Britannia Radio

TaxPayers' Alliance Bulletin - 3rd June 2011 - The cost of 2012 Olympics tickets - Trips to Goa, dinner at Claridge’s... how councils spend your money - Lord Taylor jailed - Fire service pet rescues - Grassroots - Best of the Blogs The cost of 2012 Olympics tickets Tickets for the London 2012 Olympics were allocated this week. Some applicants have found mysterious amounts deducted from their bank account but have no idea which event they’ll be seeing. Others have been disappointed. But whether you weren’t interested or you missed out, you will still be paying for Olympics tickets. We've heard that some public bodies have been buying tickets and passing the bill to taxpayers. Now we need your help to find out who they are. MPs are joining in the fun too, according to theDaily Telegraph, they’ll be getting an extra holiday to enjoy the games. Please help us by sending a Freedom Of Information request (FOI) to your local council, a regional quango or NHS Trust, asking how many tickets they're snapping up. There are instructions on how to do this, and a template letter on our website. This is an issue we’ve campaigned on before, to great effect. Back in March, Hackney Council said they “couldn’t rule out” buying tickets for staff. After we created a fuss and hit the front page of the local paper the council reversed that decision and promised any tickets they did have to children in local schools. Send us back your responses, and we’ll total them up to find out just how much of your money public bodies are spending to attend the Games. Your voice can make a difference. Trips to Goa, dinner at Claridge’s... how councils spend your money “Dining out on the taxpayers’ credit card” is an expression often used to convey how council bureaucrats waste your money. But, as the Daily Telegraph reported, the phrase has taken on a whole new literal meaning. Councils spent over £100 million on Government Procurement Cards (GPCs) over the last three years, and many of the expenses are truly shocking. Dinner at Michelin starred restaurants (pictured is London's Claridge's where Gordon Ramsey has a restaurant) was the tip of the iceberg. Hotels and jewellery, pom-poms and llamas, the list had it all. The irony is that GPCs are supposed to save taxpayers’ money. They are seen as more efficient than staff paying for items themselves and submitting a paper invoice, cutting down processing costs. This may be true, but it’s clear that staff have misused these cards on multiple occasions. As Chris Daniel pointed out, staff paying for something themselves first automatically makes them more cautious about the purchase. Give them instant access to taxpayers’ cash and they are clearly a lot more frivolous, made worse by the fact that so much spending on these cards has gone unchecked or approved without question. Disgracefully, £20,000 of spending on Government credit cards went unaccounted for because no receipts were provided. These cards can be more cost efficient, but councils must also be completely transparent and publish all of their spending on GPCs. This sort of waste and carefree attitude to taxpayers’ cash must be stamped out for good. If a private business didn’t bother to keep up with its accounts HMRC would not put up with vague excuses. Misuse of petty cash or company credit cards is a fireable offence in the real world. This is taxpayers’ money and where and why it is spent must be justified. Lord Taylor jailed The expenses scandal continued this week. Lord Taylor of Warwick became the first peer to be jailed for his fraudulent expenses claims. Justice has been done and Lord Taylor, who claimed over £30,000 in expenses for a house in Oxford where he never lived, has been sentenced to 12 months. He is unlikely to serve the full sentence of course. It’s good to see that parliamentarians who stole from taxpayers are being brought to justice. Hopefully our lawmakers will learn that they cannot break their own laws to line their pockets. Watch our Campaign Director Emma Boon appearing on the ITV News at Tento give her thoughts on Lord Taylor’s behaviour. Former leader of Essex County Council, Lord Hanningfield, was also found guilty of fiddling his expenses last week. He has said he is devastated and claims to have done nothing wrong, announcing that he wants to appeal the ruling. ITV Anglia reported his fall from grace, you can watch Emma Boon comment on the story here. Fire service pet rescues A BBC investigation has revealed that the fire service has spent £3.5 million on rescuing animals in the last three years. Each case is different, and of course animals should not be allowed to suffer, but these costs are surprisingly high and involve some ridiculous examples. In one instance, seven firefighters went to reassure an old lady about a snail that was stuck halfway up an 8ft wall. Only half of the fire services in the country actually replied with costs, so the true cost of these rescues could be much higher. Other examples included rescuing a squirrel from a lamppost, a pigeon from a roof and a seagull that had gotten into difficulties in a gutter. Is this really the best use of taxpayers’ money? Lots of these cases clearly aren’t emergencies; the cost of call outs by concerned animal owners or members of the public is putting pressure on the fire service. Animal charities or vets can often help farmers with larger animals or livestock and in cases involving domestic pets sometimes all that is needed is a ladder. Calling out rescue equipment and fire-fighters could put human lives at risk if a crew can't then reach a fire somewhere else. Grassroots Liam Billington, our coordinator in Tameside, wrote this week about the taxpayer funding of unions. We also produced a report on this last year. Despite Tameside Council having to reduce its budget, those union representatives who are councils employees, but work full-time for their unions, received a total of £336,718 in 2010/11. This was an amazing 48% increase from the previous year! He also exposed how some union officials have taken voluntary redundancy, were then parachuted into safe seats, and are now Labour councillors. All of this costs taxpayers dearly at a time when we can least afford it. Tim Newark, our coordinator in Bath and the South West, has written about the Bath Traffic Trap. Take a look at what he's written, and you will see this is a great victory for motorists who have unwittingly parked their cars in front of a bus gate, but despite calls for better signage, Bath Council treated drivers as a cash cow. As mentioned earlier, do join us in rooting out the councils and other public bodies that are providing staff with Olympic tickets, instructions on the simple form to send off are here. Thank you for being a part of the TaxPayers’ Alliance! Best of the Blogs Burning our Money: Non-job of the week - "We do not pay our taxes to be preached at and have our behaviour changed, or pay for political advice to councillors, or pay for performance managers" Grassroots: Union Funding at Tameside Council Rockets Up 48% - The cost of full-time union officials is up 50% at Tameside council, for the same number of staff Grassroots: I’m alright, Jackie! - Colin Cameron looks at incredibly generous remuneration in Newcastle College Group Grassroots: Hull & East Riding round-up - Andrew Allison provides an update on his work in Hull & East Riding, including information about taxpayer funded union activists and sharp pay hikes for senior staff in the fire service EU: Oppose the EU bailouts! - Over 600 people have now signed our petition opposing EU bailouts - have you?