The TaxPayers' Alliance has spent the last few weeks campaigning round-the-clock in Havering to stop a rise in council tax. In the run-up to a council vote, our team was on-the-ground three days in a row delivering leaflets and speaking to residents.
We've highlighted that the rise is unnecessary given the generous allowances that Havering councillors receive at a time when many households can't make ends meet. Our efforts didn't go unnoticed with many local politicians getting in touch with us to voice their support. One told us, "The TPA’s good work in exposing this situation is working."
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But it wasn't just councillor allowances where the use of taxpayer money was questionable. Writing in my regular column for ConservativeHome I discovered that senior staff pay at Havering council increased during the pandemic.
According to the statement of accounts for 2019-20, council bosses received total remuneration of ÂŁ1.255 million. The latest draft accounts for 2020-21 shows this has shot up to ÂŁ1.386 million - a rise of ÂŁ131,000!
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Between 1997 and 2017 the local authority had the fifth-highest real terms tax increase out of London boroughs at 65.7 per cent.
How can it be fair that local residents will see their council tax bills increase yet councillors’ allowances and executive remuneration have both increased?  That's why we braved the wind and rain to get the message out.
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Things culminated with an unusually long (5 hours to be precise) meeting of the council on Wednesday evening. The majority Conservative Party tried to sway votes by promising to tackle councillor allowances. In the end, alternative budget amendments from opposition councillors saw Special Responsibility Allowances (SRAs) cut by 15 per cent. A saving of just over ÂŁ77,000 to local taxpayers.
Whilst we didn't quite get the victory we hoped for, we shouldn't lose sight of the impact our campaign had. The council is now on notice that wasteful spending will not go down well with residents and the money saved in SRAs can be put back into frontline services.
The TaxPayers' Alliance will continue to call out councils that waste your money!
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TPA fights back against MPs' pay rise
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News broke on Tuesday afternoon that members of parliament are to get a pay rise of 2.7 per cent rise and the TaxPayers' Alliance didn't delay in criticising the announcement. Although MPs' pay is set by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority many households will be furious to see MPs' pay go up while they face crippling tax hikes.
Within minutes of the announcement, our media team sent off a press release to the nation's media. Not only were our comments covered in major national newspapers such as The Sun and The Guardian but also in hundreds of local publications as well.
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By the following morning, the TPA was inundated with requests for media interviews. So much so that myself and media campaign manager Danielle Boxall were speaking to talkRADIO and LBC simultaneously.
Speaking to Julia Hartley-Brewer, Danielle explained, "It's sending out the wrong sort of message" for MPs to be getting a £2,200 pay rise "in the middle of a cost of living crisis, especially with a tax rise on the horizon!"
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Comments I very much echoed in conversation with Nick Ferrari on LBC. The current system of pegging politicians’ salaries to public sector pay only leads to rows over unpopular and unseemly rises. As we've previously suggested MPs' pay should be performance-related. Elected officials should show restraint and only accept rises when economic conditions allow.
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Speaking the truth to power
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On Monday, our chief executive John O’Connell appeared as an expert witness at Parliament’s Treasury Select Committee. The Committee was examining the tax burden and listened to John give a straight-talking assessment of the strain that taxes like business rates and employer national insurance place on firms small and large.Â
He also explained the dangers of an online sales tax, urging MPs not to punish consumers for where they choose to shop, and outlined the simple truth that any tax rises on businesses are inevitably paid by the people who work for, own or use them.
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Moving onto the shape the tax system as a whole, John addressed the problems with having such a long and complicated tax code, telling MPs honestly:Â
“We ought to be making our own system as competitive as possible. I think a large part of that… is not always about the tax rates, but how simple and clear the rules are. I think if you were starting with a blank sheet of paper, you’d design an entirely different tax system.” Â
I’m sure plenty of taxpayers would agree with him!  You can watch John’s full appearance here.Â
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TaxPayers' Alliance in the news
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Taxpayers' cash should only be used on essential spending
BBC Radio Sussex & Surrey dedicated much of their morning to the issue of wasteful spending in the public sector. It followed a call from a lady in Battle, East Sussex, who received a glossy card from her local NHS trust thanking her for volunteering to help the covid vaccination programme.
There was just one problem, she hadn't volunteered -Â rightly pointing out that it was a waste of an envelope and stamp. Even if it had reached the intended recipient was it the best use of taxpayers' cash?Â
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Asked to weigh in on the discussion I cited a previous investigation by the TPA which revealed £5.6 billion of wasteful spending. But this is only the tip of the iceberg, local and national government wastes tens of billions of pounds every year.
With households facing a cost of living crisis and a national insurance hike in April, the nation is not exactly flush with cash. That's why it's vital that every penny and pound of taxpayers' cash is only spent on the essentials. Click here to listen to a clip from the interview.
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Billions lost to poor government oversight
In the same spirit, the government recently admitted it wasted almost £12 million every day in accountancy blunders, contract wrangles and botched projects in the first year of the pandemic.
According to the Daily Express, "Central government departments and their quangos disclosed they wrote off a whopping ÂŁ4.4billion in taxpayer cash for the 2020-21 financial year. This was more than double the ÂŁ1.7 billion recorded in the previous year."
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Taking a stand against this unacceptable waste Danielle Boxall told readers, "This is an eye-watering amount and suggests a troubling lack of care with the public purse. In a pandemic, action must be taken quickly. But it's still vital that ministers and officials protect taxpayers in their decision-making. Government must ramp up efficiencies and ensure taxpayers are getting real value for money."
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Council lacks common sense
Stoke city council faced ridicule after it was reported that the local authority painted two sets of double yellow lines on a street that was only four feet wide on average! It turns out the lines were painted 22 years ago but it is a worrying insight into the minds of council bosses.
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John was crystal clear in his comments that other local authorities should take heed and spend public money intelligently, "Anyone with commonsense can see that this was probably an unnecessary use of resources. Council tax is a huge bill for families and they won't be pleased to see it spent in this way."
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It’s time for TfL to stop taking taxpayers for a ride
London is still reeling after a week of tube disruption after tube workers went on strike. As our digital campaign manager Joe Ventre explores this week, what exactly was the RMT union's gripe?
As a condition of the continuous bailout agreements reached between Transport for London (TfL) and central government throughout the pandemic, the transport body is required to demonstrate that it is able to make savings which includes reviewing its infamously generous pension scheme.
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It’s no wonder then that TfL’s finances are in such a state. Perhaps it’s notable enough that their yearly total staff remuneration is greater than the entire GDP of Bhutan, but how that money is divvied up tells us even more. In 2020-21, 455 members of staff received remuneration in excess of £100,000
TFL's finances had been in a perilous state long before covid. These taxpayer bailouts simply cannot continue forever. In light of rising fares and diminished passenger numbers, TfL has a duty to taxpayers to stand up to the unions, get wage bills under control and tackle its spending problems once and for all. Click here to read the full story.
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TPA calls out "navel-gazing" civil servants
We've previously highlighted the large sums of public money that was paid to Stonewall's controversial Diversity Champions Programme. In the wake of this, a number of government departments ended ties with the charity.
Further freedom of information requests revealed that two Whitehall departments held seven meetings to decide how they would exit the programme. According to Westminster blogger GuidoFawkes, "the Department for Levelling Up and the Department for Health tried to hash out the terms of their divorce with the group before eventually announcing they were pulling out."
As our research director Duncan Simpson made clear in his comments, departments need to get their priorities in order, “Civil servants should be spending their time delivering high quality but cost-effective public services, not on navel-gazing discussions about the minute details of the diversity agenda.”
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Harry Fone
Grassroots Campaign Manager
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