After a week of public sector strikes bringing Britain to a grinding halt, new TPA analysis reveals that the public sector headcount has ballooned to a massive 5.8 million. Delving deep into the figures, our researchers uncovered the shocking growth in the number of people on the public payroll.
The increase of 426,000 public sector workers since 2018 - the growth started well before the pandemic kicked in - is significantly more than the amount of people employed by Tesco, Britain’s largest supermarket chain which has 345,000 employees.
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Our findings show the civil service almost literally recruited an army of pen pushers in the period by increasing their headcount by 77,000 (there were 79,380 members of the British Army in July 2022). The DVLA managed to take on 170 new members of staff since the first lockdown in March 2020. This is despite staff being sent home on ‘paid special leave’ doing little or no work…
Whether it’s driving licences, passports, healthcare, border control, preventing and solving crime - we don't get the services that we pay handsomely for.
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In comments picked up by various media in print and online, our chief executive, John O’Connell, slammed the massive increase saying: “This huge hiring spree is out of control and causing a cost of government crisis, leading to unaffordable pay demands while doing little to improve services on the ground for the taxpayers footing the bills.”
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Taking our message to GB News viewers across the country, TPA investigations manager Elliot Keck told Tom Harwood: “We’re seeing a public sector that is growing and growing and growing, and becoming more and more expensive, and yet year on year seems to be performing worse.”
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In the latest edition of our video podcast series, TPA Talks, we spoke to Theodore Dalrymple - renowned author, cultural critic, and former prison physician and psychiatrist. Drawing on his colourful career that took him across the globe and to the depths of British society, Dalrymple offers his thoughts on state bureaucracy, taxpayer-funded cultural projects, architecture, the state of university education, the NHS, the BBC and more. Watch this fascinating conversation here.
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TaxPayers' Alliance in the news
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Aid and trade
With Kemi Badenoch, the trade secretary, in India this week, Elliot took to the pages of the Express to offer some words of advice. Elliot rightly highlighted the strength of her hand in negotiating a trade deal given the fact that aid to India is set to hit £370 million in 2025 despite having a larger economy than we do.
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Taking aim at how the foreign aid budget is managed, Elliot called for an end to the arbitrary targets that “have seen taxpayers’ cash shovelled out of the door at year end, just to make sure we tick the box.”
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Foreign flights
It emerged this week that backbench MPs have racked up over £450,000 worth of flights for foreign jollies. Whilst these mercifully were not at UK taxpayer expense, there are serious questions to answer as to whether politicians should really be spending so much time jet-setting.
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John summed up the situation perfectly, telling Politico: “While these trips have not been on the taxpayers’ dime, they have been on the taxpayers’ time. MPs must ensure that travels abroad do not disrupt responsibilities at home.”
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Not so hard-up Holyrood
When new figures showed expenses for MSPs hit £20 million for the first time, it’s fair to say we at TPA Towers were somewhat disappointed.
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Our digital campaign manager, Joe Ventre blasted the bumper costs of Scottish MPs telling readers of the Scottish Daily Express: “Taxpayers will not be happy at the soaring cost of politicians in Scotland. While MSPs have an office to run, this eye-watering increase will not sit well with residents.”
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Fighting a losing battle: Why calling in the army is a sign of failure
With politicians calling for the army to step in in place of striking workers, our head of research, Phil Basey, takes a look at the arguments in this week’s blog.
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What was once an option of last resort seems to be deployed more and more often. As Phil says: “It seems deeply unfair to increasingly expect soldiers to pick up the slack for poor performance elsewhere in the public sector.”
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As regular readers will know, the TPA’s never been a fan of non-jobs in the public sector. So when we saw the NHS was hiring a ‘director of lived experience’ Joe rightly slammed the role as “ a kick in the teeth for hard-pressed taxpayers”.
It’s high time the public sector focussed on delivering results, not hiring ever more box tickers for right on roles.
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Benjamin Elks
Fundraising, Operations, and Events assistant
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