There is a chill in the air this December, as militant unions prepare to ramp up strike action over Christmas; maximising disruption for hardworking taxpayers at a time when many look forward to a well-deserved break. Rail and postal strikes will prove unpleasant enough, but planned walk-outs in the health service have escalated things further.
The fact that unions receive indirect taxpayer funding - as our research revealed - only adds insult to injury. Trade union facility time in the NHS, which sees employees paid to undertake union duties during their working hours, cost taxpayers almost £29 million in 2019-20 - that’s the equivalent of 1,035 new nurses! Our findings paved the way for the government to announce a new cap to facility time in the public sector earlier this year.
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Leaving aside the politics and interests of well-heeled union bosses, it’s understandable that nurses, firefighters, ambulance drivers and other public sector workers would want to see pay increases as they face soaring inflation and a 70-year high tax burden. But how could this be achieved without compounding the already bloated public sector pay bill?
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As our chief executive, John O’Connell, suggested in The Express, one option could be to offer public sector workers the option to trade in pension accrual for greater immediate take-home pay. As John argues, “by giving public sector employees the freedom to claim a larger salary and opt out of pension contributions, the government could save taxpayers money in the long term while easing the cost of living for public sector employees on the lowest incomes.” Well said!
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Regular readers of our bulletins will be all too familiar with councils bungling their finances, but the gross mismanagement of Croydon Council - which recently declared bankruptcy for the third time in two years - never fails to surprise.
I travelled down to the borough this week and met with our friends at the Croydon Constitutionalists, a local campaign group, to better understand how this omnishambles has been allowed to happen:
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If the council is to request any more financial support from central government, they must provide a clear plan to rein in wasteful spending once and for all!
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TaxPayers' Alliance in the news
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Labour plans for relocating civil servants
With the polls only pointing in one direction, we’re paying Labour’s plans close attention. And John was quick off the mark this week to praise the plans to move civil servants out of London, pointing out that “Shifting government out of the capital would ease the burden on taxpayers by freeing up office space and reducing London weighting, and may help to address regional inequality.”
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The rest of Labour’s plans, as part of a major report by Gordon Brown, was more of a mixed bag. As Elliot Keck noted in a piece for City AM, the danger of Brown’s devolution proposals is that they “lead to yet more layers of expensive, opaquely-managed bureaucracy with new and cunning levies and charges to prop up an increasingly bloated state.” Check out his full analysis.
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Prison bosses caught red-handed
In news that will infuriate taxpayers, it was revealed this week that the Ministry of Justice has paid over £140 million in compensation following incidents in jails, including £75.9 million to prisoners.
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John was furious, telling the Daily Star that “Prison bosses have been caught red-handed paying off prisoners for their bureaucratic blunders.”
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Mayoral cars continue to drive residents round the bend
Our eye-popping research into mayoral cars continued to cause problems for profligate councils, who spent the week dealing with the fallout.
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After a bumper first week of media coverage, the Sunderland Echo reported on the row that our findings kicked off, as did Gloucestershire Live. Residents are simply fed up of seeing council tax hikes while money is being wasted on indulgences.
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Elliot put pen to paper for his latest War on Waste blog this week, covering the month of November. It was a grim month for taxpayers, with Jeremy Hunt delivering a nightmare before Christmas in his autumn statement, and Elliot’s findings didn’t make for any happier reading.
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In November, our investigations uncovered the £250,000 cost of cut-price booze at the Parliamentary bars, in a story that made the Daily Star’s front page. And that wasn’t all! Elliot also revealed a horror show at the Arts Council, and some shocking environmental hypocrisy among councils and quangos.
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While Brits contend with rising energy costs, a Freedom of Information request has revealed that Conwy County Borough Council has spent over £600,000 heating its office in Coed Pella over the last three years - despite the fact that much of the workforce is still working from home.
As we have often stated, taxpayers shouldn’t be made to pay for empty workplaces. If councils and other public bodies are to continue to allow remote working (and can guarantee that it isn’t impacting services), then they can make significant savings by downsizing and selling off unnecessary office space. |
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Benjamin Elks
Fundraising, Operations, and Events assistant
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