Reform of the civil service is a hardy perennial in the garden of political issues. Groups campaign for it, parties discuss it, Governments promise it. But rarely does it actually happen, beyond tinkering at the edges, and the cycle inevitably repeats itself.

Yesterday Reform (cross-party think tank, and a leading voice in the call for structural changes in Government) sought to start that process off once more, with the launch of their critique of the Civil Service, 'Not Fit for Purpose'.

Following a decade or more of much publicised civil service failures (from major procurement projects to the Rural Payments Agency fiasco), Reform have cause enough to call for comprehensive and radical change. They may also be right about the timing too; with the inevitable fiscal constraints due to pinch the public sector budget, a Government may be more willing to consider it.

Identifying and dismissing the many myths that surround the civil service – such as its 'independence and 'impartiality' – Reform's report goes on to lay out five recommendations, with which to bring 'Britain's Civil Service into line with international best practice':

(1) Democratically elected politicians should have the power to appoint civil servants.
(2) The doctrine of Ministerial responsibility should be abolished … Ministers should be responsible for the strategic direction of policy and its communication. Officials should be personally responsible for the construction of policy and its resources.
(3) All Civil Service vacancies should be advertised openly. Discrimination in favour of "internal" over "external" candidates and the system of grades should be abolished.
(4) Civil servants need to act as if their every decision is open to scrutiny. Select committees should call a much greater range of officials for evidence.
(5) All political parties should make Civil Service reform a reality of their shared commitment to 'localism'.

(To read the full report click here)

Not withstanding the last of these (for neither party has shown any real commitment to localism, past its 'buzzword' attraction), the four other recommendations are probably good, sensible reforms which will probably improve the accountability and performance of some in the civil service. If implemented. And it is a truly huge 'if'. The Cabinet Minister Liam Byrne was there yesterday at the launch of the report, waxing lyrical about his and the Government's enthusiasm for reform, but the evidence of it is pretty thin on the ground. Beyond the cosmetic and the out-right unavoidable, this Government has not enacted any major civil service reform, nor looks likely too in the future.

What the report (and the panel yesterday) fails to mention are the enormous roadblocks in the way of reform; the unions. Government's are unwilling to waste political capital battling the Civil Service unions over reform, when the votes in it are few and far between. In fact the political risks to a Government probably outweigh the perceived gains. Hence the lack of reform in the past. Reform's paper successfully identifies the problems. But its failure to engage with the more critical issue of how Governments actually go about convincing the civil service that change is in its interest – or politicians that it is worth the risks in imposing on them regardless – probably dooms the report to being just another siren call in the endless cycle of 'civil service reform'.

Since Private Finance Initiatives (PFIs) were introduced by the Major government in 1992, they have been fraught with controversy. Despite promising to reduce costs and improve efficiency, projects have tended to go over budget and overtime.

PFI allows the Government to pay for the building – and often the running – of public sector projects over a long, defined period of time (usually 25 years). Private partners are found to finance the development upfront, in return for state payments overtime.

However as the taxpayer underwrites the risk in PFI contracts, they have frequently been called upon to bail out projects that falter or stall. Consider the billions committed to Metronet after they widely underestimated the costs of the London Underground redevelopment.

This sorry saga took a new turn today, with the Treasury’s announcement that the Treasury is to lend firms involved in PFI up to £2 billion through a new government ‘infrastructure bank’. Firms struggling to raise funds in the recession will now be able to seek loans from the government in order to fund and complete PFI projects. Projects such as the £1.45bn widening project for the M25 that are seen by the government as particuarly important will be the first to receive funding, while those less important, such as £711 million project for University Hospitals Leicester and a £600 scheme for Leeds Teaching Hospitals,will be abandoned or put on hold.

Despite arguments from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Yvette Cooper, that 110 PFI projects and £13 billion of public investment, along with jobs, would be safeguarded by the bail out, it is ironic that the initiatives which sought to relieve the Treasury of the financial burden of new infrastructure projects, are now forcing the government to implement new financial measures in order to protect them.

Current PFI repayments are squeezing an already tightly constricted public sector budget. Now, thanks to this new ‘infrastructure bank’, the British taxpayer will be landed with further debt to add to those of the recession and bank bailouts. As a consequence of the recent huge increase in government borrowing, British national debt at its highest level since 1978 and as a result the government will be forced to limit public expenditure and raise taxes in the future to the detriment of those schools and hospitals the PFI has sought to provide.

A National Audit Office report – ‘Helping Government Learn’ – was released today outlining the need for Government departments to learn from past failures. Several projects were noted for their success, but just as many were flagged up as cases where lessons had not been heeded.

For instance the implementation of Child Support reforms ran into serious trouble, and the Public Accounts Committee concluded at the time that the Department for Work and Pensions’ management had “showed a lack of realism in both planning and execution”. The department spent £91 million during 2001-2005 on outside help with implementing the reforms, which was clearly money wasted, and it is not clear that it has learnt from these mistakes.

The NHS IT project is another obvious culprit identified in the report. The perpetual lack of learning – the reports notes – has seen it run way over schedule and costs ballon to over £12 billion in cost. While some claim that it is still within budget, this is a convenient trick; budgets have been consistently scaled up to match anticipated costs. That is not, as the NAO report, good practice.

The failure of government to identify difficulties in their programmes, and a failure to share knowledge of good practice across departments, invariably burdens future projects with bad management and the attendant over-spending. In a report 3 years ago the Public Accounts Committee said that they were concerned about policy implementation and ‘the repetition of mistakes, even after the causes have been identified’. Indeed seven years before that the Government itself said:

“The public service must become a learning organisation. It needs to learn from its past successes and failures. It needs consistently to benchmark itself against the best wherever that is found”. White Paper Modernising Government (1999)

It seems few departments have taken this advice on board.

The Economist provided a helpful guide to Government education jargon last week, in their insert 'Translating eduspeak'. Here are just some of their insightful observations:

Satisfactory – One of the four possible judgements of the schools inspectorate (the other there are inadequate, good and outstanding). It means "unsatisfactory". ("Inadequate", for its part means "dire"). This explains the chief schools inspector's pronouncement that satisfactory schools are "not good enough".

Independent government commissioned review is one whose author is not a civil servant. The remit leaves little room for manoeuvre and the conclusions are wearily predictable. The purpose of such a review, by no means confined to education, is to provide cover for politicians to carry out what they were going to do anyway.

Politics and common sense rarely go hand in hand, and the current debate over Royal Mail is quickly becoming a prime example of this.

The Times reports today that Lord Mandelson – in desperate efforts to avoid a backbench rebellion – will promise to enshrine in primary legislation the public’s majority stake in Royal Mail. He will also make further concessions over pricing and regulation.

But the bill (which is to be published today) will still introduce significant reform to Royal Mail, allowing elements of the business to be privatised. Indeed it is unlikely that the proffered concessions will satisfy opponents of the reforms.

Why give the concessions at all then? Conservative support for the original bill gave it a good chance in becoming law (albeit with the future of the Royal Mail’s pension deficit still controversial). But this is politics, and it looks increasingly likely that the bill will become a classic piece of government fudge, pleasing no-one, failing to fix the problem and being almost entirely pointless. Both parties are guilty of this, and we have seen it with both hospital and school reform. The people who really lose out are those that use the service.

Lord Mandelson, Prime Minister Brown and other Cabinet colleagues – along with many Conservatives and almost the entire management of Royal Mail – have been convinced that privatisation is the only viable option to secure Royal Mail’s future. Last year it made record losses and ranked last in a list of 13 Western European operators in terms of profit margins. The recent Hooper report into the future of postal services recommended whole-scale reform. Mandelson, in response to the report, promised ‘gale force change’. Once again though, we are only going to see a weak breeze.

Of course any steps towards privatisation of the Royal Mail are welcome. And not just because it will satisfy some ideological pursuit, trimming down the state and limiting the number of burdens carried by the taxpayer. Rather it is because will probably mean a much better deal for consumers (about whom I have heard very little in the current debate). Politicians who seem so resentful of bailing out the banks seem quite fine with the yearly Government bail outs necessary to keep Royal Mail afloat. Royal Mail clearly supports the ‘right’ kind of jobs.

Opponents of reform play to the public’s natural sympathies, with horror stories of shuttered up regional Post Offices and thousands of jobs lost. Jobs no doubt will be lost through privatisation. Some post offices probably will close. But this is happening already, and without major reform this will continue. And for no real gain.

Union leaders also make much of the fact that users of those postal services that have been liberalised and privatised around the world, invariably see a change in service. In this they are right. What is missing from the observation though is that in the majority of cases (particularly in Europe, where they have occasionally embraced full privatisation) the postal service has improved. For consumers that is. Workforces do shrink, buildings do close, but costs drop and delivery rate improve. Nowhere has found a magic formula, but in both Germany and the Netherlands services improved following total privatisation and the end of direct Government involvement. In both countries a monopolistic provider remained (Deutsche-post in the former, TNT in the latter) following privatisation, just it would here. But with a different set of incentives, efficiencies were found and innovation introduced. In Germany they have established a ‘travelling post office’ for the more quiet rural areas, travelling around a prescribed area and offering customers the services they enjoyed at their local branch, including some banking services right on their door step. 95 per cent of letters posted in Germany (to a German address) are delivered the next day. 99 per cent of all mail is delivered within two days. And that is all post, not just ‘special delivery’. It is not cheaper, but considering the rises in UK stamps, it is not much more expensive either.

If nothing else we should consider the improvements that have been made to those services that have been subject to ‘gale force change’ in the UK. British Telecom (BT) is most like Royal Mail in that it has a monopoly on the network needed to deliver mail to your door, on in BT’s case your phone. Following privitisation it increased its output per person and profitability by over 100%. It is a world class company, even if many of us find it a frustrating provider. Similar improvement came to British Gas, BAA and British Coal. And importantly this wasn’t just through ‘liberalisation’. Postal services in the UK are already liberalised; they have to be under EU rules. But the retention of the Royal Mail in public ownership means taxpayers are liable to bail it out again and again in the future. It is unlikely to see the improvements that are possible. In short, we all pay more for less. Some will point to the railways as an example of how privatisation doesn’t always work. But in fact railway ‘privatisation’ resembled the ‘half-in half-out’ muddle that we see emerging over Royal Mail much more than BT reform. Moreover the issues involved were (and are) on an entirely different order of complexity (infrastructure, competition, etc). So if we want to avoid the problems of the railways creeping into our postal services, we need to avoid this increasingly unappealing fudge over Royal Mail.

In our struggle with Kent Country Council, the Information Commissioner has ruled in favour of the TaxPayers' Alliance.

Some background: In putting together the Town Hall Rich List 2008, we asked all the councils in the UK to provide details of those employees earning over £100,000. Many councils, appreciating that there is a clear public interest in – and right to know – what Town Hall executives are paid, replied swiftly and properly, providing us with the information we had requested.

Some councils were more reluctant though, and that reluctance tended to correlate closely with the remuneration of their top executives; those who paid massive salaries were much less keen to reveal them. Kent County Council – who had 14 people earning over £100,000 in 2006-07, one of whom earned over £240,000 – refused to provide any details. Citing the repercussions which had befallen their fabulously well remunerated Chief Executive last year following the publication of his pay the previous year – apparently people said things to him in the street – Kent withheld all the information requested (even after an appeal). This turned out to be a mistake, as their refusal generated quite a media storm.

The case with the Information Commissioner: Dissatisfied with the lack of information we lodged an appeal with the Information Commissioner (ICO) almost exactly a year ago (28th February 2008). As the ICO is overstretched and underfunded, the case took almost a year to process. But last month the ICO gave its Preliminary View, upholding our right to the names and positions of those individuals earning over £100,000 in 2006-07. It ruled that exact remuneration figures could be withheld on personal data grounds, but that tight bands (£10,000) must be given next to the named individuals. Kent County Council have been instructed to now provide us with the requested information. We await the arrival of that letter with interest.

New ICO guidance for all public bodies: No doubt stimulated in no small way by the TPA's campaign for more openness and transparency, the ICO has now published explicit guidance to deal with the revealing of public sector salaries. Brought out only yesterday, the guidance stresses that public bodies (including local authorities) should provide requested salaries (as long as they are attached to someone significantly senior enough) as a matter of routine, in bands of £5,000. Names and positions should not be withheld unless there is a legitimate concern over the privacy of the individual; people knowing roughly what you earn is not an invasion of privacy if you are responsible for spending millions in taxpayers' money.

It does not go as far as we would like, and unfortunately it does not address many of the problems that exist with the Freedom of Information Act in this respect. However it is a step towards greater transparency, one which we broadly welcome, and one which are proud to have had some part in bringing about. 

It has been a busy week for education correspondents. From Professor Smith's outspoken criticism of the Government's new science diplomas, to news that Ed Ball's 'National Challenge' scheme is nothing more than empty words, the Government Departments responsible for education have been much in the news. Here is a round up of the good, bad and ugly.

Education policy attack sparks row over standards (Telegraph, 13 February 2009)

Last week Professor Smith – the senior civil servant in charge of science teaching in England – told a public audience that the Government's new science diplomas were 'schizophrenic' , trying to achieving conflicting aims. He went on to assert that in core subjects there was a serious shortage of teachers anyway, and that adding further curriculum burdens was unwise. It was an unequivocal condemnation of Government policy; a condemnation which (no doubt after some strong words from his political masters) he has since apologised for. What he is exactly apologising for his unclear (he has not disavowed what he previously said, only that he regretted saying it) but either way his first statement has encouraged educationalists from all sectors to step up and voice their concern about education policy. Alan Smithers, professor of education at Buckingham University, who is
carrying out an on-going review of school physics, said: "It is great that
someone in his position has finally spoken out.

Cash plan to rescue schools 'is a sham' (Guardian, 16 February 2009) 

Last year, in a bluster of bravado and press releases, Ed Balls (Secretary of State at the DCSF) named and shamed over 600 'failing' schools, and threatened closure if results were not turned around. To enable the improvement over £400 million was promised to these 'National Challenge' schools.

However the head teachers of these schools have now come out in protest at the relatively small sums made available so far. They claim the amounts 'paled in comparison with the damage triggered by the National Challenge campaign.' Some have received just over £5,000, with the average award being £87,000. 

An education policy of smoke and mirrors (Telegraph, 13 February 2009)

Martin Stephens, Headmaster at St Pauls, gives a damning critique of Labour's education policy.

New fears over dumbing down of key exams (Observer, 15 February 2009)

"In a candid and startling admission, the organisation set up by the
government to maintain exam standards has admitted it is unsure about
how to prevent A-level and GCSE exams becoming easier…"

In minutes from a board meeting between Ofqual (exams regulator) and the Qualification and Curriculim Authority, the head of Ofqual expressed concern over the move to new 'modular' GCSE's and A-Levels. There is concern that as pupils will be able to retake the modules throughout the year, grades will be inflated.

There is a conspiracy to deny our children the vital lesson of failure (Sunday Times, 15 February 2009)

Chris Woodhead, former Chief Inspector of Schools, outlines the deplorable (Government sponsored) push away from competitive, challenging education towards 'no-one can fail' learning.

University applications rise by 8% as recession bites (Times, 16 February 2009)

The number of people applying for university has increased by an average of 8% in recent months, compared to this time last year. The recession and increasing unemployment is seen as the main cause for this jump. But in what would be good news in other circumstances, concern has been voiced in all quarters about the cap imposed by central Government on the number of available places. Moreover the poor handling of university funding by the Department for Innovation, University and Skills is likely to lead to serious squeezes on University budgets.

Bonuses for staff on over-budget school rebuilding programme (Times, 16 February 2009)

As the British economy begun its painful descent last year, Gordon Brown rebutted claims that he had failed to save in the good years with the proud boast that Labour had 'fixed the roofs of schools and hospitals' while the sun shone. Schools have seen comendable investment towards improving their buildings, but it has emerged recently that the body set up to run the Building Schools for the Future Programme is not only running serious delays and cost over-runs, but it is also planning on rewarding this failure with serious bonuses.

"Widely thought to be failing students and contributing to the nation's high levels of crime and  unemployment, schools had become smothered by a large and inefficient bureaucracy. Decision makers were removed from the consequences of their choices. Teachers – whose pay was divorced completely from performance – rationally made decisions in their own best interests, rather than those of their pupils." 

The UK today? While it might well be a description of contemporary British state education, the exert actually describes mid 1980's New Zealand. Education policy had got so rotten in the country – notes the Mercatus Centre report – that by 1986 a third of all New Zealand children left school with no diploma or qualification. A centralised bureaucracy consumed seven out of every ten dollars spent on education, and the central Department for Education had become so monolithic and intrusive that it even determined how many scissors were allowed in each school.

Last year 98.6 per cent of English children left school with at least one qualification. Total spending on the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) – so excluding higher education – was £60 billion last year, with schools seeing over half of that. Despite a love of centralised planning, DCSF does not yet decide how many scissors should be allowed in England's schools. How then can we compare the situation in 1980's New Zealand with modern Britain?

At one level the answer lies in looking past the headline statistics. 98.6 per cent of English children may leave school with a qualification, but that only means a child has obtained a single GSCE or equivalent – potentially at a C grade – so it's not a meaningful guide to the health of English education. In 2008 only 52 per cent of pupils attained level 2 in functional English and maths (see DCSF stats); 28 per cent of 7-11 year olds are considered below 'average'.

Universities are increasingly vocal in their disregard for new A-level subjects (such as media studies, whose introduction into the curriculum has helped give the impression of overall educational improvement), and increasingly open in their preference for 'real' subjects (maths, history). Business now frequently laments the general quality of candidates coming out of English schools; while qualified on paper, bosses find too many new employees functionally illiterate and innumerate. Add to all this the admission by exam boards that exams are getting easier to pass (which is distinguishable from easier per se), and the regulators recent admission that it cannot ensure that standards are being maintained, who can doubt that there are serious problems with English state education. Many do though, wilfully ignoring all the evidence, and thus allowing DCSF to fiddle while Rome burns down around it.

Conceding there is a problem, and admitting that that problem has something to do with the way education is provided as much as the 'social and economic' background of children, is not an abandonment or criticism of teachers. The vast majority of teachers are excellent, dedicated public servants who do extraordinary work. Nor is admitting there is problem equivalent to "wanting to scrap state education". The current system is not the only way taxpayer funded education can be organised. Too few are ready to admit that.

In New Zealand the Government had conceded by the mid-1980's that bureaucratic reforms had not worked. In a bold, progressive move, the Labour government brought in market orientated reformers to redesign the management structure for schools. Over the next decade state education was systematically turned – with occasional steps backwards – towards a more teacher / pupil lead system, with far greater independence for schools. The intention was never to privatise New Zealand's schools, but rather to arrest a growing number of problems. Compromises had to be made along the way, and some reforms were later undone.

But the moves away from government control has, without question, improved state education in New Zealand. Parents now have school choice, and the system gets high approval ratings. By 1989 the number of pupils leaving school without a quailification had fallen below 17 per cent (from 30 per cent before 1986). Unlike England, New Zealand now climbs up international rankings, outperforming OECD averages on all metrics.  The current New Zealand system is not perfect, and arguably more
radical reform (such as those originally intended) would have delivered
better outcomes. The important thing though is that New Zealand admitted that there was a problem, and it conceeded that it could not be fixed by government bureacratic fiddles. The answer lay in school freedom, parental choice, less government control and increased competition. In England we face similiar problems to New Zealand's; we would be wise to take note of what they did to fix them. 

Today, Harry Phibbs, on ConservativeHome, posted a list of 100 ways to cut the Council Tax without cutting services.  The options include ideas for cost-cutting from advertising to street lighting to libraries.  It is great to see such realistic and reasonable ideas laid out.

We need to see these kinds of ideas put into practice in councils around the country.  They offer a great opportunity for local councils to show their constituents that they are keeping their best interests in mind.  As taxpayers' cash is having to stretch thinner and thinner in the recession, they need local authorities to keep costs as low as possible.  And yet, too few councils have succeeded in (or tried) reducing the burden on our pocketbooks.

As many of the ideas in Harry Phibbs' blog came from councils that are already cutting costs, he is also right to encourage others to follow suit and come up with their own ideas.  If you have any thoughts, contribute to the post with your own thoughts and suggestions.  Or better yet, send them, along with your favorites from Harry Phibbs' list, to your local councillors.

Until recently there were three roughly distinct sectors to the UK economy; the public, the private and the Orwellian sounding 'third' (consisting of charities and other non-profit groups). Political enthusiasm for out-sourcing services, the financial crisis and a current taste for bail-outs have, over time, come to blur the lines between these sectors. Indeed all of them now share an identical trait; they are all increasingly reliant on taxpayer funding.

It is a depressing reflection of our current circumstances that both so many banks and charities have to rely on taxpayers; many of the former can no longer make any money, many of the latter just can't raise it. Regardless of the reasons, the taxpayer has now stepped in to prop up both, with Government announcing last week that it would help charities with financial assistance of over £42 million. This is on top of the outstanding third sector commitments the Government has made over recent years, in its push to get it involved in the provision of public services.

While the amounts given to the banking industry and the third sector are not remotely comparable, the Government's involvement in all parts of British society is now firmly entrenched. To a greater or lesser extent, the future of the private, public and third sectors now rests in the state's hands. Unfortunately though, past experience tells us that those are clumsy hands indeed. The private sector understands efficiency and productivity, whereas those are still just aspirations in the public sector. The third sector knows that radical strategies are needed to help those most in need, while the public sector is still hamstrung by obsessions with targets and 'fairness'.

There are excellent people in all parts of the public sector, but as a whole it leaves much to be desired; waste, inefficiency and poor performance are endemic. So it is in all our interests to prevent the private and third sectors slipping into the grip of the state. Business will not be able to pick itself up if it is tied down with politically motivated prescriptions. Charities will lose sight of what it is they were set up to do if they become overly reliant on handouts from the taxpayer.

Today the Telegraph reports that nine out of ten parents want to see the SATs system scrapped:

"More than 85 per cent said exams for 11-year-olds should be abolished, said the study. The majority want them to be replaced by a system of teacher assessment – when staff judge pupil performance by checking their work through the year. It will pile pressure on the Government to drop the controversial tests, which are taken by 600,000 pupils in England every year."

We need an education system where parents can do more than express their distaste for SATs in a national survey. If parents were given control of the education system, by allowing them to choose between different competing schools, then they could make sure SATs are scrapped by refusing to send their children to a school which ran the exams.  They wouldn't be left waiting for the government to catch up.

• First Whitehall-wide report on flights spending reveals that last year a total of over £18.5 million was spent on flights by Government departments.
• More than half – £10.6 million – went on first class and business class seats.
• The total bill for public sector flights, including quangos and other bodies, is almost £70 million a year.
• The Department of Transport is unable to say how much it spends on air travel.

Download the full report (PDF).

New research from the TaxPayers' Alliance reveals that despite Government rhetoric about cost efficiency and reducing carbon emissions, 13 Whitehall departments spent over £18.5 million last year on air travel. The report, compiled using the Freedom of Information Act and Parliamentary Questions, also uncovers the fact that the majority of Whitehall's spending on flights goes on first class and business class tickets, paid for at taxpayers' expense. Previous attempts to obtain data on Whitehall flights spending, through MPs' questions or official requests, have been regularly rebuffed, and the only previous estimates have been back-calculated from Government carbon offsetting statistics.
 
Seven other departments failed or even refused to provide information about their air travel expenditure, and have even failed to provide this information in response to Parliamentary questions. It is remarkable that they are so untransparent. Given their responsibility to monitor the cost and environmental impact of their travel, it is remarkable that they apparently do not keep easily accessible records on this activity. In particular, departments such as the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which are likely to travel a lot, and the Department of Transport, which has a special interest in the issue, should be monitoring and publishing this information as a matter of course.

Key Findings

• In 2007-08 13 out of the 20 Government Departments spent over £18.5 million on air travel, slightly down from the £20 million in 2006-07. Total public sector spending on air travel is likely to be over £70 million, according to the Office of Government Commerce.

• Of the 2007-08 total, £10.6 million went on business and first class flights. In 2006-07, the spend on business and first class seats was £11.5 million.

• Ministers travelled overseas 429 times in 2007-08. These trips (including the cost of flights and accommodation for ministers and their officials) cost the taxpayer £3.3 million.

• The Department for International Development was the biggest flyer among those studied, spending over £6.8 million in both 2006-07 and 2007-08.

• The Department for Work and Pensions was the second biggest spender, with officials taking at least 18,230 flights in 2007-08, at a cost of over £3.3 million. The Pensions Agency alone took 5,617 flights, at a cost of £1.1 million.

• Brussels, Luxembourg and Washington were the top overseas destinations in both years, and the majority of flights were to either Europe or the USA. In total, Ministers visited over 60 countries in 2007-08.

• The RAF and No 32 (the Royal) Squadron carried Ministers and officials over 50 times. The vast majority of the total bill went on standard scheduled flights.

Ben Farrugia, a Policy Analyst at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said:

"Departments need to be doing all they can to limit their expensive air travel. These figures show that too much is being spent on business class seats, and many departments are making unnecessary journeys abroad. With better management money could be saved. Flying should always be the last option, not the first."