contrition, they issued a statement seeking to clarify the matter. But such errors can cause confusion and misinform debate.

It is disappointing that many organisations funded by taxpayers still do not take their Freedom of Information responsibilities and obligations as seriously as they should do. Mistakes happen, and it’s good that they explained their error, but in the interests of the transparency which public bodies speak of, this situation must improve.

Crackdown on illegal sublets cashing in on councils’ goodwill

Sep 15th, 2011
by Liz Holliday.
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Illegal subletting of social housing in Britain is much more common than originally thought—three times higher in fact. According to a new study, the fraudulent practice is costing taxpayers upwards of £2 billion a year – money that could be saved, or spent helping those truly in need.

Tower BlockThe fact that tenants are taking such advantage of the system is particularly troubling considering the current long waiting lists for social housing in the UK. In the London Borough of Hillingdon, for example, 600 more people were added to the council housing register this year compared to last. That means, in just a single London borough, there are a total of 7,856 individuals waiting to be housed.

Experian Public Sector put out the study and claimed an upwards of 160,000 council homes were being illegally sublet – roughly 3 per cent of the total UK social housing. Apart from the fact it is against the rules, if you are in a position to sublet your council house and still have somewhere else to live, you probably don’t need it in the first place. These are homes that could be offered to someone else.

Not enough is being done to deter such blatant disregard for the concept of social housing and it is regrettable that the taxpayer is bearing the monetary brunt. Worse still, the abusers face merely a slap on the wrist and a boot out the door should they get caught – though not before earning an estimated £20,000 a year from illegally renting out their social housing. The tenancy cheats can also currently rest assured knowing that criminal sanctions cannot be brought against them.

Eviction is not enough; councils should be more rigorous in their checks and must improve the way they manage the system. The council must do a better job ensuring that benefactors actually live at the address they were given. According to an article published in The Telegraph last month, the government is entertaining the notion of upping the ante should offenders be caught. Under the new guidelines, council housing abusers could also face jail time in addition to eviction. Certainly a step in the right direction, but it still does not close the loophole allowing tenants to abuse the system in the first place.

Before the study was revealed this week, the government thought 50,000 homes were being illegally sublet in the UK, a high number, but nowhere near the 160,000 that is now being claimed. Temporary housing costs approximately £18,000 a year for every tenant, according to the report, and that is on top of the cost of council housing.

The money saved moving those in temporary housing to the council housing currently being wasted by fraudsters would be an excess of £2 billion every year. With councils looking for big savings in the coming years, £20 million in Hillingdon alone, such a misappropriation of taxpayers’ funds is both alarming and unacceptable.

Lord Hanningfield and Lord Taylor of Warwick released after serving only a quarter of their sentences

Sep 13th, 2011
by Robert Oxley.
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Lord Hanningfield and Lord Taylor of Warwick have both been released from prison, having each served only a quarter of their respective nine and twelve month sentences. It is deeply disappointing that they are out so soon and sends out the wrong message to the taxpayers they ripped off.

Lord Hanningfield (pictured), the former leader of Essex County Council, falsely claimed nearly £14,000 for staying in London when he was not there; on one occasion he was in fact on a flight to India. Lord Taylor of Warwick falsely claimed over £ 11,000 for a house in Oxford that he did not live in. Both of these men stole money from taxpayers and lied when confronted with evidence of their crimes.

Three former MPs jailed over their parliamentary expenses – David Chaytor, Eric Illsley and Jim Devine – have already been released. Now that these two peers are also out it means almost all of those convicted over their parliamentary expenses have been let out after serving barely a quarter of their sentences (Elliot Morley was moved from rough Wandsworth prison to a softer open prison in within weeks of being locked up and could also be in line for an early release).

The length of the sentences the expenses cheats served is important. It is about more than just any perceived danger to the public. It is key that their time inside reflects the impact and seriousness of their crimes. The taxpayers they stole from need to see that justice has been done and that it is not one rule for politicians and another rule for the rest of us. A large part of the expenses scandal was a result of some politicians believing they were somehow ‘above the law’. The jail time served needs to dispel this myth and act as a proper deterrent for any future would-be expenses cheat.

It remains to be seen if these two Lords have understood the gravity of their actions or the damage they have done. The continued presence of convicted criminals, who stole taxpayers’ money, in the House of Lords is totally unacceptable. The public must be left wondering what the deterrent is for stealing thousands of pounds from taxpayers.

The expenses cheats should have served more of their sentences to help restore public faith in Parliament after it was so badly damaged by the expenses scandal. Many voters will not think that justice has been served following these lightweight punishments.

The People vs Potholes: A court forces Coventry to pay for vehicle damage

Sep 9th, 2011
by Liz Holliday.
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Each year motorists spend nearly £320 million on vehicle damage caused by potholes. This week one driver took his council to task for such damages to his car – and ultimately won. The victory left local authorities vulnerable to other motorists seeking damages.

Hamilton Bland, a former BBC sports commentator, sued Coventry council for damages after the council refused to foot the £2,000 repair bill to his car. Mr. Bland was driving through the Coventry suburb of Canley when his car hit potholes that left three of car’s wheels totalled.

The fact that the incident happened in January 2010, when bad weather conditions affected the roads, shouldn’t be an excuse. Coventry council refused to accept any responsibility at all for the event, and the council’s lawyers even sent Mr. Bland a letter threatening a £3,500 counter claim should he lose in court.

If driving over a few potholes can result in tyre damages “beyond repair” something needs to be done. Motorists are taxed excessively with Fuel Duty, Vehicle Excise Duty (that’s ‘road tax’ to you and me), not to mention VAT. At the very least that money should mean that you can drive down the road without causing thousands of pounds worth of damages to your vehicle.

Our 2010 report found that motorists paid approximately £30.2 billion in motoring taxes two years ago. With this huge sum, taxpayers rightly expect that roads are maintained to a decent standard. This is especially true considering our report found that £17.9 billion of that tax revenue was excessive beyond what they might be expected to pay for road maintenance and carbon emissions.

Current rules permit councils to ignore smaller potholes, claiming holes smaller than 4cm deep or 15cm wide are not flagged for immediate repair (within 24 hours). Clearly standards of maintenance in this case came down to a difference of opinion.

The court win may now open the door for other motorists seeking reimbursement for pothole repairs. This is unfortunate, as the council could have prevented this ordeal by keeping roads well maintained.

Actions like these could cost councils – and therefore taxpayers – a lot of money at a time when they are necessarily cutting back on spending. But the key lesson here is that councils have to get their priorities right in order to handle smaller budgets. Key services like bin collections and road maintenance are what the majority of taxpayers pay their council tax for. Politicians and council executives have to look a lot harder at other areas of spending instead of leaving potholes unfilled or switching to fortnightly bin collections.

Sign the e-petition on Empty Property Rates

Sep 7th, 2011
by John O'Connell.
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Back in April the TPA released a briefing note on Empty Property Rates. Since April, nearly all businesses have to pay full business rates on an empty commercial property just three months after it becomes vacant, and six months later for an industrial property.

As reported in yesterday’s Financial Times (£) The British Chambers of Commerce has written a letter to the Chancellor saying that the tax could have “perverse consequences” and that reversing it will help business confidence.

Originally, Business Rates were waived for three months and charged at 50 per cent thereafter. Industrial properties were fully exempt.

In the 2007 Budget the then Chancellor Gordon Brown announced this was to be scrapped as part of the Rating (Empty Properties) Act 2007. Non-industrial property would be exempt from business rates for three months and industrial property for six months. After that time business owners returned to paying full rates.

However, during the economic crisis the Chancellor (Alistair Darling) announced a brief respite for some ratepayers from the new legislation in the 2008 Pre-Budget Report. Properties under a Rateable Value of £15,000 would be exempt for the 2009-10 financial year. This was extended for the 2010-11 financial year and the threshold was lifted to £18,000, intended to help small businesses during the downturn.

But since April 2011, the Rating (Empty Properties) Act 2007 applies for properties over a Rateable Value of £2,600.

There is an e-petition on the Government website that wants the rateable value to return to £18,000. It was started by the Business Centre Association and is backed by many groups, including us here at the TPA. You can sign the petition here.

It’s important to let the Government know that they won’t help the recovery or drive growth by taxing business failure. They need to reduce the burden so that businesses and entrepreneurs can find their feet again as quickly as possible. As well as killing business confidence, there’s a real risk landlords will simply demolish properties as the rates are too stringent, which depletes the overall capital stock.  On top of all that, small commercial units are often a means of income for retired people who don’t have savings or a pension, and this tax are choking that off too.

Many members of the Government aggressively fought against this policy in opposition – it was called “wicked and ungodly” at one point – and they should regain some of that zeal and announce a reversal in the Autumn.

Sign the petition and help push for this change.

Margaret Moran faces 21 expenses charges

Sep 7th, 2011
by Emma Boon.
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One of the last politicians to be investigated in the expenses scandal, Margaret Moran, will be charged with fiddling her expenses by more than £60,000.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has announced that the former MP for Luton South will appear before Westminster Magistrates’ Court on the 19thSeptember 2011.

Charges relate to 15 charges of false accounting, contrary to the Theft Act 1968.

Moran claimed for dry rot treatment on a home more than 100 miles from her constituency.

Keir Starmer QC, Director of Public Prosecutions, said:

“Ms Moran also faces six charges of forgery, contrary to the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981, where it is alleged that she submitted forged invoices in support of some of her claims.”

The Metropolitan police originally passed ten files of evidence to the CPS, relating to ten individuals. Seven cases have resulted in charges: David Chaytor, Eric Illsley, Elliot Morley, Jim Devine, Lord Taylor of Warwick and Lord Hanningfield have already been jailed over the scandal.

Margaret Moran is suspended from membership of the Labour Party and is no longer an MP.

Further information and our reaction to the trial and sentence will be posted on this blog once proceedings are complete.

The Economist newspaper comes out against High Speed Rail

Sep 2nd, 2011
by John O'Connell.
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We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: the Government must scrap its ludicrous and expensive High Speed Rail project. But it’s not just us: a broad spectrum of others have joined our call, from the Green Party to the RAC Foundation. And this morning, The Economist newspaper joined the ranks. They have a special editorial and feature this week outlining why they believe the project is horribly flawed.

More of a problem for everyday commuters?

Their main feature focuses on the supposed regional regeneration that HS2 will bring. The Government argue that it will close the North-South divide, but The Economist is less sure; in fact they argue that it could exacerbate regional disparities. They cite evidence from France where more businesses have relocated to Paris after the high speed line to Lyon was built. Similarly in Spain, Madrid has benefited at the expense of Seville, while in Japan, Tokyo still grows faster than Osaka.

So The Economist and others think that a big Government-led scheme to close regional disparities won’t work – who’d've thunk it? Regional Development Agencies helped exacerbate regional disparities and this big shiny Government project runs a real risk of doing the same.

So let’s see what’s been destroyed so far: the business case; the job-creation case; and capacity claims. Now the regional regeneration claims have come under serious fire. The Government is fast running out of credibility on this issue. HS2 is not a good project at the wrong time, it’s just a bad project. Scrap it.

Jacqui Smith the expenses zombie rips us off from beyond the political grave

Aug 25th, 2011
by The TaxPayers' Alliance.
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The Sun has revealed that former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith used the services of two day release prisoners – detained at our expense – to decorate her £450,000 home in Redditch when they were supposed to be working to benefit the local community.

You may recall that the former Labour minister has a record of abusing taxpayers’ money when it comes to expenses. The former MP for Redditch, who was removed by the electorate at the general election last year, seemed reluctant to pay for anything herself on her £450,000 family home in Redditch.  While claiming on her website she lived in Redditch, she registered a bedroom in her sister’s London house as her main residence, so the Redditch house could be a second home and she could claim £116,000 in various expenses for it over six years.  Taxpayers were even billed for X-rated films enjoyed by her husband.

The prisoners were taking part in a charity scheme, intended to reintroduce them to work and to give something back to the local community. She appears to have become an expert on personal gain at the expense of others, whether it is ripping off hard pressed taxpayers with dodgy expenses claims, or in this case, using a contact to gain the decorating services of convicts.

In her defence, the former Home Secretary claimed “they didn’t have anything else on”. This seems astonishing if you take a look around her former constituency where local community centres are in desperate need of repair and derelict buildings are becoming eyesores.

Also Jacqui Smith and her husband did make an undisclosed donation to the charity for which the prisoners were working. But that is beside the point.

The authorities have made it clear to the Sun that even if there wasn’t work for them, they were supposed to be returned to prison and not used as cheap labour to do up a private home, let alone one that had been the subject of dodgy claims by a now disgraced former MP.

Daniel Jennings is interning at the TPA

Speed cameras: an accident in themselves?

Aug 24th, 2011
by Richard Poole.
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The Department for Transport (DfT) has published online data for accidents, casualties and speeding at fixed camera sites. Statistics for the 75 local authorities who have so far provided their information shows that speed cameras have done very little, if anything, to improve safety for motorists and other road users.

In fact, the figures suggest the exact opposite. In some cases, speed cameras have not cut accident rates, but increased them. Research we did last year found the rate of decline in road accidents slowed when speed cameras were introduced, and today’s figures build on that. We also saw that when Swindon turned off their cameras, there was no increase in accident rates, debunking the claim that without these cameras, motorists become dangerous behind the wheel.

Many of us may be guilty of ‘panic braking’ when we see a speed camera and slam on the brakes to avoid detection, others may tactically brake because they already know where the cameras are. But even the most consistently speed conscious motorists among us will have seen this behaviour from other drivers. This camera-induced erratic driving doesn’t make for safe roads. As Claire Armstrong, co-founder of Safe Speed notes, “road safety is not measured in miles an hour”. People should be encouraged to drive safely, rather than just slowly. Yet there have been numerous cases of cameras being installed with no real road safety benefit at all. For example, a speed camera was erected on the A329 in Little Milton, Oxfordshire, in 1997 despite no previous collisions or casualties for five years.

This data further supports the suspicion that many of us have held for a long time: that speed cameras are little more than money-making machines, topping up the government’s revenue through speeding fines, rather than genuine safety devices. Motorists are already very heavily over-taxed and they don’t want to see more of their hard-earned cash pay for the maintenance and installation of fixed cameras which penalise them further. If speed cameras are not doing their road safety job effectively, they should be scrapped, something we called for in our manifesto pledge last year.

The DfT should be praised for its transparency in publishing this data but they shouldn’t stop there. All councils should be held to account and publish their data, so we know if our money is being used on ‘safety efficient’ rather than money-spinner cameras. Road Safety Minister Mike Penning sums it up:

“Local residents have a right to expect that when their council spends money on speed cameras, they publish information to show whether those cameras are helping to reduce accidents or not.”

Why does our money go to trade unions?

Aug 22nd, 2011
by Darren Rutland.
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Another shocking story of public sector staff working for unions at the taxpayers’ expense has emerged today. Dominic Raab MP has found out that £7 million of our cash has been wasted on 1,200 Home Office employees, police officers and border guards to work for trade unions and Police Federations.

This is a disgraceful misuse of public money, not least because £7 million is a huge sum. Mr Raab goes on to calculate that an extra 300 officers could be paid for with the money going to trade unions. With necessary spending reductions being made, the policing budget savings are among the most controversial. But there’s money being wasted on funding union work. This shows that there are easy savings to make that won’t damage frontline policing.

Many UK Border Agency staff are represented by the Public and Commercial Services Union, who recently assisted in organising a national 24-hour strike against the cuts. Taxpayers should not be paying for staff to do union work, particularly when unions play such a blatant political role.

This is just another in a string of recent stories on this topic – last week it was revealed that almost half a million pounds of taxpayers’ money is given to trade union officials representing Edinburgh City Council staff. A member of that council has called for an investigation by the council’s leader following the release of figures detailing the £473,965 cost. It is an especially alarming figure seeing as it is more than double the amount spent on union work by Glasgow City Council, even though it is a smaller city.

Previous work from the TaxPayers’ Alliance has shown that during the 2009-10 financial year, almost 2,500 full time equivalent public sector employees undertook trade union duties while being paid with our cash. If union officials who work for public bodies wish to undertake their union responsibilities, it must be in their own time, and should not be at taxpayers’ expense.

Why we should include PFI in the national debt

Aug 19th, 2011
by Emma Boon.
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There is much talk of PFI in this morning’s news; the Treasury Select Committee has warned that many Private Finance Initiative (PFI) deals are poor value for taxpayers and the cost of those that have been badly negotiated has shot up.

A huge amount of taxpayers’ money is spent via controversial PFI schemes and Andrew Tyrie, of the Treasury Select Committee, said on Today that whilst taxpayers are “getting ripped off” by PFI schemes they are often not aware how bad the situation is because PFI is not counted as part of our official national debt. The insidious characteristic of PFI deals is that they allow the Government to spend taxpayers’ money without really fully admitting that it’s spending it, or promising to spend it in the future.

We highlighted the importance of counting PFI as part of the national debt in our research paper, The Real National Debt, written in 2010 and using figures for the financial year 2009-10. For the first time we laid bare the startling growth of the real national debt over the last decade. At the time of that paper it stood at £300,000 for every single household in Britain; for most ordinary families it would represent the whopping second mortgage you never knew you had.

$1,000,000,000

Bringing PFI fully onto the balance sheet and including it in the headline figure of national debt would, at a stroke, add a good few billion to the amount we admit we owe. It sounds terrifying but it’s hugely important that the liabilities for PFI are more transparent; at the moment the true scale of what taxpayers are on the hook for is disguised. Once we’ve faced up to the PFI problem why stop there? Shouldn’t we also look at the huge liabilities we have thanks to unfunded public sector pensions and unfunded state pensions? The debt from bailing out the banks is still very much sitting on our books, add that too and we’re nudging £8 trillion.

Once you get above a few million I think it gets all too easy to throw around billions and trillions discussing these matters. We created this video to try and illustrate the scale of the numbers we were talking about in our report. This useful graphic relates to US dollars but also gives you some serious perspective on what a few trillion looks like.

The Government should be responsible not just for the money that it spends but for the PFI deals that it signs taxpayers up to, because that represents our money or our children’s money.

Send the Government a message on fuel duty

Aug 19th, 2011
by Jonathan Isaby.
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The Government’s recently launched e-petition website is a small but welcome step towards giving people more say over the country’s affairs: the TPA believes that an online petition gaining sufficient support should be able to trigger a referendum, although for the time being we have to be content with it being eligible for a debate in Parliament.

And the second most popular e-petition right now is one to which I hope TPA supporters will lend their backing.

Organised by Harlow MP Robert Halfon and backed by FairFuel UK, it highlights the fact that many motorists are now having to spend 10% of their income on petrol and calls on the Government to scrap increases in fuel duty planned for next year and the rest of this Parliament.

The TPA has previously demonstrated how motorists are taxed excessively and in his new book out this week, Let them eat carbon, Matthew Sinclair has exposed how green taxes such as fuel duty are excessive compared to the harms they are meant to address.

100,000 signatures would make the petition eligible for a debate in Parliament, and it has just passed the halfway mark – 51,849 people have backed it as of this morning.

Click here to add your support.

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