Britannia Radio

TaxPayers' Alliance Bulletin - 22 July 2011 - Your right to inspect your council's books - Surfing the web on taxpayers' time - TPA staff out spreading the message - Grassroots: Activist profile - Best of the blogs Your right to inspect your council's books Did you know that every council must make its accounts available to the public for twenty days a year? It's the law and it means that you can look through every item of expenditure, not just those above £500. To help residents and armchair auditors to find out when they have a right to inspect, an online search engine has been published setting out the open day period for over 280 councils. Ministers have said they would like to see all councils sign up to the catalogue and councils are now required to publicise these little known rights to inspect. So please use you right to inspect your council's accounts, click here to find out when you can do this in your area. You only get the chance once a year to find out exactly what your council has spent your money on, so use it! If you find anything interesting, make a note of it and get in touch by replying to this e-mail. Surfing the web on taxpayers' time The biggest item of expenditure for most public sector bodies is staff. It's therefore crucial for taxpayers that public sector employees are productive while at work. So we asked each Government Department to send us a list of websites their staff had visited, in order of frequency, and the amount of time spent on these sites. Only the Department of Work and Pensions could provide the information. They provided a Monthly list of the top 100 websites visited, in order of frequency. It didn’t quite answer every aspect of our request, but at least they were able to easily obtain this information from their internet provider. No other department could answer the main part of this request which is pretty appalling. It means that they don't know how their staff are spending their time. Nobody's arguing that staff should be completely barred from the web, staff may use it on their lunch breaks, for instance, or have permission to quickly pay a bill when they don't have the internet at home. But for every honest use of the internet for non-work purposes, there'll be plenty more where staff have spent far too much time browsing the web and not done the work they should. Publishing these lists will help to root out such problems, keep staff focussed on their work and get value for taxpayers' cash. TPA Research Director John O’Connell has more on this here and you can also look at the DWP’s response and see what websites were most popular among their staff. TPA staff out spreading the message TPA Research Director John O'Connell spoke at the Annual General Meeting of the Association of British Drivers (ABD) last weekend. He told meeting delegates why the Government should cancel the High Speed Rail project, after Steve Baker MP had discussed the politics of driving. Then on Monday our Campaign Director, Emma Boon, gave a speech on excessive 'Sin Taxes', those levied on things like driving, alcohol and cigarettes, at an event organised by the Freedom Association. You can watch Emma in action on the Freedom Association website. Grassroots activist profile: Bernard Stone and Nigel Shaw It's a double whammy this week as we couldn't separate these two; they are a great two-man team. Bernard Stone and Nigel Shaw work together to get better value for taxpayers in West Yorkshire. For many years Bernard and Nigel have been involved with those keen to cut out waste in Local Government. Bernard currently works as a business consultant. He was Vice Chairman of the Bradford Metro Residents Federation which brought together residents groups in the Bradford District and held regular meetings with Bradford Council. Nigel works as a Chartered Tax Advisor in an accountancy practice. He sees, on a daily basis, the complexities of the UK tax system and how this impacts on businesses and individuals alike. Bernard and Nigel have been steadily building up membership of the West Yorkshire branch and have defended the TPA from attacks from the leader of Bradford Council. They write letters to local newspapers and have given a number of presentations to groups such as the local Rotary club. If you would like to join them in West Yorkshire, please get in touch with National Grassroots Coordinator, Andrew Allison, and he will pass on your details. With many councils opting for the easy route of cutting front-line services, rather than cutting waste, there is no better time than now to get involved in our campaigns. Best of the Blogs Burning our money: Non-job of the week - £55k for a 'foresight horizon scanning analyst' Grassroots: Nottingham City Council fails again on transparency - Nottingham City Council make little secret of their disdain for the Freedom of Information act - and may be actively blocking the work of their information officers 2020 Tax Commission: The 50p rate is an unaffordable gimmick. Abolish it - Rory Meakin on Income Tax Campaign: OFCOM sets BT Broadband Wholesale Prices - OFCOM take an important step in the process to provide more broadband access to rural areas in the UK, writes Dominque Lazanski Burning our money: Are Union bosses really in touch with their members? Former Unite boss Derek Simpson’s £500k payoff - Chris Daniel asks tough questions after Derek Simpson receives a £500k payoff 2020 Tax Commission: Even if businesses and entrepreneurs don’t move abroad, they may simply do less - Britain's high and complex tax regime continues to drive businesses abroad, explains John O'Connell - and those that stay may simply do less Grassroots: Southampton’s wave of strikes - Council workers in Southampton continue to refuse to accept economic reality, writes Andrew Allison