Stop the town hall shakedown
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Council tax in crisis
On Monday, it emerged that 75 per cent of county councils are planning to hike council tax as much as they can without triggering a local referendum. Of the 113 councils who have declared their intention to raise their rates, 84 have chosen to increase them by the maximum 4.99 per cent! This equates to an extra ÂŁ100 per year for the average band D property.
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Our campaign ([link removed]) to oppose these rises has dominated the coverage ([link removed]) in Britain’s newspapers ([link removed]) and our media phone was soon ringing off the hook with news channels wanting our spokesmen on their shows. At the time of writing, our petition to stop council tax rises ([link removed]) is well into the ten of thousands of signatures!
Taxpayers know they will feel the pinch. As our chief executive, John O’Connell, told Nigel Farage at prime time on GB News ([link removed]) : “At this time when inflation is so high… £100 is a lot of money for most families across the country.”
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Many councils were quick to claim the rises were unavoidable. Our investigations campaign manager, Elliot Keck, took the argument head-on, speaking to BBC News ([link removed]) : “What these rises demonstrate is when you give councils an inch, they’re going to take a mile. Rather than looking at their own budgets, they’ve asked for more of households budgets.”
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We’ve shown time and time again that there’s room for savings in town hall budgets. From the £15 million spent on unpopular artwork ([link removed]) , to £765,000 in bonuses ([link removed]) at one council, to £500,000 to build an Airbnb ([link removed]) , there’s plenty of waste in local government. That’s not to mention the nearly 3,000 council employees receiving over £100,000! ([link removed])
Instead of endless council tax rises, local authority bosses must be held to account for waste and profligacy! If you’ve not already done so, join the ten of thousands of others and sign our petition here ([link removed]) .
Online shopping tax defeated by people power!
If you need proof that our campaigning does make a difference, look no further than the defeat of plans for a new tax on home deliveries. When the government announced a consultation on the introduction of an online sales tax ([link removed]) last year, we knew we had a fight on our hands to stop yet another levy hammering households. As the voice of taxpayers, our team leapt into action putting together our response and designing a robust campaign.
With our easy-to-use online tool, thousands of you took up the call and submitted to the consultation. Ultimately, around 90 per cent of all the responses the government received were thanks to our campaign. In their formal response released this week, the government admitted it accepted almost all of our arguments ([link removed]) and that led them to scrap the idea altogether last November.
This important win was only possible thanks to people like you. Click here to donate to our campaign. ([link removed])
TaxPayers' Alliance in the news
The GPC files
At the beginning of the week, the Labour party released the findings of their investigation into government procurement card spending ([link removed]) . Whilst it might not have been as thorough or insightful as our own Beginners’ Guide to Government Waste ([link removed]) , it was certainly nice to see them finally taking an interest in wasteful spending.
At a time when households are having to watch every penny, as Elliot says in an op-ed for the Daily Express ([link removed]) : “It shouldn’t be too much to ask for politicians and civil servants to show the same restraint when spending our money”.
Aiding China
With foreign aid to China being in the news at the start of the week, our digital campaign manager, Joe Ventre, spoke to TalkTV’s Kevin O’Sullivan about the need to get a grip on just what our money is paying for ([link removed]) .
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As Joe rightly points out, no one argues against making aid available for disasters such as the recent earthquake in Turkey and Syria, but “an adaption of Shaun the Sheep for China - £500,00 towards that, £160,000 for chinese opera projects, absolutely ludicrous sums… it absolutely has to come to an end.” Hear hear!
Covid gift cards
In a splash on the front page of the Yorkshire Post, a TaxPayers’ Alliance FOI investigation revealed that Bradford council managed to spend over £170,000 on gift cards as a blanket bonus for staff from covid support funds.
Residents who saw their livelihoods collapse during the pandemic were furious that staff were handed automatic freebies, with local MP Robbie Moore jumping on the story to slam the council ([link removed]) . As our media campaign manager, Conor Holohan, rightly said: “This misuse of covid funding will shock taxpayers in Bradford and beyond.”
Blog of the week
What does civil service reorganisation mean for taxpayers?
In the wake of the prime minister’s reshuffle and reorganisation of Whitehall departments, our managing director, James Roberts, takes a look at what it all might mean for taxpayers in this week’s blog ([link removed]) .
As James observes, whilst there might be some benefits to the changes, they still fall short of real reform and will come with upfront costs, explaining: “The PM wasted the opportunity to make real changes to the Whitehall machine, and save money in the process.” Click here to read the blog. ([link removed])
War on Waste
Basildon bonuses
Despite looking to hike council tax and potentially cut services, town hall bosses in Basildon still managed to dole out over ÂŁ120,000 in cash bonuses ([link removed]) to staff last year.
As the Independent group leader on the council, Cllr Kerry Smith, said: “Most of the staff work at home, which is their bonus in my eyes! At the end of the day £126,000 is nearly enough to knock off a per cent from the council tax hikes.” Quite right!
Send me your examples of town hall bosses behaving badly (mailto:
[email protected]?subject=re.%20Weekly%20bulletin)
Benjamin Elks
Operations Manager
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