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Burning Our Money

Cheshire East councillors get a free ride on taxpayers’ money

Dec 20th, 2011
by Tom Welsh.
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Cheshire East Council, which last week revealed it had a serious budget deficit, has rejected an amendment that would have reduced its mileage allowance for councillors to HMRC recommended levels. Council Leader Wesley Fitzgerald has claimed that the agreed cut from 65p to 52.2p a mile is a victory for spending restraint, but in reality councillors and council staff are still getting a free ride on taxpayers’ money and incurring unnecessary costs for the Council.

Mileage allowances are payments by employers to employees who have to use their car for work. The allowance is meant to compensate for the cost of petrol, vehicle depreciation and repairs. George Osborne increased the recommended allowance to 45p-a-mile in the Budget back in March, acknowledging the high cost of motoring and the pressure this puts on drivers who need their car for work.

TaxPayers’ Alliance research, however, has revealed that many council employees receive far in excess of the HMRC approved rate. In 2009-10, Cheshire East was one of the worst performing in the country, paying out a massive £4,045,601 in allowances to councillors and council employees. The research also revealed that the council increased allowances from 60.10p to 65p-per-mile between 2009-10 and 2010-11, a time when politicians and executives knew that necessary spending reductions would have to be made. While Council Leader Fitzgerald might claim that the agreed reduction is evidence of Cheshire East’s willingness to cut back on employees’ benefits, it’s more like a reversal of a disgraceful previous increase.

Another Cheshire East Councillor, Sam Corcoran, was more critical in November, and rightly so. He said that any payment above the HMRC recommended rate ‘not only wastes money but also adds to bureaucracy’. He also proposed the amendment that the council should only pay 45p-per-mile. Councillor Corcoran should be praised for acknowledging that any payment above HMRC recommendations involves extra administration for the Council alongside the excessive cost. The rest of the council would do well to take his recommendation on board.

Most importantly, however, the failure to reduce the allowance to 45p-per-mile is evidence that councillors are not making enough effort to find efficiency and waste savings before making reductions elsewhere. The reduction to 52.2p-per-mile for councillors will save £20,000 but the total cost of mileage allowances for council employees and councillors in Cheshire East was over £4 million in 2009-10. Council tax has almost doubled over the last decade and it is unacceptable that taxpayers’ money is being used to fund excessive benefits for council staff.

Cheshire East councillors get a free ride on taxpayers’ money

Dec 20th, 2011
by Tom Welsh.
Comments are off for this post

Cheshire East Council, which last week revealed it had a serious budget deficit, has rejected an amendment that would have reduced its mileage allowance for councillors to HMRC recommended levels. Council Leader Wesley Fitzgerald has claimed that the agreed cut from 65p to 52.2p a mile is a victory for spending restraint, but in reality councillors and council staff are still getting a free ride on taxpayers’ money and incurring unnecessary costs for the Council.

Mileage allowances are payments by employers to employees who have to use their car for work. The allowance is meant to compensate for the cost of petrol, vehicle depreciation and repairs. George Osborne increased the recommended allowance to 45p-a-mile in the Budget back in March, acknowledging the high cost of motoring and the pressure this puts on drivers who need their car for work.

TaxPayers’ Alliance research, however, has revealed that many council employees receive far in excess of the HMRC approved rate. In 2009-10, Cheshire East was one of the worst performing in the country, paying out a massive £4,045,601 in allowances to councillors and council employees. The research also revealed that the council increased allowances from 60.10p to 65p-per-mile between 2009-10 and 2010-11, a time when politicians and executives knew that necessary spending reductions would have to be made. While Council Leader Fitzgerald might claim that the agreed reduction is evidence of Cheshire East’s willingness to cut back on employees’ benefits, it’s more like a reversal of a disgraceful previous increase.

Another Cheshire East Councillor, Sam Corcoran, was more critical in November, and rightly so. He said that any payment above the HMRC recommended rate ‘not only wastes money but also adds to bureaucracy’. He also proposed the amendment that the council should only pay 45p-per-mile. Councillor Corcoran should be praised for acknowledging that any payment above HMRC recommendations involves extra administration for the Council alongside the excessive cost. The rest of the council would do well to take his recommendation on board.

Most importantly, however, the failure to reduce the allowance to 45p-per-mile is evidence that councillors are not making enough effort to find efficiency and waste savings before making reductions elsewhere. The reduction to 52.2p-per-mile for councillors will save £20,000 but the total cost of mileage allowances for council employees and councillors in Cheshire East was over £4 million in 2009-10. Council tax has almost doubled over the last decade and it is unacceptable that taxpayers’ money is being used to fund excessive benefits for council staff.

Non-job of the week

Dec 15th, 2011
by Andrew Allison.
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As this is the last non-job of the week feature of 2011, I have been looking back at the examples of non-jobs and ridiculously high pay I have highlighted throughout the year. I won’t pick a winner as the non-job of the year – I’ll leave it to you, but there is no shortage of runners and riders competing for the accolade.

Some councils have been busy building large change and performance departments. Surrey County Council and Oxford City Council immediately spring to mind. Surrey has advertised for a Performance Manager, Performance Officer, Intelligence Officer, Change Officer, Senior Change Manager, and a Senior Performance and Research Officer (Intelligence). Non-Job of the WeekOxford City Council have recruited similar officers and managers, as well as a Tenants Involvement and Development Officer.

Nottingham City Council (the only council not to publish its spending above £500) ironically recruited a Head of Quality and Efficiency Services, and Walsall Council was looking for a Smarter Workplaces Programme Manager. Also this year, the new Future Shape Programme Manager of North East Lincolnshire Council was revealed.

Reading Council was looking for no less than ten Seasonal Personal Travel Plan Advisers. Their job was to contact residents and discuss with them how they travel to work, school, and go shopping, etc. If you think this is bizarre, then what about Waltham Forest’s search for a Laughter Yoga Teacher?

This year, many councils have scrapped their newspapers, but Hackney (surprise, surprise) has not followed suit. Earlier this year it was looking for a new sub-editor for its propaganda rag newspaper, Hackney Today.

There has also been the usual raft of Climate Change Officers (something I highlighted repeatedly), Political Assistants, and Diversity Officers - including the BBC who was looking for a Diversity Talent Executive!

A London council was looking for a Governance Officer – Openness and Transparency. Ironically, we didn’t know which council this was, as they were recruiting anonymously through a recruitment agency! Those recruitment agencies have been a feature this year. Remember the Interim Head of Parking Services for an unnamed London Council? In March this was yours for £500-£600 a day! This was the most egregious salary of the year. When annualised, a parking manager was due to be paid more then the prime minister.

I could go on, and please have a look through these examples and the others from 2011. It does come with a health warning though. I don’t want your blood pressure to rise to dangerous levels.

I wish you all a very Happy Christmas, and here’s hoping 2012 will be a non-job free year!

Non-job of the week

Dec 7th, 2011
by Andrew Allison.
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North Somerset Council is looking for a Waste Minimisation Officer. As far as I can see, the officer will spend a large amount of time either visiting or communicating with schools, community organisations, and other partners showing them how to minimise the amount of waste going into their standard refuse bins.

This is despite the various leaflets already sent out to residents and businesses informing them of what they can and cannot recycle. Does it really need someone to be constantly haranguing them with the same messages? Non-Job of the WeekThe EU landfill directive keeps increasing the burden on council taxpayers, so I can understand why councils are keen to push the recycling message. There does come a point though where you wonder just how far councils will go. With recycling rates already on target to hit 60% this financial year, this is one job North Somerset council taxpayers can do without.

A central government department is looking for a Senior Integrated Communications Officer based in Leeds, paying £180-£220 per day (£900-£1100 per week). This role requires the jobholder “to gather intelligence about the mood, activities, opinions of key stakeholder e.g. staff representative groups and professional bodies, the national media.”

The job description goes on to say they will be “supporting senior members of the team to deliver communications about pensions reform to staff. This will be vital as elements of the reform ratchet up over next 6 months and will also entail feeding into the Departments industry relations policy group.”

When we published our report on the taxpayer funding of trade unions, we were told by union leaders that union reps needed time off on our watch because it promoted harmony in the workplace. Recent strikes don’t back up that message, but leaving that to one side, it could be argued the government needs to communicate its message on public sector pensions reform more effectively. As TPA Research Director, John O’Connell wrote last week, there are many myths about pensions reform still being articulated in the media – mainly by unions.

Take a look at the job advert. This role predominantly involves communicating with staff and stakeholders, which in turn means the unions. We will be paying someone the equivalent of £45-55K per annum on a temporary full-time contract to tell the unions what they already know – or at least should know.

I appreciate there is more to this job, but as it’s a temporary contract on a daily rate, clearly it’s not going to last a long time. Once again though we don’t know which department it is, as the job is advertised through a recruitment agency, which will also incur additional fees.

This job is unnecesary as the government already has a team of negotiators working with the unions. The unions then pass on the information to their members, with additional employer information distributed to staff. This is an additional expense we can do without.

 

Wasteful spending during Council efficiency drive

Dec 7th, 2011
by Paul Harwood.
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Like many councils, Sheffield City Council recently embarked upon a £57 million cost-cutting exercise in response to a fall in the central government grant. After council tax bills have nearly doubled across the country in the last decade there is no way taxpayers should pick up the bill.

Apparently unaware of the irony, the council has spent £21,000 sending 230,000 leaflets to residents asking them for ideas how to save money, living up to Sir Humphey’s mantra that it’s more expensive to do them cheaply.

While it is obviously good for a council to talk to voters about a necessary reduction in funding and how to save money, it should be done when it can have a meaningful impact on all aspects of spending rather than at the tail end of the discussions.

The consultation is open until January 6th leaving the Council just three months to prepare and adopt a budget to take effect in April 2012. The opposition Lib Dem leader, Shaffaq Mohammed, claims that decisions must have already been made about next year’s budget, “We are now almost at the door of the final closure of the budget process as far as I’m concerned.”

If this is just a smokescreen for councillors to use to defend their own plans when the outcome is already decided, it is a very cynical waste of money.

Julie Dore, the Labour-run council’s leader, claimed that it cost just 9p to produce each leaflet and this represented “value for money.” But the question isn’t whether they have bought the leaflets at a reasonable price but whether or not the project was worthwhile in the first place, whether it was a genuine attempt to engage with the public or just a presentational gimmick.  Taxpayers will suspect it was the latter.

Who watches the watchmen? Government credit card agency in its own waste scandal

Dec 5th, 2011
by Tom Welsh.
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Who watches the watchmen? Taxpayers will be demanding answers after it was revealed that the very agency charged with delivering ‘significant sustainable cost reductions’ in public sector procurement has splurged £1.7million of taxpayers’ money in nightclubs, five star hotels and on trips to New York.

The Government Procurement Service (GPS) manages a vast scheme of government procurement cards (GPCs), some 133,000 of which have been issued since 1997. Civil servants in departments, agencies and quangos can use these cards to make purchases on behalf of government. In theory, it is a ‘fast and efficient way of purchasing different types of goods and services’, speeding up transactions and ensuring prompt payment to the businesses that supply these services.  Spending on credit cards has got way out of hand.  We need more transparency and accountability and fewer civil servants running up extravagant bills and leaving them to taxpayers. Civil servants have legitimate expenses, but there is no excuse for some of the lavish spending that has been uncovered .

The TaxPayers’ Alliance has attacked wasteful GPC spending many times before:

  • In November this year we revealed the £185,000 credit-card spend at the Sustainable Development Commission between April 2009 and March 2011 – including £10,000 on air travel, and £14,000 in 4-star hotels.
  • In August, we exposed the £20,000 put on government credit cards by the Equality and Human Rights Commission in payments to political parties.
  • In June, we condemned the £25m spent by 18 Whitehall departments, including £60,000 dining at exclusive restaurants.

Today’s news is a stark reminder of how deeply a culture of profligacy can take root. Taxpayers must have trust that there are controls in place to prevent unauthorised and wasteful spending. So when those who should be strict financial guardians indulge their personal fantasies at Newz nightclub in Liverpool (popular with Cheryl Cole) or spend £6,000 in New York hotels, it’s clear that the problem is systemic and won’t be solved by shuffling around personnel.

It’s good news that the Government has begun publishing all spending on GPCs over £500. But £500 is an arbitrary figure and taxpayers clearly can’t trust government watchdogs to be stringent and critical on sums beneath this level. Government should publish GPC and credit card statements in full (personal details redacted, of course) so taxpayers can judge for themselves what is necessary and what is wasteful.

Arts Centre gobbles up our cash

Dec 2nd, 2011
by Andrew Allison.
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Theatres and arts centres are costly things for taxpayers. Earlier this year I wrote about ‘The Waterfront’ in Aylesbury. Taxpayers give this theatre a £500K subsidy, yet despite this, when the council wanted to hire the theatre on election night, we had to stump up another £20K for the privilege.

It’s not a pretty picture further north in West Bromwich. A controversial arts centre, ironically called The Public, eats up £2.29 million in taxpayer subsidies, and only manages to generate a profit of £58,801.

Looking at the figures, it appears very few people use this venue. One of the excuses for such a poor financial performance is ticket sales are down, but they are down from £54,850 to £34,267. In what is described as a good year, tickets sales only generated a little over £1000 a week.

Conferences generated an income of £174,893 from 240 events. In a £72 million arts centre, there must be plenty of space, so an average income of £728 per event must mean the conferences were very small.

No doubt I will be described as a Philistine for daring to criticise the arts, although anyone who knows me will tell you I am certainly not. As a musician I fully appreciate the role the arts play in our country. I have been involved with small theatre groups in the past, and they had to balance the books. If they made huge losses, they went out of business.

What appears to be happening here is no-one is taking responsibility. Taxpayers’ cash keeps rolling in – even during tough economic times – and for as long as this continues, the incentive to make this venue pay is not there.

This is a classic example of a grandiose plan gone wrong. I very much doubt there was ever a sound business case put forward for the building of this arts centre. It will have been dreamed up as something to put West Bromwich on the map. As so often happens with these examples, taxpayers are left footing an enormous bill.

I would rather have fewer venues that really succeed, are popular, and are a credit to the their town or city, than countless white elephants gobbling up our money, especially when there are many very worthwhile projects for the money to be spent on.

Non-job of the week

Nov 30th, 2011
by Andrew Allison.
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In our report last, week, we revealed that trade unions are subsidised by taxpayers to the tune of £113 million. That is made up of an estimated £80 million in paid staff time, plus £33 million in direct payments. This is an increase of £7 million from 2009/10.

One of the beneficiaries of our cash is the Union Learning Fund. This was created by the last government in 1998 with the aim of promoting ‘activity by trade unions in support of the objective of creating a learning society.’

Non-Job of the WeekIn plain English, this means that instead of unions paying for their training courses out of the subscriptions they receive from their members, taxpayers pick up the tab.

On a day when our bins are not be emptied, many schools across the country are closed, and some operations in our hospitals are being cancelled, we are paying for the staff time to organise the strikes and the courses that teach them how to do it.

Ironically, the TUC is currently advertising for a Media and Public Affairs Officer for unionlearn – the body responsible for administering the Union Learning Fund. This comes with a salary £38,534, and part of this role’s job description is to be responsible for the provision of good news stories and information raising the profile of unionlearn to the national, regional, local, specialist and union media.

This is a non-job as far as taxpayers are concerned. If the TUC wants to employ a media officer to promote its training courses, that is up to them, but it should not be done with our cash.

 

Media and Public Affairs Officer – unionlearn

Grade 7: Salary £38,534 per annum rising incrementally to £39,929 pa including London Weighting

Unionlearn is the education and skills section of the TUC. We administer the government’s union learning fund and promote lifelong learning and skills in the work place. The communications team are responsible for the promotion of unionlearn and its work, for liaising with the media and opinion formers and ensuring that the skills agenda and our work on learning in the workplace remain part of the wider debate on learning and skills.

The post holder will be responsible for the provision of good news stories and information raising the profile of unionlearn to the national, regional, local, specialist and union media.

As well as having experience of writing for publications and/or high quality websites, the successful candidate will also need to demonstrate:

• Qualitative research and analysis including interview techniques

• Participatory research projects, finding stories or data which illustrate issues

• Project management

• Experience of working on public affairs campaigns

• Excellent communication skills including writing press releases, reports and features

• Good computer literacy including handling database programmes and ability to source material from the internet and publish online.

Today’s strike and pension myths

Nov 30th, 2011
by John O'Connell.
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The strike today has been called the “largest coordinated action ever seen in the UK” by the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS). The unions claim nearly 3 million public sector staff are not at work today, but the paltry number of strikers outside government department buildings in Westminster this morning doesn’t quite give you that impression.

The strike is over pension reform, and the unions are refusing to accept necessary changes to unaffordable deals. Our response this morning is here, including a calculator which allows you to see the public sector salary required to match your total remuneration.

There are plenty of comment pieces out there this morning perpetuating myths about public sector pensions, so it’s important to knock a few of them on the head. Let’s take George Eaton’s piece in The New Statesman first:

“But as the graph below from the government-commissioned Hutton Report shows, public sector pension payments peaked at 1.9 per cent of GDP in 2010-11 and will gradually fall over the next fifty years to 1.4 per cent in 2059-60. The government’s plan to ask employees to work longer and pay more is a political choice, not an economic necessity.”

Here’s the graph Eaton references:

What Eaton’s piece doesn’t tell you is that this graph shows pension accruals and pensions-in-payment growing with CPI, rather than RPI, which is one of the measures the unions are so angry about. The projections shown in that chart are also the result of assumptions about public sector workforce and economic growth that may prove optimistic. The article also doesn’t tell you that the PCS, one of the unions on strike today, are looking to index their own pension scheme against CPI because their current scheme is unaffordable. They also want members to pay more more in contributions, according to reports. They’re striking against something they’re doing themselves.

Let’s take a look at another. Dave Prentis, the General Secretary of Unison, wrote on the Huffington Post this morning:

“Under the proposals, the low paid will receive only just enough to keep them above the threshold for means tested benefits when they do retire. The average pension in local government is £3,800 a year, but for women, it’s less than £2,800 – just £56 a week. More than half of women pensioners in the NHS receive a pension of less than £3,500 a year.”

If you worked in the public sector for a short amount of time, your total pension pot would be understandably small. But to add these pensions into an ‘average’ calculation is misleading. Look at the online calculators for the schemes themselves to get more informative results based on a career of work. A local government middle manager who retires on £60,000 a year can expect a pension of £30,000 a year. And the lower paid? A more junior worker at a council who retires on £25,000 a year can expect a pension of £12,500 a year. These are based on 30 year careers, too. You can add more to these figures if someone spends their entire working life in the public sector.

What about the NHS? A worker in the NHS who retires on £40,000 a year could expect a pension of £15,000 a year and a lump sum of £45,000, again based on a career of 30 years.

Mr Prentis also says:

“Both the health and local government schemes are in good shape, with billions more coming in than has to be paid out in pensions every year.”

Let’s take them in turn, the NHS pension scheme first. There was a cash surplus of around £2 billion last year. That includes huge employer contributions, which are taxpayer contributions of course. But anyway, this is not an indication of sustainability; the NHS surplus is a result of having a growing workforce. Those paying contributions to create the surplus are also building up pensions that will need to be paid in the future. Further, the surplus is returned to the Treasury, it’s not like this is a pension fund where they can realise increases in the value of that £2 billion to pay for future pensions. It just goes back to the Treasury’s general fund to spend on wasteful projects like High Speed Rail.

Additionally, this is the kind of warning sign our research note last week signalled – the NHS pension scheme has a lot more active members relative to ‘pensioners in payment’ than other schemes, but that will be changing rather quickly over the years. Overall the Treasury already had to top up unfunded schemes as a whole by a huge £4 billion last year, and that number is only getting bigger. Thinking the NHS pension scheme is fine now, so therefore it doesn’t need reform, is the kind thinking that got us to where we are now. It’s simply kicking the can down the road, and it’s disingenuous to pick the only unfunded scheme with so many more active members than pensioners to paint a picture of health for the wider public sector.

Now local government. Yes, it’s a funded scheme, with invested assets, and more coming in than paid out at present. Again, this includes massive employer contributions, which is taxpayers’ money to start with. Also, the argument that this scheme is “healthy” just defers any responsibility for paying off massive liabilities to future generations. Our paper on local government pension scheme deficits highlights how big this problem is, with over £50 billion more liabilities than assets in 2010. And it will get worse. Funded public sector schemes in countries like The Netherlands are not allowed to hold assets of less than 80 per cent of liabilities, but a quick glance at our paper shows that many local government schemes are nowhere near this. In fact, some have asset to liability ratios of less than 50 per cent. That’s not sustainable and will have to be paid off at some stage.

When you walk past a striker today, ask them if it’s fair that a worker on the minimum wage pays for generous public sector pensions, while being unable to even nearly afford a deal like that for himself. As I mentioned earlier, the unions’ own pension schemes are in trouble. You’d be forgiven for thinking that peddling misinformation and coordinating strikes is designed to boost their own membership and increase employee contributions, to fix their own broken schemes.

If facility time cuts strikes, what is happening in the public sector?

Nov 25th, 2011
by Matthew Sinclair.
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Unison General Secretary Dave Prentis has responded to our report showing the unions getting a £113 million backdoor subsidy.  He claims that the facility time reduces industrial strife, and leads to fewer strikes. If that was the case, then surely the public sector – where staff take three times as much in facility time – would see fewer strikes? After all, public sector workers are also better paid and get better pensions. It doesn’t work out that way:

The data on the relative number of strike days lost per worker are from our research last year. You can see the same thing with the ridiculous claim that having hundreds of staff working for the union, instead of the public service, improves public service productivity:

The data on productivity compares the market sector and the major public services. It is taken from the Economic and Labour Market review produced by the Office for National Statistics.

Either something else is going catastrophically wrong in the public sector, and things would be even worse without huge amounts spent on facility time, or union staff paid for at taxpayers’ expense aren’t associated with an efficient workplace.  We shouldn’t fear ‘pay up, or we’ll strike’ threats from the union bosses.  And our past experience with Dave Prentis shows that he isn’t above misleading the media and the public:

20% of councils may increase council tax

Nov 24th, 2011
by Andrew Allison.
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Today we announced our Pin-up and Pinhead of the Month. The pinhead was Cllr Jason Kitcat, a Green Party councillor from Brighton and Hove, and the portfolio holder for Finance and Central Services. His council is not going to take up the government’s offer of extra cash in return for not increasing council tax in 2012/13. Unfortunately, Cllr Kitcat is not the only pinhead in our town halls across the country.

According to a BBC report, an amazing 20% of councils may increase council tax from next spring. This is despite the government setting aside £805 million from efficiency savings to give to councils to ease our council tax burden. 

One of the main reasons cited in the Local Government Chronicle is that councils fear a sharp rise in council tax in 2013/14, when no government assistance will be available. Hardly the most convincing argument I’ve ever heard. Why should there be a sharp rise? What would cause it? As councils find efficiency savings, they are not going to suddenly spend more from 2013.

Over the last decade we have not seen the quality of council services double, but the same cannot be said of our council tax bills. We have highlighted in many TPA reports ways councils can reduce spending.

Not accepting the government’s offer is wrong, and will unnecessarily increase the burden on families when they can least afford it. To threaten sharp rises for the following year is scaremongering, which is the last thing any of us need at this moment in time.

Non-job of the week

Nov 23rd, 2011
by Andrew Allison.
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Lewes District Council is looking to employ an Equalities Officer whilst the existing officer is on maternity leave. According to the job advert “this post co-ordinates the development of our Equalities work, Impact Assessments and equalities policies. It identifies and introduces practical steps and monitors our success so we make continuous progress with our equality duties.”

It is – and has been for many years – illegal to discriminate on the grounds of religion, gender, disability, race, sexual orientation, etc. Why does Lewes Council need to employ someone to monitor its success in order to make continuous progress with its equality duties? Legislation does change, but not to the extent that you need a full-time officer monitoring those changes.  

Non-Job of the WeekLambeth Borough Council is searching for an Energy Strategy Officer on £32532 – £35055. Perhaps if it installed smart meters in all council premises it would see consumption fall and benefit from lower bills? Not that the installation of smart meters is as easy as you would think. Well, maybe to you and I it is, but not for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).

It is looking for a Stakeholder Engagement Manager – Smart Meters Programme, paying £46,975 – £56,597 per annum. Here’s part of the job description:

As our Stakeholder Engagement Manager, you will be responsible for planning and overseeing the programme’s engagement with the organisations outside the smart meters programme who need to be involved in the successful delivery of the programme and its benefits. These include energy suppliers and other industry players together with consumer representatives. You will need to work closely with colleagues across the programme who are dealing with these groups day-to-day through a range of working groups and bi-laterals Your challenge is to ensure that we have the right arrangements in place to capture and share feedback and to ensure consistent messages are being conveyed by the programme.

In addition, there is a need to maintain communications with a much wider group of stakeholders including MPs and Local Government, community groups and special interest groups who all need to be kept aware of developments and can help promote consumer awareness. You will also play a key role in driving forward the communications strategy for the programme, working with the energy industry to develop key messages and communication approaches and providing the main interface from the programme into DECC’s press office. You will be part of the Consumer Engagement, Roll-out and Benefits team within the programme which is headed by the Deputy Programme Director and you will be expected to be flexible and able to contribute to current priorities within the wider team.

Smart meters are an excellent way to help us reduce our bills. As I’ve said before, you can watch in real time which appliances use the most electricity. It’s not complicated, but the DECC seems to have set-up a mini-department to promote something energy companies could do every time they send us a bill!

Finally, when it comes to waste, the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) certainly does it in style. They spent nearly £70 million making nearly 1800 people redundant. I don’t know how generous those payments were, however I do know there are times when you have to take a short term hit for a long term gain. Defra says it can recoup this money in a year. So far, so good then, but it was also revealed whilst making 1800 people redundant, at the same time it was recruiting another 500 staff. You would have thought common sense would prevail and the department would assess its needs before it let staff go. Many of those who received redundancy payments could have moved to those new jobs, thus saving taxpayers money.

Please remember we pay some senior civil servants and council officers six-figure salaries because (we are told) we need the best, and if we didn’t pay them as handsomely, they would quit public service and move to the private sector. This rarely happens, and it is examples like this that prove why.

Not a penny more of taxpayers’ money should be handed to political parties

Nov 22nd, 2011
by Jonathan Isaby.
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Today has seen the publication of the report from the Committee on Standards in Public Life into political party finance. You can read the full 116-page report here, but to cut to the quick, the proposal which will alarm taxpayers up and down the country is for political parties to get a subsidy from the taxpayer to the tune of around £23 million per year.

Here’s how the report summarises its plan:

“Existing public support to the political parties should be supplemented by the addition of a new form of public support paid to every party with two or more representatives in the Westminster Parliament or the devolved legislatures. The public funding should depend on the number of votes secured in the previous election, at the rate of around £3.00 a vote in Westminster elections and £1.50 a vote in devolved and European elections. Income tax relief, analogous to Gift Aid, should also be available on donations of up to £1,000 and on membership fees to political parties”

Quite simply, when the Government and local councils are making cuts to their budgets, the idea that some of those savings should be channelled into the coffers of political parties is monstrous.

The scheme as envisaged by the Kelly Committee would have seen the following amounts thrown at the parties after last year’s general election, based on the idea of a £3 subsidy per vote:

  • Conservatives – £32,179,842
  • Labour – £25,828,581
  • Liberal Democrats – £20,510,472
  • Scottish National Party – £1,474,158
  • Sinn Fein – £515,826
  • Democratic Unionist Party – £504,648
  • Plaid Cymru – £496,182
  • Social Democratic and Labour Party – £332,910

That amounts to a handout of nearly £92 million. And it would mean you pay a fortune to support political parties you don’t support.  Labour voters funding the Conservatives and Conservative voters funding Labour, whether they like it or not.

But of course that’s not all; you then have to factor in the grants that would be given after elections to the European Parliament, which would have amounted to the following if the £1.50-per-vote scheme had been in operation after the 2009 elections:

  • Conservatives – £6,297,591
  • UKIP – £3,747,339
  • Labour – £3,572,640
  • Liberal Democrats – £3,120,920
  • Green Party – £1,955,618
  • BNP – £1,415,397
  • Scottish National Party – £481,511

That comes to more than £20 million. And that’s before you factor in the figures to be given after devolved elections in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

As the report notes, millions of pounds are already given to political parties: opposition parties in the Commons and Lords get financial support to assist them in their parliamentary activities, in recognition that they don’t have the civil service back-up enjoyed by Government ministers. That funding should be cut, not supplemented.

But taxpayers will be aghast at the sums Kelly is now proposing be diverted to parties. The report’s spin is that his plan amounts to “only about 50p a year for each UK elector”. But just the £92 million in core funding is the equivalent of the entire annual pay of well over 4,000 people on average earnings.  If Kelly thinks voters are so keen to see their hard-earned cash go to political parties, they should be given the free choice as to whether they make such donations of their own free will out of their own paypackets.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance takes a robust view on this: not a single penny more of taxpayers’ money should be handed to political parties.

Oslo Trip

Nov 22nd, 2011
by Andrew Allison.
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Fact finding missions have long been the butt of many jokes. You name the subject, and it seems an elected or unelected official has been forced into arduous foreign travel to get that final piece of information to complete the jigsaw. In our report earlier this month, we highlighted the foreign jaunts council taxpayers in the Midlands have had to pay for, and now another one has come across my radar.

The recycling rate in Hull is currently at 50%. This is above the target 45%, and residents of the city are regularly told to ‘Recycle for Hull.’ Not content with this, some councillors recently went on a fact-finding mission to Oslo to see how Norwegians dispose of their rubbish. They have already visited Rotherham, Sheffield and Swindon to see how its done there.

This had angered Cllr John Fareham, the leader of the Conservative Group, as the councillors who travelled to Norway are a sub-committee of the environment scrutiny commission. This means they can only recommend. They cannot make decisions.

The cost of the trip was under £1000, but to defend it as cheap (as a councillor has done) is missing the point.

A group of councillors and officials drove to Stansted Airport, stayed overnight, then flew to and from Oslo in the same day, and then drove back to Hull. The people who can make decisions about this were not present. It has to be asked what did they find out that they couldn’t find out by research on the Internet, and a conference call on Skype?

If councillors spent our money in the same way they would spend their own, trips like this would not happen. All it achieves is two things. It makes councillors the butt of jokes, and gives the impression they have their snouts in the trough. I know that’s not true of the majority of councillors. If they don’t want to give the public that impression, they know what to do next time.

MoD fields army of consultants

Nov 18th, 2011
by Paul Harwood.
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Today the Guardian reports that, while the MoD cuts the number of front-line troops, £564m has been spent on consultants in just two years. Spending has increased from £6m in 2006 to £267m in 2011 – a 4,350 per cent rise.

The huge increase has been blamed on the Framework Agreement for Technical Support (FATS), bought in by the Labour government in 2009, which allowed defence officials to hire specialist, short-term help without requiring a minister’s consent.

An MoD internal audit report claims there were “significant weaknesses” in the submission of business cases; that there were “weaknesses in the robustness of scrutiny” by budget controllers; and that three quarters of contracts were awarded without any notion of competition. Despite the laxity of the guidelines the report concludes that there was “no assurance” they were even being followed.

All options must be considered to ensure that services can be delivered at the lowest cost to taxpayers. There may be occasional situations where it is more cost-effective to hire consultants on specific projects than to have them employed full-time. In these circumstances we would expect robust guidelines to be in place; that they be rigorously followed and compliance monitored; and that appropriate sanctions would be deployed against individuals who broke them.

In the context of budget reductions of around eight per cent over the next four years, and the loss of 42,000 posts, we would expect the MoD to be doing everything possible to maximise the value taxpayers’ get for their money, rather than relying on union reps to highlight gaping holes in their financial procedures.

 It is disingenuous for the MoD to be claiming to be cutting costs by reducing staff if external consultants are then bought in to do their job instead at a higher cost. They should be taking a more holistic approach to the costs of their projects which are already, in many cases, heavily over-budget.

Our Chief Executive, Matthew Elliot, had this to say:

“It’s appalling that the MoD has been managing its budget so catastrophically badly. This level of spending on consultants is disgraceful and worse still is the face that correct procedures were allowed to be so consistently ignored. Some larger or more technical projects may require consultants to be brought in for their specialist expertise, but this should be in moderation and should certainly be within the department’s own guidelines. Transparency and value for taxpayers’ money should to be at the heart of all Whitehall spending decisions, rather than the poorly planned, wasteful overspend that is plaguing huge swathes of the public sector. “

When questioned by the BBC the Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, claimed claimed that tighter controls and a new framework now in place will ensure these costs are properly scrutinised in future. He compared reforming the MoD to manoeuvring an oil tanker and suggests that the “legacy of mismanagement is deep and will take some time to turn around.”

Without fixing problems like this that ship will soon be heading into a storm.

Leicester Mayor set for large pay rise

Nov 18th, 2011
by Andrew Allison.
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According to a report in the Leicester Mercury this week, the elected Mayor of Leicester is in line for a 78% pay rise. Sir Peter Soulsby (who stood down as MP for Leicester South to run for the job this May) currently receives a salary of £56K a year.

The Independent Remuneration Panel (IRP) has recommended his salary rise to £100K. His deputy is also in line for a large rise, as are the city’s forty seven councillors. It has recommended some savings too, such as scrapping vice-chairs of committees and the extra cash they receive. 

All of this is happening at a time when the council is looking to make savings of £100 million in the next four years. Sir Peter said, ”It’s right that an independent panel reviews pay, rather than myself and councillors.” He also went on to say, “It’s important to remember we now also save £250,000 a year due to no longer having a chief executive.”

I can’t disagree with anything he’s said. Scrapping the chief executive’s role has proved the council can operate without one. This still isn’t a justification for whopping pay rises for him, his deputy and councillors. It sends the wrong message to those 1000 council staff who have either been made redundant or are facing redundancy.

Town Hall Square, Leicester Councillors will vote on these pay rises next week. Hopefully, they will vote against them, and send the right message to Leicester taxpayers. If you live in Leicester, contact your councillor and tell them what you think. It is hard to justify these increases at the best of times. We are not living in the best of times. We are facing the most difficult economic challenges we’ve seen for decades. Leicester taxpayers cannot afford these increases, and for councillors to accept them would be a kick in the teeth for them, and for other council employees.

Non-job of the week

Nov 16th, 2011
by Andrew Allison.
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A non-job of the week with a twist today. Barnet Council do not like criticism, and it seems the council will go to any lengths to make sure it silences its critics.

A local blogger, writing under the pseudonym Mr Mustard, criticised Barnet Council for hiring a Change and Innovation Manager in 2010 on a salary of £47,550 -£50,913.  It sounds very much like the sort of non-job I highlight on here every week. He quoted from the job description, which has to be said is written in perfect gobbledegook, and also quoted from the personal website of the man who got the job – Jonathan Tunde-Wright.

Non-Job of the WeekAlthough I have joked in the past about receiving a letter from Oxford City Council’s solicitor for harassment after all the non-jobs I have highlighted in the past, I have of course never received one. Nor should I. Freedom of speech is something we hold dear in this country, unless you are from Barnet Borough Council.

The council went to the extraordinary lengths of contacting the Information Commissioner claiming Mr Mustard had committed a criminal offence under the Data Protection Act by not registering as a data controller  because he had made critical comments about whether some of its officials have real jobs! The commissioner rightly disagreed, but that didn’t stop the council. It then came up with what can only be described as the most ludicrous description of what he could write about. The One Barnet blog has the full details of the correspondence between the ICO and the Council.

The council said all that bloggers (and that includes us on this website) can write about is their own personal data, their own family defined as people related by blood or marriage and their own household, which is anyone living in their house or flat. Barnet Council claims everything else requires registration and can be subject to a legal challenge.

The Information Commissioner disagreed again, saying this would have a hugely disproportionate impact on freedom of expression.

Because Mr Mustard (real name Derek Dishman) regularly holds his council to account on his blog, and sends in freedom of information requests to find out how our money is spent, he is regarded as an inconvenience. This may be so, but as he is not writing anything defamatory, he is within his rights to write about anything he likes – inconvenient or not.

So not only do we have a job with a more than dubious title offering £50K a year, we also have the council employing its staff to actively prevent anyone of us criticising them. If Barnet Council had its way, none of us would be able to speak out against waste and hold councils to account.

Hat-tip: David Hencke 

Tip of the iceberg: Councils are not doing enough to tackle fraud

Nov 11th, 2011
by Tom Welsh.
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Yesterday the Audit Commission (AC) released its annual report into fraud against local authorities, with a chilling warning that councils had detected ‘just the tip of a very large iceberg.’ Out of an estimated £2.1 billion lost in fraud from council budgets, just £185 million was detected – the profits of 121,000 cases of criminal abuse of council tenancies, council tax discounts, housing benefits, personalised social care budgets, and procurement contracts. It was an improvement on last year, but local authorities are still not doing enough to tackle this considerable strain on local government finances. Their failure leaves taxpayers out of pocket, and prevents genuine claimants from accessing services.

Most reporters have focused their write-up on eye-catching cons like the local government officials tricked into paying £7m into false bank accounts. But of far greater significance are the everyday, bread-and-butter frauds that make up the vast majority of the stolen money. Of the £185 million detected, £110 million was lost in illegal claims for council tax and housing benefits, and £22 million in false claims for student and single person council tax discounts. The value of the 1,800 homes recovered from social-housing fraud stood at £266 million.

But these are just the amounts detected. It’s welcome news that detection is up 37 per cent, but from such a low starting point the rise is minuscule. £185 million is still less than 10 per cent of the total estimated local government fraud.

The figures also reveal sharp contrasts across the country, with some councils performing much worse than others in their counter-fraud efforts. The Audit Commission estimates that 1 per cent of social housing is occupied by illegal subletters and other fraudulent tenants, but the North East councils recovered only 3 properties – less than 0.002 per cent of their total housing stock. The picture isn’t good anywhere. Even if London councils did proportionally better – they clawed back 0.306 per cent of their housing stock – the Audit Commission estimates housing fraud is also more of a problem in London, with fraud accounting for 2.5 per cent of the housing stock. Some experts put the figure as high as 5 per cent.

So what can be done? Councils have responded to the report by complaining about staff and budget cuts. This ignores the highly successful measures taken by some local authorities at very low cost. Ashfield Council spent £10,000 on a whistleblowing and investigation campaign and recovered 8 council houses which would’ve cost £1.2 million to replace. Havering Council spent £40,000 investigating single-person discounts for council tax and saved £300,000. Effective anti-fraud measures can save councils money.

The Audit Commission has provided a long list of excellent measures councils can easily take to tackle fraud. They range from pooling resources to improved risk assessment. There are more general, but no less important recommendations like highlighting vulnerable spending and a ‘zero tolerance culture towards fraud’.

But these huge lost sums suggest a deeper problem with the benefits system itself. Labyrinthine layers of tax discounts and benefit hand-outs create opportunities for fraudsters and administrative difficulties for local authorities. A simpler tax and benefits system would close those opportunities, and increase the ability of local authorities to detect abuse.

It’s in taxpayers’ interest that fraud is attacked at both ends – restricting the ability of criminals to play the system, and ensuring that authorities notice fraud and consistently prosecute against it. Local government fraud forces up council tax, hinders legitimate claimants, and limits the money that can be spent on services residents want most. With the extra £50 million detected this year local councils could pay off debt, fund 700 libraries, or 11,000 care workers, for example.

False Economies

Nov 10th, 2011
by Tim Newark.
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The determination of local councils to cut libraries, street lighting, rubbish removal, and public toilets—the quality of our civilisation and what we pay our taxes for—rather than tackle their own waste on bureaucracy is breathtaking. Two stories in the South-West illustrate how they can get it so wrong.

Cornwall Council’s economy and environment committee recommended they cut funding to 114 of its public toilets in order to save £1.1million, but as soon as news of this got it out, it caused outrage from local taxpayers. The council has now agreed to reconsider the proposal, but a local councillor is wary. ‘This, at face value, is great news,’ he said. ‘The problem is: what does further consultation mean? Will it be along the line of the “take them over or they close” to the parish and town councils? If any local council does agree to take them over, will there be the right financial package in place?’ So, a case of appearing to make cuts, but just sifting the burden on to another branch of local government.

In the meantime, Swindon Borough Council has switched off 140 streetlights to save £20,000 a year. A highly questionable way of saving taxpayers’ money, as the TPA has already demonstrated. That would be bad enough, except that elsewhere in the borough 140 lights are being left on for a road going nowhere. Streets lights costing more than £300 a month are blazing away along a stretch of newly constructed road not yet open to the public.

‘The council should not be leaving street lights on for no reason, wasting hundreds of pounds each month,’ says an opposition councillor. ‘What is even more galling about this is that there are people in Swindon who are having their street lights switched off in order for the council to make savings, so it seems ridiculous that these street lights are being left on.’ Indeed, 433 lights turned off over the summer have had to be turned back on because of concerns over public safety!

Tim Newark, Bath & South-West TaxPayers’ Alliance

Pension double-dipping

Nov 9th, 2011
by Darren Rutland.
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Last week it was revealed that Ron Dobson, Commissioner of the London Fire Brigade, retired to get his £133,000 annual pension allowance only to jump straight back into his old job. The Daily Mirror claims that he may have even received a £700,000 pay-off if, as entitled, he converted a quarter of his pension to a lump sum.

At a time when taxpayers are tightening their belts and public sector organisations look for necessary savings, it is obscene for the Fire Brigade’s Commissioner to quietly make a few tiny contractual adjustments to feather his own nest. I can only imagine that many of Mr Dobson’s colleagues will be livid at his smash and grab raid.

Paul Embery, a regional official for the Fire Brigades Union, also attacked the pay-out, calling it “deeply unethical”.

A spokesman for the London Fire Brigade claimed the move is actually a “cost saving” measure. However, it has been reported that his new salary, combined with his pension, actually totals a similar amount to what he was on before this charade started.

Unfortunately this isn’t the first case of questionable pension activity and so-called “double dipping” in Britain’s fire brigades. In August, Andrew Allison wrote about Humberside Fire and Rescue Service, where one officer received a promotion and after only eight weeks into the job he saw his pension lump sum increase to £29,000 – for just two months’ work!

Earlier this year, Strathclyde Fire Service chief Brian Sweeney pulled a similar trick to gain a £500,000 pay-off before returning to work. He said at the time: “people need to understand it’s not taxpayers’ money – it’s my private pension.” It is the arrogance of the likes of Sweeney and Dobson which needs to be challenged – taxpayers are paying for these lavish pensions. Around a third of all private-sector workers have an employer-sponsored scheme – most do not. And it is those people that are being asked to carry on paying for increasingly expensive public sector pensions. Until we see genuine reform, the least public sector executives can do is not to take advantage of the system.

Chief Fire Officers Association

Nov 8th, 2011
by Andrew Allison.
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The Chief Fire Officers Association (CFOA) – according to its website – is the professional voice of the UK fire and rescue service. Reading that, you would think it was a professional organisation for senior fire officers, paid for by them. You would be wrong. This is an organisation paid for by us to lobby on behalf of senior fire officers, and it is an organisation that has grown over the years, once again thanks to our money.

When looking at spending above £500 on Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service’s (CFRS) website, I noticed to payments to the CFOA of £6175 in April this year. I sent a freedom of information request to find out why. It turned out that one of those payments was made in error, however Cambridgeshire taxpayers pay for a corporate membership of the CFOA of £6175 a year. But that’s not all. CFRS also pay the personal subscriptions for the senior management team – eight subscriptions in total. As these subscriptions are below £500, they are not published, and I do not know what the total figure is. What I can say is the figure paid by CFRS to the CFOA is higher than the published £6175.

That example gives you a snapshot of the national picture. I don’t have the time to check the spending of all fire and rescue services in the country, but I can’t imagine the figures quoted will be much different from Cambridgeshire.

Considering taxpayers fund the CFOA, finding out how it spends its money is not easy. The general public can access parts of the website, but much of it is for members only. What we do know is the CFOA is a registered charity that also has created other companies such as CFOA National Resilience Ltd and CFOA Publications Ltd. We also know it intends to expand. If you take a look at Des Prichard’s blog (the Chief Fire Officer of East Sussex) he says he was part of an interview panel for a commercial business and marketing position with the Chief Fire Officers Association.

One of our supporters sent a freedom of information request to East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service asking how much time off from his Chief Fire Officer (CFO) duties he received to carry out work as the CFOA’s Director of People and Organisational Development, but the response was the service didn’t keep a record. Mr Prichard is one of many serving chief fire officers who spend time away from the jobs we pay them for, to act on behalf of the CFOA.

The Presidential Team is made up of the following: Lee Howell, CFO, Devon and Somerset, is the president. The Vice President is Vij Randeniya, CFO, West Midlands, and the Vice President Elect is Paul Fuller, CFO, Bedfordshire and Luton.

This is another example of an organisation funded by taxpayers that’s job is to lobby ministers, but not only are we paying for that, we are also paying to fund business and commercial enterprises to give it more money to lobby and campaign on behalf of those at the top of the fire service. Instead of heading operations in their own areas, many CFOs are leaving those duties behind to work for the CFOA completely at our expense. If the example of Cambridgeshire is the norm throughout they country, they don’t even have to pay their own subscriptions.

It is in everyone’s interests that we have a first class fire and rescue service throughout the country, and there will be times when senior fire officers will be required to meet ministers to discuss possible changes in legislation. This is to be expected. Questions must be raised though as to why taxpayers have to fund  an organisation like the CFOA, not only directly, but also indirectly with time off from their normal duties.

CFOA FoI Response:

Transport Select Committee report shows the HS2 project needs to be reviewed

Nov 8th, 2011
by Matthew Sinclair.
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The Transport Select Committee report on proposals for a new high speed rail line this morning is supportive of the case for the new line on balance but, as Benedict Brogan wrote this morning “its backing is so lukewarm it is almost as bad as a condemnation.”  There are a whole series of issues that the Committee argues need to be dealt with before a decision is made, and a whole lot of problems they haven’t dealt with properly that also need to be addressed.  The final picture is clear: a project of this scale can’t go ahead without a proper review that answers these questions, and offers a complete idea of the costs and benefits so taxpayers can decide if the scheme offers proper value.

There would be a number of areas a review would need to address.  The Committee call for better analysis of “the policy context, the assessment of alternatives, the financial and economic case, the environmental impacts, connections to Heathrow and the justification for the particular route being proposed.”

The new line needs to be properly assessed against realistic alternatives like the plan set out by Chris Stokes for the local authority group 51M.  The Committee accept that would meet forecast demand.  They call for the economic case is updated on the basis of reduced crowding and a lower value for time savings.  That update also needs to apply to alternative proposals.

What they don’t address seriously is all the ways that this project might lead to fresh demands for taxpayers’ money.  They note that the London Underground won’t be able to cope with so many more passengers being routed into London Euston, but don’t properly reflect on the huge amounts that could add to the cost.  They argue that new services on the current network could compensate for the reduction in services that places like Coventry and Stoke will face under the existing plans.  But don’t ask what the bill will be to subsidise those trains (it will take a substantial subsidy to maintain a regular service when most passengers to Birmingham and beyond travel on the new high speed line) and how that can be reconciled with the existing budget including billions in cuts to existing services.

We looked at the potential additional costs in a research note.  It is only possible to get a rough estimate without the resources available to the Government investigating this sort of decision.  But we produced a research note with reasonable estimates.  Meeting Ministers’ promises that towns and cities currently set to lose out won’t, and stopping rises in fares expected under current plans will increase the cost to taxpayers.  So will burying parts of the line to address environmental concerns, and building new capacity to cope with the huge number of additional journeys being routed into Euston.  Rail expert Chris Stokes estimates that would increase the cost to taxpayers alone from £17.1 billion to £45.5 billion.

And that’s leaving aside the potential problems with the demand forecast.  The Committee cite how “some major transport schemes have proved to have had greater economic impacts than their pre-implementation appraisals predicted” but not how passenger forecasts are overestimated for nine out of ten rail projects.  In most cases these lines don’t live up to their billing.

If Parliament doesn’t insist that Ministers either come clean about the true cost of HS2, or the many people who may get a worse service, MPs will have completely let down taxpayers.  We can’t let this huge project go ahead without proper scrutiny.  Politicians should be extremely careful about taxing the poor to pay for a rich man’s train.

Spending £4,000 celebrating saving money is missing the point

Nov 3rd, 2011
by Tom Welsh.
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Sir Richard Leese, Leader of Manchester City Council, has splurged £4,000 on a back-slapping dinner for a new member of staff, Lib Dem councillors have claimed. According to Cllr Paul Shannon, Sir Richard issued 270 invitations to wine and dine Manchester’s ‘cultural elite’, with ‘supper amongst Ford Madox Brown’s Great Hall Murals’ to toast the appointment of a new head of the Council’s art gallery. Diners included former MP Lord Bradley, City councillors, the Lord Mayor and his wife, and council chief executive Sir Howard Bernstein. Taxpayers will be shocked that town halls still feel able to indulge in extravagant dinners at a time of supposed budget restraint.

For those familiar with the TPA’s research into council spending on award ceremonies, Sir Richard’s justification was typically self-congratulatory. This dinner on the taxpayer was ‘to celebrate the beginning of the innovative new partnership’ between the City and the University of Manchester. Sir Richard had negotiated a money-saving deal for both institutions’ art galleries to share a director, a practical response to the need to cut costs. But local government savings don’t need to be toasted with champagne.

This dinner is even more astonishing given Manchester is cutting £109 million from the budget this year.  Sir Richard Leese has called the cuts ‘unpalatable’ and entirely blames the Government for the ‘financial position in which we have been placed’. Sir Richard has shirked responsibility for taking appropriate and necessary action to cut spending while wasting Manchester taxpayers’ money on an unnecessary dinner. He said he had no option but to cut 2,000 council jobs, but ending taxpayer-funded dinners would be a start.

We shouldn’t be surprised that Sir Richard Leese is out of touch. When asked whether his chief executive, Sir Howard Bernstein, would take a pay-cut (his 2009-10 remuneration was £232,326), he called it a ‘red herring’, a distraction. By his reckoning, it would hurt morale to cut pay for the council’s top brass, even while 2,000 council workers are being made redundant. Perhaps this was his rationale for putting on a lavish reception for Manchester’s cultural elite – he didn’t want to hurt their morale.

Sir Richard has been hoisted by his own petard. According to Lib Dem councillors he has demonstrated that he is free to spend without restraint. This kind of spending, like that in our award ceremonies paper, shows that councils do have some easy choices to make when it comes to making spending cuts. Councils can prioritise the services residents value most if they are willing to sacrifice elsewhere. Not everything can be blamed on the Government.

Non-job of the week

Nov 2nd, 2011
by Andrew Allison.
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The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) has been in the news this past week. The RPA is an executive agency of Defra, and its job is to administer an EU subsidy for farmers for maintaining their land. It was introduced in 2005.

It has faced much criticism over the years for delayed payments to farmers, and although it is questionable why such an agency needs to exist, I will leave that to one side. The post of Interim Finance Director (which was a job share, and has now thankfully been replaced by someone on a much lower salary) cost taxpayers a massive £425K a year. MPs were rightly outraged when they heard this figure. Conservative MP, Neil Parish said his constituents wouldn’t believe that the highest paid post at Defra was an accountant.

Non-Job of the WeekI have regularly highlighted some of the egregious amounts paid to consultants and interim staff. Many of these posts are advertised through recruitment agencies, which of course makes it much harder to pin-point which government department, Quango, health authority, etc, is recruiting. This example though is the worst I have come across, and proves why we need more transparency in the public sector so we can see where our money is going.

Staying on the same theme, the recruitment agency Morgan Hunt is advertising for a Head of Campaigns and Partnerships for a central government department. Once again we don’t know which department, or what those campaigns are going to be. We do know if it for a fixed period of 3 months, and the post pays £250-£400 per day. Is it a non-job? Who knows, and unless there is more transparency, I doubt we ever will.

Morgan Hunt is also acting on behalf of a local government client who is looking for an Interim HR Manager. All we know is this is a London council. The job pays between £150-£200 per day.

This week we can see once again that our money is being spent in large amounts in ways we know very little about. The money spent on the Interim Finance Director’s post at the RPA wasn’t discovered until after the event. The same will apply with the two other posts I have highlighted.

Until and unless there is more transparency this is going to continue. The government will from time to time recruit people to highly sensitive jobs, and for reasons of national security we won’t necessarily know those jobs exist and what those people do. I understand that, but this cannot be said of the examples I have given. We have a right to know how our money is spent.

 

What a load of bollards

Nov 1st, 2011
by Darren Rutland.
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Concerning news from Barry that £30,000 has been spent installing bespoke bollards. The 30 red and black steel poles cost £1,000 each, and were commissioned by the Barry Regeneration Area Programme.  They come in a variety of designs themed on cogs and winches, which, apparently, are meant to represent the town’s industrial past.

A  Vale Council spokeswoman explained the design:

The inspiration for these designs came from Barry’s maritime history and from the idea that Thompson Street itself has had an exciting and multi-layered history. The material speaks of winches and dockside machinery, while the forms have some of these same connotations.

Some of the designs imply movement with the cog rolling up and down the rack as you move from one bollard to the next. Elsewhere the cog seems more like a flower head.

While councils are having to make savings, local taxpayers should be asking themselves whether their council is really being prudent with their money.  Of course bollards may need to be replaced, but there is no need to get them made in a variety of colours and designed by an art studio. Bollards do serve an important safety purpose, however did they even need to be replaced at all? Even if this was part of essential maintenance, replacing 30 bollards needn’t cost anywhere in the region of £1,000 each – or in other terms around 30 people’s entire annual council tax bills.

Vale Council say that the bollards are part of the Welsh Government’s “on-going attempt to revive the seaside town”. But unfortunately this seems nothing more than a council vanity project.  Even in the good times, it would be difficult to defend an expense such as this, however in this current climate it beggars belief that this project ever received council approval. To see the crazy designs, click here.

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