The Adam Smith Institute has released a report this morning on High Speed 2. What they think about the project is summed neatly by the title of the paper: High Speed Fail. It’s yet another voice added to a growing body that believes the project is flawed.

Alongside the TPA are groups like the Green Party, the Countryside Alliance and the RAC Foundation. Other think-tanks in Westminster like the Institute of Economic Affairs – and now the Adam Smith Institute – also have voiced their concerns. The Economist newspaper had a special editorial and feature on how the project won’t bring the benefits that it’s supposed to.

The groups are opposed to the scheme for different reasons, too. We have raised concerns about the business case, the job creation claims and the potential hidden costs of the scheme. The Green Party have questioned the environmental credentials of the project. The RAC Foundation feel that HS2 won’t do anything to ease congestion on existing roads, which are used by the majority of Britons to get to work in the morning. They also feel that HS2’s cost-benefit ratio is not as strong as other projects. The Countryside Alliance has concerns about the impact of installing a brand new line through the heart of the Countryside. And The Economist questions whether HS2 will correct regional disparities, as is claimed. Indeed, the newspaper believes they could be exacerbated.

Today’s report by the ASI worries that HS2 will be considered a Government liability by debt markets, at a time when Britain’s net interest payments are rapidly increasing. It also says that the chances of a worthwhile commercial return are slim. With this report, the ASI join those that have concluded that the Government has not put forward a persuasive case for the project at all. It should be scrapped at the next available opportunity.

At the end of last year, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) appointed Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti as the UK’s Climate and Energy Security Envoy.

It is important to note that this doesn’t appear to be his only duty, he seems to have a real job too.  But it clearly takes up a substantial part of his time and you may ask what climate change has to do with the MoD, and why it feels the need to appoint a Rear Admiral to such a role. During an interview to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, this is what he had to say:

I think we – the reason we think that the implications of climate change have broadened from just environmental, socio-economic and political is that we’re beginning to recognise – and this is on a global basis – that the – not the physical changes that occur with climate change, but the second and third-order consequences, the result of rising temperatures, sea levels, increased acidity of the ocean is that we’re seeing the potential for loss of land, of loss of livelihood for people.

And that, on top of all the other stresses they’re facing, many of them related to resources, food, energy, water, etc., has the potential to increase the likelihood of conflict. So, climate change isn’t necessarily something that’s going to start a conflict on its own, but it is what I would call a threat multiplier or a catalyst of conflict.

I still can’t see what he and presumably his team are going to do. If there is conflict as the result of a water shortage, which Rear Admiral Morisetti mentions later in this interview, how is he going to prevent it? What does he do all day? Talk to governments about potential threats they already know about? Rising temperatures (and indeed falling temperatures) are not something that happen overnight. No-one predicted the earthquake in Japan earlier this year, which has contributed to energy supply problems there.

Later in the interview he talks about Afghanistan:

One of the challenges we have to look at, for example, is operating in Afghanistan, where we’re dependent on convoys to bring our fuel in from Karachi through to our operating bases and a lot of that convoy’s taken up with carrying the fuel.

So we’ve been looking at ways at which we can reduce our dependency on fuel by being more energy efficient, optimising the way we operate our equipment, perhaps changing our behaviour in circumstances whilst still being able to deliver the operational capabilities that we need.

Adapting to the new challenges facing our armed services is of course important work. No-one is going to dispute that, but surely there are already people inside the MoD who are trying to use fuel more efficiently? Is a Rear Admiral acting as a Climate and Energy Security Envoy – i.e. tasked with engaging with others outside the military – really the right person to get involved in that kind of operational planning?

There are already pressing problems around the world for a man with his experience to deal with. Pirates off the coast of Somalia are regularly hijacking vessels. Wouldn’t his time be better spent concentrating on immediate problems like these, rather than talking to politicians and think tanks about the importance of climate change?

In the face of angry protests outside Shire Hall, Cambridgeshire County councillors have voted themselves a massive 25 per cent pay rise. According to a review panel, councillors were ‘undervalued’ on their existing allowances and a rise to £9,500 was needed to allow ‘local democracy to prosper’. Council Leader Nick Clarke will be even better off. From £29,246, he will now take home £38,000 a year with his ‘special responsibility allowance.’

Councillors cannot justify these increases, especially at a time of supposed public spending restraint.

The total increase in spending is not small. Conservative-majority Cambridgeshire County Council (CCC) has 69 local representatives, and with extra payments made to Cabinet members, leaders and spokesmen of all parties, the total amount set aside for allowances will rise by £166,000 to £929,000 a year.

Put into context, CCC is trying to make £161 million of necessary spending cuts over the next five years. Politicians will not convince voters of the importance of savings if they cut with one hand and feather their own nest with the other.

Councillors have explained away their pay hike as the recommendation of an independent review panel, a public-spirited attempt to attract candidates of more diverse backgrounds into local politics. Of course, councils should make it attractive for ordinary people to become councillors. But while other council workers are facing redundancy, largesse for elected officials is unjustifiable.

Instead Cambridgeshire councillors should follow the lead of their chief executive, Mark Lloyd, who took a voluntary 5 per cent pay cut in July. Although he still earns an excessive £186,167, he was right to lead from the front.

From a blog he wrote about Mark Lloyd’s voluntary pay cut, Council Leader Nick Clarke knows the weakness of his own position:

‘One of the most important characteristics of a really good leader, I’ve always felt, is the ability to lead by example.

And when residents are finding life tough, and tightening their belts because money is tight, council’s [sic] can’t be out of step with what the people who pay for services are experiencing.’

Given these comments, Nick Clarke will no doubt forego his extra £9,000, and Cambridgeshire councillors will reverse this pay hike at the earliest possible moment.

The latest in a series of investigations by the Daily Telegraph into public bodies’ use of credit cards exposes the bills run up by local authority chief executives across the UK. Earlier this year we led the campaign to uncover huge amounts being spent by Whitehall civil servants racking up million pound credit card bills, and have exposed similar waste at many of Britain’s biggest quangos.

The findings show that town hall bosses spent £2.6million on luxury perks using corporate credit cards, including concerts, sport events, dining at Michelin-starred restaurants, tailored clothing and fine whiskies. Council chief executives themselves have expenses tens of thousands of pounds, despite many enjoying six-figure salaries, and at a time when councils need to make all of the savings they can.

Some of the biggest expenses claims were from Colin Carmichael, chief executive of Canterbury Council (salary £135,000), who claimed expenses totalling £18,181; Tim Shields, the chief executive of Hackney council (£203,376), claimed £34,186; Andrew Taylor, chief executive of Lincoln City Council (£149,445), claimed £11,403; and John Foster, chief executive of Islington Council (£210,000), claimed £14,815.

Here are just a few of their claims:

•  The chief executive of Hackney council spent £6,000 on flights to the 2008 Beijing Olympics for “training” to which he flew business class.

• Colin Hilton, former chief executive at Liverpool City council, spent £1,152 taking colleagues to a sold out Coldplay concert.

• Andrew Taylor, chief executive of Lincoln City Council charged more than £4,000 to his card for flights to Beijing, Frankfurt and Krakow for his assistant, the mayor and his wife. Other items he charged for included £2.17 mini-bar bill and a cash withdrawal of £362.77 which was classified as “unidentified expenditure” when asked by the Telegraph.

Of course many chief executives use corporate credit cards to expense small work-related items, and this is often the most cost effective means of doing so. But evidence suggests that, in practice, taxpayers are footing the bill for much more.

Some of the other favourite destinations include the luxury Dorchester Hotel in London; the Hotel Gray D’Albion in Cannes; the Hard Day’s Night, a Beatles themed hotel in Liverpool; trips to the world renowned Belfry Golf Course; a five star spa in Cardiff Bay; and Lushy Beg, a private 75-acre island.

Many of the items claimed for have little relevance and questionable benefit to the residents council bosses work for. Council chief executives already receive more than substantial salaries that, if they feel they need to stay in luxury hotels, mean they could easily pay for it themselves. This sentiment was echoed by an unidentified chief executive of a UK local authority who said:

“If I spend any money for work I just get it reimbursed but champagne lunches and first class travel is shocking. Chief executives incur costs in their jobs but we are paid well and you should not exploit that. No-one expects a chief executive to stay in a fleapit, but there is a big difference between the Dorchester and a fleapit.”

Unsurprisingly, the LGA has leapt to councils’ defence. They claim:

“It is part and parcel of the job that they have to travel to meet top people from the public and private sectors, and this can involve stays in hotels and the proportionate use of hospitality.”

But they completely miss the point. No-one is claiming council chief executives won’t incur reasonable expenses while carrying out their day jobs, but it is unacceptable for taxpayers to pick up the bill for visits to the Dorchester and luxury restaurants that many can only dream of. Such a staunch defence of irresponsible spending suggests the LGA doesn’t care about the interests of taxpayers or residents. If councils were transparent, residents could decide whether they agree with this sort of spending. The LGA claim that the spending is “properly audited and transparent”, but if it weren’t for newspapers like the Telegraph and bodies like ourselves, such waste would go unnoticed.

While they are one of the more cost-effective means of paying for items, corporate credit cards are inadequately monitored. Far too many dubious claims slip through the net and must be brought under control. If chief executives had to pay for the items up-front and then wait before being reimbursed, the number of lavish claims would almost certainly fall considerably.

Procurement cards were supposed to improve this more inefficient system of claiming expenses, but our research, along with the Telegraph’s inquiry, shows that this system needs to be tightened up to stop taxpayers picking up the bill for unnecessary luxuries.

The Ministry of Justice has spent £5.4 million to ensure prisoners can watch digital television on 42 inch plasma screens. A Freedom of Information request has revealed the extent of just some of the excesses of Justice Secretary Ken Clarke’s department.

The news has already been criticised by Mark Freeman, Deputy General Secretary of the Prison Officers Association. He said it was “shameful so much money has been wasted on upgrading the television system in prisons”. The priorities of the Ministry of Justice must be questioned. Taxpayers would rather see their cash funding prison places, especially with prison numbers at a record high in England and Wales.

Recently it was revealed that inmates in Wales are to claim that access to Sky Sports 2 and 3 is a human right – a claim that was rebutted by our Campaign Director Emma Boon on BBC Radio Humberside last month. The Ministry of Justice’s budget is coming under greater scrutiny, so excessive spending on entertainment for inmates cannot continue.

Inmates are in prisons because they have committed crimes. Prisons are there to punish criminals, not entertain them. It can’t be right to give prisoners a whole range of channels to watch on a large plasma screen, especially when taxpayers across the country cannot afford such luxuries themselves. While prison must help rehabilitate offenders, it should not be a place to enjoy things that law-abiding people can’t always afford. Digital television on big screens isn’t likely to cut reoffending rates, but it will leave taxpayers with a large, unwelcome bill.

A Freedom of Information request has revealed that Stoke-on-Trent City Council made 25 members of its staff redundant and offered them a total of £330,000 in severance pay, only to then rehire the workers into different positions approximately a month later.

At a time when most councils are finding savings and making redundancies where they can, it is absurd that a single council could dish out so much of taxpayers’ money only to reassign the workers new roles a short time later.

The revelation is rightfully being blasted as “scandalously wasting vital taxpayers’ cash”. A justifiable criticism, as £330,000 could have been saved by simply moving the redundant employees to different departments straight away instead of creating cost and admin work around making them redundant and paying huge amounts for a month of missed work. Considering a cuts package of £36 million will be required from the authority that, according to Councillor Dave Conway, is “down to its bare knuckles already”, this looks like a massive misuse of funds.

Taxpayers will wonder why HR were unaware there were other roles that departing staff could fill that were about to open up at the council. Sadly, redundancies are likely to be the way to achieve at least part of the savings that Stoke-on-Trent has to make, but the redistribution of the workers within the council should have been the first and most obvious step before redundancies were considered. By skipping it, the workers were given large amounts of taxpayers’ money – effectively giving them a holiday at the taxpayers’ expense.

£330,000 isn’t about to make a significant dent in the national debt, but one wonders where the council’s priorities lie when it is looking at cuts to funding in educational support for deaf children. Helping deaf children seems far more admirable than offering generous redundancy packages to someone who can be hired back a month later.

We’re not talking about a year-long hiatus either. One employee was reemployed at the council just 27 days after his redundancy, and two more waited only 32 days, according to the Staffordshire Sentinel. Further, the notion that these public servants accepted the payments as they walked out the front door only to later come back in through the back door with a new title is offensive and a blatant waste of taxpayers’ funds.

On 29 September, the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) announced the final Code of Recommended Practice for Local Authorities on Data Transparency. In a written statement to the House of Commons, Eric Pickles said:

The code of practice calls on local authorities such as councils and fire and rescue services to shine a light on every part of their business, from employees’ salaries over £58,200 and details of all their contracts and tenders to details of grants to voluntary organisations, spending data and the locations of public land and building assets.

More transparency in local government is great news for taxpayers, although a London council could learn a thing or two about it. I say ‘a London council’ because I don’t which one, as it is using the recruitment agency Morgan Hunt to advertise, of all things, a Governance Officer – Openness and Transparency!

Perhaps the first action of the new Openness and Transparency Officer will be to make sure all jobs at the unnamed council are advertised in an open and transparent way!

The accolade this week though goes to Lambeth Council. Lambeth wishes to employ an Energy Efficiency Manager, paying between £40506 – £43152 per annum. Now, energy efficiency is, of course, a good thing. With energy bills rising dramatically, we are all looking for ways to reduce our energy consumption and councils should not be the exception.

I am sure many of you who have worked in offices will have seen stickers next to light switches reminding you to switch off the lights if they are not needed. These days we also have things like smart meters that tell us exactly how much energy we are consuming. If you have seen one in action you will know that as soon as you switch on a kettle, the energy consumption rises. It doesn’t stop me making a cup of tea, but I know exactly which appliances at home use the most electricity, and if I can find ways of using those appliances less I will save money.

Councils can reduce energy consumption by doing the same. If you are about to go into a meeting for a couple of hours, does your computer still need to be switched on? It may have been dark when you started working this morning, but do the lights still need to be switched on? Letting council workers see how much energy they are consuming will result in a reduction of energy consumption, as happened at Windsor and Maidenhead Council.

In a report last year we highlighted how councils reacted differently to government legislation. Although all councils have to reduce the amount of CO2 emissions, there are councils who manage to do it without creating mini-departments like Lambeth do.

By adopting simple strategies that we all use at home, councils can dramatically reduce their CO2 emissions and save taxpayers’ money.

In April last year, Sir Norman Bettison, the chief constable of West Yorkshire Police said he was paid too much. His basic salary was £163K a year, but when other perks and pension contributions were added his total remuneration package was worth £213K.

In an interview he said “the best leaders are those who can secure long term public value and a vision for their staff. Not some mercenary performance manager peddling a short-term fix”. He went on to say, “My old dad, who was made redundant in the steel industry upheaval of the 1980s, wouldn’t have been able to comprehend it.”

Mr Bettison was praised for his honesty, and I remember being interviewed by BBC Look North at the time agreeing with his sentiments, and saying how important it is that those at the top set a good example.

In an interview for Radio 5 Live, the outgoing chief constable of South Yorkshire Police had something different to say. Med Hughes was apparently concerned that there will not be the right calibre of people putting themselves forward for the role of police and crime commissioner. “I’ve seen decisions recently in my police authority by, perhaps, ambitious councillors who want to be that person, which show their lack of vision for the role.” he said.

When asked to give an example, he admitted the following was almost the most trivial one. South Yorkshire Police paid £1000 a month to lease an Audi A8 for the chief. The deputy chief constable (who is now acting chief constable), two assistant chief constables, and the finance director are each provided with a BMW at our expense. The police authority has decided to scrap these perks. Apparently, this now makes the role of South Yorkshire’s Chief Constable the worst paid in the country. The basic salary is £148K per annum, although when you add on pension contributions, the total remuneration is much higher.

Because of this ‘low’ salary, the job of chief constable has had to be re-advertised again, as initially there were only two applicants.

I am not going to say leading a police force is an easy job, and the person who does it should not be well paid, but at a time when we are all tightening our belts, is it really unreasonable to ask senior police officers to give up their company car? A salary of £148K is not much lower than Sir Norman Bettison’s £163K. You want a chief who is going to lead because they want to make a difference; because they relish the challenge of the job. Although the pay in South Yorkshire is lower than comparable jobs elsewhere in the country, the cost of living is also lower.

The difference between Sir Norman Bettison and Med Hughes is stark. One admits we all face challenging economic times ahead, and the other seems to think senior police officers shouldn’t shoulder any of the pain themselves.

I’m not going to tar all senior police officers with the same brush, as I know the vast majority are dedicated, hard working people. If the reason you don’t want to apply for a job that you have been working hard all your life to get is because you won’t have an all expenses paid Audi A8, however, and your basic salary is a few thousand pounds lower than the neighbouring chief constable, then something is seriously wrong.

It’s been revealed that parents of children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) can qualify for a free car under the £1.5 billion taxpayer-funded Motability scheme. Paid for by the mobility component of the £12 billion-a-year Disability Living Allowance (DLA), Motability is meant to help people with severe walking difficulties, and allows claimants to directly channel their mobility payments into a new car purchase.

So why are ADHD kids eligible? Creative interpretation of the eligibility requirements might mean they need ‘supervision most of the time from another person when walking out of doors in unfamiliar places’. Or perhaps they would ‘be at risk if they tried to walk’? Taxpayers will be outraged that a condition like ADHD, behavioural rather than physical, is being used to justify mobility grants.

But this story illustrates far broader problems with the administration of DLA.

The 3,000 cars that people with various behavioural conditions in the family are eligible for are a tiny percentage of the 575,000 being paid for under the Motability higher-rate mobility scheme. This is 200,000 more vehicles on the road than a decade ago. Why has this figure risen so quickly? There cannot be 200,000 more immobile disabled people than in 2001. The evidence points to a serious lack of oversight by the relevant authorities.

No medical assessment is required to qualify for mobility money. An assessment can be bypassed if the ‘decision-maker’ is happy with the application, and a medical exam ‘may be to check you are receiving the full amount of benefit you are entitled to’, rather than a comprehensive medical examination of the condition itself.

Given that diagnosis of ADHD has been criticised for often resting on parental evidence alone, there is substantial potential for abuse by parents looking to cash in on generous hand-outs.

There’s also no means-testing. The Motability website allows claimants to explore topping-up their £2,500 annual payments with their own cash, with tempting images of BMWs and Audis likely to provoke envy even in the most scrupulous. Taxpayers shouldn’t have to subsidise new cars for wealthy families.

Most seriously, little effort is made to tackle abuse and fraud. Motability released a statement in June telling of the 800 claimants removed from the scheme in 2010/11. But its annual report mentions 7,144 allegations of fraud or abuse, including uninsured driving, unauthorised use, criminal activity, and drink driving. Just 2,139 of these were pursued, with only 829 resulting in punitive action – the figure quoted in the press statement. Given that an estimated 200,000 are regularly used by the disabled person’s friends or relatives, these figures are worrying small.

Motability relies on the public reporting misuse of these cars. A scheme costing £1.5 billion a year ought to have far more rigorous methods of preventing abuse than the odd tip-off from neighbours. Questions should also be raised about the necessary burden of proof – success rates in pursuing allegations are shockingly low. Given how easy it is to get a car, it seems incredibly difficult to take one away.

The Work and Pensions Secretary is right to take action on the ADHD car scheme, but the entire DLA mobility component should be re-examined. Investigating 3,000 cars out of 575,000 will do little to change the fundamental problems that allow uncontrolled spending of taxpayers’ money, with insufficient investigation of whether that spending is working or needed. The disabled must be supported, but the DWP must ensure the money goes to the right people and for the right reasons.

[Update: We have edited the post above to clarify that the figure of 3,000 is an estimation of the number eligible for the cars, rather than those who received them, and that this refers to a broader spectrum of behavioural disorders, in line with this article.  This strengthens the argument in the original post that this is a small part of the overall cost of the scheme.]

Leather handbags, tattoo ink, sun beds, luxury golf courses and expensive hotels may sound like the spending of A-list celebrities, but what about that of a government watchdog? The Daily Telegraph revealed this week that the Health and Safety executive used government procurement cards to charge an astounding £6 million of extravagant expenditure over a two year period, paid for by the taxpayer.

They aren’t the only ones using such cards. According to the Telegraph, there are 141,000 Government procurement cards currently in use, costing the taxpayer approximately £1 billion pounds annually.

The Government must begin automatically publishing the bills of these cards. They are an important way of tracking how taxpayers’ money is being spent by Whitehall and quango bureaucrats. Transparency in government spending is essential if taxpayers are to properly scrutinise how their money is being spent.

Sure, a few charges here and there are to be expected, but we’re not talking about office supplies or even the odd staff lunch. Many of these cards are being used by government organisations who consider expensive trips, lavish dining and unnecessary frills to be entirely acceptable items of expenditure.

After the Telegraph’s accusations of excess, the Health and Safety executive responded that all of its spending was “properly incurred with no individual staff gain involved.” They claimed that purchases such as tattoo ink (£1,100), tanning beds (£1,394) and fireworks (£2,349) were used for various research projects and studies – all in the interest of keeping the public safe.

But that is not all that was charged to such Government procurement cards. A huge amount of taxpayers’ money was also spent on frivolous amenities such as luxurious company away days and high street shopping.

According to the Telegraph, approximately £18,000 was spent on company away days at venues such as Edgbaston cricket ground, Aintree Racecourse and a golf and spa resort. Around £23,000 was also spent on “shopping sprees at high street and online stores including John Lewis, Marks & Spencer, Clarks, Boots, Apple and Amazon”. If government watchdogs use these cards they should be exercising restraint and looking to get the most by spending the least. Buying designer leather bags from high street shops and spending thousands to stock office coffee machines do not qualify as ‘thrifty’ when less expensive versions would do just fine.

I mean, this watchdog spent around half a million on hotel bills across the two years alone! The HSE’s spokesman claimed these costs were due to training and conferences too large to fit at their own office, however the article noted venues such as a 17^th Century country house hotel complete with a Michelin star restaurant (hardly an Ibis or Holiday Inn).

Earlier this week the Communities Secretary, Eric Pickles, attacked such unnecessary spending through company credit cards. In his speech at the Conservative Conference, he even gave an example of how his own department’s officials blew £5,000 “to have a staff away day at a club”, complete with “showgirl sensation Amber Topaz and her exotic chum, Lady Beau Peep”.

Clearly a better definition of ‘properly incurred’ needs to be sought out in regards to such credit card spending. These charges are simply unreasonable, and such spending should be reduced through a focus on efficiency and justification. More so, if government credit card bills were made regularly available to the public, government organisations would have to think twice before treating themselves to fancy away days with burlesque dancers and luxury golf courses.

Former cabinet minister, John Redwood, said on his blog that he nearly choked on his coffee when he looked at the appointments section of a leading newspaper. Some of the public sector jobs on offer even surprised him. We may have been promised a bonfire of the quangos, but the vast majority are still there, and offering very generous remuneration packages. Mr Redwood highlighted a few, however this one really caught my attention.

The Marine Management Office (MMO) is looking for a new chief executive, paying £110K a year plus a bonus of up to 10%. The job advert says this is a pivotal, high profile role. This is so pivotal, and so high profile that I couldn’t tell you who the last chief executive was!

The fishing quotas we have are set by the EU, yet the MMO states it ‘enables sustainable development in English waters’. It’s job is to ‘plan, regulate and license activity in the marine area.’ So we have an army of bureaucrats in Brussels regulating the fishing industry, and another quango here too doing what must be some duplication of work. It’s amazing that as soon as you appoint a chief executive of a quango, no matter how small or large it is, a six-figure salary automatically comes as part of the prize.

The Tenants Services Authority (TSA) is the regulator for social housing. At the beginning of last year, it was revealed in the News of the World that in the last year the TSA had received 396 complaints from members of the public about their landlords. It passed 384 to other authorities, and dealt with 12 themselves. Hardly run of their feet, were they? Despite this lack of work, the chief executive still managed to pick-up a total remuneration package of £196,906 in 2009/10. The most recent accounts reveals the amount of cases it received certainly rose. There were 1203, but when you take a look at how much work was passed on to other agencies (look at the bottom of page 12), you can see that life in the TSA is not a helter-skelter existence.

Despite this, although the chief executive’s salary has reduced, his total remuneration was still £171,157.

Let me make it clear, if tenants do have a legitimate complaint against their landlord, they have a right to get the complaint investigated. But does it really need a quango to do it? Does it really need a chief executive on a more than generous salary, plus bonus, plus a gold plated pension?

There is still much fat to trim.

The Sunday Telegraph reported this week that the cost of a new Passport Agency computer system had rocketed, rising from an estimated £80-£100 million to a bill of £365 million. In response to a parliamentary question tabled by Eilidh Whiteford MP, Immigration Minister Damian Green insisted that rising costs were down to ‘additional demand for passports, enhancements of the IT infrastructure and business processes to accommodate changes in policy, response to changes in security threats and customer service improvements.’

Eilidh Whiteford was not satisfied, denigrating the ‘absolute scandal’ of the previous Government (who signed the contract with Siemens) and their lack of care with taxpayer’s money. She was right to point out the similarities between this and other IT debacles, including the £2.7 billion wasted on the failed NHS IT project  and huge overruns on the Welsh Government’s £220 million Merlin Programme.

A Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC)  report, released in August, described the NHS scheme as ‘beyond the capacity of the Department to deliver.’ Systematic failure to consult with those health professionals who would use the new IT system, inability to prevent the Department from ‘clearly overpaying BT [one of the suppliers] to implement systems’, and ‘weak programme management’ led to such substantial overruns in both time and money. Although there were ‘political inconsistencies’, these were overwhelmed by the inability of the Department of Health to cope with managing £11.4 billion of taxpayers’ money.

But Damian Green’s lacklustre response to Eilidh Whiteford suggests many of the lessons in the PAC report have been ignored. Although Francis Maude’s Major Projects Authority is meant to ensure ‘a more systematic approach by departments as well as regular, planned scrutiny to keep projects on track’, the Passport Office overrun suggests that such scrutiny is not being applied consistently. Even worse, the glib explanation that the bill has gone up by at least £265 million due to ‘customer service improvements’ and ‘additional demand for passports’ suggests such scrutiny is not even being taken seriously.

Aside from the data security implications of government holding such vast stores of our private information, and their tendency to lose it, projects like these show that government projects fail when they attempt to do too much. The inability, or unwillingness, to scrutinise and manage contracts with suppliers is just another example of a tendency to play fast and loose with taxpayers’ money.