Brown has failed to crack down on fat cat bureaucrats

The Evening Standard reports the irony that the Government's spending watchdog Sir John Bourn has racked up £27,000 on eating out (as well as receiving hospitality from big firms) and £365,000 on travelling (i.e. first class travel with his wife to exotic locations) - all in the last three years. He's the man responsible for investigating waste and extravagence in Whitehall. Good work if you can get it.

New research released by the Conservatives today shows that the number of senior civil servants like Bourn has grown by almost forty per cent from 2000, to 2007. Senior bureaucrats now cost the taxpayer a staggering £250 million in salary costs alone.  Theresa May, the Shadow Leader of the House of Commons, commented on the statistics:

“As Chancellor, Gordon Brown commissioned Sir Peter Gershon to make government more efficient.  He said he would deliver a gross reduction in civil service posts of 84,150.  But these figures show that this was just classic Brown spin – more of the same old politics. On Gordon Brown’s watch, there have been more than a hundred tax increases, central government has been getting bigger and bigger – but we’ve seen little improvement in public services. Whatever Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling claim, it is clear that they are not the change the country needs.”

Comments

[Tony Makara]

The Labour instinct of creating layer upon layer of bureaucracy leads to the gravy-train lifestyle that John Bourn has enjoyed at the expense of the hard-working taxpayer. Incredible that this man has eaten his way through 27,000 pounds worth of food. Was this man dining at the Ritz everynight? Plus another 365,000 on travel, this is obscene! I beg the future Conservative government to end this gravy-train culture.

[1AM]

I agree that we need a better level of public servants, but paying peanuts will only get monkeys...

The people who reach the top of the civil service in some cases could be working in the city as partners in a law firm, or private equity bosses. In some cases they shouldn't run a whelk stall. The problem is surely unrestructured public services... Not high salaries for seniror civil servants per se.

(And compared with, for example, the average top 20 law firms average partner package, the pay is quite shabby.)

[Dick Wishart]

I'm surprised that ANYONE is surprised by this.

[Henry Mayhew - Ukipper]

I could do without this Theresa May press release. She doesn't sound like the change we need either.