Guido was cautious when Francis Maude announced his reforms of trade union facility time, emphasising that they “need to be enforced across the public sector” if the cost to the taxpayer is to come down. New figures reveal the amount spent on Pilgrims – taxpayer funded trade union officials – has in fact increased from £18.3million in 2010/11 to £23.6million in 2012/13. That’s a rise of 29 per cent.

The Pilgrim reforms required government departments to guarantee just 0.1 per cent of wages would be spent on union time. 15 government departments have failed to meet the cap. Despite the crackdown, taxpayer-funded public officials are still spending their time on partisan trade union activity, wasting tens of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money each year. And the cost is going up, not down. A good New Year’s resolution for the Cabinet Office would be to actually enforce the pledges that it made…