How civil servants blow OUR money
Discussion
From the Evening Standard tonight....
I am speechless with rage....
How civil servants blow our money
By Isabel Oakeshott Political Correspondent, Evening Standard
26 January 2005
The huge sums spent on luxuries for civil servants are laid bare today.
Ministers are racking up multi-million-pound bills on treats for their mandarins. The list includes first-class travel, satellite television, gyms and glossy magazines.
Ministers are also spending tens of millions every year sprucing up their offices. The scale of the spending has triggered an outcry among MPs, who believe many of the expenses are unnecessary. Tory MP George Osborne has tabled more than 250 written parliamentary questions about Whitehall spending.
Yesterday, the Evening Standard told how Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott ran up a bill of almost £50,000 on plants for his offices. Now the huge bill for other marginal goods and services can be revealed.
The Northern Ireland Office spent more than £78,000 on newspapers and magazine subscriptions including, bizarrely, House and Garden, Homes and Exteriors and Country Homes. The Department of Constitutional
Affairs takes periodicals including Bookseller and Caterer and Hotelkeeper, running up an annual bill of more than £63,000.
Several departments have satellite TV subscriptions, with the Department of Culture, Media and Sport splashing out more than £31,000 a year for channels showing top sporting fixtures. The Cabinet Office has six pay-TV subscriptions, costing £6,104 a year.
Mr Osborne said: "Whitehall seems to have a very cavalier attitude to spending other people's money. The old adage that if you look after the pennies, the pounds will look after themselves is true. The waste on little things like magazines and periodicals gives an insight into the scale of waste." More than £7 million was spent on firstclass travel last year by the Department for Work and Pensions.
Civil servants from the Department of Health say most of their £5.4 million bill went on journeys between London and their offices in Leeds. Ministers insist no rules have been broken.
By far the biggest expenses are for office refurbishments. The Cabinet Office has spent more than £104million doing up its buildings since Labour came to power in 1997, while the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has splashed out more than £62million over just four years.
Many departments spend millions buying - or simply hiring - new furniture. Over the last three years, the Department of Health's bill for office furniture has totalled almost £5 million.
Despite the vast sums already spent, many departments are planning even more lavish programmes this year and next. The Foreign Office, which has spent £86million on refurbishments since 1997, is planning to spend another £5.7 million this year, and £9.1 million next year.
A spokeswoman for the Cabinet Office, which is responsible for Civil Service affairs, could not explain why so many government offices needed doing up every year. She said: "It is up to individual departments to make those sorts of decisions." Other Yes, Minister-style luxuries revealed include staff gyms - with Mr Prescott's office spending £82,000 moving a fitness suite from one office to another - and snack machines, which cost about £1,000 a year per unit to hire.
These people should be ashamed of themselves. Leeching scum.
I've tempted to with-hold taxes.
I am speechless with rage....
How civil servants blow our money
By Isabel Oakeshott Political Correspondent, Evening Standard
26 January 2005
The huge sums spent on luxuries for civil servants are laid bare today.
Ministers are racking up multi-million-pound bills on treats for their mandarins. The list includes first-class travel, satellite television, gyms and glossy magazines.
Ministers are also spending tens of millions every year sprucing up their offices. The scale of the spending has triggered an outcry among MPs, who believe many of the expenses are unnecessary. Tory MP George Osborne has tabled more than 250 written parliamentary questions about Whitehall spending.
Yesterday, the Evening Standard told how Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott ran up a bill of almost £50,000 on plants for his offices. Now the huge bill for other marginal goods and services can be revealed.
The Northern Ireland Office spent more than £78,000 on newspapers and magazine subscriptions including, bizarrely, House and Garden, Homes and Exteriors and Country Homes. The Department of Constitutional
Affairs takes periodicals including Bookseller and Caterer and Hotelkeeper, running up an annual bill of more than £63,000.
Several departments have satellite TV subscriptions, with the Department of Culture, Media and Sport splashing out more than £31,000 a year for channels showing top sporting fixtures. The Cabinet Office has six pay-TV subscriptions, costing £6,104 a year.
Mr Osborne said: "Whitehall seems to have a very cavalier attitude to spending other people's money. The old adage that if you look after the pennies, the pounds will look after themselves is true. The waste on little things like magazines and periodicals gives an insight into the scale of waste." More than £7 million was spent on firstclass travel last year by the Department for Work and Pensions.
Civil servants from the Department of Health say most of their £5.4 million bill went on journeys between London and their offices in Leeds. Ministers insist no rules have been broken.
By far the biggest expenses are for office refurbishments. The Cabinet Office has spent more than £104million doing up its buildings since Labour came to power in 1997, while the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has splashed out more than £62million over just four years.
Many departments spend millions buying - or simply hiring - new furniture. Over the last three years, the Department of Health's bill for office furniture has totalled almost £5 million.
Despite the vast sums already spent, many departments are planning even more lavish programmes this year and next. The Foreign Office, which has spent £86million on refurbishments since 1997, is planning to spend another £5.7 million this year, and £9.1 million next year.
A spokeswoman for the Cabinet Office, which is responsible for Civil Service affairs, could not explain why so many government offices needed doing up every year. She said: "It is up to individual departments to make those sorts of decisions." Other Yes, Minister-style luxuries revealed include staff gyms - with Mr Prescott's office spending £82,000 moving a fitness suite from one office to another - and snack machines, which cost about £1,000 a year per unit to hire.
These people should be ashamed of themselves. Leeching scum.
I've tempted to with-hold taxes.
high. 
Someone should be held accountable for this 
thebluemonkey said:
I don't actually see any problem in the government spending this kind of money on things like flowers and magazines.
I do however have problems with increasing taxes and a country that doesn't work.
I find myself lost for words.
Flowers or clean hospitals, which would you choose?
wedge girl said:
I find myself lost for words.
Flowers or clean hospitals, which would you choose?
Obviously the clean hospitals, however the point that I was making was that this really is a bit of a non-entity as a news story and a fact. It has been happening for years and always will, what should be brought to the fore front are things like dirty hospitals, increases in stealth taxes, social security, and law and order. It's a great story for people to get all puffed up about but in the long run is not really of any consequence, dealing with minutia whilst the rest of the country falls apart around it is not going to do anyone any good.
Don't agree.
Waste like this ( and the arrogance that it implies ) illustrates how the CIVIL SERVANTS ( IE; PEOPLE SERVING YOU AND ME ) are failing us.
This country is dirty, increasingly inefficient in its public services, and possessed of a curious arrogance and laziness among the people who run it.
Waste like this shows just one facet of the state we are in.
Waste like this ( and the arrogance that it implies ) illustrates how the CIVIL SERVANTS ( IE; PEOPLE SERVING YOU AND ME ) are failing us.
This country is dirty, increasingly inefficient in its public services, and possessed of a curious arrogance and laziness among the people who run it.
Waste like this shows just one facet of the state we are in.
Now this is just ridiculous...
The department for Sport, keeping an eye on the sporting world? Hang them!
Whereas this...
...is just hilarious. I reckon Fatty Two-jags must get his driver to do his workouts for him.
Ahhh...makes more sense.
Evening Standard said:
Several departments have satellite TV subscriptions, with the Department of Culture, Media and Sport splashing out more than £31,000 a year for channels showing top sporting fixtures.
The department for Sport, keeping an eye on the sporting world? Hang them!
Whereas this...
Evening Standard said:
Other Yes, Minister-style luxuries revealed include staff gyms - with Mr Prescott's office spending £82,000 moving a fitness suite
...is just hilarious. I reckon Fatty Two-jags must get his driver to do his workouts for him.
Evening Standard said:
... and snack machines, which cost about £1,000 a year per unit to hire.
Ahhh...makes more sense.
toppstuff said:
Ministers insist no rules have been broken.
And this is the problem. The people who make and can change the rules write them to suit themselves and the only say you get in the matter is to put an 'x' next to one weasly politician's name or another every five years. No room for passengers on that gravy train...
Come back Guy Fawkes, all is forgiven.
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