£38.5 billion. That’s the amount the UK borrows every 101 days. It’s also the amount raised in the last year by council tax.
Analysis from the TPA eggheads this week revealed that the money being raised by councils each year has rocketed from £12.2 billion in 2000-01 to £38.5 billion in 2023-24, a whopping 214 per cent increase! In the last ten years alone, receipts have increased by over 61 per cent, with the 7.5 per cent increase in 2021-22 the largest in almost 20 years. Across the country, councils recorded mega increases in the amount they raised in the first quarter of 2024-25 compared to the previous year. In Durham, receipts were up 34.2 per cent, Wiltshire by 19.9 per cent, and Liverpool by 17.8 per cent.
These new revelations went down a storm in the media, with write-ups in the Times, Telegraph, Daily Mail, and GB News, as well as dozens of local papers. I made it perfectly clear to reporters just where the problem lies: “As household budgets are squeezed, local authorities squander cash on pet projects, pointless non-jobs, and risky property speculation, all the while leaving residents with the bill.”
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Sitting down with Tom Harwood in the GB News studio, Callum McGoldrick, one of our researchers who helped pour over the spreadsheets, spoke up for local taxpayers across the country: “They’re charging an awful lot more… It’s the same all over the country, people are unhappy with their councils.”
Not letting matters rest there, Darwin Friend, the TPA’s head of research, took to Times Radio to hammer the message home: “It’s tripled since the year 2000… It’s inflation busting!”
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While households struggle to make ends meet and cough up more and more, bin collections are missed and potholes go unfilled. Throw in the enormous pay packets being doled out to staff and it’s no surprise people have had enough.
So what can be done about this? As our team produce agenda-setting research and run campaigns across the country, we need your help. The best local champions are people like you, those that have to pay for all the things your council are getting up to. By keeping a close eye on where your money is being spent, writing to local papers, contacting your councillors and maybe highlighting our research, we can turn the tide against ever increasing council tax.
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TaxPayers' Alliance in the news
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Compensation costs
When governments mess up, it’s taxpayers who have to foot the bill. This was put into crystal clear focus by TPA analysis that splashed the front page of the Independent. Our team revealed that outstanding compensation schemes represent a massive £47 billion liability for past government failings. These include the Post Office scandal and the infected blood scandal, two truly horrifying events which demonstrate just how badly we can be let down by those supposed to be serving us.
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Our chief executive, John O’Connell, hit the nail on the head when he told the Independent: “Taxpayers will be utterly appalled by the vast bill they’ve been left with as a result of this catalogue of cock-ups by previous governments. When things go badly wrong, those impacted are right to expect and indeed demand compensation, but what is inexcusable is that these mistakes are by no means once in a blue moon.”
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Golden goodbye bonanza
Taxpayers may be feeling the pinch with a tax burden on its way to an 80 year high, but the good times keep coming for civil servants. Our audit of payouts to mandarins showed a massive 45 per cent increase last year. A whopping £134 million was doled out by just seven whitehall departments.
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Elliot Keck, our head of campaigns, was furious when he saw the numbers. Speaking to the Daily Mail, Elliot blasted: “Taxpayers are fed up with seeing their own budgets stretched while pen-pushers are laughing all the way to the bank.” Hear, hear!
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Never enough
Since taking office, ministers have splashed the cash and caved into all sorts of pay demands from public sector workers, not least of all the junior doctors. You might think that having just reached an agreement, talk of further strike action would be a thing of the past. Unfortunately, you’d be wrong. Members of the BMA are already plotting new disruption for next year, despite just banking a 22.3 per cent pay rise.
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John rightly slammed the latest threats, telling Express readers: “Doctors are already planning their next walkout despite being offered a whopping wage hike this year. Doctors should accept the pay offer on the table, focus on cutting waiting lists for patients and deliver value for taxpayers rather than plotting their next pay rise.”
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Book review: The Philosophy of Conservatism
This week’s blog takes on a slightly different style, with Elliot reviewing a new book from Dr Madsen Pirie, president and co-founder of the Adam Smith Institute. Dr Pirie’s new book, The Philosophy of Conservatism, takes a look at what principles guide the conservative movement and how those principles should shame the future of the right.
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From Robert Peel and Edmund Burke, to Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher, “Pirie identifies shared qualities, philosophies and approaches that they all share, and analyses how they reacted to and resolved the problems they faced.” But as Elliot notes, given the performance of recent Conservative governments: “Whoever the next leader of the Conservative party is, Dr Pirie’s book should be required reading.”
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Despite claims of black holes in the finances, the gravy train keeps on rolling for some. In our latest War on Waste video, Joanna Marchong, the TPA’s investigations manager, brings us some of the shocking sums being handed out to staff at HMRC. Have a watch here.
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Benjamin Elks
Grassroots Development Manager
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