The TaxPayers' Alliance - Media Coverage

Thurrock Gazette: Big surge in council high-earners

THE number of staff earning more than £50,000 has rocketed at councils across Essex, a new report has revealed.

Last year Thurrock Council spent £6,410,000 a year on the 98 people on salaries of £50,000 or above. In 2001 just 29 of its employees were on that figure.

Thurrock's spending is dwarfed by Essex County Council - which employs 586 people on salaries above £50,000. It is the fourth biggest spender in the country, shelling out just over £36million on big earners. Ten years ago, the county council employed just 37 people in the high wage bracket.

The numbers have also soared at Southend Council, rising almost tenfold from 14 employees in 1997 to 123 last year, at a cost of just over £8million. The number of high-earning staff at Basildon has increased from five in 2001 to 31 last year, costing £2,135,000.

The figures are revealed in a report by the Taxpayers' Alliance pressure group, which has examined the pay of middle and senior managers at local authorities nationwide.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "With council tax doubling in the past decade, it's extremely disappointing town halls have chosen to hire a new class of middle managers, many of whom are being paid more than MPs.

"Local authorities should study these findings carefully to see where savings can be made, instead of using their half billion-pound PR machine to obscure their finances from taxpayers."

The Sun: Town hall pay soars

THE number of town hall executives on Pounds 50,000-plus has rocketed, a report reveals today.

Councils employ an average of 66 staff earning above Pounds 50,000 compared to just seven when Labour came to power in 1997.

Almost Pounds 1 in every Pounds 11 in council tax goes to their Pounds 2billion national wage bill. A study by the Taxpayers' Alliance also reveals 12,600 town hall staff earn more than an MP's Pounds 60,277 salary.

Meanwhile, councils are slashing frontline services such as rubbish collection and care of the elderly. And average Band D council tax bills have risen from Pounds 646 in 1997 to Pounds 1,248.

Evening Standard: Amazing 2012 gravy train

by Nicholas Cecil, Political Correspondent

The full scale of the bumper salaries being paid to London 2012 Olympic chiefs has been revealed.

Senior executives at the Olympic Delivery Authority are being paid up to £110,000 each more than previously thought. Seven have salaries in excess of £200,000, more than Gordon Brown, who earns £188,848.

The huge wages sparked a fresh "fat cat" row amid concerns that the £9.3 billion Olympic budget, funded by the taxpayer and Lottery cash, may soar even higher.

Figures published in the authority's annual report for 2006/07 suggested only the chief executive, David Higgins, was being paid more than £162,000.

The ODA denied it had attempted to keep the full scale of the wages from public scrutiny. But figures obtained by the Standard show that:

• Howard Shiplee, director of construction, is on £258,750 not £147,000 as previously understood.

• Dennis Hone, director of finance and corporate services is on £253,624 not £162,000.

• Alison Nimmo, the director of design and regeneration is on £207,000 not £158,000.

• Hugh Sumner, director of transport, is on £207,000 not £153,000.

• Ralph Luck, director of property, is on £207,000 not £136,000.

• Simon Wright, director of infrastructure and utilities, is on £207,000 not £133,000.

• Godric Smith, director of communications, is on £175,950 not £105,000.

They also receive employer's pension contributions of around £20,000 each, and may get performance-related bonuses of £15,000 to £40,000.

The report for 2006/07 listed their "salary" but the figure was what they had earned so far that year. Almost none had completed a full 12 months.

Start dates were givenbut the impression was left that the salaries were an annual figure. Only Mr Higgins's salary was published for the full year, £360,000, which has risen to £372,600 in 2007/08. His total package was £631,000 last year.

Shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt said: "How can the Government expect anyone to trust its figures?"

Tory MP Richard Bacon, who sits on the public accounts committee, said: "David Higgins has a very high salary but he is probably worth it. He helped to deliver the Sydney Olympics. As for the others, I would like to know whether they are really value for money."

An ODA spokesman said it had recruited "world-class individuals on a very high profile and demanding project" and the salaries were "consistent with market levels". The authority denied trying to play down the wages. A spokesman said updated salary figures had been given in a Parliamentary answer. Matthew Elliott, head of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "The cost of the Olympics has run out of control, and taxpayers will not be pleased to learn they are paying massive salaries to the people overseeing this spending binge."

Daelnet: Council tax increases hit by soaring pay rates

AS thousands of North Yorkshire council tax payers wait anxiously to hear how much more they will have to pay in the coming financial year, a taxation watchdog has produced some devastating figures on the rapid growth in salaries for local government civil servants.

The Taxpayers' Alliance carried out an investigation into middle management pay rates on local councils and came up with the fact that the number receiving more than £50,000 a year has increased nine-fold since Labour came to power ten years ago.

This costs the average council an extra £4 million a year, a national figure of almost £2 billion, and puts many local government employees on higher salaries than MPs.

These big pay hikes are just one of the reasons why council tax bills have soared, particularly in rural areas.

The Government has for many years been diverting its grants away from the shire counties to inner city areas - where the majority of Labour voters live.

Policing in rural areas has become more and more expensive because of the large areas covered - North Yorkshire is the biggest administrative county in England - and its cash needs have doubled in the past five years despite the fact that many police stations have closed.

And hundreds of new regulations introduced by bureaucrats in both Whitehall and Brussels had added a huge burden to local government administration.

Craven District Council, which covers a large area of the Yorkshire Dales, has just been forced to buy 15,000 new "wheelie bins" at an estimated cost of some £750,000 to take waste paper in line with new directives from the EU - a move which has caused outrage to many council tax payers.

One former Craven District Councillor, who quit after many years because he was no longer prepared to work to meet almost impossible government targets, told Daelnet: "The councillors get all the blame when the taxes go up but the main cause is demands that the government makes without supplying the extra funding to meet the costs."

Daily Express: Shamed MP to pick up £1m before he leaves

By Macer Hall Political Editor

SLEAZE shame MP Derek Conway was last night set to collect another £1.1million from taxpayers after announcing his resignation from Parliament.

The Tory backbencher – disgraced over Parliamentary payments to members of his family – yesterday agreed to quit the Commons, but only at the next election.

It means he could still net £425,000 in salary and expenses, plus a further "winding up" allowance of £74,000 over the next two years.

And the veteran MP is on course for a gold-plated Parliamentary pension paying out more than £600,000 during his retirement.

Anti-waste campaigners were last night appalled at the lavish taxpayer-funded lifestyle being lined up for Mr Conway. His political career is in tatters over payments totalling more than £45,000 to his son Freddie, 22, for "non-existent" research work.

MPs are today expected to vote to suspend him from the Commons for 10 days for "misusing" Parliamentary funds. He is also facing questions over Parliamentary payments to his elder son, Henry, 25. Both boys were educated at Harrow.

Parliamentary salaries, bonuses and overtime paid to his two sons and wife Colette – legitimately employed as his secretary – are estimated to have cost taxpayers more than £374,000 over six years.

In that period Mr Conway, 54, and his family have been paid more than £1million from taxpayers' cash.

He is expected to be ordered to repay around £13,000 to Commons authorities for the misuse in today's vote. But the sum is dwarfed by the income the MP is in line for from the taxpayer over the coming years.

Mark Wallace, of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "This sorry affair strengthens the case for full disclosure of expenses and allowances."

Mr Conway, suspended from the Parliamentary Conservative Party by David Cameron on Tuesday, announced his decision yesterday to quit as MP for Old Bexley and Sidcup in Kent in a brief statement.

He said: "I have had tremendous support from my local party, my family and friends but have concluded that it is time to step down.

"Though not an original supporter of David Cameron for the leadership I believe that he has shown he has both the ability and the character to be Prime Minister and I do not wish my personal circumstances to be a distraction in any way from the real issues that have to be addressed." A senior Tory said: "Derek has done the right thing. We can now move on." Scotland Yard confirmed they had received a letter of complaint over the affair from Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate Duncan Borrowman.

A fellow Tory backbencher last night said MPs don't need staff, family or otherwise. Philip Hollobone claimed just £400 in Parliamentary staff salary allowance last year for a research project.

He said: "I don't see why an MP needs any office staff. I prefer the personal touch in dealing with constituents and answer every phone call, letter and email myself.

"I decided I wanted to keep my expenses as low as possible. They do come from the taxpayer, after all."

Nepotism clampdown

MEMBERS of Parliament could be banned from employing close relatives after the latest scandal.

Westminster's standards watchdog Sir Christopher Kelly, yesterday suggested the affair could lead to the introduction of a "nepotism rule" in Parliament.

More than 50 of Britain's 646 MPs are understood to employ their spouses, children or other immediate family members on salaries of up to £40,000 a year.

Sir Christopher, chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, said: "I understand why there are calls for rules to ban MPs employing members of their families and, indeed, there are international precedents for doing this, and it could be the right thing to do."

Daily Express: The £8billion tax black hole you will have to plug

By Gabriel Milland Political Correspondent

GORDON Brown's botched handling of the economy has punched an £8billion black hole in Britain's accounts, a leading economics think-tank said last night.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said plugging the gap caused by soaring spending and a sagging economy meant increasing taxes by £340 for every household.

Failing to raise taxes would force Mr Brown to break his promise to keep national debt below 40 per cent of the British economy, the IFS warned. Shadow Chancellor George Osborne branded the report "damning". He said: "This is startling evidence of just how completely Gordon Brown failed to prepare the British economy.

"While our competitors can use their surpluses to guard against turbulence, we borrowed in a boom, and have no room for manoeuvre.

"While other governments are using surpluses to fix their economies, Alistair Darling is raising taxes on entrepreneurs." Lib Dem Treasury spokesman Vince Cable said Mr Brown had "backed the British economy into a corner. The Government now seems to have a stark choice of either increasing taxation in an already depressed economy or ignoring its own fiscal rules, further damaging its credibility." But Matthew Elliott, of the TaxPayers' Alliance, called on the Government to cut spending and waste before raising taxes.

He said: "Fraud and error in the benefits system costs taxpayers £3billion a year, an estimated £1.24billion is wasted each year on inefficient IT procurement and over £1billion is overpaid in benefits." The IFS said that while the tax hike – equivalent to around 2p on income tax – would be "prudent", it expected Chancellor Alistair Darling to shy away from it for fear of a backlash from voters.

Raising taxes would also risk slowing the economy down even more.

The main danger, according the IFS, is that tax revenues will fail to grow as quickly as the Treasury has predicted between now and 2010/11. Adding to the potential black hole will be the £100billion potential cost of bailing out stricken bank Northern Rock. Mr Brown now risks breaking his muchvaunted "golden rule" of borrowing extra cash only for investment and not to pay salaries or cover current liabilities, the IFS said.

The gap between what the Government takes in and what it spends will grow even bigger if Labour tries to come good on its promises to pour even more money into public services.

By 2010 an additional £3.4billion will be needed to meet targets on cutting child poverty and a further £6-10billion to provide the resources which Sir Derek Wanless said in a review were needed to make the NHS a world-class service. The IFS said the Treasury was already planning to raise the UK's tax burden to a 24-year high, while cutting public spending to an eightyear low.

The IFS was also scathing about Government decisions to stage pay rises for police, nurses and other public sector workers. They "generate only modest, one-off financial savings".

If the Government wanted to rein in the cost of public sector manpower, it should reform gold-plated pension schemes for public workers, not fiddle with pay awards.

Daily Express: Town hall gravy train

LEADER COLUMN

DURING the past decade we have seen the birth of a new social phenomenon – the town hall fatcat.

Figures released by the Taxpayers' Alliance in the latest instalment of its excellent campaign to hold local authorities to account for overspending make for shocking reading.

There has been a pay explosion in municipal Britain, with the number of council officials on salaries above £50,000 increasing ninefold.

Pay for these senior pen-pushers is equivalent to nearly 10 per cent of overall council tax revenue. Then there are all those gold-plated pensions to consider.

No wonder council tax has doubled in 10 years, up from £646 to £1,268 for a typical Band D property. And no wonder that council taxpayers such as Walter Staniforth have had enough. "The council tax is supposed to be paying for services but it has nothing to do with services.

They're taking money away from my pension to pay for their retirement, " notes the great-grandfather.

He has hit the nail on the head. These days local authorities contain vast numbers of people who don't deliver core services but spend their time dreaming up ludicrous Left-wing initiatives.

If they were all sacked tomorrow is there a person in the land who would miss them?

BBC News Online: The rise of single issue campaigns

By Brian Wheeler
Political reporter, BBC News 

Fewer people than ever are members of political parties, but growing numbers are only too happy to sign up to single issue campaigns.

From the smallest local protest against a bypass to mass movements such as Make Poverty History or the Countryside Alliance it seems the public has not fallen out of love with politics or activism.

And thanks to the internet, it has never been easier to join or set up a campaign, raise funds and make a splash in the media on a tiny budget.

The growth of 24 hour TV news means there is always a ready market for campaigners' opinions.

Few TV news producers or newspaper editors can resist the combination of good pictures, interviews with "ordinary people" and a handy dossier resulting from a campaign group's detailed research.

Right-wing radicals

By definition the single issue campaigner's stance is normally clear - so they are less likely to have their motives or funding questioned than a professional politician making the same point.

Little wonder that politicians on all sides have been trying to get in on the act.

At one time, activism was largely the preserve of the left - the very word conjours up visions of university campus sit-ins and bearded, placard-waving students marching against the bomb or the Vietnam war.

Some politicians look at campaigners and envy us - our ability to speak the moral and pragmatic truth no matter how uncomfortable that is

Adam Sampson
Shelter chief executive

But since Labour came to power in 1997, what might broadly be termed the right has taken to political activism with a vengeance, through groups such as the anti-Euro No campaign and the Countryside Alliance.

The recently launched I Want a Referendum campaign, although scrupulous to stress it is a cross-party group, is planning to organise a vote on the EU Treaty for half a million voters in marginal seats to put pressure on Prime Minister Gordon Brown, with the enthusiastic support of prospective Conservative candidates.

Other independent groups, such as the Taxpayers Alliance, which receives much of its funding from Tory donors, have been able to make a splash in the media with the sort of message the party leadership can not - or will not - deliver themselves.

A good example was Thursday's newspapers - and this website - which report the Taxpayers' Alliance survey finding that the number of local authority middle managers on £50,000 or more has risen more than nine times in the past 10 years.

Co-option fears

At the other end of the political spectrum, former left wing radicals have gradually found themselves being absorbed into the New Labour establishment.

Many of Labour's high command have their roots in protest movements - the most obvious example being former pensions secretary Peter Hain, who led campaigns against the apartheid regime in the 1970s and helped found the Anti-Nazi League.

Was Make Poverty History co-opted by Labour?

Kirsty Milne, author of Manufacturing Dissent, a study of single issue groups, says: "Gordon Brown still likes to think of himself as a radical. That is one of the differences between the Brown and Blair eras."

But she argues that the era of large-scale mass demonstrations of the type seen during the early years of the Blair era may be over for now, as Brown does not dominate the political scene to the same extent as his predecessor did - and the Conservatives are now stronger, making Labour's opponents feel they have a voice.

There are also concerns among some voluntary groups that the Brown era might see further attempts to co-opt protest movements - through consultation exercises and juicy government contracts - into blunting their attacks or even delivering policy messages by proxy.

"It is plainly a risk for governments of all hues. They are very keen to encourage external voices which are calling for things the government itself wants to do," says Adam Sampson, chief executive of homeless charity Shelter.

"There is a lot of pragmatic advantage for governments to encourage campaign groups to call for change that they are already intending to make, to win political space for them to occupy."

Government pressure

Shelter, which was founded in 1967, on a wave of public outrage following the transmission of Cathy Come Home, a documentary drama about homelessness, pioneered many of the techniques used by today's single issue campaigns.

It now receives about 25% of its funding, about £12m, from the government, mainly in the form of contracts to deliver services such as housing advice lines.

Mr Sampson insists it keeps lobbying and service provision separate, adding that Shelter has been a thorn in the side of ministers on several issues, such as anti-social behaviour orders.

  The law is designed to ensure that charities cannot be used by government to act as a front for political parties

Cabinet Office

"The aim it seems to me is to bite them often enough to understand the consequences of not being friendly to you."

But he is also candid about the pressure that can be brought to bear, particularly on smaller, less well known groups, to toe the government line. He cites cases of charities being threatened with a cut in funding by local authorities unless they drop certain campaigns.

Shelter is big enough to resist such crude attempts to silence it, he stresses, but adds: "You do still get informal pressure from individual arms of government."

Envious politicians

There is also a danger, he argues, that politicians are increasingly using charities as "proxies" to speak - and listen - to the public in a way that parties are no longer able to do.

"Some politicians look at campaigners and envy us - our ability to speak the moral and pragmatic truth no matter how uncomfortable that is.

"Trust in politics is at rock bottom, voting levels have never been lower.

"Politicians are looking for ways to engage the public. They are looking for proxies - ways of getting back in touch with public opinion.

"They look at the relationship charities have with their beneficiaries with a certain amount of envy.

"They are increasingly using charities as a proxy."

Party politics

The danger for the charities, he says, is that "over the years we become indistinguishable from the institutions we believe we are in opposition to - there is a danger we may start to lose credibility with the public".

There were concerns in 2005 when Mr Brown and Mr Blair conspicuously allied themselves with the thousands of Make Poverty History campaigners who took to the streets ahead of that year's G8 meeting in Gleneagles.

Cathy Come Home sparked a wave of anger about homelessness

Some within the campaign claimed it been "co-opted" by Labour, arguing that that criticism of Mr Blair's foreign policy had been stifled, although others saw that as a price worth paying for the cancellation of Third World debt.

The government is now the biggest funder of charities in the UK, outstripping individual donations - and it is not unusual for groups who campaign against government policy to receive much of their money from one arm of government or another.

The cash mostly comes in the form of contracts to deliver public services, in a process that began under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.

The Cabinet Office is also trying to encourage charities to ramp up their campaigning activities, through its Third Sector review, but it insists it would never attempt to compromise charities' independence or ability to speak out.

"The law is designed to ensure that charities cannot be used by government to act as a front for political parties," says a Cabinet office spokesman.

If groups want charitable status - and the all-important tax-exempt status that comes with it - they must stay out of party politics.

The Charity Commission shortly plans to relax the rules on campaigning - but not, it says, so groups can back particular parties, but so that they are better able to stand up to local and national government and be more vocal in pursuing their aims.

Many politicians remain wary about the influence of single issue campaigns, questioning whether, as unelected and often unaccountable bodies, they can truly represent public opinion.

Growing influence

Labour MP Paul Flynn recently launched an outspoken attack on single issue groups on his widely-read blog, accusing some of "bloated empire-building" and criticised Shelter ignoring good news in favour of carefully-orchestrated "sob-ins".

Attempts by government to open dialogue with groups who vehemently oppose their policies have also had mixed results.

Greenpeace and others walked out of the government consultation exercise on nuclear power, amid concerns they were merely being used to add legitimacy to a decision that had already been made.

But with MPs on all sides casting increasingly envious glances at the public support and credibility enjoyed by single issue campaigns, their influence can only grow stronger

Bucks Free Press: Massive increase in council chiefs' pay

by Oliver Evans

THE number of council staff paid more than £50,000 a year has shot up as much as six-fold in Buckinghamshire according to new research.

County residents are paying as much as £45 a year for 291 employees the Taxpayers' Alliance said today.

Research by the pressure group shows staff earning more than £50,000 has risen across all four councils which cover South Bucks.

In Buckinghamshire County the number of top earners went up six-fold 43 in 1996-97 to 263 in 2006-07, pushing the total bill from £2.7m to £16.2m.

This cost county residents £33.25 per head.

At Chiltern District Council this went from five to 11, £285,000 to £685,000, costing each person £7.59.

For South Bucks District Council there were 10 on the top wage, up from five in 2001-02.

This pushed the final bill from £325,000 to £650,000, costing each resident £10.20.

Figures were not available for previous years for Wycombe District Council but the research showed 28 on the senior bay bracket.

This meant taxpayers forked out almost £2m for their salaries - a cost of £12.28 per head.

Taken with cash taken by the county council this means district residents are paying £45.53 a year - the most in South Bucks.

A statement from Taxpayers' Alliance said: "It is of course quite normal that wages should increase above the rate of inflation in a growing economy, and, over time, we would expect more people to earn £50,000 and above.

"But the increase in the number of local authority employees being paid more than £50,000 per annum has been phenomenal, far outstripping the rate of increase in the economy as a whole."

Lincolnshire Echo: 291 COUNCIL STAFF EARN £50,000 A YEAR OR MORE

Almost 300 employees at Lincolnshire County Council are picking up £50,000 a year or more.

The Tax Payers' Alliance has listed the authority as 21st in a list of 25 for having the biggest middle management wage bill.

Lincolnshire County Council - the county's biggest employer - rejected the accusation, saying the study did not compare 'like with like'.

According to the report, which used figures from 2006/07, the county council had 291 staff on packages of £50,000 or more.

Their total wage bill was more than £18m - equating to £26 for each of the 686,000 people in Lincolnshire.

In 1996-97 there were only 12 people at the county council on more than £50,000 - meaning the number of top earners had increased by more than 20 times.

County Hall strongly defended its wage structure and criticised the methodology of the report.

Judith Davids, assistant director of people and modernisation, said: "The table does not compare like-for-like.

"Obviously Lincolnshire County Council employs significantly more people than district councils and is also comparatively one of the largest county councils in the country, so is therefore far more likely to contain higher numbers of people in this pay banding."

For the full story and how the council's wage bill compares with other professions, see Thursday's Lincolnshire Echo.

Liverpool Daily Post: Wirral Council attacks 'flawed report' over £50k managers

WIRRAL Council has hit back at what it describes as a “wholly inaccurate and misleading” report which places it at the top of Merseyside authorities for middle managers earning more than £50,000 a year.

The Tax Payers Alliance carried out the research into local authorities around the UK and say the increase in the number of council employees being paid more than £50,000 per annum has been “phenomenal, far outstripping the rate of increase in the economy as a whole”.

They say data in the local authority accounts over the past decade implies that councils have hired a new class of middle and senior management and then increased their pay and benefits packages faster than the economy-wide average.

Matthew Elliott, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “With council tax doubling in the past decade, it’s extremely disappointing that town halls have chosen to hire a new class of
middle managers, many of whom are being paid more than MPs.

“Local authorities should study these findings carefully to see where savings can be made, instead of using their half billion pound PR machine to obscure their finances from taxpayers.”

According to their research Wirral saw an increase from 16 people in 1996-7 to 199 in 2006-7 earning more than £50,000 a year, with the cost to the authority rising from £980,000 to £12,295,000 over that period.

In comparison, Sefton Council had 65 people earning over that threshold (at a cost of £4,375,000), Liverpool spent £4,375,000 on 109 people earning more than £50,000 a year and Knowsley had 104 earning more than £50,000 at a cost to the council of £6,810,000.

But Wirral Council’s Director of Finance, Ian Coleman said the Taxpayers Alliance had used flawed data which misrepresented the true situation.

Mr Coleman said: “The figures for staff paid in excess of £50 000 referred to in the Tax Payers’ Alliance press release include teaching staff.

“The Tax Payers’ Alliance in their own release state that teachers should not be included as part of local authority middle management.

“They sourced their information from our most recent statement of accounts. Some other Local Authorities do not include teaching staff making comparisons meaningless and the report wholly inaccurate and misleading.

“The figure cited for Wirral included teachers and was stated to be 199. We have informed the Tax Payers Alliance that the true figure not including teachers is 57. This is not a small error.

“Of course, had the Tax Payers’ Alliance wanted the correct figures, all they would have had to do was ask; Wirral Council provides information of this nature readily and on a regular basis.

“Researchers from the Tax Payers Alliance are perfectly aware that they could have obtained accurate information by submitting a request under the Freedom of Information procedures.”

Western Mail: ‘Value-for-money ratings could shave £100 a year off Welsh council tax bills’

MANY council tax bills could be reduced by £100 a year if local authorities in Wales were awarded English-style “value for money” ratings, it has been claimed.

Jeff Jones, who was Labour leader of Bridgend council until 2004, said there was a compelling case to provide taxpayers with an easy-to-understand assessment of the 22 councils in Wales.

Mr Jones, who now works as a consultant, said, “In England it is very easy for people to find out how their council is doing because of the assessments made by the Audit Commission.

“Every authority is given marks from one to four, with those getting one being judged as poor performers.

“In Wales, however, there has been strong resistance to such assessments.

“There is a reluctance for that kind of information to be made available.

“In my view, councillors have nothing to fear from such assessments, and much to gain. A lot of the problems in local government derive from bad management from the top.

“If a council was given a low score, it would give councillors the opportunity to speak to the chief executive and say if matters did not improve within, say, six months, they would be out.

“Poor performance by a council has a direct impact on the cost of providing services. I believe that introducing a scoring system for local authorities in Wales could force them to sharpen up, with the prospect of savings on council tax that could amount to £100 a year.”

A spokesman for the Welsh Local Government Association said, “The Wales Programme for Improvement is under review and will need to evolve to reflect changing priorities for local government improvement.

“We are keen to introduce greater comparability of services and performance within and between local authorities and the annual reporting of performance information through the Local Government Data Unit goes a long way in achieving this; it allows service users, politicians and professionals to compare performance in service areas across Wales.

“It is noticeable that the approaches in England and Wales are growing closer, not least since the Audit Commission in England is developing the Comprehensive Area Assessment which will abandon an overall star rating for councils and the new national indicator set will not be scored.

“Instead, the focus shifts away from organisational naval gazing to a proper examination of the prospects for local areas and the quality of life for people living there.

“It will put the experience of citizens, people who use services and local taxpayers at the centre of debate, which is our focus in Wales.”

Meanwhile the Taxpayers’ Alliance campaign group released a report suggesting there had been a big increase in the number of middle-ranking council managers with remuneration packages worth more than £50,000 a year.

The report says, “The data in local authority accounts over the past decade implies that council have hired a new class of middle and senior management and then increased their pay and benefits packages faster than the economy-wide average.

“It is of course quite normal that wages should increase above the rate of inflation in a growing economy, and over time we would expect more people to earn £50,000 and above. But the increase in the number of local authority employees being paid more than £50,000 a year has been phenomenal, far outstripping the rate of increase in the economy as a whole.”

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said, “With council tax doubling in the past decade, it’s extremely disappointing that town halls have chosen to hire a new class of middle managers, many of whom are being paid more than MPs.

“Local authorities should study our findings carefully to see where savings can be made, instead of using their half-billion-pound PR machine to obscure their finances from taxpayers.”

In Wales, the councils with the highest number of managers earning more than £50,000 are Cardiff (54), Carmarthenshire (44) and Rhondda Cynon Taf (34). In terms of cost per resident of such packages, Torfaen comes out on top at £21.10, followed by Carmarthenshire at £18.71 and Conwy at £18.42.

East Anglian Daily Times: Council staff earning £50k soars

THE number of staff earning more than £50,000 at Essex County Council has soared 15 fold in the last ten years, new figures have revealed.

And the number of Suffolk County Council workers taking home at least the same amount has also risen by three times since 1996/1997.

New figures from the Tax Payers Alliance show the average local authority is employing over nine times as many people on £50,000-plus packages as a decade ago.

By contrast, in the economy as a whole, the number of people earning more than £50,000 has increased by less than three times over the past ten years.

Essex County Council comes fourth in the country for the level of top earners.

Last year they spent £36,260,000 on these high salaries, compared to £2,425,000 in 1996/1997.

From 37 jobs in 1996/97, they now employ 586 people on salaries of more than £50,000.

The council has defended this increase on the size of the authority and the population they serve.

Lord Hanningfield, council leader, said: “As one of the largest councils in England we employ in excess of 52,000 staff, of which only 0.01% are on salaries of £50,000 or more.

“In the last few years we have made a huge amount of savings, and we are determined to carry on with this success and make a further £200m in the next three years while continuing to provide good quality services.”

Suffolk County Council employs 85 staff on top wages, compared to just 19 ten years ago.

Jane Storey, Suffolk County Council's portfolio holder for resource management and transformation, said salaries had to be competitive in order to deliver “excellent services”.

“The majority of people in these higher salary bands are headteachers or deputy headteachers, rather than staff directly employed by Suffolk County Council,” she said.

“Headteachers of high schools are typically responsible for budgets of several million pounds, as well as their other responsibilities for students, staff and buildings, and so it is not unreasonable for them to be paid accordingly.”

Taxpayers' Alliance chief executive Matthew Elliott said: “With council tax doubling in the past decade, it's extremely disappointing that town halls have chosen to hire a new class of middle managers, many of whom are being paid more than MPs.”

Southampton Daily Echo: 'Fat cat' council bosses earn £58m

THE total pay bill for Hampshire council managers has gone up more than tenfold in the past decade while residents have seen council tax bills double.

The total wage bill for middle-ranking and senior officers in the county earning more than £50,000 has reached £58m a year.

Hampshire County Council employs more than 450 of the high earners and Southampton City Council 140.

The phenomenal rise in the past decade far outstrips the number of people in the rest of the economy on similar packages, whose pay has increased by less than three times.

The TaxPayers' Alliance, a campaign group which compiled the figures, described high-earning council managers as a new breed of "fat cats".

The revelations come as councils are preparing to set budgets for next year which include council tax hikes and cuts to frontline services.

BBC News Online: Growth in £50,000 council staff

The number of local authority middle managers on £50,000 or more has risen more than nine times in the past 10 years, a UK-wide report has found.

Lobby group TaxPayers' Alliance said the growth was more than double that in the rest of the economy and using up an increasing amount of council tax.

Councils with the most staff on £50,000 or more were Birmingham, Kent, Hertfordshire, Essex and Hampshire.

The Local Government Association said the wages attracted the best managers.

'Complex' jobs

The report found the average council budget for £50,000-and-over staff was more than £4m in 2006/07.

The cost to tax payers across the country for this category of staff was the equivalent £1 in every £11 paid in council tax.

TaxPayer's Alliance chief executive, Matthew Elliott, said the number of middle managers should be seen in relation to an increase in average council tax payments for band D properties from £646 to £1,248.

Mr Elliott said: "With council tax doubling in the past decade, it's extremely disappointing that town halls have chosen to hire a new class of middle managers, many of whom are being paid more than MPs."

John Ransford, deputy chief executive of the Local Government Association, which represents more than 400 councils in England and Wales, said the people earning such salaries were responsible for multimillion-pound budgets in highly complex organisations.

"To attract the best and brightest people to deliver value for money, you have to pay a suitable wage," he said.

"The Audit Commission this week confirmed that more than nine out of 10 councils are either meeting or exceeding value-for-money requirements."

Teletext: Council boss wages condemned

A growing class of town hall middle managers on £50,000 a year are eating up an increasing chunk of council tax, says the TaxPayers' Alliance.

Local authorities across the UK employ an average of 66 people on such wages - more than nine times the 1997 average of just seven employees.

The average council spent more than £4m on these staff in 2006-07 - the equivalent of £1 in every £11 raised.

MSN News: Row over town hall manager wages

A growing class of town hall middle managers on packages of £50,000 or more are eating up an increasing chunk of local households' council tax, according to a report.

Local authorities across the UK employ an average of 66 people on packages of more than £50,000 -nine times the 1997 average of seven employees - according to research by lobby group the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA).

The growth in high-paid staff is more than double the rate seen in the rest of the economy, where numbers with remuneration of £50,000 or more have gone up by about three times, said the TPA, which campaigns for lower taxes.

The average council spent more than £4 million on these staff in 2006/07, with a total bill for more than 30,000 high-earners across the country of almost £2 billion - the equivalent of £1 in every £11 raised from council tax.

Some 12,600 local authority staff were equalling or outstripping MPs with packages of £60,000 or more.

TaxPayers' Alliance chief executive Matthew Elliott said the growth in middle management numbers came against a backdrop of increases in average council tax for a band D property from £646 to £1,248 over the past decade.

Meanwhile, town hall bosses were arguing that they needed to cut frontline services like rubbish collection and care for the elderly in order to avoid council tax capping by central Government.

"With council tax doubling in the past decade, it's extremely disappointing that town halls have chosen to hire a new class of middle managers, many of whom are being paid more than MPs," said Mr Elliott.

"Local authorities should study these findings carefully to see where savings can be made, instead of using their half-billion-pound PR machine to obscure their finances from taxpayers."

Figures taken from local authorities' annual records showed that officials receiving packages of £50,000 or more - including bonuses, benefits in kind and severance payments, but not pension contributions - rose from an estimated 3,341 in 1997/98 to 30,889 in 2006/07, said the TPA.

Daily Express: SCANDAL OF HOSPITAL MEALS THAT COST 50P (EVEN PRISONERS ARE BETTER FED THAN PATIENTS)

HOSPITALS are spending just 50p a head on patients’ meals – less than a third of what is spent on food for killers and rapists in some jails.

Prison meals made from only fresh ingredients can cost as much as £1.68.

But the North Bristol NHS Trust admitted yesterday it spends just 50p on ingredients for each meal per patient at Frenchhay and Southmead Hospitals.

Although figures for other Trusts are not yet available, patients’ groups expect the picture to be similar across Britain.

It means hospitals are falling behind prisons and schools. Prison meals cost an average of 62p, though some jails are known to spend an average of £1.68. 

And last year an average of 60p was spent on ingredients for primary school meals, 74p in secondary schools.

Patients’ groups slammed the low-cost NHS meals yesterday as new figures showed soaring numbers are leaving hospital malnourished.

Chris Windows of the Patient and Public Involvement group said: “It’s hard to imagine Trusts can get away with spending so little, especially on patients with specific dietary requirements.”

And Mark Wallace of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “It is a disgrace that patients who need good nutrition to recover are apparently a lower priority than convicted criminals.” He said NHS billions were being wasted on bureaucrats when it ought to be spent on patient care. 

Tory health spokesman Stephen O’Brien said: “The big issue here is malnutrition in hospitals.” Just weeks ago junior health minister Ivan Lewis was forced to admit many elderly people were effectively being starved in hospital. In the last year 139,127 patients left NHS wards suffering malnutrition– an 84 per cent increase since Labour came to power in 1997.

In the House of Lords yesterday TV doctor Lord Winston added to calls for urgent increases in spending on hospital food. 

The issue has been highlighted in the Daily Express Respect for the Elderly crusade. Ministers claimed last year that the average hospital meal cost £2.65. But this is believed to include transport and staff costs. 

A North Bristol NHS Trust spokesman said yesterday that in three annual surveys patients rated the food as “excellent”.

He added: “We pride ourselves on the high proportion of fresh fruit and vegetables.”

Daily Express: COUNCIL TAX UP TO PAY FATCATS £50,000 A YEAR

COUNCIL tax bills are soaring to pay for a growing army of fatcat pen-pushers earning more than £50,000 a year, it was revealed yesterday.

Startling figures show there are now 30,000 middle managers in town halls across Britain receiving almost double the average national wage.

The faceless bureaucrats are costing their councils about £4million a year – equivalent to £20.35 for every household.

Local authorities insist that their middle-ranking staff are highly skilled and that taxpayers are getting value for money.

But the total annual wage bill for the fatcats now stands at a massive £2billion, up from only £207million when Labour came to power a decade ago.

The figures – compiled by the TaxPayers’ Alliance as a hefty rise in council tax looms – show just how much cash is being spent on bloated salaries rather than on vital services like schools and care for the elderly.

And they also undermine local authorities’ claims that lack of money is forcing them to cut services and increase bills.

Matthew Elliott, TPA chief executive, said: “With council tax doubling in the past decade, it is extremely disappointing that town halls have chosen to hire a new class of middle managers, many of whom are being paid more than MPs.

“Local authorities should study these findings carefully to see where savings can be made instead of using their half-billion-pound PR machine to obscure their finances from taxpayers.”

News of the astonishing salaries paid to civil servants will anger millions of council taxpayers who were warned last week to expect their bills to increase by about four per cent.

That will push average bills up by almost £45 a year to £1,145 from April – a doubling of the tax in England since Labour came to power in 1997.

The TPA figures reveal that local authorities across the UK are now employing an average of 66 middle-ranking managers on lucrative packages worth more than £50,000 a year.

It is a steep rise from six years ago when councils employed on average 20 such managers, while in 1997 there were only seven per authority.

The growth in highly-paid staff is more than double the rate seen in the rest of the economy.

Figures taken from councils’ annual records showed that officials getting deals worth £50,000 or more – including bonuses and  benefits but not pension contributions – rose from an estimated 3,341 in 1996-7 to 30,889 in 2006-7.

At least 12,600 of these staff equal or outstrip MPs’ salaries, with attractive packages of £60,000 or more.

The fatcats cost an average £4.2million per council but there are wide variations between areas, according to the TPA. 

Birmingham City Council spent the most overall, with 823 employees earning £50,000 or more, costing a total of £50.5million or £50.19 per household. 

It was followed by Kent with 713, costing £44.8million or £32.42 per household; Hertfordshire with 647, costing £39.8million or £37.58 per household;  Essex with 586, costing £36.3million or £26.64 per household; and Hampshire with 453, costing £27.7million or £21.89 per household.

But when figures were adjusted to take account of population size, councils in London spent the most on highly-paid staff.

The biggest bills per head of population were the London boroughs of Newham (£89.90), Westminster (£85.40) and Kensington and Chelsea (£80.73).

Under-fire council chiefs were last night forced to defend the enormous wage bills. John Ransford, deputy chief executive of the Local Government Association which represents more than 400 councils in England and Wales, said: “The people who earn these salaries are responsible for multi-million-pound budgets in highly complex organisations.

“And to attract the best and brightest people to deliver value for money, you have to pay a suitable wage.

“Councils are responsible for ensuring that more than £100billion of taxpayers’ money is spent wisely and provides the services local people want and need.

“When senior salaries in the private sector are compared to senior salaries in the public sector, the taxpayer gets very good value for money.” The latest TPA research was the second in its Council Spending Uncovered series. Its first report revealed that councils were spending £450million a year on publicity and marketing.

The TPA said it was normal for wage rises to be higher than inflation in a growing economy and it was to be expected that more people over time would earn £50,000 and above. 

But the rise in local authority employees on those figures had been “phenomenal, far outstripping the rate of increase in the economy as a whole”.

It stressed that not every penny of spending in areas it was examining was wasteful but that there were “significant savings” which could be made, easing the burden on families and pensioners while protecting important services.

The Times: Councils pay up

Increasing numbers of town hall middle managers on packages of more than £50,000 take up nearly 10 per cent of council tax revenues, a TaxPayers Alliance report said. On average, a council employs 66 people who are paid packages of more than £50,000, nine times more than in 1997, the lobby group said.

Daily Telegraph: Thousands of council staff are paid more than MPs

By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor

THOUSANDS of middle-ranking staff in local government are being paid more than £50,000 a year after a public sector salary explosion under Labour.

Research published today shows that the average council in England and Wales employs nine times as many people on pounds 50,000-plus packages as 10 years ago.

This represents an increase three times larger than the salary growth in the wider economy. More than 12,000 council officials earn above £60,277 a year, which is an MP's basic income.

A study by the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) suggests that the average local authority spends pounds 4 million on employing people earning more than £50,000.

The total bill is almost £2 billion - around 10 per cent of total council tax revenues.

According to the campaign group, accounts reveal that over the past decade councils have hired a new class of middle and senior management.

They have then increased their pay and benefits packages much faster than the economy-wide average.

In 1997, the average council employed seven people earning more than £50,000. This had risen to 20 by 2001 and now stands at 66.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TPA, said: ''It is of course quite normal that wages should increase above the rate of inflation in a growing economy, and, over time, we would expect more people to earn £50,000 and above. But the increase in the number of local authority employees being paid more than £50,000 per annum has been phenomenal.''

The public sector has boomed under Labour, with an extra 700,000 jobs compared with 10 years ago,

However, the most recent figures showed pay rises and employment growth have slowed as the brakes are put on spending.

The council with the highest number of staff earning more than £50,000 is Birmingham, with 823, followed by Kent with 713, Hertfordshire 647 and Essex 586.

However, the council which spends the most per head on high salaries is Newham in London at almost pounds 90 per resident. Other London boroughs also have higher pay than average - reflecting the cost of living in the capital.

The best value is provided by Lancashire, which employs 285 staff on packages worth more than £50,000 - but this works out at just pounds 15 a head.

John Ransford, the deputy chief executive of the Local Government Association, which represents more than 400 councils in England and Wales, said: "The people who earn these salaries are responsible for multi-million pound budgets in highly complex organisations, and to attract the best and brightest people to deliver value for money, you have to pay a suitable wage.''

Among pounds 50,000-plus jobs currently on offer in local government are: head of crime and disorder in Manchester ( £60,000); strategy leader: inclusion in learning, Bristol City ( £66,000); head of integrated youth services, Bracknell Borough ( £51,000); head of leisure and green spaces, Ealing Borough (£64,000).

Daily Telegraph: Weekly bin round axed by half of councils

by Robert Winnett, Deputy Political Editor

MINISTERS have been accused of "bullying'' councils into ending weekly refuse collections after figures showed that 18 million people across England have their rubbish picked up only once a fortnight.

The Daily Telegraph has established that at least 155 councils - almost half of all English authorities - have abandoned weekly collections despite public opposition.

Households in areas losing the weekly service, cities as well as rural areas, complain of an increased risk to health caused by rotting food waste. This is also associated with noxious smells, disease and an increased rodent and insect problem.

Health and safety officials have been called to some areas amid complaints from bin men about the weight of wheelie bins they have to move.

Councils - under pressure to meet Whitehall "efficiency'' targets - have been privately told that cutting weekly collections will help them meet targets and qualify for additional government funding.

Over the next few months, dozens more councils are expected to move to fortnightly bin rounds.

Eric Pickles, the shadow communities and local government secretary, said last night: "Gordon Brown's so-called efficiency review is bullying councils to make savage cuts to front-line services such as rubbish collections, while council tax goes through the roof yet again.

"Labour's rubbish cuts are just another tax con: you pay more and get less.

"Labour ministers first forced up council tax through fiddled funding and are now forcing councils to axe weekly bin collections, shrink the size of bins and then ban rubbish bags being placed next to bins.

"It is increasingly difficult for families to dispose of their rubbish responsibly - leading to more fly-tipping.''

Waste collection will be a major issue in the local elections in May. Along with cutting weekly collections, councils across Britain are competing to become the first to be allowed to introduce new "pay-as-you-throw'' bin taxes.

Five councils will shortly be chosen to pilot the scheme which has also met fierce public opposition.

Shortly before last May's local elections, Tony Blair said that he favoured weekly collections. He said he was a "traditionalist'' and believed there were "better ways'' to encourage recycling.

His comments were widely interpreted as attempting to avoid the issue becoming an electoral battleground. A government quango also advised councils not to withdraw weekly collections in the run-up to local elections.

However, the latest figures, quietly released in a parliamentary written answer, show that the former prime minister's edict has been abandoned by the Brown administration - with the number of councils dropping weekly bin collections rising steadily.

Matthew Elliott, the chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "Cutting bin collections is a slap in the face to families struggling to pay record levels of council tax.

"All people want for their money is a decent standard of service and yet councils constantly fail to deliver.

"It is shocking that both central and local government are so flagrantly ignoring the wishes of the general public. It is about time councils started to consider the interests of the people who pay for them.''

Central government uses a complicated formula for Whitehall grants to councils, one of which is meeting "efficiency targets''. Switching to fortnightly collections saves councils money and is used to meet the targets, say ministers.

A medium-sized council saves about pounds 1 million annually from abandoning weekly collections.

The Local Government Association said the main reason councils were switching was to boost recycling. However, a spokesman admitted: "Cost is an issue. The more money that can be saved collecting rubbish, the more money councils have for other public services.''

The World Health Organisation recommends that rubbish should be collected weekly in temperate climates such as Britain's.

The National Pest Technicians' Association said fortnightly services were one factor behind the rise in rat infestations. Since 1999, infestations have risen by almost 40 per cent and by 70 per cent in the summer.

Doretta Cocks, of the Campaign for Weekly Waste Collection, said: "Two weeks in the sun is too much. It leads to an increase in vermin, maggot infestation, putrid smells and other problems. Most developed countries have weekly or even daily collections.''

Government research has disputed the risks to health and ministers have published research claiming that abandoning weekly collections does not have a negative impact.

Britain has one of the worst recycling records in Europe and councils face hefty EU fines if they do not reduce waste sent to landfill sites.

Council tax under Labour has almost doubled since 1997 - from an average of pounds 688 to pounds 1,321 this year for a Band D property. This is more than triple the inflation rate.

John Healey, the local government minister, insisted last night that it was up to councils whether they scrapped weekly collections.

"They decide how often bins are collected. People rightly want and expect more efficient services from their council.

"Efficiency savings have nothing to do with cutting services. Councils are not allowed to count anything as an efficiency saving unless they maintain or improve the local service. Any council moving to fortnightly collections would need to meet this test.''

Southampton Echo: Are 'bin police' going to check your waste?

BIN police could be coming to Southampton under plans to further boost recycling rates.

Refuse collectors would check bins to make sure residents are disposing of their rubbish correctly.

Those who stubbornly refuse to recycle or repeatedly put recyclables in the wrong bin could face a fine of up to £1,000.

Current staff have already been trained for the job. However a £30,000-ayear waste awareness officer would be employed to "educate" residents on their bad habits.

The ruling Conservatives have earmarked £70,000 towards the introduction of the "compulsory recycling" under their £173m budget plans for next year.

They say the scheme could save 3,750 tonnes going to landfill.

Councillor Gavin Dick, Cabinet member for the environment, said: "It's going to be a gentle approach to start with.

"If you are stuffing nappies in a blue (recycling) bin we may have a word.

"We are not looking at penalising people who put a plastic carton in an incorrect bin."

Cllr Dick said stickers would be put on "contaminated bins" and leaflets posted through letterboxes.

Repeat offenders would then be given a lesson on how to recycle properly from a special advice team.

A last resort would be an enforcement notice under the Environmental Protection Act, which if ignored could lead to a fine of up to £1,000.

"We believe in education rather than dictatorial punishment," Cllr Dick said.

He insisted there were no plans to put Big Brother-style chips in bins to charge for waste or introduce a hated fortnightly household waste collection.

Terry Hinton from the Unite union said that his members backed the council's move.

"You have hardliners who don't give a monkeys and won't recycle. They cause the council a lot of problems in time and money. What do you do, leave the waste or try to deal with it?"

He added: "We are not going to be tipping bins upside and going through them."

Mr Hinton admitted: "There could be confrontation. But staff understand about personal safety and will walk away."

He city patrol officers could be brought in to deal with enforcement if needed.

Test Valley Borough Council already employs eight bin police, or recycling advisors, who keep a secret database of repeat offenders. The scheme costs about one per cent of the council's annual budget.

One councillor whose bin was subjected to a spot check labelled the spending as "exorbitant''.

Southampton City Council currently recycles more than 30 per cent of its waste.

Rates could jump around ten per cent to 43 per cent if the Government in coming months allows councils in Hampshire to count the re-use of ash from burnt waste.

A spokesman for the TaxPayers' Alliance, a lower tax pressure group, said: "A lot of people will be concerned that this is not the best way to spend their money.

"They will be uncomfortable with the idea that instead of paying for good services money is being spent on people rifling through their bins."

Burnley Express: Pensioners' plight is getting worse

I AM writing to highlight the sad situation that so many Burnley pensioners are in; a plight that local and national politicians are aware exists throughout England.

The level of state pensions in this country is among the lowest in Europe and additional services and benefits provided in England are the lowest in Britain!

Since the increase in cost of meals on wheels early last year, many pensioners in Burnley have had to cut back on the number of meals they can afford. There are those subsisting on bread and cheap biscuits. The spiralling cost of heating affects us all but none more than our increasingly desperate pensioners.

Should a pensioner need to be taken into a care home their savings and homes are "stolen" from them to put towards the cost. I say "stolen" because care home provision is free in Scotland!

I applaud the Scottish Parliament for making these provisions and demand the same treatment for English pensioners. Also in Burnley, as in the rest of the country, there are record levels of bankruptcies, insolvencies and house repossessions - too many of them are pensioners!

I believe the level of council tax in Burnley is averaging around £1,100 per household. For what? Services are diminishing, public amenities are being reduced and no help can be found for the truly needy. So what is happening to all the money? Some of the answers are supplied by the excellent, independent organisations the Taxpayers Alliance.

However, I look at the proliferation of, what I can only describe as non-jobs established by local and county councillors, many highly paid with the additional benefit of a substantial pension.

MR JOHN WIGNALL Hollingreave Road, Burnley 

Daily Express: NHS faces £350m bill for migrant mothers

MIGRANT mothers who have babies in the UK are costing the NHS more than £350million a year, it was revealed last night.

Record levels of immigration have had a massive impact on maternity services – costing £200million more than 10 years ago.

At that time one baby in eight was delivered to a foreign-born mother, but figures from the Office of National Statistics show that rose to one in five of total births in the UK in 2006.

This latest research comes just a week after the Healthcare Commission published an alarming report suggesting a link between low staffing levels on maternity wards and overall poor performance. It subsequently found that four out of 10 maternity services in England were performing poorly or fairly.

Last night critics said the Department of Health had been "caught by surprise" by the rising birth rate among foreign women.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "The British taxpayer increasingly has to fork out, not only to people who do not pay tax, but to people who are not from this country at all.

"It is, of course, important that the NHS cares for people in emergencies no matter who they are, but we must be very careful that we don't become a soft touch. People must understand that they can't come to this country and take advantage of our generosity." The NHS spent around £1billion a year on maternity services 10 years ago, and that has risen to £1.6billion. Births to European-born mothers other than from the UK and Ireland increased by 87 per cent between 2001 and 2006 to 27,000 – almost four per cent of the total.

While the number of babies born to British mothers has fallen by 44,000 a year since the midNineties, babies born to foreign women have risen by 64,000, the BBC reported last night.

According to the figures, in 2006 there were 15,000 more Eastern European babies born here than a decade earlier, 11,000 more to mothers from the Indian sub-continent, while 8,000 babies had mothers born in Africa.

Professor Philip Steer, editor of the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, said: "The demographic change, the sheer numbers, has in some areas increased very substantially without there being any forward planning to allow for that." A Department of Health spokesman said: "We have this year made improving maternity services a national priority for the NHS which is why the Secretary of State announced last week extra funding for maternity services that will increase over the next three years to reach an additional £122million annually."

Eastbourne Herald: Unconvinced at need for charges

Like many people who visit the shops in Hailsham, I am totally unconvinced about the need to introduce parking charges in the town in order to keep council tax increases down.
Firstly, the growing number of closed shops indicates that Hailsham traders are not having an easy time.
Making the town less attractive to shoppers is going to reduce revenue from business if yet more shops are forced to close.
Secondly, it is time to face up to how bloated local government has become. Current WDC job advertisements still offers final salary pension schemes at a time when most of the private sector has long recognised that these are now unaffordable.
Ten years of New Labour has resulted in a staggering 25 per cent of the workforce now being in the public sector.
According to the Taxpayers' Alliance, politically-correct non-jobs cost us, the taxpayer, £600 million per year. We simply cannot afford this.
If Wealden District Council can prove that each and every one of their staff and consultants are giving value for money, then its pleas of poverty might be taken seriously, but most council taxpayers are going to take some convincing. – John Petley, Stunts Green, Herstmonceux.

Daily Telegraph: NHS gets billions but productivity falls 10pc

BILLIONS of pounds of extra investment in the health service has led to a 10 per cent drop in productivity, official figures show.

Improvements in patient care have failed to keep pace with increased budgets since Labour came to power.

The huge sums of money injected into the NHS over the past decade have largely been spent on more staff, higher wages and increases in costs.

Although more patients are being treated on the NHS with more operations being carried out, more drugs being prescribed and the population enjoying better health, the rise has failed to match the increase in investment, a report from the Office of National Statistics shows.

Critics say the report proves the NHS has absorbed huge amounts of money with very little to show for it and the Government must reform the system instead of pumping in ever more funding.

Unless NHS productivity can be improved the principle of a health service funded out of general taxation may become unaffordable, experts warn.

The ONS report says NHS output in terms of operations, consultations, drugs and fewer deaths has risen by half between 1995 and 2006 but the annual budget over the same period more than doubled from pounds 39 billion to pounds 89.7 billion.

This means productivity fell by an average of one per cent a year.

The steepest drops occurred between 2001 and 2005 when productivity fell by two per cent a year, corresponding with the largest increases in funding under Labour.

Matthew Sinclair, policy analyst at the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "Taxpayers have been asked to pay for huge increases in NHS funding, which the Government has utterly failed to spend effectively.

"We're getting 10 per cent less for every pound spent in the NHS than we were 10 years ago. This shocking failure is the result of the tired strategy of spending ever more money within the existing system instead of learning lessons from how other European countries organise health care and putting in place genuine reforms.'' The report says the rise in staff and in goods and services bought in from outside outstripped the increase in workload.

GPs provided better value for money until 2003, the report says, as the increase in the number of consultations exceeded the increase in funding meaning productivity rose.

But this switched when the new GP contract was introduced in 2004 giving doctors a large pay rise in exchange for fewer working hours. Productivity fell after that, even when taking into account better management of patients with long-term conditions.

Although the population is ageing and so can be expected to place increasing demands on the NHS, people are also enjoying better health until later in life, so the effect is limited, the report says.

Death rates from conditions such as heart disease and some cancers which are considered preventable with good health care have fallen recently meaning that the productivity gains may have been underestimated, the report says.

But it adds that this effect plus the reduction in working hours among some staff is not great enough to change the conclusion that productivity has fallen.

David Nicholson, chief executive of the NHS said: "Recognition of improvements in health and well-being are integral to any measure of health care productivity. The ONS itself admits, any single measure of productivity is unlikely to capture all the costs and benefits of health care services.

"The ONS measure of productivity would count longer appointment times with GPs and switching patients from hospital outpatients into more appropriate community settings as a fall in productivity rather than an improvement in quality.''

Where the money has gone

SPENDING on the NHS rose by more than pounds 43 billion in five years at the peak of Labour's health investment but almost half went straight out on increased pay and costs.

Almost all of the 1.3 million people employed by the NHS have higher wages under new contracts. Consultants' pay rose by a quarter, GP net income went up by 23 per cent and changed pay scales for other staff cost an extra pounds 1.8 billion between 2005/6 and 2007/8. NHS staff numbers are also up. Inflation claimed almost a third of the extra money meant for patient care. Prescriptions rose by a fifth between 2002 and 2006/7. The NHS is also buying more health care from private companies.

NHS spending on new buildings, refurbishments and new premises has risen at about 3.5 per cent for each of the past 10 years to pounds 1.9 billion in 2006.

Daily Telegraph: Millions hit by £700 a year tax penalty

THE number of people paying the highest level of income tax has almost doubled since Labour came to power, figures showed yesterday.

The statistics show that the number paying tax at 40 per cent will have increased from just over two million in 1997 to almost 3.7 million by the end of this financial year.

And higher-rate tax payers are losing out on at least pounds 700 a year, experts said, because tax thresholds have not risen in line with wages.

City analysts and opposition parties said Gordon Brown had turned the 40 per cent tax band into a "stealth tax'' by increasing the threshold in line with inflation instead.

This process - known as "fiscal drag'' - has meant that many hundreds of thousands of middle earners, such as higher-paid teachers, nurses, police officers and many civil servants, had been trapped into paying 40p to the Exchequer for every pound they earned over pounds 39,825.

Millions of home owners have also been affected by the Treasury's reluctance to raise stamp duty and inheritance tax thresholds.

In the past five years the number of people paying the higher band of income tax has risen by 700,000 - 20 per cent - according to tax analysts.

The City accountancy firm UHY Hacker Young estimated the majority of higher-rate taxpayers would be at least pounds 705.84 better off this year if thresholds had been raised at the rate of wage inflation.

Since 2002/3 average earnings rose by 20.8 per cent while the higher rate threshold had risen by 15.7 per cent.

Roy Maugham, a tax partner at UHY Hacker Young, said: "This is a stealth tax that has received very little attention.''

Philip Hammond, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said: "Gordon Brown is using fiscal drag, raising allowances and thresholds by less than the rate of earnings growth to drag more and more people into the top rate of tax. This is yet another example of the stealth tax approach that he has consistently adopted since his pensions raid in 1997.''

Mike Warburton, of the City accountancy firm Grant Thornton, said part of the increase could be explained by the fact that the number of people working and paying tax had risen since Labour came to power in 1997.

"But the main factor is that he has only raised the threshold at which higher-rate tax is paid in line with inflation, rather than earnings.''

The independent TaxPayers' Alliance estimates that Mr Brown boosted the Treasury coffers by around pounds 80 billion through "fiscal drag'' since he became Chancellor.

Last year alone it contributed around pounds 14 billion, or pounds 550 per household. Fiscal drag has also increased the gains to the Treasury from stamp duty and inheritance tax.

The threshold for the one per cent rate of stamp duty has increased from pounds 60,000 to pounds 125,000 since 1996, but would be pounds 183,000 if it had kept pace with house price growth.

A decade ago the threshold at which inheritance tax became payable was pounds 200,000. It is now pounds 300,000. If Mr Brown had increased it in line with house price growth the 40 per cent charge would only apply to estates worth at least pounds 610,000.

A Treasury spokesman said the increase in the number of higher-rate taxpayers was a sign of "economic success and increased national prosperity.''

Daily Express: TIME FOR MPS TO REVEAL ALL ON FAMILY PAY

Members of Parliament faced demands last night to come clean over exactly how much taxpayers’ cash is being pocketed by their relatives.

Campaigners suspect a significant slice of Westminster’s annual £53.1million salaries pot for MPs’ secretaries and researchers is going to immediate family members.

Dozens of MPs employ their spouses and children in Parliamentary and constituency offices on salaries up to £40,000 a year. But the payments to family members are shrouded in secrecy.

Anger erupted yesterday over huge sums doled out by shamed Tory MP Derek Conway to his sons and wife.

Anti-sleaze campaigners demanded that full details of the taxpayers’ cash paid to MPs staff be made public.

Martin Bell, former sleaze-busting independent MP, said: “I am not against MPs employing members of their family, as long as they are up to the job.

“But there does need to be full transparency and I hope we are edging towards that. When I was an MP, I was effectively being asked to write blank cheques to myself every month.”

MPs can each spend up to £87,276 annually on employing researchers, secretaries and assistants and that total is soon to be increased to £96,630.

The latest edition of the Register of Interests of Members Secretaries and Research Assistants shows that nearly 40 MPs have wives or children working in their offices.

Some are unpaid. Westminster authorities say typical salaries range between £16,000 and £25,000 annually. In rare cases, secretaries can earn £40,000 a year.

Many more employ relatives in their constituency offices but are under no legal obligation to identify their staff.

Some critics suspect as many as one MP in six employs a family member.

Lib Dem MP Malcolm Bruce pays his wife Rosemary £28,500 a year to work in his office in his Gordon constituency, his office confirmed yesterday.

Sir Stuart Bell, Labour MP for Middlesbrough, employs his wife Margaret for £35,000 a year and Nick Ainger, Labour MP for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, pays his wife Sally about £19,000 a year. 

But most MPs do not release details of how much their staff are paid. It means the public cannot see how much MPs are paying their relatives.

A number of MPs contacted by the Daily Express yesterday confirmed that they were employing relatives in their offices.

Former Cabinet minster Peter Hain even lists his mother Adelaine Hain, 80, as an employee in his Westminster office.

Former Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett names her husband Lionel as an employee.

Matthew Elliott, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Taxpayers’ money must always be spent carefully and openly. The public are already concerned that some politicians are taking advantage of taxpayers financially, and this disgraceful example only deepens that concern. 

“It is in the interests of both the public and all MPs that the air is cleared. That can only be done by full disclosure of expenses and modern, transparent employment records. We have to make sure that this does not happen again. The public are understandably suspicious about MPs employing family members. 

“It is a practice that is basically confined to Westminster and would be pretty alien in any other workplace.” 

He added: “Politicians should be going out of their way to explain why they do it and to provide proof of work to reassure the public that taxpayers’ money is not being abused.”

Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker, a campaigner against Westminster sleaze, welcomed plans from the National Audit Office for “specimen checks” on MPs’ staffing. But he opposed publishing publicly details of all staff names and salaries.

“There are ways of monitoring the system better without encroaching on people’s privacy,” he said.

Daily Express: 700,000 CAUGHT IN THE BROWN SNEAK TAX TRAP

Hundreds of thousands of families have been dragged into a stealth tax trap by Gordon Brown.

Around 3.7 million people are expected to pay income tax at the top rate of 40 per cent this year – a rise of 700,000 in five years.

More are paying the higher tax because Labour has failed to raise the threshold at which it starts to be paid in line with wage inflation.

Accountants UHY Hacker Young said the failure would cost each top rate taxpayer more than £700 a year.

“The vast majority who have moved into the higher tax bracket have quite modest lifestyles,” said Roy Maugham, a tax specialist at UHY. 

The vast majority who have moved into the higher tax bracket have quite modest lifestyles 
Roy Maugham

“Just like inheritance tax the Government is content to see those on relatively modest incomes get caught by a tax meant to target the rich.”

This year the wage level at which income tax stops being paid at 22 per cent and starts at the higher tax bracket will be £34,600. 

Mr Maugham added: “The cumulative effect has seen a dramatic rise in the number of people paying the higher rate of income tax.

“The increase is not attributable to a rise in the number of millionaires.”

Professionals such as a deputy head teacher at a primary school or a sales manager at a small firm are some of those caught by the higher rate. Savings and other income also have to be paid at 40 per cent. 

The figures released by HM Revenue & Customs as part of its annual income statistics show that the number of basic rate taxpayers has grown by a million from 22 million in five years – a rise of 5.4 per cent.

But the number of top-rate taxpayers has grown by more than 20 per cent.

Wages have risen by 20.8 per cent over the same period but the threshold at which the higher rate takes effect has risen by just 15.7 per cent. The extra 700,000 caught by the top rate will pay £493million into the Treasury’s coffers this year, according to UHY Hacker Young.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “People are getting tired of the Government playing the system to squeeze more and more money out of taxpayers. 

“Their repeated failure to raise thresholds in line with inflation and growth is a stealthy trick to exploit ordinary families. 

“For too long, Gordon Brown has seen this as a clever wheeze to fill the Treasury’s coffers and it does not seem to care about the severe pressures put on people by unsustainably high taxes.”

A study published by the TaxPayers’ Alliance this month found that all families are being ripped off by an average of £550 a year by the Prime Minister’s failure to raise other tax thresholds in line with inflation.

A Treasury spokesman said the Government was following precedent by raising the the tax threshold in line with price inflation. 

Plymouth Herald: Tax burden heaviest for 22 years

Britain's tax burden is at its highest level for more than 20 years after a relentless rise in council taxes, according a respected international think-tank.

Total taxation as a proportion of national income jumped by a full percentage point to 37.4 during 2006, the Organisation of Economic Development said.

It has not been higher since 1985 when giant mobile phones and red braces were the emblems of the decade's ' loadsamoney' culture.

The sharp rise was down to a huge £1bn rise in council taxes to £22.4bn collected during 2006.

Whitehall was particularly stingy with its handouts to local authorities last year, forcing them to raise charges, say experts.

Corin Taylor of the TaxPayers' Alliance pointed the finger firmly at the former chancellor for the large rise in bills.

'You can put most of the blame at Gordon Brown's door,' said Mr Taylor. 'Local councils could, in theory, spend less.

'But they have requirements put on them by central Government, and they have to get the money somewhere.'

The Treasury also joined in the taxing spree, reaping tens of millions of pounds in extra income by keeping the stamp duty tax bands steady - even as inflation rose and property prices continued their relentless ascent.

Wimbledon Guardian: Wimbledon MP wants GP's salary

By Diana Pilkington

The MP for Wimbledon is calling for his salary to be in line with that of other, more highly paid, public sector employees.

Stephen Hammond has argued that MPs should be paid the same as a GP or senior civil servant, who he says earn an average of £108,000 and £118,000 respectively.

This compares to his salary of £62,500 a year.

Mr Hammond said: "We do a job roughly equivalent to that of a public sector GP or senior civil servant."

"It's incontrovertible that our salaries have not kept paced with that," he added.

He said that the skill level of an MP's job was similar to that of higher paid public sector workers, and stressed that MPs are available at weekends.

His views come amid members' responses to recommendations by the Senior Salaries Review Board, which saw one Conservative MP, Anthony Steen, controversially ask for a taxi allowance to avoid using the Tube.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "MPs already get a good salary, an extremely generous pension and sizeable expenses - that should be sufficient. After all, this job is meant to be about serving the public first and foremost. People are already concerned that some politicians are taking advantage of the taxpayer financially - further pay rises would only fuel that feeling. We all have to tighten our belts in tough economic times, and it is only right that MPs do so too."

Mr Hammond has also addressed the issue of how London MPs are remunerated.

As his main home is in London, he does not claim the untaxed additional cost allowance (ACA) that many MPs use to keep a second home near Westminster.

Unlike those who receive the ACA, he pays tax on the London supplement of £2,700 that he receives, which he says is creating "two tiers" of MPs.

Daily Express: Soft touch Britain

TAXPAYERS are forking out £21million a year to bankroll child benefit for 27,000 youngsters still living in Poland, it emerged last night.

Thousands of migrant workers are now claiming generous cash handouts for offspring left behind in former Eastern Bloc countries.

But official figures show that Polish claimants are by far the biggest group, with 16,286 adults receiving £21.4million in taxpayer-funded benefits for 26,711 children.

That makes an annual total of £1,500 for an average family with two children – a small fortune in Poland where people are being openly told by officials that Britain operates a “pay now, check later” welfare system. Other eastern European migrants are also claiming the same benefits for more than 3,000 children, bringing the total annual bill for the taxpayer to £24million.

The huge drain on Treasury coffers provoked outrage, with warnings that the sum is bound to rocket even higher as the latest figures from HM Revenue and Customs do not include child tax credit.

Critics fear mass immigration is now being fuelled by the promise of a benefits bonanza. The payments are also yet another damaging blow to Government claims that mass immigration boosts the economy.

Senior Tory MP Andrew Selous, Shadow Minister for Family Welfare, said: “This shows there is a need for a serious reassessment of this aspect of the welfare state.

“The Government still refuses to answer how much child tax credit is paid to migrant workers whose children live abroad.

“It has shown no leadership or political will in trying to sort out this issue. We want this money spent on dealing with child poverty at home.”

Corin Taylor, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Taxpayers will be appalled. The rules must be changed to ensure these welfare payments only go to deserving families of British citizens.”

The explosion in child benefit claims follows fresh evidence that the mass influx from Eastern Europe shows little sign of slowing down.

A record 1.3 million Poles travelled to Britain last year, six times the figure before Poland joined the EU.

A recent survey showed that one in four Polish migrant workers has no intention of returning home and many more plan to stay for decades.

The figures released yesterday showed that a total of 17,794 child benefit awards were made to claimants from Eastern Europe last year. In total, 29,126 children were included.

Claimants were paid £18.10 a week for their eldest child and a further £12.10 for any younger offspring. The generous payments dwarf handouts under the Polish system, where families receive a maximum of £10 a month for the equivalent benefit.

The sums are worth relatively far more in Poland and other former communist countries because incomes are far lower than in Britain.

Experts believe the lavish payments provide a huge incentive for workers to head for this country.

Sir Andrew Green, of independent think tank Migrationwatch, said: “There is no justification for paying child benefit at British rates for children in Poland, where the cost of living is a fraction of ours. This has to be re-negotiated, particularly as the numbers are bound to increase.”

Polish newspapers are carrying widespread coverage of the financial benefits enjoyed by workers heading to Britain.

Polish official Agnieszka Zablocka, from Gdansk, told the BBC that Britain operates a “pay now, check later” welfare system.

Another fear voiced by critics is that the real numbers of migrants  are far higher than the Government’s official estimates.

There are also concerns that Britain’s lax welfare system is open to abuse and fraud. A spokeswoman for HM Revenue and Customs said: “The main purpose of child benefit is to support families living in the UK, so the general rules mean it is not paid to children who live outside the UK.

“However, under EU rules, which have been in place since the UK joined the European Economic Community in 1973, an EU national working and paying compulsory contributions in one EU country can claim child benefits for their family resident in another EU country.”

She claimed that the numbers in eastern Europe receiving child benefit were a tiny fraction of the 7.5 million total recipients.

The Statesman (India): Off Track

'Gardening leave'

A policeman is returning to work after being suspended on full pay for more than six years. PC Gerry Dawson's 'gardening leave' has reportedly cost the taxpayer more than GBP200,000. He was told to stay at home in September 2001 while he was investigated for alleged corruption, reports The Sun.

It was two years and three months before he was charged and a year and four months later he was cleared by a court. Another seven months on he was tried again on fresh charges but PC Dawson, of Cosham, Hants, was again cleared. But he stayed suspended while bosses launched a misconduct investigation. After two years they decided he had no case to answer and ordered the GBP32,000-a-year officer back on the beat. TaxPayers' Alliance chief executive Matthew Elliott said: 'This was ridiculous, costly and unfair. 'Taxpayers shouldn't have to pay someone for not working.'