New report finds £120 billion of taxpayer money was wasted by the state in just one year.
£120 billion – enough to wipe out the current budget deficit - was wasted by the Government on ‘useless projects’ and unecessary spending during 2011-2012, according to new research.
The TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) uncovered the high levels of excess using official statistics, independent reports and media coverage to create a catalogue it calls the Bumper Book of Government Waste. It highlights hundreds of high- and low-level spending cases where public money is being squandered.
The low-tax pressure group claimed that if the £120 billion wasted by bureaucrats and politicians was put back into taxpayers’ pockets it would leave each household in the UK £4,500 better off and would probably be spent more wisely and productively for the economy.
The report puts forward a number of simple reforms to save cash “without closing a single hospital, firing a single teacher or disbanding a single regiment”.
Biggest wasters
Public sector pay and pensions were identified as the number one area of excess.
The TPA reckons £53 billion could have been saved on the total £171 billion public sector bill. The pressure group estimates that public sector workers are overpaid on pay and pensions by 31% compared to private sector workers and suggests pushing through pension reforms, tackling excessive senior pay and enforcing pay freezes to make savings.
Elsewhere the NHS was also responsible for a large chunk of the £120 billion-worth of 'waste'.
Unused prescriptions (£150 million), missed hospital appointments (£660 million), using locum doctors (£660 million) and branded heart medication (£200 million) stretched the public purse unnecessarily between 2011 and 2012. But the biggest wastes incurred by the NHS according to the report was for clinical negligence (£1.2 billion) and sick days (£972 million).
The average private sector worker takes 6.4 sick days a year, while public sector workers have on average 9.7 sick days. But NHS workers were found to have 10.7 days off sick a year. The cost of NHS sickness to the taxpayer is £3.5 billion. The TPA believes that once the high-risk nature of the job is taken into account only 7.4 sick days should be the average for healthcare workers.
The TPA identified some easy savings in its catalogue of waste. £5 billion could be saved by stopping universal benefits like free TV licenses and Winter Fuel Payments for households that have incomes above £100,000. The pressure group also argued that £2.94 billion of savings could be made by scrapping the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills as well as the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and passing on essential functions to other departments.
Lavish spending
Apart from the big ticket spending, the TaxPayers’ Alliance found more than 300 "small but ludicrous examples of wasteful spending in the public sector".
Cotswold Council for example was found to have spent £19,000 on a motivational magician to boost staff morale, while Durham Council spent £12,000 on a clothing allowance to allow councillors to wear “Geordie Armani”.
The arts and culture bill to taxpayers was also lavish. Manchester Council spent £425,000 on an Alicia Keys concert while the Arts Council gave a £95,000 grant to artists in Brighton for "Skip", a rubbish dumpster framed with yellow lights.
Elsewhere some departments just weren’t very money savvy. The Ministry of Defence spent £22 on light bulbs that normally cost 65p while Hampshire Council splashed out on £1.25 billion-worth of designer furniture to kit out new offices.
[SPOTLIGHT]General Government had a £3 million biscuit bill and £2.3 million was spent by Parliament on subsidising restaurants, bars and cafes for members of the House of Lords.
Some money decisions just didn’t make sense. The Scottish Government spent £4 million on hiring a private PR firm – despite already hiring dozens of in-house communications staff. And a £1.4 million taxi contract for Edinburgh civil servants was signed, despite staff being told to use buses.
Other cases were just laughable. East Sussex Council paid £2,000 to an employee who “sustained injury whilst moving a laptop” and Waltham Forest Council spent £15,000 prosecuting a woman for giving away unwanted cardboard boxes to a passer-by. She was accused of illegally disposing of business waste.
Making a change
The Cabinet Office’s Efficiency and Reform Group has made significant savings since the last General Election. From 2009-2010 a total of £3.75 billion was saved, during 2011-2012 the office managed £5.5 billion and last year the savings reached £10 billion.
But compared to what is being wasted it's just not enough.
The TPA says that other countries like Canada have successfully healed their economy by cracking down on excessive public spending. The group doesn’t see why the UK can’t do it too.
The key, according to Andrew Allum Chairman & Co Founder of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, is to take more care with public funds. He said: “STOP wasting this money, do things professionally and responsibly and with at least the prudence you would feel for spending your own money.”
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