Campaign: HMRC: GETTING TAX WRONG SINCE 2005… AND EARLIER -The taxman needs to get his house in order, according to TPA Campaign Director Emma Boon. Burning our Money: NON-JOB OF THE WEEK - an unnamed London borough council wants to appoint a Temporary Change Manager Burning our Money: ‘SYSTEM FAILURE’ – £11 BILLION NHS IT SYSTEM FINALLY ABANDONED, BUT NOT BEFORE SLAMMING A HIGH BILL ON TAXPAYERS - Richard Poole on the scandal of NPfIT - billions of pounds of taxpayers' cash have been wasted on yet another Government IT disaster Better Government: RED TAPE ANNOUNCEMENTS SHOULD ONLY BE THE FIRST STEP TO SCALING BACK BURDENSOME REGULATIONS -Announcements reducing red tape for retailers should only be the start, according to Jonathan Duell in his debut post for the TPA Better Government: CIVIL SERVANTS GET THEIR SCHOOL REPORT -How is the Government doing with hiring fewer civil servants and their pay packages? Robert Oxley gives them their school report and the grades aren't good
TaxPayers' Alliance Bulletin - 5th August 2011
Victory on civil servant pay transparency
Jim Devine serves only four months
Bank bailouts fail to deliver as promised
Grassroots
Councillors in Bolsover have rejected a recommendation from the Independent Remuneration Panel (IRP) to reduce their allowances. They receive £10,047, almost twice the national average for comparable councils, and despite this only one councillor agreed with the IRP. Instead councillors voted to freeze their pay for four years. Our national grassroots co-ordinator, Andrew Allison suggested cutting the number of councillors. This seems to be happening in North Somerset where a councillor has recommended it! The TPA coordinator for Bath and the South West, Tim Newark, thinks the number of councillors in North Somerset could be cut by half. Read what he has to say here.
Friday, 5 August 2011
There was a victory for our campaign for transparency in public sector pay this week. The Government published the details of the highest paid officials in the civil service and quangos. Salary details of staff in Whitehall and quangos earning more than £150,000 have now been made public. We've published the Public Sector Public Sector Rich List annually since 2006 with the aim of making top level public sector pay more transparent. We are extremely pleased that the Government is now making this information available. You can read the full list of the pay packages here.
But that’s only the start, there is still more to do. The Government can and must go further. There are still far too many civil servants and quango fats cats who take home a bigger taxpayer funded salary than the Prime Minister. The Treasury should stop approving so many of these sky high pay deals to help save taxpayers’ money. Details of all high paid public sector employees should continue to be published automatically, only then will we see a real reduction in lavish pay deals at the expense of the tax payer. We will continue to campaign on this issue and as ever your support is vital.
Jim Devine has been let out of prison after serving barely a quarter of his sentence this week. Holding MPs to account over their expenses is still a critical issue for the us. It was deeply disappointing to see the disgraced expenses cheat set free so early, he defrauded taxpayers and the time he served did not reflect the seriousness of that crime.
IPSA, the body in charge of expenses recently published the yearly totals for individual MP’s expenses. You can check out what your MP has been up to here.
Northern Rock has announced losses of nearly £79 million. Taxpayers are facing the prospect of losing £400 million or more in any sale of Northern Rock as its price tag is valued at much less than the government put in. Investors were hardly queuing up to put their own money into Northern Rock, but politicians kept telling us they knew better and we would make a profit bailing them out. Now we know that a good chunk of that money, which is sorely missed with so much pressure on family budgets, isn't coming back and we have put billions at risk for years with no return. Despite having to take a loss, we should move to sell the bank as soon as possible. It isn't the Government's business to invest in banks and they'll only lose our money trying.
On Thursday morning the news became worse as Lloyds TSB, which taxpayers own 41% of, announced losses of £3.25 billion. Our Director, Matthew Sinclair, was on Sky News to discuss the implications of the announcement.
If you know of any similar stories, particularly where councillors would rather cut front-line services than their pay and perks, please get in touch.
Grassroots: ANGER OVER FIRE OFFICER’S INCREASED PENSION - Andrew Allison brings to light the case of a Chief Fire Officer taking the taxpayer for a ride with his salary/pension increase in our latest blog post
2020 Tax Commission: NATIONAL INSURANCE HOLIDAY SCHEME STILL A FLOP, SAYS BALLS. TIME TO CUT IT, OSBORNE - The National Insurance Holiday Scheme isn't working, it's time to cut it
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