Friday, 9 January 2009


TaxPayers' Alliance Bulletin - 7th January 2008
 
2009 starts with a bang
 
2009 kicked off to a great start for us, with the TPA being voted Pressure Group of the Year by Iain Dale's readers. This is a fantastic achievement: 1,500 people voted in the poll on one of Britain's best read political blogs. We have moved up from third place last year and managed to pip both NO2ID and Liberty to the post. This bears testament to how our campaign has gone from strength to strength over the last 12 months, and has left our campaign team raring to go and reach even greater heights in 2009. Many thanks to all those who voted.
 
Also this week, the TPA featured high on the billing on Radio 4's 'You and Yours' programme. Despite hardline TPA critics such as John Cruddas featuring in the line-up, who encouragingly told the interviewer that "many Labour MPs are now very concerned about the TaxPayers' Alliance", the programme centred on the TPA's increasing influence, high media profile and key policy achievements. If you would like to listen to the programme, plese click here (10 minutes, 20 seconds in).
 
Former advisor to Tony Blair, Matthew Taylor wrote about the the TPA on his RSA blog earlier this week. In an article regarding the funding of public services over the next 18 months, Taylor wrote that, "the very savvy TaxPayers’ Alliance will train an eagle eye on any examples of public sector profligacy, and there are bound to be plenty to choose from." This is a prime example of how the TPA is becoming pivotal in key policy debates around public service reform, and how we are increasing our influence across the political spectrum. To read the full blog post, please click here.
 
Annual Non-jobs report 2008

Over the break we released our Annual Non-jobs report. With the onset of an economic downturn, spending is being cut back and jobs are being lost. But, as our report shows, there are signs that the public sector is not tightening its belt in order to deal with these difficult times. Public sector staff are paid more than their equivalents in the private sector, public sector employment is rising and there is continued creation of non-jobs.

Our report found that average pay in 2008 was £21,413 in the public sector against £20,715 in the private sector. Pay in the public sector was therefore 3.4 per cent higher. In the third quarter of 2008, public sector employment increased by 14,000 whereas private sector employment decreased by 128,000 and public sector organisations are still recruiting for a large number of jobs of dubious value.

This year's top non-jobs included Street Football Coordinator: Moray Council, Salary: £19,887 and Community Space Challenger Co-ordinator: Southwark Council, Salary: £28,494 - £33,777.

The report was picked up across the press, including hits in:
Daily Express, Public sector jobs scandal (front page)
Daily Mail, Wanted, an expert to teach football... in the street: Never mind the recession, it's boom time for ludicrous jobs
Aberdeen Press and Journal, Laughable job titles raise a serious point
The Newcastle Journal, Spotlight On Public Sector non-jobs
Middlesborough Evening Gazette, Public cost of 'non-jobs'
TPA spokesmen also appeared on Talksport, LBC and BBC Radio Newcastle to discuss the findings and implications of the report.
 
Jobzilla!
 
In yet another triumph for our campaign against public sector waste, the Daily Mail has this week picked up our 'non-job' concept featured on our website and will run a weekly column revealing non-jobs to the nation. Even better, they are running a competition called 'Lingo Bingo' where readers can win £500 by spotting jargon and management speak in non-job adverts. It's great to see a TPA feature reaching such heights and another national paper taking up the cudgels against public sector waste. So play the Jobzilla Lingo Bingo, keep fighting these dubious posts, and we could soon see common sense win out! To read the article, please click here  
 
Regional Development Agencies: Having a ball at the 2008 Party Conferences
 
Following the TaxPayers' Alliance's detailed analysis of RDA activity earlier this year (to read the report click here), the case for reforming RDAs has risen up the policy agenda. Despite over £15 billion in taxpayer funding, they have proved ineffective in reducing regional income disparities, incapable of fostering sustainable economic growth and have frequently misused taxpayers’ money. With their funding under threat, the RDAs took the opportunity of this autumn’s Party Conferences to try and mount a defence. But, true to form, that defence amounted to an appalling misallocation of taxpayers’ money.
 
In our latest report on the RDAs, we revealed that over the three main party conferences, RDAs spent over £285,000 purchasing security passes, obtaining hotel rooms, reimbursing staff for expenses and paying for expensive events in an attempt to attract political support. The Labour Conference was the most expensive to RDAs, costing over £107,102 and RDA staff claimed £14,025 in expenses. The North West Regional Development Agency (NWDA) spent the most, at £89,885 in total. The South West RDA was the next biggest spender, at £53,149.

The report was well received in the press, including the below coverage:
Newcastle Evening Chronicle, Spending sparks a new call for axe 
Plymouth Evening Herald, Swrda's £53k bill for party conferences
Lincolnshire Echo, Taxpayers fund party visits
Manchester Evening News, Quango rapped over £90K 'gravy train'
Northampton Chronicle and Echo, Agencies attacked
TPA spokesmen also appeared on BBC Radio Tees to discuss the findings of the report.
 
New TPA team members
 
We are delighted to welcome two new staff members to the TPA team.

Dr Lee Rotherham has joined the TPA as our EU policy analyst, and is a veteran from behind the stage scenery of European Union politics.  After researching for the “Westminster Group of Eight” Eurorebels, he advised three successive Shadow Foreign Secretaries, a role part-based within the European Parliament.  This expertise led to his appointment as ‘Chief of Staff’ to the Rt Hon David Heathcoat-Amory MP, British parliamentary delegate to the Convention on the Future of Europe, and a central role behind delegates opposing the European Constitution and the drafters of the Minority Report. He has been closely involved in a number of grassroots EU campaigning organisations over the years, most notably the Bruges Group, CAFE, and as a columnist for  the European Journal.  He has been extensively and internationally published on a palette of subjects.  Since the TPA’s last edition of the Bumper Book of Government Waste (which he jointly wrote), 2008  has seen him co-author a major book for Open Europe on the EU’s PR budgets.



Maria Fort joined the TPA in September 2008 as an intern to experience life in British politics by playing an active role in Britain’s fastest growing campaign group.  In December, she was promoted to a full time public spending policy analyst, joining the team permanently. She studied Economics and International Affairs, with a concentration on Europe, at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in May 2008.  It was at James Madison that Maria became involved in the Republican Party through her work with the College Republicans.  Maria spent her university career working with the Republican Party through various internships and local and national campaigns, including a position with the College Republican Federation of Virginia for which she received an award for her work on a state-wide grassroots volunteer programme as the Political Director of the CRFV. Maria spent several months in Washington DC interning with foreign policy think-tank the Nixon Center, and with the United States Department of State for the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs.She remains a Republican Party activist. 

Food Champions and time off

We’ve got two stories for you to get your teeth into this week, both sent to us by our supporters who continue to keep a watchful eye on their council’s doings.  The first story involves Worcestershire County Council paying officers to be Food Champions, i.e. to literally knock on doors to tell residents how to dish up dinner and compost.  You can read the details on our blog here. 

The second story comes from Cheltenham Borough Council.  See, they’ve got good intentions so don’t get too angry when I tell you that they’re giving officers time off – on full pay – to do some volunteering work.  You can find the leader of the council’s email address on our blog here so you can ask him yourself why he’s paying people with your money to ‘volunteer’ when they should be doing a better job at finding ways to cut your taxes!

Best of the Blogs

Economics 101: Cutting Taxes on Savers 
 

Posted by Britannia Radio at 18:07