Government 'still has much to do' after first three months

The taxpayers' verdict on the first three months of the Government shows there is still "a lot to be done", campaigners said today.

The TaxPayers' Alliance judged the Government's performance against the group's election manifesto and found it scored just 47% in the first three months.

The Government, which will have been in power for three months tomorrow, was judged on 11 points of the manifesto, covering tax, spending, reforms, democracy and transparency.

Matthew Elliott, TaxPayers' Alliance chief executive, said: "There is still a lot to be done and in some areas it has been disappointing to see little progress made.

"The TaxPayers' Alliance will continue to campaign on the objectives we set out before the election and fight to defend the interests of ordinary taxpayers."

But he added that it was "very encouraging" to see that the Government delivered on many of the campaign group's priorities.

"Taxpayers are enjoying greater transparency and value for money as a result," he said.

The TaxPayers' Alliance praised the Government's work on cutting advertising spending in half, cancelling Prevent grants from local authorities and publishing full data on spending.

But it said there had been no moves to scrap the 50p tax rate, to end taxpayer funding for the unions or to drop the 0.7% target for foreign aid spending.

Today's report assigns a score out of five - from zero, no progress at all, to five, where the objective has been satisfied or a clear path has been set out for that to happen - to the Government's performance on every objective in the TaxPayers' Alliance manifesto.

Looking at progress within the first three months, the Government scored 26 out of a possible 55 (47%).

The campaign group also found the Government scored 54 out of 120 (45%) for progress on first-year targets, and 64 out of 150 (43%) on progress on five-year targets.