The TaxPayers' Alliance - Campaign

We're in the middle of a recession. Do councillors deserve a raise?

According to This is Somerset, Councillors in North Somerset have generously voted to increase their own allowances by 30%; how thoughtful of them. The rest of the country is suffering through a severe recession, worried about keeping their jobs, and these people are giving themselves increases at their constituent’s expense.

Most employees are judged by their bosses. The question is asked: 'are you valuable to the company?' Are you contributing more or less than your fair share? The boss looks over the evidence and makes a decision based on whether or not they feels they can/wants to pay you more at the expense of the company. There is a reason for this system. If it was up to the individual to decide whether or not their expenses should be increased they would vote yes. But that isn’t the real world. Such schemes only exist in the Councillor’s fairy tale, where their actions go unchecked.

North Somerset is not the only Council to act so thoughtlessly. TaxPayers’ Alliance blogger Tim Aker wrote on Monday concerning the fact that the Councillors at both the Kent County Council and the Lancashire County Council also had the nerve to increase their own allowances. (Read More)

Worst of all, these Councillors think they can get away with it. And they’re right, they can get away with it as long as we say nothing.

If you’re as incensed as I am please write an email to the county leader of North Somerset,
nigel.ashton@n-somerset.gov.uk.  Remember to be polite, but also remember that they do need to be held accountable or there will be no change.

 

Put a stop to the wasteful NHS bribes

Smokers in Dundee are now being paid to give up cigarettes as part of a NHS scheme.  Quitters now receive £12.50 towards their groceries each week in order to give them the encouragement they need.
The taxpayer funded crusade against smokers continues.

Don’t smokers already have enough incentive to quit?  They would already be saving money by not buying cigarettes not to mention improving their health which is surely priceless.  Do they really need taxpayers to give them more reason to quit?  And if all of these more serious, and pre-existing reasons to quit aren’t already enough, is a couple of pounds a day really going to make a difference?
According to the BBC, there are over 360 people in Dundee currently involved with the scheme.  At this rate, one year will cost taxpayers £234,000, and the number of participants is growing by 20 to 30 people each week.  We could end up paying £23.4 million per year if Dundee’s entire smoking population were to cash in on the incentive.

And yet, at this high cost, it is predicted by Tayside NHS that there will only be a 50% success rate.  With the current 360 participants, this means that a minimum of £117,000 of taxpayers’ money is going down the drain.  And this rate of 50% seems more than optimistic.  According to The Sun, NHS Lothian ran a similar cash-for-quitters scheme only to give it up after 3 months when only 7 of their 27 participants had quit.

And still, many hope that this scheme will be replicated nationally.  The cost would be staggering.  In the midst of the recession, when many people are having trouble making ends meet, why should we pay for this ineffective, wasteful scheme?

Why is it that smoking such a hot topic anyway?  Why aren’t drinkers being given incentives to quit drinking?  I quit drinking coffee this year and there was no one around to pat me on the back.  I quit because it made me feel healthier.  People just aren’t expected to do things on their own any more, next thing we know the government will be giving cash incentives for people to clean their flats every day, ‘Well done, you washed your windows, here’s £50’.  These are personal issues; they should be resolved privately. 

And soon enough people are going to start demanding monetary rewards for improving their health.  There is a serious danger that these incentives will turn into the norm, and that the taxpayer will be footing the bill.

But who knows, if the scheme goes national maybe I’ll take up smoking, and then quit, but I wouldn’t want to quit too well, just enough to keep the money flowing.  I could use the extra £650 a year.

Nationalised Express

For regular passengers on the East Coast main line, the news that National Express has failed in its running of the line so badly that the Government has decided to seize control of it will come as no surprise. For the taxpayers who are now faced with yet more railway costs, though, the move is a worrying one.

As a Geordie, I have the misfortune of having to travel National Express whenever I want to return home by train. While GNER weren't perfect, their staff and service were a paragon of delight by comparison to NE's grumpy, understocked and mismanaged services. When, recently, I complained to an on-train service manager about the failure to put any food on the train before it started its journey from King's Cross, I got halfway through my sentence before he finished it for me:

Me: "It's ridiculous that we pay through the nose for a ticket and then you fail to provide a decent service in return. Ever..."

Train Manager: "-Ever since National Express took over it's been rubbish? Tell me about it."

It was at that point that it became clear that NE were probably doomed. If even their own customer service staff were sick of them, they had a serious problem.

NE seemed to assume that because they had a near monopoly on the line, they could treat passengers like cattle and they would continue to pay up. Not so - people are resourceful, and while NE had a near monopoly on that line, there was plenty of scope for people to drive, fly or even travel more circuitous routes by rail to avoid their dreadful service.

So where does this leave taxpayers?

If NE weren't meeting the terms of the contract, then they deserved to lose the contract. The terms on which they have lost it remain to be seen.

Lord Adonis, the Transport Secretary, was very insistent on the radio this morning that there would be no taxpayers' money given to National Express to bail them out, but they may end up getting taxpayers' cash anyway. Consider the bizarre and tangled web of the rail franchise system:

- The Government franchises out 19 rail services to rail companies. It sells these franchises and uses the money to part-fund Network Rail's work on the rail system.

- Those companies then have to pay fees to Network Rail for use of the tracks.

- The Government gives the companies taxpayers' money to cover the cost of the Network Rail fees.

- The rail companies on several larger lines have to pay levies back to the Government because their rail services are meant to be profitable.

- If those lines aren't profitable, though, in some cases the Government has "revenue support agreements" which mean taxpayers' money is paid to unexpectedly loss-making companies to help them make their levy payments.

So there are already a multiplicity of ways in which taxpayers' cash is flowing in vast quantities into the railways, often simply to fund companies to pay money to, erm, the taxpayer. The prospect of one of the rail franchise holders dropping out raises several questions:

1) Will National Express have to pay compensation to the Government for breach of contract?

2) Were NE already being subsidised to make their Network Rail and Government payments?

3) When the Government take control of the East Coast main line will they have to buy or rent the trains and coaches from National Express?

4) How soon will the franchise be put up for sale again?

The Government must drive a hard bargain here - National Express have let taxpayers and passengers down severely and should pay the price. The transfer of rolling stock should surely be part of the conditions for breach of contract on a rail service that needs to be kept running. The franchise should be put up for sale immediately, so a bidding process can begin while NE's control is being wound down. Returning this service to a better private company as soon as possible and minimising the cost to the taxpayer must be a priority.

This is a mess - we need some strong decisions from Lord Adonis pretty soon, or yet again the taxpayer will be left trying to shovel money into a potentially bottomless pit.

East Hertfordshire Independent Remuneration Panel outcome

Some months ago it was announced that two vacancies had arisen on the East Hertfordshire council Independent Remuneration Panel (IRP).  Although only a consultative body, the role of an IRP is to recommend all the pay and perks councillors can get and, therefore, have considerable power and influence.  As citizens’ panels they give the taxpayer the chance to hold their councillors to account, putting a value to their quality of service.  That is precisely why we advertised the position here and encouraged our supporters in the area to apply for the vacant positions.  Is it any wonder why when we saw stories like the one below?

We heard nothing while the sifting of applications took place.  Then, quite suddenly, after the interview stage one of our supporters sent us a copy of the questionnaire they had been sent.  In an almost unbelievable homage to McCarthyism, the questions from the council read:

“Are you or have you ever been a member of the TaxPayers’ Alliance?”

and

“Have you ever viewed information on the TaxPayers’ Alliance website?”

Thinking this was too good to be true, we got the story in the local paper here.  The council arrogantly stated that we had no right to publicise a public position!  Their suggestion that the selection process was “compromised” because we publicised the advert for the vacancies shows how closed and remote the council wanted the selection process to be.

Most of the panel was therefore selected behind closed doors as the council re-selected Barry Norman (The TV film critic and supporter of the Liberal Democrats) and Jon Wilson.  Having a party-political member on the IRP clearly compromises its integrity as an independent panel.

Last night at the East Hertfordshire full council meeting, the council were given the opportunity to choose from the 8 remaining candidates.  Independent councillor Nigel Clark moved that all 8 be appointed, moving a quorum of 5 members.  That was rejected by the council, who instead opted for only one from 8 to be appointed to the panel.  By a secret ballot, Mrs J Anderson was appointed. 

Amazingly, she, too, was listed as a member of the Liberal Democrat Party (page 64), meaning that a majority on the panel are supportive of one particular political party, somewhat making a mockery of the ‘Independent’ nature of the Independent Remuneration Panel.  This wasn’t a secret; her membership of a political party was printed on the briefing material given to councillors last night.

In addition to this, the descriptions given for different panel applicants were hardly comparable in nature.  Whereas Mrs Anderson was noted to understand “the role of Members, election processes and the operation of Council committees”, information about whether other candidates had similar qualifications – or not – was left out of their description.

The example from East Hertfordshire, however, shows the system governing the selection and composition of Independent Remuneration Panels needs to be amended.  We have recommended that IRPs need to have fixed terms and term limits so they don’t become the fiefdom of local worthies and allow new candidates to step forward.  They need to be comprised of local, independent taxpayers through a free, fair and open selection process (which we have, of sorts, achieved by publicising and shaming East Hertfordshire council’s McCarthyite tactics).  They should also be binding, meaning that politicians should be judged by their constituents as to the service they provide.  If local residents are therefore angry at a pay hike, or pay cut, given by the IRP, then that should act as an incentive for them to apply when the term limits expire. 

We owe a big thank you to our supporters in East Hertfordshire for their persistence in what has been a long, drawn out process.  We will still campaign for open, transparent IRPs and will advertise and have our supporters apply in response to any further vacancies that arise in the future.  The fight continues.

Councils in the Trough

Two stories caught my eye this morning that should send taxpayers' blood boiling.

First into the trough was Kent County Council who pushed up their allowances by a shocking 8% last week!  The opposition, to their credit, tried to delay the increase by proposing a public consultation.  As the ruling party controls 74 of the 84 seats, quite unsurprisingly, this was defeated and the pay hike voted through.  Always good with other people’s cash (remember Kent lost a fortune in Iceland), perhaps it’s worth asking KCC leader Cllr. Paul Carter what he was thinking to propose a substantial pay increase in a recession.  He can be contacted here: paul.carter@kent.gov.uk

Believing the above was a one-off, you can imagine my shock at seeing another council attempt to push through another pay increase as one of its first actions after June’s elections.  The Lancashire Evening Post reports that Lancashire County Council was working to increase its pay on their first day in power.  Adding insult to injury, the council amended an Independent Remuneration Panel report to recommend itself a higher salary.  Please do contact Cllr. Geoff Driver, leader of the council, to ask him why one of his first acts as leader was to increase councillors’ pay above an independent recommendation.  He can be contacted here: geoff.driver@lancashire.gov.uk

As always please be polite but do hold these troughing politicians to account.

Claim your free horoscope from David Tredinnick MP

It seems that David Tredinnick, the Bosworth MP best known for his part in the cash for questions scandal, has possibly outdone the moats and the duck houses in the ridiculous expenses claims stakes. He has claimed for software and training to make him proficient in...astrology.

Yes, astrology: the hocus pocus study of the stars to divine truth about personalities and destinies. As used by such other luminaries as Mystic Meg, Shelly von Strunckel and Nostradamus. One thing those three astrologers have going for them, of course, is that their star reading activities have only been funded by willing customers or (in the case of the latter) enthusiastic aristocrats who enjoyed having a barmy soothsayer about the place as a novelty. Mr Tredinnick, though, has charged it to the taxpayer.

His expenses claims feature bills for £210 for astrology software from Crucial Astro Tools, and then for £300 worth of tuition in how to use the aforementioned software. In his defence, he claims he had to learn astrology so he could assess whether Indian Ayurvedic Medicine relates to traditional English Herbal remedies because of his political interest in alternative therapies.

This is absurd. Leaving aside the utterly dubious nature of the idea that you can predict anything from the stars, still less that we should use their relationship to plants in the NHS, it simply is not necessary for an MP to train themselves up in a pet subject like this and expect taxpayers to foot the bill. If needs be, consult experts and critics on an issue you have been asked to comment on, don't take a professional course in it and bill the public. By comparison, while he has been busy tracking the predictions of heavenly bodies, he has apparently not bothered to set up a website to communicate with his constituents.

Here's an idea - you paid for Mr Tredinnick to become an astrologer, why not get your money's worth and email him your date of birth so he can do you a horoscope? He can be contacted here: tredinnickd@parliament.uk  

MPs' Expenses - the Black Marker Pen edition

Well, after 5 years of fighting, debating and legal battles, today Parliament has finally released the details of MPs' expenses. Or rather, they have released some heavily edited sections of the details of MPs' expenses. After MPs themselves have been allowed to go through all their own claims "redacting" information, there are some glaring gaps in what the public are being told. It turns out that "redacting" is a technical term for "obscuring potentially embarassing information with a big black marker pen".

The High Court last year of course ruled that all details of MPs' expenses claims other than bank account and credit card numbers should be released. However, Parliament then voted to overrule the High Cour and keep information such as second home addresses secret. At the time, MPs such as Julian Lewis argued that this was essential for security reasons.

The revelations by the Daily Telegraph of flipping and avoidance of Capital Gains Tax have demonstrated beyond any doubt that second home addresses are crucial to being able to properly scrutinise MPs' expenses claims. Of course, the fact that the Telegraph have published so much of this stuff already makes this heavy handed and secretive redaction process a farce that simply angers people more.

Given that so many MPs' details have been released online all at once, the help of TPA supporters in analysing and scrutinising what MPs have been claiming for is going to be really valuable. Please follow this link to the expenses website, and let us know any suspicious, absurd or otherwise dodgy claims that you spot. If everyone starts by looking at their own MP, no matter how obscure they might be, then we will swiftly get through the whole set, I'm sure.

Please send anything you spot, with links, to mark.wallace@taxpayersalliance.com

We will keep a rolling blog here to post notable examples:

• George Osborne MP: Paul Waugh at the Evening Standard has spotted that the Shadow Chancellor claimed £47 for two DVDs of his own speech. Ironically, the topic he was discussing in the footage was "value for money".
• Alan Campbell MP: The Honorable Member for Tynemouth has regularly claimed £200 in cash every month on his Incidental Expenses Provision giving only the explanation that it is "petty cash". It is remarkable that in effect he has been able to claim £2,400 a year without any attempt to say what it is for! Where did it go, Mr Campbell, and did you actually spend all of it every month? If not, what happened to the remainder?
• Julian Lewis MP: This long-standing enemy of oppenness has some very odd bits and bobs in his claims records. Having claimed for "20 calligraphy pens", he seems to have then used them to black out as much of his expense forms as possible - meaning that in some cases he has made the information totally incomprehensible. As well as routinely deleting the destination of his taxi trips, he has actually gone through whole claim forms and deleted the labels of what he has claimed for wholesale, leaving us with only the prices. Bizarrely, he even claims his membership of the Royal United Services Institute on expenses! Among the other "redacted" details there are a number of references to "subscription to BLANK". What could be so embarassing that he needs to hide his subscribing to it? Given the experience of Mr Jacqui Smith, the mind boggles. 
• Neil Turner MP: One of our supporters from Wigan has been through Mr Turner's expenses and has pointed some curious duplications. In some months, he claimed £400 for food, between £200 and £250 for petty cash and then claimed for specific foodstuffs and office provisions including coffee, Jacob's Cookies, a box of 48 four-finger KitKats and Millac Maid. Given that other MPs are trying to justify their petty cash claims by saying they were for coffee, biscuits etc, what on earth was he spending all the cash on?
• James Purnell MP: £19.55 for a 3 kilogramme jar of mint imperials?
• Gary Streeter MP: The MP for South West Devon apparently paid "Maradufu Christian Missionary Ministry" £1,000 a quarter for upkeep of his Parliamentary website. Weirdly, checking through Google Maradufu Christian Missionary Ministry does not even appear to have its own website - are they really web experts offering best value?
• John Grogan MP: Bizarrely, the Selby MP billed taxpayers £110 for English lessons for an employee who proved unable to communicate with his Yorkshire constituents.

To be continued...

Answering The English Question

After many months of deliberation, the Calman Commission has today reported back on the question of Scottish devolution. As many readers will remember, last year we produced a report on Scottish funding, financial devolution and the Barnett Formula which we submitted to the Commission. So is their conclusion any good?

Well, it's getting there. Our report reccomended full fiscal devolution, so that Scotland would gain control of its own taxes and therefore be able to control its own spending. As well as being desired by many Scots including the SNP, this would also be welcomed by taxpayers in England as it would signal an end to the vastly expensive Barnett Formula.

Calman's report suggest partial fiscal devolution - Holyrood would gain the power to control many more of its own taxes and spending, though not all and not fully. In terms of taxation and representation, this is a good move. If any government spends money without having to think about the consequences of raising that money, then it will spend too much and too recklessly.

It can only be right that the Scottish Parliament spends money drawn from its own voters - otherwise either English taxpayers will be made too pay too much tax, or Scottish voters will be disappointed that the scale of their own Budget is effectively decided in Westminster.

As I said earlier, Calman only goes part of the way but it is an important step. With Holyrood gaining 50% control over income tax, Barnett will become totally unsustainable. Tellingly, when we released our report last year, instead of welcoming our support for greater devolution the SNP flipped out and started desperately defending the Barnett subsidy. They can't have their cake and eat it - fiscal devolution must happen, and that will make the already obsolete Barnett Formula impossible to sustain.

It's that interesting split personality that the SNP have displayed - wanting devolution but also wanting to continue funding their Budgets with English subsidies - which goes to the heart of this issue. This is no longer really a Scottish Question that needs answering but an English Question. With English taxpayers' money flowing North of the Border, and Scottish MPs holding the casting vote on many English matters in Parliament, many would argue that it is England which needs freeing from Scotland rather than vice versa.

It may be for that reason that various polls have found, like this one in 2006, that more English people support Scottish independence than Scots do!

 

PS As an aside, the Calman Commission is also a good example of the strange workings of Government. Why is Sir Kenneth Calman overseeing this issue at all? He is a former Chief Medical Officer, and was for a while Vice Chancellor of Durham University. The issue would surely be better served by someone with expertise and experience in public finance, taxation and constitutional issues, rather than just selecting on the criterion of "public sector Scot."

New Research: Solve the Second Homes Crisis: House MPs in the Olympic Village

• Current plans are for the Olympic Village to leave behind a legacy of 3,000 new homes.

• The Olympic Village project has failed to attract the private financing expected and as a result, the project has been nationalised.  That means there would not need to be any significant new capital expenditure in order to house MPs in the Olympic Village.

• The Additional Costs Allowance, which cost taxpayers over £11.5 million in 2007-08 and damaged the reputation of Parliament could largely be abolished.

• This scheme has been adopted in Sweden, where the Parliament owns around 250 apartments for its representatives.

Recent weeks have seen growing public outrage over MPs expenses and allowances system. Too many MPs are using the parliamentary allowances system to pay off their mortgage, causing resentment in taxpayers around the country and a black hole in the public purse. One solution is to provide government owned accommodation for those MPs whose constituencies are outside commuter range. 

That would prevent a recurrence of scandals when MPs make profits from selling homes financed with taxpayers’ money.  The TaxPayers' Alliance can today reveal figures showing that housing MPs in the Olympic Village would provide a solution that is both cost effective and, equally as important, would prevent future abuse of the taxpayer funded allowances system, helping MPs to rebuild public trust in Parliament.
 
The full report can be downloaded here (PDF).
 
Key Findings

• Current plans are for the Olympic Village to leave behind a legacy of 3,000 new homes.

• The Olympic Village project has failed to attract the private financing expected and as a result, the project has been nationalised.  There would not need to be any significant new capital expenditure in order to house MPs in the Olympic Village.

• The only outside financing for the project comes from the social landlords Triathlon Homes, who are expected to pay £268 million for 1,400 affordable homes.

• That provides a market value for obtaining homes in the Olympic Village of roughly £191,500 per home, a similar bill per home would mean that obtaining permanent homes for use by all 572 MPs outside London would cost £110 million in foregone earnings from selling the homes to private or social developers.

• This would be offset by an increase in the value of the remaining, roughly 1,000, homes in the Olympic Village.  Those homes would likely see a significant increase in price, which would increase the value returned to the taxpayer when they were eventually sold. 

• This scheme has been adopted in Sweden, amongst others, where the Parliament owns around 250 apartments for its representatives.

• The Additional Costs Allowance cost over £11.5 million in 2007-08 and could largely be abolished, though significant payments would still need to be made for expenses associated with maintaining a second home such as council tax and utilities bills. 

• Within a decade – the span of two parliaments – it would be reasonable to expect that savings under this scheme would recoup any costs associated with not selling the homes.

• As the Olympics forms a major terrorist target the Olympic Village will already need to be built with security in mind.  Housing MPs in a single location will make it easier to arrange a variety of services. 

 Matthew Elliott, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said:

“We have been paying for MPs’ to build their property empires for too long. It is clearly necessary to consider radical proposals to ensure that we don’t continue haemorrhaging taxpayers’ cash every year.  Money is tight, so taxpayers won’t want to see large amounts spent buying second homes for MPs when they are struggling to pay their own mortgages.  Using the Olympic Village after the Games are over, which is already being built at the taxpayers’ expense, would offer an affordable and sustainable way forward and aid the regeneration of the East End.”

Councillors' Allowances Exposed

Earlier this week the Local Government Association published the summary findings of their survey of councillors' allowances but refused to release the details of the various allowances council by council. I'm pleased to say that thanks to a number of sympathetic councillors we are now in possession of the full table and can publish it for all to see.

To view the full information for your council click here to open the (rather swanky) spreadsheet, and click the drop down Select Authority list.

Amazingly, the LGA told ConservativeHome that whilst they'd published the full breakdown in previous years, "given the current climate we would like to be a little more circumspect about disseminating it at thie time." Which means that they are well aware the continued above-inflation increases in councillors' allowances are indefensible, so instead of do the right thing they have decided simply to keep the truth secret.

They don't deserve to get away with that, so we have decided to publish the information for all to see. Let the sunlight in.