Moray fights back against TaxPayers’ Alliance ‘generating puff’

The Herald newspaper ran a cracking story recently about Moray Council coming out out fighting against the TaxPayers’ Alliance (a right wing tory think tank) listing them in the top 10 public sector non-jobs of 2008.

The job was Moray’s street football co-ordinator at a salary of £19,887. Moray pointed out, as it was a part-time post, the real salary was only half that, of which Moray Council provides only £3000. Grampian Police, Grampian Fire and Rescue Service, as well as a host of private companies, fund the remainder.

“More than 70 young people attend weekly street football games on Friday and Saturday evenings in Moray,” a spokesperson was reported as saying.

“There has been a marked reduction in the instances of anti-social behaviour - vandalism, teenage alcohol abuse and graffiti - in these targeted areas since the introduction of street football, saving many thousands of pounds.

“I realise that the TaxPayers’ Alliance need to grab headlines to attract the donations that keep them in a job, but their poor research lets them down. All they have done is scan for job adverts and picked out those that sound quirky.

“Far from being the self-appointed scrutineers they set out to be, the TaxPayers’ Alliance appear to have become a cash-generating body whose raison d’etre is to generate puff to keep their staff in a job.”

One-nil, we think.

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