Latest news with #TaxPayersAlliance
The Sun
17 hours ago
- Business
- The Sun
HS2 bosses under-fire after spending £1,200 a MONTH decorating offices with tropical plants
BOSSES at much-delayed HS2 spent £1,200 a month decorating offices with tropical plants. The rail project's chiefs paid £4,819 in four months on greenery with Funky Yukka — described as specialists in 'creating flourishing workspaces'. Taxpayer-funded HS2 splashed out on government Electronic Purchasing Card Solutions cards up to October 2024. Plant firm Funky Yukka has offices in Stafford - close to the HS2 HQ in Snowhill, Birmingham. Clients include Tesla, Amazon Jimmy Choo, Mango, HSBC and the BBC. It emerged as Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander this week confirmed a delay to the project, which has already had its northern routes axed. William Yarwood, media campaign manager at the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "HS2 is the prime example of a quango being allowed to run amok given the extraordinary catalogue of waste it has been guilty of. "Politicians handed over control of one of the largest infrastructure projects in UK history to an un-elected body of bureaucrats and it's no surprise that having been given an inch they've taken a mile. "Ministers need to take far firmer control over the delivery and spending of HS2, if they're not going to scrap it altogether.' A spokesperson for HS2 said its Funky Yukka contract had ended. They added: 'We are transparent about our costs and will bear down on unnecessary spend.' Our village's peace is shattered by 'hellish' explosions that shake our houses every night 1
Telegraph
5 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
If Sadiq Khan wants money for policing, he could trim his legions of overpaid bureaucrats
The Mayor of London is not happy. Despite the Chancellor's alarmingly profligate Spending Review announced this week – with commitments worth an estimated £600 billion – the Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan remains 'concerned' with insufficient funding for the Metropolitan police. If Sir Sadiq's concern is keeping London safe, funding need not be a problem. We can provide him with a catalogue of fat to trim, which would free up taxpayers' money to better serve the public. In its City Hall Rich List published last year, the TaxPayers' Alliance revealed that the Mayor-led Greater London Assembly (GLA) and its subsidiary bodies employed at least 1,146 people who received over £100,000 in total remuneration in 2022-23. A whopping 143 of these employees received over £150,000. The same report also revealed that the number of employees at the Met Police (including the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime or MOPAC which oversees it) who received total remuneration of over £100,000 totalled at 301 in 2022-23. The number had almost quadrupled compared to that in 2018-19, when 80 employees received that amount. However, the crime rate per 1,000 people in London had gone up in that period. Could the money instead have been spent more efficiently on simply recruiting more old-fashioned bobbies on the beat? There are more savings to be made. In January, the Conservatives in City Hall put forward an amendment to the GLA budget that would see £22.4 million from the MOPAC fund being reallocated to the Metropolitan Police. Alas, it did not pass. Compared to the rest of England and Wales, the Met already 'receives the most funding per head of population' according to the Home Office. In 2024-25, it received up to £3.5 billion, which was an increase of up to £119 million on the previous year. However, early this year, the Met's Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley warned that his police force needed an extra £140 million 'to address the racism, misogyny and homophobia identified by the Casey Review '. It would appear that the nearly £3.7 million the Met spent on 'staff (and the number and cost of those staff) and non-staff initiatives for Diversity, Equality and Inclusion' between April 2024 to Feb 2025 had fallen short of delivering the intended results. In the light of these revelations, Waste Watch readers might be wondering if instead of demanding more money, the Mayor might have better luck keeping the capital safe by carrying out an audit of his priorities. I have every confidence that the Mayor would take this advice in the spirit in which it is meant, being the humble man he is. After all, he did graciously forgive the King for taking so long to dub him a knight.
Daily Mail
6 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Government spends nearly £30m of taxpayers' cash on fringe research projects including gay porn studies and recording Syrian harvesting songs
Almost £30million of UK taxpayer money has been spent on fringe research projects including studies into gay porn after the Second World War and recording Syrian harvesting songs. UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has been given the staggering amount of funding for a number of overseas projects, which appear to have no clear benefit to British taxpayers. The funding includes £850,000 for Birmingham City University to delve into the circulation of gay male porn and porn magazines at the end of the Second World War, a T elegraph investigation revealed. The University of Oxford received more than £350,000 in a bid to preserve the threatened language of Enggano, spoken by just 1,500 people on Enggano Island, in Sumatra, Indonesia. Meanwhile, £784,000 was given to the University of Exeter to build a historical account of the development of child soldiering in Africa. It also received £307,000 of funding to revive ancestral territories, including the language and cultures of the K'omox, Pentlatch, and E'iksan in Vancouver Island, Canada, and the Maori of New Zealand. Edinburgh University were given £123,000 to record 'harvesting songs of displaced Syrian refugees living in Middle Eastern countries', while the University of Warwick received almost £800,000 to study 'invisible women in Italian cinema'. Joanna Marchong, investigations campaign manager of the TaxPayers' Alliance, believes taxpayers will be 'livid' after learning how 'ridiculous some of these research projects have become'. However, UKRI said that funding will only be given to projects that show value for money for British taxpayers and have a societal benefit. Ms Marchong said: 'UKRI have a proven track record of wasting taxpayers' cash on research projects that are no more than virtue-signalling nonsense that don't stand to benefit the people paying for them. 'Ministers need to remember why UKRI was created and return to investing in research that will make a difference to hard-working Brits.' Another project includes a joint study between the University of Roehampton and Stellenbosch University in South Africa, which was given £2.8million in funding to research how music could help the mental health of expectant mothers in Africa. When asked whether the study would also be used to help British mothers, the Stellenbosch University project team did not respond. They did say that 'group music-making has been shown to boost mood and foster social connections' and early research shows that listening to specially composed music during pregnancy 'reduces anxiety symptoms.' Roehampton University also received £805,000 to recreate a performance of the 16th-century play Galatea by John Lyly centred around 'female, trans, queer, disabled and migrants'. While, the University of London received £323,000 to make a film-making union to assist the Mursi agro-pastoralists of the Lower Omo Valley of Ethiopia. Other projects that were given funding included a look into housing rights for marginalised citizens of Lagos and São Paulo. University of Manchester received nearly £250,000 for the study. Around £300,000 was given to Birmingham University to 'promote reproductive justice' for the Pankararu and Xukuru communities in north-east Brazil. The University of Cambridge was awarded a similar amount for the 'restoration of traditional justice in the Sa'th Tama Kiwe Territory in Caldono, Cauca, Colombia'. The majority of projects funded were awarded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. While, a handful fell under the National Institute for Health and Care Research. A UKRI spokesman said: 'International research collaboration is vital to help us tackle global challenges in a complex and interconnected world, improving security and prosperity in the UK and internationally. 'Several of the projects highlighted were funded through Official Development Assistance, where the main benefit is required to be in the developing country involved. 'Projects are prioritised for funding through independent expert peer review, as set out in the Higher Education and Research Act. 'UKRI supports a diverse portfolio of investments including curiosity-driven research and strategic initiatives, which drives the creation and exploitation of new knowledge, and develops skilled and talented people for a wide range of jobs improving lives and livelihoods across the UK. 'On average, every £1 of public R&D investment generates at least £7 of net benefit to the UK through the development of new and better goods, services and processes.'
The Sun
07-06-2025
- The Sun
Fury as it costs more to cage a teenage killer than put them up in a ‘superior twin' room at The Ritz
IT COSTS more to cage a teenage killer than put them up at The Ritz, shock figures reveal. Taxpayers foot an annual bill of £336,000 — £921 per night — to keep a young lag at a Secure Training Centre. 2 A room at London's Ritz can cost £775 a night, or £900 for a 'superior twin' room. John O'Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: 'Taxpayers will find these figures difficult to believe. 'Keeping dangerous child prisoners locked up is inevitably going to be expensive, but the current cost cited is so high that inefficiencies must be present. 'At the very least, the Prison Service needs to be transparent as to why costs are so high.' Places at Oakhill Secure Training Centre, near Milton Keynes, Bucks, are the most expensive in the prison estate — costing seven times the £122 per night for some adult jails. Those there are believed to include two 13-year-old machete murderers of Shawn Seesahai, 19 — attacked in Wolverhampton in 2023. It is run by private firm G4S, holds up to 80 children and is currently the country's only operational STC. Young Offender Institutions come in at £329. A spokesman said: 'Children in custody are largely there for serious offences and have needs requiring more support.' Woman left 'boiling' with rage after paying £125 to visit her man behind bars but trolls say it's 'prison not Butlins' 2
Daily Mail
04-06-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
The public sector sicknote epidemic: They're 60% more likely to be off than staff who work for private firms
Public sector workers are 60 per cent more likely to be off work due to illness than employees in the private sector. The extent of Britain's sick note epidemic is exposed in Office for National Statistics figures that reveal 148.9 million working days were lost last year, equivalent to 4.4 days for each worker. And the share of such absences among public sector employees was 2.9 per cent, significantly higher than the private sector's 1.8 per cent. The ONS claimed it could be explained by differences in types of jobs in the sectors and that workers in state-funded jobs were more likely to be paid for being off than those in private employment. But John O'Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: 'Taxpayers are fed up with footing the bill for a public sector that's far more likely to be off sick. 'It reflects poor management and weak accountability. In the private sector, this would raise serious questions – in the public sector, it's too often ignored. Ministers must set clearer expectations, better oversight and ensure taxpayers aren't left footing the bill for unchecked absenteeism.' Sick rates have been higher in the public sector for every year on record, the ONS said. But in both cases, rates were lower last year than in 2023. The overall number of working days lost last year was 14.9 million down from 2023 but still 9.9 million higher than pre-pandemic levels in 2019. The sickness absence rate of 2.5 per cent for women was higher than for men, at 1.6 per cent. James Cockett, from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, said some public sector roles – healthcare, education, social care and policing – could increase exposure to illness and also often be 'physically and emotionally demanding'. He said this could lead to greater rates of stress-related absence He added more public sector employers offer occupational sick pay compared with private sector employers.' Len Shackleton, of the Institute of Economic Affairs think-tank, said: 'Private sector workers are more likely to be employed in small workplaces where absence is more noticeable and they may feel obliged not to let colleagues down. 'Their jobs may also be less secure than those in the public sector, again a motive for 'presenteeism' [where employees go to work despite being sick] which public sector workers don't feel to the same extent.'
