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What are they doing with your money?
We’re all familiar with the claim from councils that they simply must increase their rates as they don’t have enough to fund basic services. It’s a line trotted out year after year to justify inflation-busting council tax rises that hammer the finances of hard-working households across the country.

If you’ve heard something similar from your council, you may be very interested in the TPA’s latest research ([link removed]) that we released at the start of this week. With 90 per cent of councils planning to hike rates by the maximum permitted (or more where central government gave permission), the TPA researchers took a look at just how desperate these councils really are, and whether they really need all this extra cash for services, or whether they’re simply taking it from your bank account and putting it into their own.
Perhaps you’ll have seen this coming, perhaps you won’t, but what our findings laid bare was that nearly half of all councils increased their reserves while putting up council tax ([link removed]) . 47.2 per cent (150 out of 318) of councils which published accounts for 2023-24 saw an increase in their usable reserves during the period, while 59 councils saw increases in both 2022-23 and 2023-24.

Epping Forest topped the chart for the biggest increase of usable reserves seeing their balance tick up by a hearty £86 million in 2023-24. Hot on their heels were Milton Keynes adding £78.8 million or 29 per cent. In that same period council tax rose by 4.99 per cent. Elsewhere, three councils had usable reserves per resident in excess of £10,000. These were the City of London (£31,414), Shetland Islands (£17,548) and Orkney Islands (£11,512). A further four councils had between £2,000 and £4,000 in usable reserves per resident: Westminster (£3,248), Isles of Scilly (£2,928), Wandsworth (£2,354) and Tower Hamlets (£2,005).

With our findings gaining national attention ([link removed]) , lead researcher on the project and TPA policy analyst, Shimeon Lee, was spot on when he told journalists ([link removed]) : “Local taxpayers will rightly be concerned that some councils are filling their coffers at the expense of residents. For many years, town halls have consistently increased council tax and justified the rises with claims of financial hardship. These figures reveal that a significant number of local authorities are hoarding cash while local people struggle to make ends meet.” Shimeon followed up with a blog highlighting the ten key takeaways from the research which you can read here ([link removed]) .
Our head of campaigns, Elliot Keck, used an article on ConservativeHome for to make the case for reforms that would help councils and taxpayers alike ([link removed]) : “At the moment council tax referendum caps are crude – they are applied universally to categories of local authority, with exceptions made for those who cry wolf convincingly. But where councils have above average reserves, referendum caps should be lower to adjust for that fact. The flipside is that too much government funding is ring-fenced. This diminishes the ability of councils to manage their own funding. Here, governments should move away from ring-fencing, and start providing greater flexibility as to how resources are used.”

We certainly recognise that not all of this money can be used to fund day-to-day services and councils should certainly have something set aside for a rainy day. We don’t want to see authorities flogging the family silver and squandering even more cash on inefficient services. But holding on to tens of thousands of pounds per resident while asking them to pay more is simply unacceptable.

You can support the research of the TPA by clicking here to donate ([link removed])
A nation of taxpayers
How Mass Immigration is Destroying Great Britain

On a slightly different note, on this week’s episode of a nation of taxpayers podcast host Duncan Barkes and our media campaign manager, William Yarwood, are joined by political commentator Patrick O'Flynn.
Patrick, who is also a former MEP, talks about his time in UKIP and the SDP, how the Conservative Party needs to stop being a 'broad church', whether or not the rise of Reform UK is a blip and how mass immigration is destroying Great Britain. You can give it a listen now on Apple Podcasts ([link removed]) , Spotify ([link removed]) , and YouTube ([link removed]) . And if you enjoy the episode, why not leave a five star review on your podcast platform?
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TaxPayers' Alliance in the news
Labour’s war on business

The effects of the October budget and the damage it’s causing to businesses have been well publicised but, rumbling away in the background is the equally damaging employment rights bill ([link removed]) . With the doubling of the length of a strike mandate to 12 months and cutting the need to notice for strike action from 14 to 10 days, it’s jam packed with anti-enterprise measures.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, John O’Connell, our chief executive, stood up for businesses ([link removed]) across the country: “Businesses will feel bruised and battered given Labour's mad employment rights bill has if anything been beefed up. Ministers are staring at economic indicators that are almost all going in the wrong direction, yet instead of trying to energise the private sector they've just thrown more red meat to their union backers.” It’s high time this crazy legislation was dropped.
More foreign aid waste

As if you needed reminding, the foreign aid budget is rarely well spent. A new investigation in the Times, has exposed even more pointless projects receiving your cash. £4 million has been dished out for projects including youth-led storytelling and inclusivity ([link removed]) that support teaching landlocked countries about pollution in the ocean.
Joanna Marchong, our investigations guru, was on hand to give the latest waste both barrels ([link removed]) : “Taxpayers will think the scale of pointless projects funded by the government is a complete joke. Waste seems to run through every corner of the public sector, and hard-working Brits are only just seeing the tip of the iceberg. Ministers need to get serious, stop wasting cash on vanity projects and focus spending on fruitful change.”
Major HS2 construction completed!

Sorry to get your hopes up. No, the UK’s biggest white elephant isn’t nearing completion but those in charge of the project did manage to find £20,000 for a 15,000 brick lego model ([link removed]) of the proposed Old Oak Common railway station.
William had some very clear advice when he heard the news: “Instead of handing taxpayers’ money to professional Lego builders, ministers should scrap HS2 altogether.”
Blog of the week
The Family Farm Tax: A Medieval Idea for a Modern Government

Earlier this week, Elliot popped up at the York university dialectic society, to argue against the changes to inheritance tax, specifically the family farm tax. In this week’s blog ([link removed]) , Elliot gives us a run down of the debate and throws in a very interesting historical comparison - feudal relief, a tax whereby the heir to an inheritance during the medieval period would have to pay a share of the inheritance to the king or feudal lord. Sound familiar?
When those in favour cited Henry III’s ‘feudal relief’ ([link removed]) , Elliot rightly pointed out: “Inheritance tax is in many respects a medieval, essentially feudal tax. It sets the principle that the state of today, or baron of yesterday, could simply seize your assets when you die.” Have a read of Elliot’s blog here. ([link removed])
War on Waste
We’ve known for some time now that the sick note culture in the civil service ([link removed]) is a big problem that sees their absence rate far outstrip that found in the private sector, but now Joanna’s latest investigation has uncovered the true extent of the crisis in Whitehall.

Over the last two years, just under 5 million sick days were taken by mandarins ([link removed]) . Of these, a whopping 1.7 million were for mental health reasons. In 2023-24 alone, 887,113 mental health sick days were taken, which, in case you’re wondering, works out at around 2,500 years! And that number was up 12.1 per cent on the previous year.

We simply can’t afford a bloated bureaucracy that doesn’t turn up to work. If ministers are serious about delivering value for money, they need to tackle the chronic absenteeism at the heart of government.

Benjamin Elks
Grassroots Development Manager

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