COMPUTERS LOST
Last year Whitehall lost 1,987 computers, many
from the Home Office and Ministry of Defence. The
Ministry of Justice has revealed that a desktop
computer and 26 laptops worth £50,000 have gone
missing this year.
Minister of justice David Hanson gave no
indication of the information that might have
been stored on the missing machines nor the steps
taken to recover them or action taken against any
negligent staff. (Source: Computeractive, Dec/07) |
POINTLESS
PROJECTS
The government is wasting more than £100billion
a year of taxpayers money on pointless
projects. It has been revealed that more than
£2million was spent by tax inspectors on flights
to Scotland and hundreds of thousands of pounds
on a conference about value for money. In another
example, Hampshire Council spent £250,000 on
adjusting kerbs because they were a tenth of an
inch too high.
Other spending included £280,000 on a conference
addressed by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown on value
for money in the public services, £100,000 to
assess if £400,000 spent on modern art for seven
mental hospitals was good value and £5,731
hiring Hampton Court Palace for an internal
conference on homelessness.
Officials also spent £225,000 on a campaign
advising pensioners on the dangers of
ill-fitting slippers and hospital managers
squandered £40,000 on drawing up a 46-word
patient experience definition for the
NHS. They discovered that patients wanted to be
treated with honesty, respect and
dignity. (Source: Daily Express, Oct/07) |
NEW
BEDS
Civil servants have used taxpayers' money to buy
a £679 bed so they can have a lie-down when they
feel stressed.
The sick-bay bed is among furnishings costing
£55million bought by Whitehall chiefs in the
last three years.
Civil Service bosses also spent £33million on
new vehicles, £1million on art works and more
than £500,000 on pot plants.
Environment Secretary Hilary Benn's department
said the actual cost of their bed was £150 but
extras brought the total to £679. (Source: Sunday People, Aug/08) |
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GOVERNMENT WASTE 2
Defence
chiefs have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on art
while troops face equipment shortages in war zones and
decrepit housing at home. In 2004/05, MoD civil servants
bought a set of paintings by Zil Hoque called Nimbus I,
II, III, IV at a cost of £160,000. They also bought a
set of four paintings by Louise Cattrell that cost
£72,000, all excluding VAT. The following financial
year, the department spent almost £53,000 simply on
maintaining its art collection.
Since the beginning of the Iraq war, officials have
bought 3,150 chairs for £1,000 each and 134 widescreen
televisions costing £348,000. Since 2005 the MoD has
also wasted £7.7 million by losing spare parts in
transit. Gen Sir Mike Jackson, the former head of the
Army, wrote recently that spending on modern art
demonstrated the "cultural divide" at the MoD.
Gordon Brown has faced repeated complaints from troops
that pay and housing are unacceptable. (Source: Daily Telegraph, Jan/08)
In ten years,
£5 billion has been lost through fraud and error.
Prisoners, students and those with jobs and money in the
bank have all enjoyed payouts to which they were not
entitled. Since 1997, more than £17 million has been
wrongly paid to prisoners, who are not eligible for many
benefits during their incarceration. Students have
received £33 million while those who are in hospital for
the long term, and are not entitled to Jobseeker's
Allowance or Income Support, were handed £10 million.
More than £1 billion has gone in benefits to those who
have jobs and are not entitled.
Prisoners are not entitled to Jobseeker's Allowance,
worth up to £57.45 a week, as they are not available for
work. Nor are they eligible for income support, worth the
same amount, or pension credit. Help with housing costs
is payable only to those on remand, awaiting trial or
sentencing. Inmates are not usually eligible for
incapacity and disability benefits, the state pension,
carer's allowance, industrial injuries benefit or
maternity allowance. The sums involved suggest that
thousands of prisoners continue to receive handouts
through fraud or error after they have been jailed.
MPs concluded that the government had little idea of how
much was owed by claimants who had been overpaid.
Benefits Minister James Plaskitt said, "Fraud and
error was left untackled before 1997 because it wasn't
even regularly measured. Since then we have slashed in
half losses to fraud and error in Income Support and
Jobseeker's Allowance, saving taxpayers around £3
billion. A continuing, hard-hitting benefit fraud
campaign is running alongside a new strategy aimed at
taking out a further £1 billion of error." (Source:
Daily Mail, Oct/07)
Labour's
constant tinkering with the names of government
departments has cost taxpayers almost £2million. Figures
show £30,000 was spent changing the Department of Trade
and Industry to the Department for Productivity, Energy
and Industry for just one week in 2005. The DTI reverted
to its original name when its new title earned it the
nickname Dippy.
Meanwhile, the Department for Transport became the
Department for Environment, Transport and the Regions in
1997 and the Department for Transport, Local Government
and the Regions in 2001. It became the Department for
Transport again in 2002 after changes costing £50,000.
The Department for Social Security was changed to the
Department for Work and Pensions at a cost of £232,000.
The biggest expenditure was £1.5million for creating the
Ministry of Justice out of the Department for
Constitutional Affairs, formerly the Lord
Chancellors Department, and part of the old Home
Office. The costs came from moving staff, changing
letterheads and publicity material and updating websites.
(Source: Daily Express, Jun/07)
Capgemini,
the company involved in the bungled tax credits system,
has been rewarded with a £3.5 billion boost to its
contract. It will pocket £8 billion for providing
computer support to HM Revenue and Customs instead of the
£4.5 billion it had been expected to earn. Capgemini was
hired to supply the means-tested tax credits and manage
the Pay As You Earn scheme, self-assessment tax forms,
child benefit and child trust funds. But computer errors
resulted in billions of pounds of overpayments to
claimants.
In 2003/2004 and 2004/05, a third of all tax credit
awards were overpaid at a total cost of £4 billion. Some
£3 billion of has been written off and the Government
has conceded that losses are likely to carry on running
at £1.2 billion a year. With seven years left to go on
the company's-contract, experts warned that the IT bill
could rise still further. A Government spokesman said the
rising costs of the IT system was due to the need for
major new projects and the rising number of people
submitting their tax returns on-line. (Source: Mail on Sunday, Mar/07)
A £250,000
turnstile racket was uncovered at the Millennium Dome
when a supermarket trolley full of stolen cash was blown
over, scattering hundreds of £20 notes. And sacked Dome
chief Jenny Page sent out cheques of £100,000 a month to
firms who had not even bothered to send proper invoices
for work on the ill-fated project. Lord David James, who
was called in to sort out the Dome's finances after it
opened seven years ago, said, "One of the turnstile
operators was wheeling a trolley across a forecourt and
was hit by a gust of wind which turned it over. A plastic
sack on top of the trolley burst open blowing £2,000
worth of £20 notes everywhere." Lord James said
groups of turnstile operators had made up to £250,000
from a scam that went undetected at the Dome for eight
months because the Government refused to install CCTV
cameras to monitor ticket booths. He explained,
"When someone asked for a reduced rate family ticket
the operator recorded it as a more expensive ticket and
skimmed off the profit." (Source: Mail on Sunday, Mar/07)
A £2billion
project to fit Army Land Rovers with new radios is in
chaos because the equipment is so heavy it could cause
them to roll over and crash. Safety experts have slapped
a 40mph speed limit on vehicles fitted with the Bowman
radio system making them "totally unusable" in
a war zone. Military chiefs now face spending a fortune
modifying up to 10,000 Land Rovers to take the weight of
the "high-tech" system which replaces the old
and insecure Clansman radio.
Bungles by high ranking civil servants and officers have
already caused Bowman to be delayed by eight years at the
cost of troops' lives. Six Military Police murdered in
Iraq were unable to radio for help to nearby Paras
because they were using the unreliable old system. Now
Bowman faces further delays as experts decide whether to
make it lighter or the Land Rovers sturdier.
A senior military source said, "This is a huge cock
up. Armoured Land Rovers are in constant use wherever the
Army go. A 40mph limit is laughable. You have to have the
ability to drive yourself out of trouble in somewhere
like Basra, and that means going as fast as you
can." The Ministry of Defence said, "Troop
safety is of prime importance which is why there is a
40mph limit."
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