The TaxPayers’ Alliance supports, in principle, the decentralisation of tax powers. Done properly, fiscal decentralisation can increase competition between councils, restrain spending, improve services and encourage local solutions. But those powers should sit with local authorities alongside the commensurate responsibilities for spending restraint, not be used to justify the continued proliferation of combined authorities and regional mayoralties demanding further funding from taxpayers.

In an ideal system, councils would have greater control over genuinely local taxes and the ability to raise revenue from and for local services, accompanied by commensurate reductions in national taxation. Devolution should mean shifting power closer to taxpayers, not layering new taxes on top of existing ones.

Done badly, devolution will achieve the opposite result. Rather than creating a more accountable and competitive local tax system, devolving new tax powers without proper safeguards could allow local politicians to impose additional levies with limited scrutiny and weak accountability. And when the economic effects of these additional charges become clear - such as damage to local tourism - local authorities will then expect the central government to shield them from the consequences of fiscal devolution.

Taxes such as an Overnight Visitor Levy (OVL) are a likely example of this, by damaging tourism, increasing costs for families and businesses, and adding yet another burden to an already overtaxed economy.

The call for evidence for the Timms review of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) has now closed, and the usual suspects have been busy filling DWP’s inbox. The rhetoric is entirely predictable: the current system, despite being one of the most generous in the world, is not generous enough. Spending on disability benefits, despite having tripled in real terms since 2008, has supposedly been ravaged by austerity. With reforms to PIP being “co-produced” with disability groups, it is worth looking at exactly what their demands are. 

This edition of a closer look examines the “Additional Costs Disability Payment” (ACDP) proposal by the Commission on Social Security, which has been endorsed by Disability Rights UK in their submission to the Timms review as an alternative to PIP. It is hardly surprising that this involves more spending, but some of the suggestions will make readers wonder if the authors understand that someone ultimately has to pay for all of it. 

The honour system 

Perhaps the most egregious part of the proposal is to base PIP on the honour system. Instead of assessors verifying the claims of applicants, they want to turn the assessment process into an “open-ended”, “collaborative discussion” (DR UK response page 8, page 3).

Every assessment would involve three parties: the applicant, a government representative and “someone who has lived or professional expertise in disability” (DR UK response page 9). In other words, a representative from the disability sector. Leaving aside the massive expansion in the role of disability groups this would entail, readers will notice that the system is clearly designed to ensure the government representative is outvoted at every turn. 

Applicants would not even need a health condition. Experiencing physical or mental distress would be enough, with eligibility explicitly not tied to a medical diagnosis (ACDP proposal, page 8) as some conditions remain “poorly understood” (DR UK response, page 11). Instead, principal evidence would be “an applicant’s own account of their life” with other relevant evidence including “testimony from a friend or family member” (DR UK response, page 8). 

Crucially, claims are to be accepted by default, with the burden of proof on the government if it wants to reject them (DR UK response, page 11). As if this was not enough, the government would also have to take into account that “distress or impairment can make an individual’s experience of the barriers and additional costs they face difficult to understand or articulate” (ACDP proposal, page 11), and would not be able to reject claims because of so-called “minor inconsistencies” (DR UK response, page 12). 

This completely inverts the relationship between applicants and taxpayers. Essentially, applicants would have to provide zero independent evidence, would not have to be consistent or even articulate the costs they face in order to have their claims accepted, with the government expected to engage in costly investigations to prove them wrong. 

As the proposal itself notes, “it is anticipated that very few ACDP claims would reach the Social Security (Benefits) Tribunal” (ACDP proposal, page 13). Hardly surprising when the approach is just to approve every claim, no questions asked. 

Reassessments only upon request  

Not only will applicants' claims be accepted by default, they will be able to stay on the benefit indefinitely. Reassessments would only take place if a claimant requests it (ACDP proposal, page 12). Once again, taxpayers will be relying on the honour system to ensure people come forward when their circumstances change. 

Of course, even when someone comes forward and is assessed to no longer meet the already loose criteria, that does not mean the benefit ends. As long as they are even slightly worse off as a result of losing the benefit, they will retain it. And even when there is zero impact on a claimant’s health, such as when their condition is completely resolved, reduction would still be gradual and tapered (ACDP proposal, page 12). Taxpayers will quite literally be expected to pay for non-existent issues. 

More quangos

Taxpayers’ money will not just be handed over to claimants. Disability groups too will get their share. In addition to setting up a “National Independent Advocacy Service”, made up of the very same groups pushing this agenda (ACDP proposal, page 7), the proposal also calls for the establishment of “a national body to research the additional costs disabled people face, including those related to intersectional issues and systemic discrimination”, which would inform the varying levels of payment people would receive (ACDP proposal, page 5). 

This will likely mean how much disabled people receive will depend on factors like their ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation. An actual two-tier benefit system. 

As if the deck is not stacked enough against the taxpayers, everyone involved in the process must have “a good understanding of the social model of disability, the impact of intersectional issues and systemic discrimination” (ACDP proposal, page 11). No prizes for guessing which groups will be contracted to deliver this training.  

A trivial solution 

Far from being a groundbreaking policy reform, the ACDP proposal is astonishingly simplistic. Handing out cash to anyone who asks for it is a lazy solution that requires zero policy imagination. In fact, the only impressive thing about the plan is that it seems purpose-built to eliminate any semblance of scrutiny or fiscal control. But these guardrails do not exist for their own sake; they exist because public money is finite. Without rigorous checks, it is impossible to prioritise support for those who genuinely need it, leaving taxpayers to fund an open-ended liability.

Politicians must ensure that co-production does not turn into capture. If reform is not based in fiscal reality, then the system will inevitably collapse regardless of how generously it is initially set. The TaxPayers’ Alliance submission to the Timms review, by contrast, puts forward common sense proposals to fix a benefit that does not currently work for taxpayers. Read it in full here. 

Prevent spends £36 million a year, but the TaxPayers’ Alliance’s latest research raises serious questions about whether taxpayers can properly see where that money goes. Freedom of information requests that once exposed detailed Prevent spending are now routinely blocked, with councils and the Home Office citing national security and other exemptions even for basic financial breakdowns.

Podcast host Duncan Barkes is joined by the TPA’s Anne Strickland and John O'Connell to discuss Prevent’s growing transparency problem, why independent reviews have raised concerns about oversight and value for money, and whether a programme designed to stop terrorism has drifted into a wider safeguarding system.

Mergers and acquisitions are among the most foundational and valuable financial tools available to businesses. Built on the simple logic that combining assets creates more value than the sum of the involved parts, M&As also have the benefit of being able to streamline the more bureaucratic processes of businesses, such as HR and payroll. 

As we say quite often at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, the public sector has a lot to learn from the private sector and mergers between quangos may seem like an obvious area to increase efficiency, especially when many perform duplicative functions already. In practice though, the issue becomes far more complex.

As a case study, take the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Payment Systems Regulator (PSR). The PSR is currently an independent subsidiary of the FCA, but is currently in the process of being consolidated into the FCA. 

Both the FCA and PSR are charged with ‘preventing and tackling financial crime’, a worthwhile and necessary function, but a duplicated one. The consolidation of the two will likely lead to a more effective regulator on the other side of it.

However,it is in some of their other functions that the real quangocracy problem emerges. Both the FCA and PSR are also responsible for ‘competition enforcement’. Since the birth of civilisation, competition in markets has been caused by similar businesses seeking the same customers, not by regulators demanding it. For this particular function, a merger may bring some streamlining behind the scenes, but the general negative impacts on businesses will remain unchanged.

When the government announces a ‘bonfire of the quangos’, the immediate reflex is to applaud. Taxpayers are rightfully exhausted by the sheer volume of acronym-heavy agencies draining their money. However, taking two sprawling, over-mighty regulatory bodies and stuffing them under a single roof does not necessarily shrink the state. In many cases, it simply builds a bigger bureaucracy.

If we consolidate two agencies without actively stripping away their statutory powers, we risk creating unaccountable super-quangos. A newly merged regulator might save a few hundred thousand pounds on office space and shared IT systems, but it will retain all of the bloated mandates that allowed it to interfere in the free market in the first place. The underlying problem with the modern quango state is not merely that there are too many of them; it is that they are permitted to do far too much.

Consider the economic realities facing British businesses today. Entrepreneurs and established firms alike are drowning in a sea of red tape. The true cost of the quangocracy is not just money used to fund their vast headquarters, but the hidden ‘regulatory tax’ forced upon the private sector.

When agencies like the FCA or the PSR stretch their tentacles beyond stopping actual crime and begin attempting to socially engineer market competition, businesses pay the ultimate price. Instead of investing capital into research, development, or hiring new staff, companies are forced to redirect millions of pounds into massive compliance departments. They have to hire armies of lawyers and risk officers simply to navigate the ever-shifting, vaguely defined rules handed down by unelected officials.

Merging regulators might make the government's organisational chart look cleaner, but if that merged entity continues to bombard businesses with the exact same volume of overreaching directives, the burden on the economy remains entirely unchanged. A streamlined bureaucracy that still aggressively micromanages the private sector is not a victory for taxpayers. Instead, all that has been created is a more efficient engine for stagnation.

If the public sector truly wants to learn from the private sector's use of mergers and acquisitions, ministers need to understand the corporate concept of divestment. When a smart corporation acquires another business, it ruthlessly axes the divisions that fail to add value to the bottom line. 

The government must take a similarly ruthless approach to statutory mandates. When quangos are merged, their foundational legislation must be subjected to an exhaustive audit: only core functions remain, and any mission creep is axed. 

Britain's economic growth depends on unleashing the private sector, not perpetually managing it from Whitehall. The consolidation of agencies like the PSR into the FCA is a step in the right direction administratively, but it remains a half-measure.

True reform requires Parliament to reclaim its authority. Unelected regulators must be returned to their original, narrow purposes: enforcing the law, preventing egregious harm, and then getting out of the way. Until the government is willing to take an axe to the legislation that empowers these bodies, any announced merger will be little more than window dressing. 

We often mistake a reduction in bureaucrats for a reduction in bureaucracy. But for the small business owner and the average taxpayer, the weight of the state isn't measured by the number of inspectors but by the compliance burden. To truly unleash economic potential, we must look beyond the headcount of the regulators and boldly dismantle the regulations and regulators themselves.

Principles behind the Timms Review

The TaxPayers’ Alliance agrees that PIP must be fair and fit for the future. This means it must be fair to both those that claim it and the taxpayers that pay for it. Unfortunately, the massive increase in spending on this benefit and high-profile examples of abuse have led to a significant decline in public trust. Too often, commitments have been made and entitlements handed out without any idea of how to pay for them. Britain already has one of the most generous disability support systems internationally.[1] Yet this is no longer sustainable given the ever-increasing number of claimants.

For this reason, this Review is wrong to start from the position of refusing to “generate proposals for further savings”, including insisting on retaining “non-means-tested support for people in and out of work”.[2] Such an approach avoids making hard choices and merely kicks the can down the road. 

The TaxPayers’ Alliance believes that the current welfare system, including PIP, places an unaffordable burden on working taxpayers. Ignoring this painful truth is a critical mistake and, sadly, reflects the political choices behind this Review. Nonetheless, this submission offers an assessment of PIP and proposals for improving the sustainability of the benefit, notwithstanding the misguided principles mentioned above. 

[1] Department for Work & Pensions, International Comparisons of Disability Benefits and Disability Employment, 26 February 2026, www.gov.uk/government/publications/international-comparisons-of-disability-benefits-and-disability-employment/international-comparisons-of-disability-benefits-and-disability-employment (accessed 28 May 2026).

[2] Department for Work & Pensions, Timms Review of Personal Independence Payment: Terms of Reference, 30 October 2025, www.gov.uk/government/publications/timms-review-of-pip-terms-of-reference/timms-review-of-personal-independence-payment-terms-of-reference (accessed 28 May 2026).

Our latest analysis shows that the overnight visitors levy could the UK economy to lose over £13billion and result in a loss of 42million domestic overnight visits.

Based on figures published by VisitBritain, a reduction in tourists in accordance with the surveys would cost the UK between £6 billion and £13 billion.

 - In 2024, there were 107.9 million domestic overnight tourists who spent over £33.4 billion.

- If the government introduced any form of visitors tax, it could lead to a £6 billion loss to the UK economy. This is a drop of almost 19.5 million domestic overnight visits.

- If the UK visitor tax is set at £5, it could cause the UK economy to lose over £9 billion and result in a loss of 30 million domestic overnight visits.

- If the UK visitor tax is set at £10, this could cause the UK economy to lose over £13 billion and result in a loss of 42 million domestic overnight visits.

Read the full story

Keir Starmer is planning a new tax to hit holidays - and there’s outrage

The Government’s plan to allow mayors to levy tourism taxes could devastate the holiday industry and cost the economy billions

Daily ExpressDavid Williamson

The Prevent strategy represents one of the UK’s core branches of counter-terrorism with £36 million in annual expenditure.[1] Yet after two decades of operation, it remains largely unclear how these funds are being spent and whether it delivers value for money. When the TaxPayers’ Alliance last examined Prevent in 2009, detailed funding breakdowns and recipient information were available through freedom of information (FOI) requests to local authorities, enabling proper scrutiny of public expenditure. That note revealed that over £12 million was distributed to community groups with insufficient monitoring of how it was spent between 2006-07 and 2008-09, including £850,000 to Muslim Council of Britain affiliates, an organisation that the government subsequently designated as a ‘non-engagement’ group due to previous leaders taking positions that contradict fundamental British values.[2]^,[3] Now, the Home Office and local authorities routinely refuse FOI requests on national security and commercial sensitivity grounds, preventing taxpayers from understanding where public funds are allocated annually. Without the transparency that exposed these allocations in 2009, there is no way to verify whether public money continues to support organisations whose views run counter to Prevent's objectives.

Multiple independent reviews have identified serious concerns about Prevent's value for money. The 2023 Shawcross review found that “millions” in public funds have been allocated to external consulting firms providing “demonstrably ineffective” services with poor due diligence, sometimes resulting in public money supporting groups whose views “run against Prevent’s objectives”.[4] Meanwhile, evidence suggests significant mission creep as Prevent evolves from a targeted counter-terrorism programme into a general safeguarding mechanism. A 2026 home affairs committee report warned that Prevent “is outdated and inadequately prepared to deal with modern extremism challenges in the digital world” with it increasingly “having to support those with no ideological motivation”.[5] Most referrals are not adopted into Channel, the multi-agency intervention programme that provides voluntary support to those assessed as genuinely at risk of radicalisation following Prevent referral. Non-ideological referrals now dominate the programme, and cases involving Islamist extremism have declined dramatically, in spite of the fact that MI5’s counter-terrorism caseload remains focused on ideological threats with approximately 75 per cent of their investigations with Counter Terrorism Policing relating to Islamist terrorism.[6] This means counter-terrorism resources and the legitimate opacity justified by national security concerns now apply primarily to general safeguarding cases involving vulnerable young people with complex needs but no terrorism risk. When practitioners spend time assessing individuals with no ideological component or terrorism risk, fewer resources are available for addressing genuine counter-terrorism cases.

Recent attacks have highlighted why the UK needs a focused counter-terrorism programme rather than one diluted by mission creep. The July 2024 Southport attacker had been referred to Prevent three times yet still carried out the attack, while the October 2025 Manchester synagogue terrorist had never been referred to Prevent.[7]^,[8] These cases underscore the vital importance of effective counter-terrorism work. Current opacity, however, prevents any meaningful assessment of Prevent's ability to intervene before radicalisation leads to violence or whether mission creep has turned a counter-terrorism programme into an unfocused safeguarding triage system.

This note demonstrates that the Prevent strategy suffers from three critical failures that undermine value for taxpayers: inadequate transparency, resource misallocation and confusion over its fundamental purpose.

[1] Simmonds, D., Counter-terrorism and Radicalism: Finance, UK Parliament, 4 December 2025, questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2025-10-28/85943 (accessed 14 January 2026).

[2] The TaxPayers’ Alliance, Council Spending Uncovered II; No.5: The Prevent Strategy, 2009, p. 1.

[3] Timms, S., Muslim Council of Britain, UK Parliament, 29 February 2024, questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2024-02-26/15545/ (accessed 17 November 2025).

[4] Shawcross, W., Independent Review of Prevent, 2023, p.111.

[5] Home Affairs Committee, Prevent referral mechanism unprepared to deal with reality of modern extremism – Home Affairs Committee warns, UK Parliament, 1 April 2026, committees.parliament.uk/committee/83/home-affairs-committee/news/212957/prevent-referral-mechanism-unprepared-to-deal-with-reality-of-modern-extremism-home-affairs-committee-warns/ (accessed 2 April 2026).

[6] Counter Terrorism Policing, Counter Terrorism Policing: Our mission factsheet, 12 February 2025, www.counterterrorism.police.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/CTP-Our-Mission-Factsheet-February-2025.pdf (accessed 25 February 2026).

[7] Home Office, Post-Southport review into Prevent and Axel Rudakubana: terms of reference, Gov.uk, 2 June 2025, www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-prevent-commissioner-terms-of-reference/post-southport-review-into-prevent-and-axel-rudakubana-terms-of-reference (accessed 7 November 2025).

[8] Counter Terrorism Policing, Update 14:31 4 December 2025 | Manchester Attack, 4 December 2025, www.counterterrorism.police.uk/manchester-attack-2025/ (accessed 15 January 2026).

Britain has sleepwalked into a youth unemployment crisis.

New figures from Alan Milburn’s report on youth unemployment show that more than one million young people are now not in education, employment or training (NEET), the highest level in more than a decade. One in seven young people is effectively disconnected from both work and education, while almost six in ten have never had a job at all.

For decades, Britain operated on a simple social contract. Young people were told that if they worked hard, gained qualifications and played by the rules, opportunities would follow. A first job would lead to experience. Experience would lead to higher earnings. Each generation would build on the success of the last. But today that contract is now broken.

The most striking finding from Milburn’s review is that this is not a generation that has given up. Eighty-four per cent of NEETs say they want a job or training opportunity. Many are applying for dozens, sometimes hundreds, of vacancies without success.

The tragedy is that the jobs they would once have relied upon to get a foot on the ladder are disappearing.

Over the past two decades, Britain has lost around 1.6 million lower and mid-skilled jobs. Hospitality vacancies have halved in just four years. The proportion of 16 and 17 year olds in paid work has collapsed from 35 per cent in 2006 to just 19 per cent today.

The shops, pubs, restaurants and small businesses that once gave young people their first taste of work are under relentless pressure from rising taxes, higher employment costs and a stagnant economy. At the same time, successive governments have steadily increased the cost and risk of hiring staff through higher national insurance contributions, rising wage costs and growing regulation. When businesses are forced to make difficult decisions, it is often inexperienced workers who lose out first.

Also mass migration has had a direct negative impact on the prospects of young people. According to the Centre for Social Justice, since January 2020, the number of non-EU workers aged under 25 on UK payrolls has risen by 290,000. Over the same period, the number of young British workers has increased by just 11,000. That means there have been 27 young non-EU workers added to payrolls for every additional young Brit.

Worse still is that the cost of this failure is staggering. Milburn's review estimates youth inactivity costs the economy £125 billion every year through lost productivity, lower tax revenues, higher welfare spending and the long-term scarring effect that follows young people throughout their working lives.Every young person who never enters the workforce is someone less likely to pay taxes, more likely to rely on state support and less able to contribute to economic growth. At a time when Britain is already burdened by weak growth, rising debt and annual debt interest costs of more than £100 billion, this is the last thing the country needs.

The welfare implications are equally alarming. The number of 16 to 24-year-olds receiving Personal Independence Payment or Disability Living Allowance has doubled from around 200,000 in 2012 to more than 400,000 today. Current projections suggest that figure could reach 700,000 by the early 2030s.

Nearly half of all PIP claims among young people are now for autism and ADHD, compared to fewer than one in ten claims across the wider claimant population.

Most concerning of all, once many young people enter the welfare system they rarely leave it. Seven in ten young people claiming a health or disability benefit are still claiming ten years later. More than half of those who first claim between the ages of 16 and 24 remain out of work five years later. So once they get on welfare, they are likely to stay on welfare at a time when they should be building their lives.A country cannot prosper when over a million young people are sitting on the sidelines. It cannot sustain an ever-expanding welfare state when fewer young people are entering work. And it cannot expect taxpayers to shoulder an ever-greater burden while another generation struggles to find its place in the economy.

For too many young people, the future is no longer something to look forward to but is something to worry about. And I don’t blame them, because it is successive governments that have failed them and failed to create and enable the conditions for them to prosper.

Labour-backed holiday taxes could leave families paying hundreds of pounds more for a UK break, piling yet another burden onto households already squeezed by the cost of living. And after Rachel Reeves’ tax raids on pubs, hotels and hospitality businesses, many are asking: why does Labour seem so determined to hammer Britain’s hospitality and tourism industries?

Podcast host Duncan Barkes is joined by the TPA’s Benjamin Elks and UKHospitality chief executive Allen Simpson to discuss how a holiday tax could damage staycations, hit local economies and pile pressure onto an industry already under strain. They also explore Labour’s wider war on hospitality and what businesses and holidaymakers can do to fight back.

Responding to resident doctors announcing new strike action, John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said:

“Taxpayers will be livid that resident doctors are walking out for the 16th time in three years. 

“After multiple inflation-busting pay rises and record NHS funding, the BMA is still demanding more despite being offered a deal that would have seen some of them earn six figures.

“The new health secretary must stand firm and not allow the NHS to be held hostage by union militancy."  

TPA spokespeople are available for live and pre-recorded broadcast interviews via 07795 084 113 (no texts)

Media contact:

William Yarwood
Campaigns Director, TaxPayers' Alliance
william.yarwood@taxpayersalliance.com
24-hour media hotline: 07795 084 113 (no texts)

Notes to editors:

1. Founded in 2004 by Matthew Elliott and Andrew Allum, the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) campaigns to reform taxes and public services, cut waste and speak up for British taxpayers. Find out more at www.taxpayersalliance.com.
2. TaxPayers' Alliance's research council.
3. The TaxPayers’ Alliance has previously done analysis which revealed that the BMA have selectively chosen 2008-09 as a baseline, which ignores real terms pay rises prior to that year.

Energy quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations (quangos) are a significant part of Britain’s regulatory and administrative landscape. Operating at arm’s length from ministers, they influence large parts of the energy sector, with responsibilities spanning regulation, climate policy, market administration and the management of the transition to net zero.  This reach extends across the energy supply chain, affecting producers, network operators, businesses and household consumers alike. As the government continues its drive towards the 2050 net zero target, the size and influence of these bodies is likely to expand further.

Recent policy decisions have reinforced this trend. The establishment of Great British Energy through the Great British Energy Act 2025 marked a substantial increase in state involvement in the energy market. Great British Energy is a publicly owned energy company tasked with accelerating the deployment of clean energy generation and supporting industries linked to energy transition.[1] Its creation reflects a broader shift towards greater use of quangos to direct investment, administer schemes and shape strategic decisions across the energy sector, with the King’s Speech 2026 announcing a new energy quango, as well as more powers and additional responsibilities for existing bodies causing additional costs to taxpayers.[2]

These organisations are sustained by substantial budgets and staffing resources, with their activities funded either directly or indirectly by taxpayers and consumers. Rising expenditure, staff costs and headcounts illustrate the growing scale of their operations, while their expanding remit highlights the increasing role they play in delivering government policy objectives. Despite their influence, these bodies operate with limited direct public accountability.

This note examines four major energy quangos between 2015-16 and 2024-25, including the Climate Change Committee, Low Carbon Contracts Company, North Sea Transition Authority and Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem). It tracks changes in their income, expenditure, staff numbers and staff costs over the period, highlighting the extent to which these bodies are driving and administering the government’s energy and net zero agenda.

Key findings

• Between 2015-16 and 2024-25, Ofgem’s income rose from £76 million to £227 million, an increase of £150 million. This is the largest cash terms increase among the quangos examined, and a rise of 197 per cent.
• Ofgem had the largest increase in expenditure in cash and percentage terms, rising by £183 million, or 237 per cent, from £77 million to £260 million between 2015-16 and 2024-25.
• The North Sea Transition Authority had the smallest percentage increase in expenditure between 2015-16 to 2024-25, rising by 33 per cent. In cash terms, expenditure rose from £33 million to £44 million. This was impacted by the North Sea Transition Authority’s status change from an executive agency to a government company.
• Since 2015-16, Ofgem’s headcount has risen from 907 to 2,276 in 2024-25, a 151 per cent increase. This is the largest rise in staff headcount with 1,369 employees added.
• The Low Carbon Contracts Company had the largest percentage increase in headcount between 2015-16 and 2024-25, at 382 per cent. Staff numbers in this time rose by 187, from 49 to 236.
• The Committee on Climate Change had the smallest percentage increase in headcount, rising by 89 per cent between 2015-16 and 2024-25. In this time staff numbers rose from 30 to 57.
• Ofgem’s staff costs increased the most in cash terms, from £54 million to £162 million between 2015-16 and 2024-25, a 202 per cent or £108 million rise.
• The Low Carbon Contracts Company had the largest percentage increase in its staff costs, rising by 281 per cent, from £5 million to £19 million between 2015-16 and 2024-25.

[1] Great British Energy, Great British Energy, www.gbe.gov.uk/ (accessed 24 April 2026).

[2] HM Government, The King’s Speech 2026, Prime Minister’s Office, 2026, pp.103-105.

The growth of regulators across the UK has become an increasingly common feature of modern government. Over time, regulators have steadily expanded both in size and remit, reflecting their growing influence over the economy, businesses and public life. For the past year, the TaxPayers’ Alliance’s Britain’s Quangos Uncovered campaign has sought to shine a light on quangos and the increasing burden they place on taxpayers and enterprise.

One regulator that exemplifies this trend is The Pensions Regulator. Established as an executive non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Work and Pensions, TPR is responsible for regulating workplace pension schemes across the UK. It works with trustees, employers, pension specialists and business advisers to ensure compliance with pension rules and standards.

Over time, however, TPR’s remit has expanded considerably. In addition to overseeing workplace pensions, the regulator now plays a central role in enforcing automatic enrolment, supervising pension scheme funding, tackling pension scams and overseeing new regulatory frameworks introduced through recent pension reforms. As its powers and responsibilities have grown, so too has the scale of the organisation itself, making it an increasingly influential part of the UK’s regulatory landscape.

Table 1: staff costs (£,000), headcount (FTE) and year on year headcount changes, 2015-16 to 2024-25 

Over the past decade, the average number of whole-time equivalent persons employed during the year increased by 94 per cent, an increase of 471 FTE staff. The staff costs correspondingly increased by 133 per cent, an increase of almost £47 million over the course of the decade. This begs the question as to why and what has triggered these increases.

Auto enrolment- 2015-16 to 2017-18

Headcount at TPR dramatically increased over a three year period between 2015-16 to 2017-18. There was an increase of 106 FTE staff members during this time period, an increase of 21 per cent. This included the largest single year increase between 2016-17 to 2017-18 with an increase of 15.6 per cent. Staff costs similarly increased, with a 26 per cent increase between 2015-16 to 2017-18. This is over £9 million extra spent on staff costs.

This increase can partially be attributed to arguably the most significant increase in TPR’s role and legal obligations. Autoenrollment. 

Automatic enrolment represented one of the largest expansions of workplace pension saving in modern British history and significantly increased the responsibilities of TPR. 

Introduced under the Pensions Act 2008, the policy first came into force in October 2012 when large employers were required to enrol eligible workers aged between 22 and 64 earning more than £10,000 into a workplace pension scheme. The regime was then gradually extended to medium, small and micro employers, with all employers brought into scope by 2018. Contribution rates were also phased in over time, eventually reaching a minimum total contribution of 8 per cent of earnings by April 2019.

The impact of the reforms was dramatic. Prior to automatic enrolment, workplace pension participation had been declining, falling from 58 per cent of eligible employees in 2009 to just 55 per cent in 2012. Since the rollout began, participation increased by 9.3 million people to reach 20 million eligible employees participating in a workplace pension by 2021, equivalent to 88 per cent of eligible workers. The largest increases were seen in the private sector, where participation rose by 44 percentage points to 86 per cent by 2021, covering 14.4 million employees. Membership of defined contribution occupational pension schemes also surged from just 900,000 members in 2011 to 10.6 million by 2019.

The most operationally significant phase for the regulator came between 2015 and 2018, when automatic enrolment duties were rolled out to small and micro employers. While small employers began staging in June 2015, the process accelerated sharply from January 2016 onwards. Government estimates suggested that around 1.8 million small and micro employers would need to complete automatic enrolment by 2018, with volumes peaking during 2017. This rapid expansion in regulatory scope helps explain the significant increase in staffing and operational capacity at TPR during this period.

Chart 1: headcount (FTE) and year on year headcount changes, 2015-16 to 2024-25

Pension Schemes Act 2021- 2020-21 to 2022-23

A secondary period of growth in TPR correlates heavily with the passing of the Pension schemes act 2021. 

From 2020-21 to 2022-23, there was a 20 per cent increase in headcount. This was a nominal increase of 161 staff members FTE. The associated staff costs increased by £12 million, increasing from £61 million to £74 million in this time period. The staff count increased by 11.6 per cent from 2019-20 to 2020-21. This was the highest year on year headcount increase over the course of the last decade. Meanwhile, the largest nominal FTE headcount was seen from 2021-22 to 2022-23, a 90 person FTE increase.   

The Act introduced major new powers to protect defined benefit pension schemes during corporate transactions, including stronger anti-avoidance measures and enhanced enforcement capabilities. It also established an entirely new scheme funding regime, requiring pension schemes to develop long-term “funding and investment strategies” and submit detailed “statements of strategy” to the regulator for oversight. Beyond traditional pensions supervision, the Act gave TPR responsibility for overseeing the rollout of pensions dashboards, a major digital infrastructure programme designed to allow savers to view all their pension entitlements in one place. The legislation also created a new regulatory framework for Collective Defined Contribution (CDC) schemes, requiring authorisation and ongoing supervision by the regulator. 

In addition, TPR was handed new duties relating to climate governance, with pension schemes required to report on how they manage climate-related financial risks. The Act further expanded the regulator’s anti-fraud and consumer protection role by tightening rules around statutory transfer values to combat pension scams. Taken together, these reforms transformed TPR from a more traditional pensions watchdog into a far broader supervisory, enforcement and digital regulator with significantly increased operational responsibilities.

As seen in table 2, almost 70 per cent of TPR current workforce is in the Digital, Data and Technology,  Enforcement and Legal Group, and Market Oversight departments. All these areas are affected by the increased responsibilities placed on TPR by the Pension Schemes Act.    

The regulator clearly now relies heavily on digital infrastructure, analytics and large-scale data processing. That aligns closely with newer responsibilities such as pensions dashboards, automated supervision and expanded reporting requirements introduced through the Pension Schemes Act 2021. The scale of Enforcement and Legal staffing also stands out with 100.2 FTE in Enforcement and 63 FTE in Legal.

This reflects the regulator’s increasingly interventionist role, particularly after receiving stronger enforcement powers, anti-avoidance powers and criminal sanctions under the 2021 Act.

Table 2: TPR organogram, 8 December 2025 

However, there is a growing bureaucracy

The scale of the COO Group is particularly notable within the overall structure of TPR. Finance and Operations accounts for 87.5 FTE, Planning, Partnering and Corporate Reporting employs 60.2 FTE, while the People function alone stands at 36.7 FTE. It can to some extent be argued that a regulator approaching 1,000 staff FTE, with extensive digital, compliance and enforcement responsibilities, naturally requires a larger operational backbone. As the organisation’s statutory remit expanded following automatic enrolment and the Pension Schemes Act 2021, a greater administrative capacity was likely inevitable.

However, the growth of internal support functions raises wider questions about bureaucratic expansion beyond the regulator’s core responsibilities. Between 2017-18 and 2024-25, the HR function increased by almost 90 per cent, rising from 18.8 FTE to 35.7 FTE (table 3). That increase of 17 FTE occurred alongside broader growth in communications, ESG and diversity-related personnel. While some expansion can reasonably be attributed to supporting a much larger organisation, the rise of these internal functions appears partially detached from the direct increase in regulatory responsibilities themselves.

This suggests the regulator is not only growing because of new statutory duties, but also because of the increasing complexity of its own internal bureaucracy. The expansion of communications, ESG and diversity staffing points toward an organisation devoting more resources to corporate governance, internal culture and stakeholder management in addition to frontline duties. 

Interestingly, TPR stated that 2024-25 marked the final year of the Spending Review 2021 period, during which it committed to delivering substantial efficiency savings. Under the settlement, the regulator aimed to achieve savings of 5 per cent across its levy-funded activities and 23 per cent within its automatic enrolment functions by 2024-25. TPR noted that its 2024-25 budget already incorporated planned efficiency savings worth £14.5 million compared to its original baseline, including £3.8 million in levy-funded operations and £10.7 million linked to automatic enrolment activities. This suggests that there is a degree to which TPR has become too bloated and inefficient. This is reflected in the drop in staff headcount seen in chart 1. 

Table 3: headcount by area, 2017-18 to 2024-25

So, in summary, the majority of the increase in staffing at TPR broadly aligns with a substantial expansion in its statutory remit, responsibilities and enforcement powers over the past decade. Automatic enrolment, the rollout to millions of additional savers and employers, and later reforms under the Pension Schemes Act 2021 significantly expanded the regulator’s role across enforcement, supervision, digital infrastructure, climate reporting and anti-scam activity.

At the same time, there is evidence of broader workforce expansion beyond purely operational necessity. The growth in internal support functions, communications, ESG and diversity-related staffing suggests an element of bureaucratic expansion alongside the increase in core regulatory responsibilities. While some increase in administrative capacity is inevitable within a larger organisation, the growth of corporate functions raises legitimate questions about efficiency, priorities and value for money.

More fundamentally, this reflects a wider issue in modern regulation. Governments frequently grant regulators additional powers and duties without fully acknowledging that doing so inevitably increases both the size and influence of the regulatory state. Every new mandate requires additional staffing, systems, compliance activity and oversight capacity. Those costs are ultimately borne by businesses, pension schemes, employers and consumers.

As regulators become larger and more interventionist, the compliance burden on those being regulated also increases. This can affect investment decisions, raise operating costs and create additional barriers for businesses attempting to grow. Expanding regulatory powers therefore carries not only administrative consequences for the regulator itself, but wider economic consequences across the sectors subject to regulation.

The future of The Pensions Regulator 

The role of TPR creates unnecessary fragmentation within the UK’s financial regulatory framework. Pension schemes are regulated separately from other financial institutions, despite the fact that financial risks rarely remain confined to a single part of the system. Problems affecting insurers, investment markets or credit conditions can rapidly spill across the wider financial landscape, including pension funds and superfunds.

For this reason, prudential oversight should sit within a more integrated regulatory structure. Consolidating responsibility for financial risk under a single institution would reduce duplication, improve coordination and lessen the risk of issues falling between regulators.

The original rationale for a standalone pensions regulator has also weakened over time. One of TPR’s central functions under the Pensions Act 2008 was overseeing the rollout of auto-enrolment. That transition period has now largely passed. By 2023, more than 22 million individuals were contributing to a workplace pension, an increase of over 10 million participants compared with 2012. Auto-enrolment is now an established feature of the pensions landscape rather than a nascent reform requiring a standalone regulatory apparatus.

Maintaining a separate body is increasingly difficult to justify given the overlap between TPR, the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority. Businesses must navigate a fragmented system involving multiple regulators with overlapping responsibilities, creating additional complexity, regulatory burden and uncertainty.

Accordingly, responsibility for pension funds and emerging superfund structures should be transferred to the PRA, which already possesses the prudential expertise and institutional scope to oversee large financial entities and systemic risk. Consolidation would create a clearer and more coherent framework, providing businesses with a single prudential figurehead and reducing regulatory duplication across the sector.

Under this proposal, TPR as a standalone entity should be abolished. The legislation governing the PRA should therefore be amended to explicitly extend its remit to pension funds and superfunds. Corresponding amendments should also be made to the Pensions Act 2004 to remove the statutory functions of TPR, alongside consequential amendments to the Pensions Act 2008 removing references to TPR and transferring any remaining responsibilities to the appropriate financial regulators.

For immediate release

Responding to chancellor Rachel Reeves’s cost of living plan, John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said:

“Taxpayers will see right through this so-called ‘cost of living’ plan as little more than a sticking plaster from the chancellor whose own policies have made life more expensive in the first place. 

“While cutting VAT on summer attractions and suspending the fuel duty hike is welcome, it comes after Labour piled more costs onto employers through higher national insurance contributions and recklessly pursued the net zero agenda.

“If Reeves genuinely wants to improve the cost of living, she should start by lowering Britain’s crushing tax burden.”

TPA spokespeople are available for live and pre-recorded broadcast interviews via 07795 084 113 (no texts)

Media contact:

William Yarwood
Campaigns Director, TaxPayers' Alliance
william.yarwood@taxpayersalliance.com
24-hour media hotline: 07795 084 113 (no texts)

Notes to editors:

1. Founded in 2004 by Matthew Elliott and Andrew Allum, the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) campaigns to reform taxes and public services, cut waste and speak up for British taxpayers. Find out more at www.taxpayersalliance.com.
2. TaxPayers' Alliance's research council.

What actually causes recessions? Are economic downturns inevitable, or are they the result of political mistakes and bad policy decisions? And when one economy starts to shrink, how quickly can the rest of the world follow?

In this episode, podcast host Duncan Barkes is joined by the TaxPayers’ Alliance’s John O’Connell and former Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers and current ExxonMobil chief economist, Dr Tyler Goodspeed, to discuss his new book Recession: The Real Reasons Economies Shrink and What to Do about It.

Together, they explore what really drives recessions, whether governments help or hinder recovery, and what today’s economic warning signs could mean for Britain and the wider global economy

Cast your minds back to 2011. Nick Clegg is the deputy Prime Minister, the Arab Spring is in full swing, and the News of the World published its last edition. It also marked the start of a very long campaign from the TaxPayers’ Alliance against HS2, particularly on the basis that the government was publishing incredibly optimistic (read: misleading) cost estimates. 

As we outlined at the time, the Business Case for HS2 was fatally flawed. Issues such as increased pressure on existing services requiring upgrades, the mitigation of environmental impacts and lower than expected revenues would mean a true cost of £45.5 billion. This is significantly more than the government's £17.1 billion estimate. 

2011 also saw us submit a formal response to the Department for Transport’s (DfT) call for evidence, and we continued to issue press releases highlighting our much more expensive cost estimate. By 2013, our new cost estimate was £50.1 billion in 2011 prices. 

Our next cost estimate came in 2016 in our research paper, “Rich Man’s Toy: The Case for Scrapping HS2 Briefing Paper”. In it, we uplifted the estimated cost to £88 billion based on our expectations of further delays, continued government costing errors and greater-than-expected costs in Phase One of the project. 

In a true crystal ball moment, the report predicted that improving technologies, such as self-driving cars, would mean a reduction in the desire for long-distance rail travel. Waymo is set to launch in London later this year, a long, long time before HS2. Coupled with the rise of working from home, the initial passenger demand estimate of the government looks simply ridiculous now. 

We continued to update our cost estimates with each new release detailing HS2’s lack of progress. In 2017, we estimated between £90.8 billion and £99.9 billion; in 2020, I wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, showing that eventual costs may reach £150 billion.

In 2019, we published the Great British Transport Competition, in conjunction with MPs, to identify cost-effective regional alternatives to the High Speed 2 (HS2) rail project. We found 28 infrastructure projects from around Britain that could have been funded with our initial £45.5 billion estimate. Alternative schemes include: Extending Crossrail to Stansted and Cambridge, the Lower Thames Crossing, a cross-Cornwall rail link and reopening a host of closed rail links in the North. 

As an increasing number of people found HS2 to be a white elephant, ever more ridiculous stories of waste emerged with the TPA and the front and centre of the reaction across the newspapers and the airways. From the £100 million bat tunnel to the huge salaries paid to staff, we’ve continued to stick up for taxpayers in the face of successive governments who seem hellbent on completing the project, whatever the cost. 

So, where is HS2 at now? Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander took to the Commons this week to update on the latest developments. A £102.7 billion price tag, no trains running for at least another decade and at a slower speed than promised, it would seem that the TPA has been well and truly vindicated with our scepticism over the years. We won’t hold our breath for an apology for the rail boss who called our numbers a work of “fantasy and fiction”, But after a decade of spiralling costs, delays and scandals, one thing is undeniable: we told you so.