One of my goals, as with most Conservatives, is to work toward a smaller state, since we'd be better off managing our own lives rather than giving 40% of our money to the tax man on the promise that the government can manage things for us.

But estimating the size of the state is no easy task. There are figures for the total tax revenue taken - from you - by central government. And there are also figures for the local government revenue collection.

That money gets filtered through a lot of organisations, and there is a lot of opportunity along the way for waste, gold-plating and duplication of effort. And of course, corruption. Here's a first run at analysing those interactions from the perspective of Bristol (Click for a larger version):

I hope to develop this diagram over the next few weeks. If you can recommend any extra organisations to go on the chart, or if you spot any omissions or errors, please let me know.

Updates can be found at http://www.jamesbarlow.co.uk/Influence