Cuts to services but still rampant Government waste

[Anna B]

The taxpayers alliance has identified government waste that could save £120 Billion - enough to effectively wipe out the Uk's budget defecit, without closing a single hospital, firing a single teacher, or disbanding a single regiment.

 

Some examples:

 

Arts council paying £95,000 for an art instalation consisting of a skip covered in yellow lights.

 

Ministry of defence paying £22 for light bulbs that cost 65p.

 

£19,000 spent on a 'motivational magician' to boost staff morale.

 

£40,000 spent by Hull council on a concert to honour the new Lord Mayor.

 

£21 million spent by the dept. for International Development on a road project in Bangladesh that had to be pulled.

 

£720,000 paid by HM Prison Service to professional actors for role play to help inmates.

 

£330,000 spent by Stoke council on redundancy packages and then rehiring 25 members of staff.

 

£5,070 spent on hot drinks vending machines, when the equivalent number of tea backs would have cost £200.

 

(Source; the annual 'Big bumper book Government waste')

 

The list is endless. Why do we put up with it?

[Mecky]

I doubt it's got anything to do with saving money and everything to do with the shuffling of cash from services and people the government deems unworthy, i.e. the poor, to their already wealthy friends. With increased borrowing at record levels and all these cuts restraining economic growth, just where is all the money going?

[Longcol]

I see they claim £10 billion could be saved by outsourcing more public sector jobs to the likes of G4S

 

Lol - I see they are going to ensure no hospital appointments are ever missed - that whiteboards in schools are a waste of money.

 

This is Tea Party stuff.

[MrSmith]

The taxpayers alliance has identified government waste that could save £120 Billion - enough to effectively wipe out the Uk's budget defecit, without closing a single hospital, firing a single teacher, or disbanding a single regiment.

 

Some examples:

 

Arts council paying £95,000 for an art instalation consisting of a skip covered in yellow lights.

 

Ministry of defence paying £22 for light bulbs that cost 65p.

 

£19,000 spent on a 'motivational magician' to boost staff morale.

 

£40,000 spent by Hull council on a concert to honour the new Lord Mayor.

 

£21 million spent by the dept. for International Development on a road project in Bangladesh that had to be pulled.

 

£720,000 paid by HM Prison Service to professional actors for role play to help inmates.

 

£330,000 spent by Stoke council on redundancy packages and then rehiring 25 members of staff.

 

£5,070 spent on hot drinks vending machines, when the equivalent number of tea backs would have cost £200.

 

(Source; the annual 'Big bumper book Government waste')

 

The list is endless. Why do we put up with it?

 

The reality is that about 3 millions public sector jobs depend on this waste.

[El Cid]

The reality is that about 3 millions public sector jobs depend on this waste.

 

If you take the whole private sector, surely you wet the same things?

 

£22 for light bulbs that cost 65p

 

Any location away from the towns and cities; how much would it cost to change a light bulb in the Outer Hebrides?

[dosxuk]

How about some other examples:

BBC - £30,000 - Spent on food for employees at Wimbledon in 2011 Works out at less than £10/day/person

Cardiff Council - £500,000 - Estimated cost to taxpayers for crisis at Danescourt Primary School due to suspension of four teachers/resulting investigations.

Cumbria Council - £3,500 - Spent on road signs deemed “unnecessary” deemed by who?

Department for Work and Pensions - £5000 - Amount claimed in benefits by woman who failed to tell DWP of £95,000 won in the gameshow Deal or no Deal How exactly is this the fault of Government?

Department for Work and Pensions - £100,000 - Paid to former DWP employee, claiming blindness and inability to work, who was found driving and working as builder Again, hardly DWP's fault. In fact, almost £250k in the list is from people committing benefit fraud

East Sussex Council - £57,750 - Paid to claimant who was injured by “defective equipment in bathroom” Maybe they should have fixed the equipment? But from the surrounding items, this is actually a complaint about East Sussex Council paying out H&S claims

 

That's enough for now. There's an awful lots of stuff in their list of savings which either the government has no control over, or provide a benefit to the country other than the immediate cost.

[Longcol]

Interesting I was tracking a parcel we'd sent from work the other day. It was collected from Sheffield, went to Leeds for processing, then to Nottingham for sorting, then back to Leeds for distribution, before finally being sent on to Hull.

 

If a public sector organisation had done this I'm sure it would instantly be labelled "inefficient" and "waste".

[Happ Hazzard]

WHY can't BBC employees at Wimbledon buy their own food?

[taxman]

Interesting I was tracking a parcel we'd sent from work the other day. It was collected from Sheffield, went to Leeds for processing, then to Nottingham for sorting, then back to Leeds for distribution, before finally being sent on to Hull.

 

If a public sector organisation had done this I'm sure it would instantly be labelled "inefficient" and "waste".

 

If you were to send me a letter from Sheffield to my work address it would go to Glasgow where it would be opened and sorted before being sent back down to Sheffield.

 

Other items of post for Sheffield are routinely sorted in Shipley or sent to Netherton for scanning.

 

It was meant to cut down on waste by getting rid of local mail sorting processes. No doubt it has saved money, but at the cost of late and lost post.

[dosxuk]

WHY can't BBC employees at Wimbledon buy their own food?

 

Many outside broadcasts have crew catering. Main reasons are:

 

- Time - you only have limited breaks, and if you have to walk half a mile and then queue up behind 100 people to get a bit of grub, then people won't be done in time to get back to work.

 

- Cost - food at sporting events is expensive, aimed at the punters, not the people working there. Staff at the venues will have canteens / staff rooms / lockers where they can store and eat food during their breaks. Crew working in the back of some lorries don't have those facilities, so generally can't bring in their own stuff. Further, if they were expected to buy their own food, they would charge it back to the BBC on expenses.

 

- Availability - You might be working from 8am till 11pm, and the only food on site will be available when the venue is open, say 10am till 8pm.

 

 

Finally, just because the BBC is paying for it, don't imagine it's high quality expensive posh nosh. I've had lots of crew catering over the years, and it ranges from acceptable to poor. I've heard people rave about a meal because it's actually been cooked all the way through. Think school canteen rather than wedding buffet. Plus you normally end up eating out of a polystyrene container, huddled in the back of an artic trying to keep out of the rain.