Britannia Radio

TaxPayers' Alliance bulletin - 22nd January 2010

 

Good news from the most Royal of Boroughs

 

Good news for taxpayers in Windsor and Maidenhead this week: the council have announced the largest cut in council tax in Britain - a whopping 4%. You may remember them as the council that has pioneered spending transparency. The cut equates to £41 a year off band D properties, and will be manna from heaven to hard-pressed taxpayers. People across the UK have seen their council tax more than double in the last ten years, and even now when times are tighter than ever we at the TPA have had reports of many councils continuing to increase council tax by the maximum of 4.9%.

David Burbage, the council’s leader, told The Daily Telegraph: “We are showing that council tax can go down as well as up. For too long council tax bills have inexorably risen, and there is no correlation between high council tax and good services. Our council has proved that we can make public services better and cut tax at the same time. There’s a huge amount of waste in the system and we should never forget that it’s taxpayers’ money we are spending.”

Wise words indeed, debunking the convenient council myth that any reduction in tax take will lead to public service cuts. The TPA welcomed this move in the national press, and we would like to see other councils follow this example and ease the financial burden on the rest us by cutting their bloated administrations and focussing on providing better value for money instead of simply empire building. 

 

Public Sector pay victory

 

The TPA is happy to relay yet another encouraging sign on public sector pay. The Times this week reported that many top level public sector roles will have their pay levels cut back; this is recognition that executive remuneration had lost touch with reality, and not just in the context of the financial crisis. The Audit Commission and Kent County Council are also advertising lower salaries for their recently vacated top posts. This wind of change needs to blow through the entire public sector, and in the wake of our Public Sector and Town Hall Rich Lists, we feel this measure has come not a moment too soon. On top of our reports, the TPA has given evidence to a Parliamentary Select Committee on this topic, and it's great to see that we are making headway by achieving cross spectrum consensus on what used to be a very touchy and divisive topic. Now, if we can just win over Polly Toynbee...

 

Black and white and mad all over

 

News broke this week that Northern Rock, which is of course owned by taxpayers, has this week spent £10 million sponsoring Newcastle United. It's absurd that a bank who needed our cash to keep its head above water is now using that money to sponsor sports teams. Even TPA Campaign Director Mark Wallace - who is a Newcastle fan - criticised the move in this week's press, saying: "A bank that needed to be bailed out by taxpayers should be focusing on repaying that money. Even if they want to spend £10million on advertising, there are much better targeted ways to do that which could reap bigger rewards." But, look on the bright side, Mark: what's theirs is ours! So we encourage all our supporters to make use of this farcical sponsorship and write to Northern Rock and demand use of the corporate hospitality box at St. James's Park. Email them here: customersupport@northernrock.co.uk 

  

Those non-jobs just keep on coming

 

One of the things we have peristently railed against at the TPA is the growing number of expensive, pointless non-jobs that exist across the public sector. This week one of our TPA activists identified a particularly fine example of this sort of wishy-washy jobsworth at Aberdeen City Council. They are recruiting for a development officer who needs "Experience of working in a developmental role, of promoting customer or citizen engagement and an understanding of the corporate goals. Presentational, facilitation and communication skills, ability to produce clear reports for a broad range of audiences and to work with diverse community interests and to promote equal opportunities." As Fiona McEvoy pointed out in her blog, it is a vague, meaningless and, at  £25,608-£29,245 p.a., very expensive job.

 

After we posted this on our website, The Aberdeen Press and Journal picked it up and ran with the story in today's newspaper, perfectly illustrating how www.taxpayersalliance.com/ has become a one-stop shop for fighting waste in the public sector by voicing the concerns of our members and getting the issues that matter to taxpayers into both local and national media outlets.

 

And what does this button do?

 

Despite frequent evidence to the contrary, there are still those of us who hope that the people running our country understand numbers, and what they mean. Well, it seems even this faint hope is misplaced, and the Commons' Authorities have identified a clear lack of numeracy among MPs. They have produced a booklet entitled 'Statistical Literacy: How To Understand And Calculate Percentages', which includes such helpful tips as explaining that the % button on the calculator is there to calculate percentages. TPA spokespeople commented on the story across the national press, dismayed as we were at this latest disappointment. While alarming, at least this sorry state of affairs goes some of the way to explaining how Brown and Darling can keep telling us everything is fine with the public finances - perhaps they simply don't understand what the annual deficit rising to 14% of GDP actually means.

 

Best of the blogs

 

Economics 101: If you build it they will come

Better Government: Reality bites

European Union: An analogue policy?

European Union: On track

 

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