The TaxPayers' Alliance | Britain's non-partisan, grassroots campaign for lower taxes and better government

Friday 13 January 2012

David Baddiel explains why film subsidies should be axed
Rory Meakin • Economics 101 • Comments

The Prime Minister recently said that the British film industry should support “commercially successful pictures”. The statement has obvious important implications for the British Film Institute, which takes taxpayers’ money and subsidises film-making in Britain.

Mr Cameron’s assertion makes sense, but many have pointed out the difficulty in selecting successful films before they have been made. In a discussion on Wednesday evening’s BBC Newsnight, film-maker David Baddiel explained to presenter Gavin Esler why films ought to be funded privately despite appearing to argue for more taxpayers’ money for his industry. …continue reading

TaxPayers’ Alliance reveals incredible credit card spending at Scottish Enterprise
Robert Oxley • Home • Comments

As part of a campaign for more transparency and accountability in Britain’s quangos, the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) has used Freedom of Information requests (FOI) to uncover the the millions that Scottish Enterprise has spent on credit cards over the last two years, including luxury hotels and restaurants.

Click here to see the full breakdown of Scottish Enterprise credit card spending

The key findings of this research are:

A total of £2.3 million was spent from April 2009 to March 2011
Of the £526k spent on hotels £391k was on 4*, 5* and 7* hotels
£1,373 was spent at the 7* Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi
Large amounts were spent at restaurants abroad, including: £1,367 at the Grand Hyatt in Hong Kong; £3,252 at Bathers Pavilion in Sydney; £5,306 at St. Andrews and £5,187 at Fishtail, both in New York; £5,642 at Brennans in Houston and £2,426 at Restaurante Pedro Larumbe in Madrid
£7,612 was spent on fast food; £7,510 on alcohol and £11,887 in bars between April 2009 and March 2011
£37,931 was spent at Tesco and £8,417 at ASDA while £1,240 was spent at florists
£89 was spent at Fandango, a cinema tickets booking website
£207 was spent on party consumables including “party plastic”
£17,393 at Amazon, £3,318 at IKEA and £5,119 at B&Q
£982 was spent on Cufflinks.com
And £183 on teddy bears from the VT Teddy Bear Company in Vermont

Matthew Sinclair, Director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said:

“Scottish Enterprise need to explain some of their extravagant credit card bills urgently, as some of this spending appears to be completely inappropriate. Their well-paid chief executive claims they are there to help Scottish businesses, but many will wonder if spending taxpayers’ money in luxury hotels and restaurants from Dubai to Hong Kong is a remotely credible way of doing that. Government procurement cards can be an efficient way of paying necessary bills, but there needs to be transparency to ensure the money is spent responsibly and staff remember who pays the bills.”

Click here to see the full breakdown of Scottish Enterprise credit card spending

Thursday 12 January 2012

Why are the Government letting nationalised banks spend taxpayers’ money on lobbying?
Matthew Sinclair • Burning Our Money • Comments

Yesterday the Independent reported that RBS and Lloyds are retaining the services of a number of high priced lobbying firms. Given that they are largely owned by the taxpayer, this is our money and spending it on lobbyists is a ridiculous waste.

How is it in our interests to fund banks fighting for their political interests? …continue reading

87% of Warwickshire councillors receive special allowances
Andrew Allison • Grassroots • Comments

Back in 2008 when the MPs’ expenses scandal was unravelling, we discovered that many MPs regarded their expenses as an additional source of income. They felt they were underpaid and, as a result, abused the lax regime in charge of administering their expenses to rake in extra cash. This was clearly illegal, as former members have discovered to their cost. Parliament, and politicians in general, still have a long way to go to recover the public’s trust in them.

This morning I received a press release from a Conservative borough councillor in Rugby attacking Conservative-run Warwickshire County Council. Cllr Howard Roberts states that a massive 87% of county councillors receive a special responsibility allowance (SRA). These allowances are supposed to be paid to members who have to give up a significant amount of extra time to perform their duties, such as cabinet members and chairs of important committees such as planning. The SRA is paid on top of the basic allowance all councillors receive, which in Warwickshire is currently £8975.04 per annum. …continue reading

Wednesday 11 January 2012

Non-job of the week
Andrew Allison • Burning Our Money • Comments

Last year’s Census was estimated to have cost around £500 million. The costs are still mounting up though. Advertising in the Guardian, a government agency is looking for a PR manager on a temporary three month contract. The pay is £180-£220 per day, and the job is ‘developing and implementing comprehensive PR Campaigns around 2011 Census and associated activity’. I suppose the government wants to attempt to justify spending such a large amount of money on the Census, and by recruiting the services of someone in PR to publicise how ‘useful’ the exercise was, is its idea of doing it. …continue reading

Council use tax rise to appoint more senior staff
Neill Harvey-Smith • Grassroots • Comments

There is no respite from waste for the residents of Stoke-on-Trent.

Not content with spending £330,000 firing and re-hiring the same workers, nor satisfied with paying over half a million pounds to employees suspended from work, the City Council now plans to hire an assistant Chief Executive on a salary of £132,000 and a new assistant director on £104,000.

John van de Laarschot, whose own annual package as Chief Executive is £198,000, has managed without a deputy since he took over in 2009. …continue reading

TaxPayers’ Alliance campaign to end taxpayer funding of trade unions gathers momentum
The TaxPayers' Alliance • Home • Comments

The campaign to end taxpayer funding of trade unions, building on pioneering TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) research, is gathering momentum as it is again raised in a major House of Commons debate. After PMQs today Jesse Norman MP (Hereford and South Herefordshire) is bringing a motion for a Bill to end the practice.

In 2010 the TPA undertook one of the most extensive Freedom of Information campaigns ever to establish the value of the direct grants and paid staff time that trade unions receive. The TPA’s most recent, updated research estimated that trade unions received a total of £113 million of funding from taxpayers in 2010-11 (£80 million in paid staff time and £33 million in direct payments).

Click here to read the most recent report on taxpayer funding of trade unions

At least 2,840 full time equivalent public sector staff worked on trade union activities or duties at taxpayers’ expense in 2010-11. There are now more taxpayer funded trade unionists in the UK than British Transport Police officers (2,835)

Matthew Sinclair, Director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said:

“It is great to see Jesse Norman moving to end this scandalous subsidy for unions that are disrupting services in a vain attempt to stop necessary restraint in public spending. Taxpayers shouldn’t have to fund staff to work for trade unions, providing them with a huge activist base to support strikes and freeing up resources for political campaigns. Paying for the salaries of full-time union staff and the many grants the unions receive is yet another burden on hard pressed families, diverting money they expect to be spent on frontline services. MPs should vote to end that subsidy today.”

Tuesday 10 January 2012

Devon’s Hospital Parking Problems
Tim Newark • Grassroots • Comments

Torbay TPA supporter Dave Grylls draws my attention to his council’s inadequate provision of parking in and around Torbay Hospital in Devon, which they have made worse by introducing controlled parking zones (CPZs) in nearby streets. ‘As there are limited spaces in the Hospital itself,’ says Dave, ‘this greatly affects hospital workers, who park on these roads throughout the working week. These roads have never been subject to parking charges before. I seem to recall that to create or increase parking charges locally, to supplement government cuts would not be tolerated.’

The parking problems around Torbay Hospital have some history with one woman being fined for failing to find an adequate parking place while attending an appointment for her son with severe heart problems. ‘I know it’s wrong,’ she said. ‘But people have to drive around for half an hour to find a car parking space at the hospital when they have important medical appointments to keep.’ …continue reading

TaxPayers’ Alliance response to high speed rail announcement
Robert Oxley • Home • Comments

The Government today gave the the go-ahead for the £32 billion HS2 high speed London to Birmingham rail project.

We have been one of the most active critics of the proposals, following detailed research into the plans.

Key findings are:

HS2 will be enormously expensive, costing well over £1,000 per family, but only a fortunate minority will benefit
This is a railway for the rich but paid for by everyone. HS2 assumes average passenger income of £70,000 and relies on a 27 per cent over inflation rise in fares (source: High speed rail)
Under those plans, cities like Coventry and Stoke on Trent will see a worse service and there will be a number of other capacity problems (source: HS2 capacity analysis)
Ministers have pledged to address some of those problems, but their pledges and other schemes needed to make HS2 work as advertised could see the cost to taxpayers rise from £17.1 billion to £45.5 billion (source: The hidden costs of HS2) We have challenged the Government to set out the true cost of the scheme or be more honest about some of the consequences of HS2
The public are not in favour of HS2. A YouGov poll on spending cuts that we commissioned found 48 per cent of respondents supported cancelling the project with only 34 per cent opposed to such a move (source: Spending poll 2011)
Business leaders are also sceptical. We organised an open letter from business leaders and economic commentators including Simon Wolfson and Nigel Lawson attacking the scheme as a “vanity project” and a “white elephant” (source: Letter)
38 per cent of members of the Institute of Directors believe that the public spending required to build the new line would represent poor value for money, compared with only 30 per cent who think it would represent good value (Source: IoD member survey)
Other campaign groups including the Countryside Alliance, the RAC Foundation and the Green Party are also sceptical. We organised a briefing where they made the case against the new line (watch: Briefing video)

To reflect all of these concerns, we have released a series of videos asking: “Why is the Government taxing the poor to pay for a rich man’s train?”

Responding to today’s announcement Matthew Sinclair, Director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said:

“It is extremely disappointing that the Government is pressing ahead with plans for a new high speed rail line that will cost taxpayers a fortune. The economic case for the new line just isn’t credible and ministers still aren’t being honest about the hidden costs, or the consequences for towns getting a worse service and passengers paying higher fares under their current plans. There has never been a proper consideration of strategic alternatives that could deliver greater capacity more quickly and without the enormous bill. This white elephant will mean a faster journey for a fortunate few but at an enormous cost to the rest of us; it should be abandoned before too much money has been wasted.”

Useful links to our previous work on HS2

High Speed Rail
Will HS2 create jobs?
HS2 capacity analysis
The hidden costs of HS2
TPA/YouGov spending poll 2011

Our videos questioning the case for HS2

Why are the Government taxing the poor to pay for a rich man’s train?
Why are the Government taxing ordinary motorists to pay for a rich man’s train?
Why are the Government cutting services for ordinary commuters to make way for a rich man’s train?

Finally, click here to see our submission to the Transport Select Committee.

Friday 6 January 2012

Sheffield Council cuts leaflet gets the thumbs down from residents
Andrew Allison • Grassroots • Comments

A month ago we commented on Sheffield City Council’s decision to send out over 230,000 leaflets to residents asking them for ideas on how to save money. The consultation period has now ended, and the BBC is reporting that only 1900 leaflets (0.8%) have been returned. As it cost £21,000 to print these leaflets, this works out at £11 per response. What we don’t know is if there were any additional costs, such as postage, which will have pushed the costs much higher. …continue reading