TAXPAYERS MONEY

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The bill for management consultants in the public sector has risen by 23% in a year, to £3 billion. Ministers brought in McKinsey & Co to review the entire NHS structure which resulted in the Department of Health receiving a £1.27 million bill from the company for 2005-06. KPMG said NHS trusts could be charged from £100,000 up to “several million pounds” for helping a hospital to tackle its financial problems.

Accenture and other IT consultants are receiving a slice of the £15 billion cost of the NHS computer system, Connecting for Health. The bill for consultants in Whitehall dropped by almost half, to £544 million in 2005, but spending in local government went up 16%, from £229 million to £266 million, while expenditure by the Ministry of Defence rose from £144 million to £210 million. (Source: Times Online, May/06)

British diplomats in Iraq are to get new fortress-style HQs which will cost taxpayers £20 million. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told MPs that nearly £11.5 million will be spent during 2006 and 2007 on a new, heavily-guarded British Embassy complex in Baghdad. Another £9 million will go on a consulate in Basra in the south. Britain's Foreign Office also intends to spend £5.6 million on a make-over of its own headquarters in London's King Charles Street, another £250,000 will go on a creche and new luxury homes for ambassadors in Albania and Slovenia will cost £1.2 million and £1.5 million respectively. You still can't find an NHS dentist here though! (Source: The People, Jan/06)

Cabinet Ministers were accused of using taxpayer-funded RAF flights as personal taxis, taking detours of hundreds of miles so they could be dropped near their homes after official business abroad. The Mail on Sunday revealed that Ministers have exploited an extraordinary perk that allows them to order the Queen's Flight to take them to an airport close to their constituencies. The 'door-to-door' service means Ministers can avoid the inconvenience of taking a train or Government car from the squadron's base in Northolt, West London, to their homes in the regions. While it makes it possible for them to begin work in the constituency straight away, each diversion that requires the four engined BAe 146 jets to make an extra take-off and landing costs the taxpayer hundreds of pounds in extra fuel.

Figures released by the Ministry of Defence reveal that Ministers ordered RAF crews to make special journeys 37 times during the past three years. The MoD refused to say which Ministers had exploited the perk but the figures reveal Tony Blair, Chancellor Gordon Brown, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon and Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett have been the most regular users of RAF jets for foreign engagements. Each has a home outside London, in the Midlands, North of England or Scotland. Conservative MP Chris Grayling said, "This seems to be yet another abuse of public funds by Ministers. They are obviously using the Queen's Flight to hitch a ride home. It is really not good enough to have a Government that regards RAF flights, paid for by the taxpayer, as its own personal taxi service." Something the Tories would never do!

A brand new fleet of RAF Chinook helicopters which cost the taxpayer £250m may have to be broken up and used as spares because of the botched way the Ministry of Defence bought them. The Commons Public Accounts Committee describes the purchase of the eight Chinooks from Boeing in 2001 as "one of the worst acquisitions" it has ever seen by any government department. The helicopters cannot be flown because the MoD is unable to determine whether they are safe. It has now written down their value to just £45m to reflect the amount the taxpayer could recoup if they were cannibalised and used as spares for other helicopters in the fleet.

The MoD's inability to fly the Chinooks has also widened the "alarming gap" between the number of helicopters Britain's armed forces need and those available, says the committee. It says the shortfall is anywhere between 20% and 38% depending on how it is measured. Edward Leigh, the Conservative chairman of the committee, said, "It is simply disgraceful that the MoD has spent a quarter of a billion of taxpayers' money on the botched procurement of eight Chinook helicopters that cannot be flown because the MoD can't determine if they're safe." The problem has arisen because the MoD cannot validate the software codes used by Boeing in the helicopters' avionics system and flight controls. The US company is not prepared to release these for security reasons.

The MoD has been unable to say who within the ministry was responsible for the flawed procurement of the Chinooks, prompting the MPs to comment, "No one seems accountable when things go wrong." They say that the MoD failed to implement suggestions in previous reports into botched military equipment programmes that all aspects of a project should be accounted for by a single named individual who would act as "owner" of the project. According to the MPs, the MoD has decided not to fill the gap in the Joint Helicopter Command's fleet. "This will potentially increase risks, including the risk of overstretching equipment and pilots," Mr Leigh said. (Source: The Independent)

Six men walked free after a fraud case costing £60m and lasting 21 months collapsed at London's Old Bailey. The men were accused of conspiring to corrupt public officials and gain insider information on a £2bn extension to London Underground's Jubilee Line. Problems with the jury forced the trial to be abandoned, the prosecution said. Attorney general Lord Goldsmith has announced an inquiry into the trial, pre-empting renewed calls for such cases to be tried without a jury. Lord Goldsmith said he expected "great public disquiet" over the case and said it should "never be allowed to happen again".

The accusations of corruption centred on a surveying company called RWS, owned by two of the defendants, Stephen Rayment and Mark Woodward-Smith. They were accused of bribing London Underground officials to disclose information which they then used to secure multi-million pound contracts on the Jubilee Line extension. The pair, both quantity surveyors, and the other four men had denied all of the charges from the outset. Anthony Upward, QC for the prosecution, requested the trial be discontinued because the evidence was no longer a "living story" and had lost its "immediacy and impact".

The trial has been beset by illness, with defence counsel, jurors and defendant Mr Skinner all having time off. The jury had also been reduced, one juror becoming pregnant and another being arrested for benefit fraud. The British Transport Police (BTP), which initiated the investigation, said it stood by the decision to pursue the prosecution. "The factors that have led to the trial being halted now were beyond our control," the BTP said in a statement. "The British Transport Police is satisfied that it was in the public interest to pursue the investigation and prosecution."

Taxpayers are forking out £689-a-year each to keep jobless families in free homes. Housing benefit payouts almost doubled under Labour, from £11billion in 1997 to £20bn last year. The huge sum is more than three times the amount we spend on pay and pensions for all of Britain's armed forces. More than 4.8million households, including large families of refugees, are now cashing in on the housing benefits bonanza. Around 1,000 get at least £800 a week, often on top of other handouts, and many live in huge houses.

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said the system had spiralled out of control. He pointed out those with big homes paid for by housing benefits were discouraged from getting jobs. Vowing to bring the bill down, he declared, "There is no decency in a benefit system which traps people into unemployment and poverty, whilst at the same time bankrupting the nation." From April, there will be a £400-a-week cap on the benefit, with a ban on the provision of homes with more than four bedrooms.

Official stats obtained by the News of the World show 1,070 households are pocketing at least twice that amount - the equivalent of paying a £600,000 mortgage. And there has been outrage over cases of large families getting up to £2,000 a week, including Afghan single mum Toorpakai Saiedi and her seven kids, given a £1.2m property by Ealing council in West London. Mr Duncan Smith claimed that without the cap, the total cost would have hit £25bn by 2016. He insisted he was determined to bring the cost down even further. (Source: News of the World, Sep/10)