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TaxPayers' Alliance Bulletin - 10 February 2012 - Hampshire councils racking up airmiles - Campaigning against hikes in Council Tax - Grassroots - Website revamp - Best of the Blogs Hampshire councils racking up airmiles In our latest report we've had a look at how much councils in Hampshire have spent on air travel and have come up with some surprising findings. Twelve councils in the county spent a total of £135,000 on flights in the last two financial years. Only two councils, Hart District and Havant Borough, did not pay for any flights. Read the full report and see details on each local authority here. Like others around the country, local authorities in Hampshire need to find millions in savings in the coming years, so it's shocking that staff have been jetting around at our expense. With modern technology like video conferencing it's easy to keep the amount being spent on air travel under control. This is the latest in a series of reports we will be releasing that will focus on a particular area of the country. We have previously looked at councils in the Midlands spending taxpayers' money on flights. If you are interested in getting more involved and helping us to research how taxpayers' money is spent in your local area, then get in touch with our National Grassroots Co-ordinator, Andrew Allison. Campaigning against Council Tax rises There is now a significant number of local authorities across the country planning to hike Council Tax. This is unacceptable when other councils have shown that rates can be cut without hitting services. Councils such as the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead, Hammersmith & Fulham, South Oxfordshire and Tendring have proposed to cut Council Tax to help ease the pressure on their residents. We are campaigning against councils that are ignoring the opportunity to bring in a freeze. Surrey Council's County Hall is pictured, where earlier this week councillors voted for a 2.99 per cent increase. For more on why this is such a poor decision read our blog here. We will be holding action days in a number of areas where authorities are proposing a rise. Our National Grassroots Co-ordinator, Andrew Allison has organised one in Richmondshire at the end of the month. If you're keen to campaign against Council Tax rises in your local area please get in touch with Andrew. Grassroots Tim Newark is organising an Action Day for the TaxPayers’ Alliance in Bristol tomorrow, February 11th. Local supporters will be gathering signatures for a petition asking for the basic pay of the Chief Executive of Bristol City Council to be substantially cut from £190,000. We will be hoping to put pressure on the Chief Executive to volunteer a pay cut in line with the recently announced reduction in pay for Bath & North East Somerset Council’s Chief Executive by 15 per cent to £150,000 - a victory for our petitioning in Bath carried out at the end of last year. Local TPA supporters will gather in central Bristol at 11.00am on Saturday. If you would like to join us, pass your contact details on to our Campaign Manager Robert Oxley and Tim will get back to you with the exact location. Website revamp You might have noticed we've given our website a bit of a spring-clean. We hope you like it, and please bear with us while we iron out the kinks. We'll be rolling out some interesting new content for supporters in the coming weeks, so stay tuned. Best of the Blogs Campaign: Don’t abolish Early Day Motions: just stop printing them! - Why is the Government spending £1 million a year printing out 'parliamentary graffiti'? Economics 101: How bad a deal is PFI? - Following the report into the long term cost of Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) our director Matthew Sinclair looks at the deal taxpayers get from PFI Campaign: Chris Huhne should reject his ministerial severance package - As former Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne prepares for his day in court we call on him to reject his ministerial severance package of over £17,000 Grassroots: Bath’s Expensive Mayor - Tim Newark looks at the cost of Bath's Mayor and wonders why he has become so expensive Campaign: Peterborough residents discover the true extent to which they are funding the trade unions - Peterborough residents discover the true extent to which they are funding the trade unions – As the council claims it has no choice but to increase council tax, over £80,000 is channelled to UNISON