Understanding the age old
expression of "if you tell a lie often enough, it eventually becomes
accepted as the truth", one can well see, why David Cameron might have
felt his nose being put a little bit out of joint by the unexpected involvement
of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, in the
on-going benefits debate. Obviously no-one wants to be accused of forcing people
into destitution, poverty or social want, especially if you're a political
leader who hopes to be re-elected for a second term of office, so it is hardly
a surprise that Mr Cameron has tried to manage the Archbishop's public
criticisms by pointing out that the man leading the changes, the "quiet
man" of British politics, Iain Duncan Smith, is also a Roman Catholic, so
he couldn't possibly be horrible to poor people, as he shares the same faith as
the Archbishop himself; and such nastiness is not allowed. Also, the Prime
Minister has tried to deflect some of the same criticism by suggesting that his
Coalition government's Welfare program is more of a moral, almost spiritual
campaign, one that the poor will undoubtedly thank him for in the end, or at
least when the economy has turned around, the deficit has been sufficiently
diminished and the national debt has been ruthlessly reduced. Although Mr
Cameron defends the Archbishop's right to disagree, as far as the Prime
Minister is concerned, the clergyman is wrong; and he, as the leader of our
country's political elite is right; and if that requires some degree of
suffering to be borne by the poorest in society, then so be it!
Of course, in normal
circumstances and if everything was as it's purported to be, in terms of the
country's finances, then one could very easily sympathise with Mr Cameron's
position and indeed his opinion, that the country is fundamentally broke; and
government needs to take a vice like grip on the national finances, if we're
ever going to extricate ourselves from the fiscal hole that we currently find
ourselves in.
However, things are very rarely
as simple or as straightforward as they first appear, especially when it comes
to either politics or money; and having spent a little bit of time reading the
Taxpayer Alliance's Big Book of Government Waste, a truly eye-opening
publication, any thoughts that this particular government has been extremely
careful with the public purse, in light of our nation's parlous financial
situation, were very quickly dispelled. The sheer level of financial wastefulness
and public loss highlighted by this report would leave no-one in any doubt that
many of our nation's woes are not so much due to the relatively small numbers
of semi-professional shirkers and skivers who infest our national Welfare
system, but is largely the result of incompetent and crooked politician's, in
both local and national government, who abuse the public purse, like a chronic
alcoholic abuses a bottle of liquor.
However, in order to create a
point of reference and comparison for the amounts of monies wasted by
government, it is necessary to repeat some facts and figures regarding the
Benefit system that have previously been used in an earlier blog post. As so
much political capital is made by attacking benefit recipients in the UK, it is
perhaps appropriate to use some welfare figures garnered for the period 2011 to
2012, the first full year that David Cameron's Coalition government were in
office.
For the period 2011-2012 the
total Welfare Bill in the UK amounted to some £160.2 billion, which comprised
State Pensions of £74.2 billion (46.3%), Housing Benefits of £16.9 billion
(10.6%), Disability Living Allowance of £12.6 billion (7.9%), Pension Credits
of £8.1 billion (5.1%), Income Support of £6.9 billion (4.3%), Rent Rebates of
£5.5 billion (3.4%), Attendance Allowance of £5.3 billion (3.3%), Jobseekers
Allowance of £4.9 billion (3.1%), Incapacity Benefit of £4.9 billion (3.1%),
Council Tax Benefits of £4.8 billion (3.0%), Other Expenditure of £4.7 billion
(3.0%), Employment & Support Allowance of £3.6 billion (2.3%), Sickness
& Maternity Payments of £2.5 billion (1.5%), Social Fund Payments of £2.4
billion (1.5%), Carers Allowance of £1.7 billion (1.0%) and Financial
Assistance Scheme Payments of £1.2 billion (0.8%).
Interestingly perhaps, the
figures that follow, taken from the Taxpayer Alliance's Big Book of Government Waste, also relate to the same period of time, 2011 to 2012, the first full
year of the Coalition's term of office, so clearly some form of direct
comparison can be made between the two sets of figures.
According to the Taxpayer's
Alliance own figures in the full year 2011 to 2012 the Coalition government was
calculated to have wasted something in the region of £120 billion of taxpayers
money, which by their reckoning amounted to around £4500 per household in the
UK, or to be seen another way, sufficient to eradicate the country's entire
national deficit, thus removing the need for some of the most severe austerity
measures that have subsequently been put in place. Just as a matter of
comparison, the monies saved by cutting out such waste, as in the £120 billion
calculated by the Taxpayers Alliance equates to 75% of the entire Benefit bill
for that same period.
Within that estimated £120
billion of waste, the TPA calculate that some £53 billion exists as a result of
overpayments on Public Sector pay and pensions, simply because Public Sector
workers are generally paid 8% more than their Private Sector counterparts, even
though they're often doing the same sort of jobs, working similar hours and
enjoy similar levels of entitlements. At the same time, Public Sector fraud is
thought to cost the public purse something in the region of £20 billion per
year. Inefficient public procurement is thought to cost an additional £15 billion,
while poor use of available resources and bad choices in outsourcing is
estimated to cost taxpayers an extra £10 billion, monies which are all being
spent often because those with their fingers on the public purse strings are
either crooked, or incompetent.
An estimated £5 billion per year
is thought to be paid to wealthier families with an annual income in excess of
£100,000 per year; and who probably have no need of additional benefits, but
receive them all the same. In 2011, the Royal Bank of Scotland's losses were
estimated to have cost taxpayers around £2 billion, monies that would not have
been required had the bank been put back into the private sector. Additionally,
the sale of Northern Rock to Virgin money was said to have cost the British taxpayer
in the region of £2 billion, given the costs of rescuing it, against the amount
raised from selling it back into the market.
The government's Department for
Business, Innovation and Skills, run by Vince Cable, is reported to cost
taxpayers approximately £2 billion, when some sources suggest that simply
scrapping the department and integrating its role within other government
agencies would be just as effective, if not more so, considering that some of
its fiercest critics accuse it of hampering new businesses, rather than helping
them. Similarly, it has been calculated that simply closing the Department for
Culture, Media and Sport would save the British taxpayer about £0.9 billion per
year.
It has been estimated that
improvements in procurement within the Ministry of Defence could save the
government in the region of £1.5 billion per year; and avoiding project
overruns could save a further £0.5 billion, while negligence within the NHS is
said to cost the service around £1.2 billion a year, although the total
provision set aside within the NHS as a whole is reported to be as high as
£17.5 billion. Staff sickness rates within the NHS are calculated to be well
above industry norms; and as a result are thought to cost the public purse
something in the region of £0.9 billion per year, while between them missed
hospital appointments and replacement locum services cost the NHS something
like £1.2 billion per year.
Between 2007 and 2013, on average
British taxpayers were subsidising foreign farmers to the tune of £7.1 billion,
which equates to around £1.2 billion per year. Educational gadgets, such as
Notepads, Tablets and Whiteboards are said to cost the government around £0.5
billion per year, even though according to the educational charity, Nesta,
there is not definitive proof that they actually improve educational
attainment. The accidental or deliberate loss of military equipment, including
tanks and their recovery vehicles is said to amount to £0.5 billion per year,
while simply making better use of existing facilities would save an estimated
£0.27 billion; and better co-ordination of utility company works a further
£0.22 billion.
Clearly, some of these figures
are huge numbers; and whilst they help convey the scale of the problem
regarding government waste, in just one year, they probably fail to properly
illustrate the sheer level of wastefulness and misappropriation that takes
place on an almost daily basis within different government departments and
various council chambers. By way of examples, the Taxpayer Alliance's Big Book
of Government Waste rather helpfully made a list of some of the most striking
cases, some of which are repeated below;
The Arts Council spending £2.7
million to simply rent their Arts Council Headquarters building, while a further
£2.5 million of public money was spent painting the sides of inter-continental
vehicles, promoting Lincolnshire's Fenland throughout the rest of continental
Europe. A further £1 million was spent by the Arts Council to commission a
"Helicopter Opera", as a means of celebrating the Olympic Games in
2012.
However, that was pocket change
compared to the £98 million spent by the BBC on its Digital Media Initiative,
that was subsequently dropped in May 2013; joining the other £80 million loss,
suffered by the corporation, when it sold Lonely Planet. Some £6.5 million of
Licence Fee payers money was also spent relocating 550 staff to the BBC's new
headquarters in Salford; and don't even ask about the cost of the taxi fares
that the BBC has subsequently racked up ferrying its various guests and
presenters up and down the length of the country.
An estimated £62 million of cost
overruns were said to have resulted from Cambridgeshire's guided bus way, while
councils throughout the country were reported to have spent around £20 million
between them on translation services that they had no legal requirement to
provide. £8.7 million was spent by 65 councils on "Green" jobs,
presumably environmental compliance officers or similar, although the cost did
not include any of the subsequent literature, or associated publicity
information that almost inevitable accompany such posts.
A reported £8 million was spent
by East and West Midlands Councils, paying suspended workers, 78 of whom were
said to have been suspended for more than a 12 month period. £23 million was
paid out by various London councils for Public Relations materials, which were
thought to have included free newspapers and newsletters.
The Department for International
Development was reported to have spent £22.7 million on bailing out a number of
debt laden, state owned businesses in Bangladesh, while another DfID scheme in
the same country, a £21.2 million project to maintain the country's roads was
subsequently suspended after it emerged that only about 10% of the money
provided by the UK was actually being spent on the roads themselves, the
remainder being diverted elsewhere. According to other expenses records,
another DfID scheme, costing an estimated £13.1 million, was intended to train
1700 Civil Servants to develop and deliver pro-poor policies and practices in
their home country. It later emerged that the annual salary for each of these
workers was estimated to be £600, so clearly the project was intended to be a
long term one.
Other government departments are
equally as bad. The Department for Transport was said to have spent, or more
accurately lost around £50 million due to the mismanagement and subsequent
cancellation of the West Coast Rail Franchise competition. Some £4 million is
reportedly spent on Disability benefits for a number of people who are morbidly
obese, while in another Welfare related case, an estimated £4 million was lost
after a Ugandan benefit claimant invented one hundred fictional children,
multiple identities and claimed that they were suffering from HIV/Aids, in
order to gain access to vital medicines that they normally wouldn't have been
entitled to.
The Department of Health was
reported to have paid £5 million bringing in a "hit squad" to a
number of London's NHS hospitals, in order to help them save money. Elsewhere
in the NHS, an estimated £85 million was spent on weight loss surgeries during
2011/12, whilst a further £84 million was spent on a national "Stop
Smoking" service, even though the vast majority of smokers returned to the
habit very soon afterwards, if they gave up at all. Another £80 million was
said to have been spent on prescribing Vitamin D within the NHS, with one
instance mentioned of a £16 treatment being charged at £2400. Additionally, NHS
Dental Fraud is thought to be costing the service around £70 million per year,
whilst a further £67 million is being paid as a subsidy to pharmacists for what
are often ineffective medicines. £40 million is thought to be lost through NHS
Health Tourism, £27 million spent on providing specialist foods to patients,
many of which are often available from the high street and at far cheaper
rates, while another £25 million is thought to be spent providing specialist
equipment for those who are morbidly obese in their own homes, with this cost
not actually including their actual healthcare, which is extra.
Unhappily, the list provided by
the Taxpayers Alliance of the waste within government goes on, and on, and on;
all of it simply helping to prove that because its public money, provided by
the taxpayers of the country, very little thought seems to be given to its
security, let alone how it's spent, or even attempting to achieve any sort of
value for money. Contrast this though with David Cameron's defence of his own
government's welfare cuts, because cuts are what they represent, when benefits
payments are irrevocably eroded by a rising cost of living; and yet he still
persists in attempting to make the case that "we're all in this
together", that everyone is feeling the pinch, that every government
department is having to tighten its proverbial belt, or that every bit of waste
is being drawn out of every part of his government. If he truly believes that,
then quite honestly it is little wonder that billions of pounds of taxpayers
money is being wasted each and every year; and with such delusional characters
in charge of the country's finances, it can hardly bode well for any of our
futures. That being the case I fully expect that the Taxpayers Alliance will
continue to be producing Big Books of Government Waste for many years to
come.
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