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As rail strikes yet again brought much of the country to a standstill, newspaper reports on Thursday revealed that the Cabinet Office will restrict trade union subsidies. This comes as a direct result of a recent TPA campaign supported by over 60 MPs.
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We were the first to uncover the true cost to taxpayers of trade union facility time, where union representatives in the public sector are paid by taxpayers to carry out union work. In 2020-21 alone, this practice officially cost taxpayers almost £100 million!
We are delighted that the government has finally listened. These rules to reign in facility time for public sector officials are long overdue!
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Thank you to everyone who signed our petition which our chief executive John O'Connell submitted directly to the Minister for Government Efficiency, Jacob Rees-Mogg MP.
Public bodies will now be required to reduce their facility time bill to the current civil service average, or face threat of it being capped. It’s high time that trade union support is phased out altogether. Whoever gets the keys to No. 10, the TPA will be banging on the door to ensure they act!
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Local public sector pay rates could save taxpayers £9 billion
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New research by the TPA shows that introducing localised pay rates in the public sector could save taxpayers 8.8 billion a year. That's enough to raise the personal allowance by £600 and cut income tax by 1p!
Currently, the pay disparity between the public and private sector costs around £20 billion per year. In 2021, the median UK wage for the public sector was £28,627 while the median private sector wage was £25,085, a gap of 14.1 per cent.
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Public sector pay increases are decided at a national level. A new localised pay system would mean that rises would no longer be uniform across large sections of the public sector. Instead, they would be relative to circumstances in their region, bringing them more into line with the private sector.
The TPA says it’s time for politicians to get real when it comes to public sector pay. National pay agreements see public sector workers enjoy a far more generous deal than in the private sector. The government should scrap this one-size-fits-all approach and introduce much fairer local pay rates.
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Grassroots news: TPA slams £209,000 golden goodbye
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For some months, the TPA has been keeping a keen eye on Northumberland County Council. It comes after its finance officer ruled that the chief executive, Daljit Lally, had received unlawful payments. We'd previously called for the money to be repaid to local taxpayers.
But late last week we received shocking information. Instead of paying the money back, Ms Lally was set for a £209,000 taxpayer-funded golden goodbye! Naturally, we didn't delay in putting together a campaign.
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Ahead of an extraordinary general meeting, we called on councillors to sign our No Payout Pledge and block excessive payouts to council officers who have let down local taxpayers. Just two (out of 67) signed the pledge!
We held a protest outside the council's headquarters on the day of the meeting. Officials had initially ruled that the press and public would be excluded from the meeting. However, this decision was reversed thanks to pressure from the TaxPayers' Alliance.
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Speaking to the local press ahead of the meeting I implored councillors not to award a golden goodbye. Sadly the payment was approved by a majority of 31 votes. However, we were successful in convincing some councillors to vote against the payout.
This has been a hugely positive campaign. We've sent a clear message to councils that we will fight them every step of the way. Furthermore, we won't stand for a lack of transparency in local government. Excluding the press and public from council meetings is shameful. Other local authorities must take note!
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TaxPayers' Alliance in the news
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Failing quango chief cashes in
Analysis of government data by the TPA has revealed that £595,000 of public money was handed out in bonuses to 52 senior officials in 2021-22.
In one notable instance, Sir Simon Bollom, chief executive of Defence Equipment & Support (DES), an arm’s-length body of the Ministry of Defence, was awarded a bonus of between £95,000 and £100,000 on top of his £275,000 salary. This was despite many reports criticising the MoD's procurement deals.
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Commenting on the story which made the front page of The Times, our media campaign manager Danielle Boxall said:
“For far too long politicians have used quangos to avoid taking responsibility for the state of public services, leaving value for money for taxpayers a secondary consideration. Ministers must clean up the state by cutting back arm’s-length bodies, starting with putting a stop to soaring public sector pay packets.”
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£300 million lost to benefit overpayments
An investigation by The Telegraph has revealed that £300 million of taxpayer money was lost due to benefit overpayments to claimants. According to the paper, "In 2021-22, some £294,707,000 was written off after being wrongly overpaid to claimants, while another £15,175,000 was wrongly paid to the dead."
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Asked for comment our investigations campaign manager Elliot Keck was absolutely scathing of the financial mismanagement, "While taxpayers are minding every penny, the welfare system is writing off millions of pounds. The burdens on hard-working taxpayers are severe, so Britons will be furious to hear the Government is losing increasingly vast sums on benefit overpayments."
Given the levels of fraud in the system after the chaos of covid, we're telling ministers to act urgently to get these overpayments under control.
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It's time to scrap the Arts Council
Several posters have been spotted across London which read, "HEY STRAIGHT WHITE MEN, PASS THE POWER”. Further investigation by the TPA discovered that the group behind the posters received £3.1 million in taxpayer funding from Arts Council England.
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Appearing on GBNews to discuss the findings, Elliot called on the next Prime Minister to scrap the quango, explaining, "The British people understand what culture and art is, and they will pay for it if they have the money... It speaks to a problem in the culture of the Government...the money should go back into taxpayers' pockets." Click here to watch a clip from the interview.
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Spend, borrow, spend: Britain’s debt crisis
Last week, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) released new stats on the state of the public sector finances for June 2022. These figures show that almost a year after the pandemic, we still have high spending levels, an equally shocking level of borrowing and significant debt payments.
As Joanna Marchong writes this week, that debt isn’t free: it needs paying off. High interest rates have helped this month’s debt interest payments soar by an extra £10 billion from last year.
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In total debt interest cost taxpayers £19.4 billion in June this year. That’s taxpayers’ money that should be going on frontline services or towards much-needed tax cuts.
Ultimately, poor management of public sector finances can lead us into a future of more borrowing, unstrategic spending, and a continuous stream of disappointment for taxpayers. After the pandemic, the government said they would ‘build back better’, but a year since its end, the statistics show little has changed with the approach to our economy. Click here to read more.
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Councils splash more cash on rainbow roads
The TaxPayers' Alliance has uncovered almost £7,000 more of wasted spending on rainbow-themed pedestrian crossings, including one by a playground. The two crossings in question are in Abbots Langley, Hertfordshire costing £2,200 and in Kingston Town Centre for £4,697.25. This means councils have spent a total of £211,981.25 on non-traditional pedestrian crossings.
Yet again it calls into question claims by local authorities that their budgets are cut to the bone. As Elliot said in his comments to political blogger Guido Fawkes, "Taxpayers are fed up of seeing councils spend precious funds on pointless pet projects."
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Harry Fone
Grassroots Campaign Manager
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