£1 billion credit card spree by civil servants: How Whitehall mandarins spent your money on gourmet meals and fine wines
By Daniel Martin Daily Mail UK
The bill for 2012-2013 was four times that of 2002
It was no lower than in Labour’s last year in power even though the number of civil servants has fallen
The money spent on the cards would have paid for 52,000 new nurses
Officials signed off £927 on a single picture frame and £646 on a chair
Civil servants put £1.1billion on taxpayer-funded credit cards last year despite David Cameron’s pledge to curb their use.
More than 137,000 Whitehall officials, quangocrats and town hall chiefs used the cards to splash out on plush hotels, gourmet meals and fine wines.
The bill for 2012-2013 was four times that of 2002. It was also no lower than in Labour’s last year in power – even though the number of civil servants has fallen.
Home Office staff spent £1,655 staying at the luxury Hilton Rose Hall resort and spa in Jamaica’s Montego Bay
The money spent on the ‘government procurement cards’ would have paid for 52,000 new nurses.
Officials at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport signed off £927 on a single picture frame and the Planning Inspectorate spent £646 on a chair.
Home Office staff spent £1,655 on a stay at the luxury Hilton Rose Hall resort and spa in Jamaica’s Montego Bay.
Another £10,000 a month was spent by the Department for Education on a staff rewards scheme.
How officials spent your money
Margaret Hodge, chairman of the Commons public accounts committee, said: ‘We investigated this issue last year and were assured things were getting better.
‘The idea that people are drifting back into old habits is so depressing. Civil servants have got to start walking the walk and not just talking the talk on this.’
The senior Labour MP said the committee might probe the issue again.
Matthew Sinclair of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: ‘The Government pledged to reduce the amount spent using taxpayer-funded credit cards yet the bill still isn’t falling.
Margaret Hodge, chairman of the Commons public accounts committee, said people drifting back into old habits is depressing
‘These cards are a great way for taxpayers to scrutinise how their cash is spent but only if itemised bills are published, not just what the authorities want us to see.
‘It’s about time officials remembered who picks up the tab when they use the cards in luxury resorts or on extravagant picture frames.’
Mr Cameron made a high-profile pledge to crack down on the use of plastic just before the 2010 election – the year it emerged that more than £1billion a year was going on the cards.
In the leaders’ televised debate, he said: ‘Civil servants have been given credit cards, funded by the taxpayer, to go out and spend that on food and wine, and on other things, and that’s cost a billion pounds. Giving up waste would be good for our economy.’
Exactly what the money is being spent on is becoming harder to scrutinise.
Buying Solutions, the agency previously responsible for the charge cards, displayed charts and tables on its website but these are no longer available.
In April, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office spent £4,774 on alcohol in the United Arab Emirates – where drinking is illegal. The ‘beer, wine and liquor’ money was used for a ‘re-stock of Embassy drink store for use at official events’.
Last June, a damning report by the public accounts committee recommended a ban on buying alcohol on the cards and cutting back on five-star hotel bookings.
Mrs Hodge said: ‘The controls are not strict enough to deter and prevent inappropriate use.’
Yet despite this, £530 was later spent at the five-star Hyatt Regency in New Delhi in February – a hotel which boasts of its ‘benchmark of excellence for fine dining’.
The spending data also reveals the Department for Education used the card scheme to clock up £10,000 a month on shopping vouchers for staff. The ‘instant reward’ scheme was set up by DoE officials as an incentive for workers and operates through the love2reward.co.uk website.
Staff who work at the Home Office (pictured) splashed out on a stay at a luxury holiday in Jamaica
The data – revealed under a freedom of information request – showed departments even used the cards to pay each other, with the Cabinet Office sanctioning a £1,290 payment to the Environment Agency.
An explanation of the spend read: ‘Payment for CO2 emissions allowances, as required by the Government Carbon Reduction Commitment.’
The Cabinet Office also regularly paid out for chauffeur-driven cars for permanent secretary Ivan Rogers, the Prime Minister’s adviser on Europe and global issues.
In January alone the mandarin clocked up £6,922 in journeys courtesy of the Government Car and Despatch Agency.
And civil servants showed they were not afraid to pay for the smallest items on the cards.
In March an official at the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council paid for a £4.55 meal at Burger King while another spent £1.35 at Starbucks.
Chateau Petrus fine wine which civil servants spent taxpayers’ money on
Steak
Civil servants have been given credit cards, funded by the taxpayer, to go out and buy food and wine
The cards are issued to enable officials to buy ‘high volume, low value goods and services – from office supplies to taxi fares’.
But they also let holders directly buy flights, hotel accommodation, and business breakfasts and lunches as well as cover ‘entertainment’ costs.
Applicants can use vague headings such as ‘travel’, ‘subsistence’ and ‘other’.
The Government Procurement Service refused to disclose the departments with the largest spend under the scheme despite doing so in previous years.
Instead it boasted of savings in a series of web ‘case studies’ – including one where it trumpeted a £650,000 reduction in printer cartridge costs.
It failed to show the details of the millions of annual transactions. Many departments choose only to itemise spending at £500 or above and checks on the data.gov website shows many records are not regularly updated.
Research has shown that 94 per cent of transactions on the cards are below the £500 threshold.
The pitfalls of issuing the cards were highlighted in February when a £2,000 ‘fraudulent use of card reported’ showed up in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office data.
A month earlier ‘cloners’ were responsible for siphoning off a further £500, the data showed.
Last night a spokesman for the Cabinet Office said: ‘Procurement cards allow public sector workers to pay for low value items in a controlled, secure and efficient way – when used effectively, they save organisations money.
‘Since May 2010 we have tightened the controls on the use of cards and implemented new cross Whitehall standards, a taskforce to tackle fraud, and a group that monitors the spend and activity on cards.
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