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April 28th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
By
James Chapman
17:38 EST, 27 April 2012
|
17:38 EST, 27 April 2012
The Coalition promised a ‘bonfire of the quangos’ that would save £2.6billion.
But a quick glance at the organisations’ expenses claims suggests that staff aren’t feeling the heat just yet.
For as the rest of the country struggles to cope with austerity measures, quangos are still blowing thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money on foreign jaunts and first-class rail travel.
MPs have already expressed concern that the Coalition will miss its savings target by a third.
Now details of quango spending – much of it on notorious Government procurement cards, which are in effect taxpayer-funded credit cards for public sector staff – reveal that the agencies are still spending thousands on everything from iPads to chocolate buttons.
Official figures show that the Office of Rail Regulation, for example, has spent £18,514 on first-class rail travel – now supposed to be used in only the most exceptional circumstances – and hundreds of pounds on a meal at the exclusive Café des Amis in London’s Covent Garden.
A spokesman said £2,434 was spent on four top-of-the-range iPads to reduce the ORR’s carbon footprint.
Elsewhere, Treasury solicitors have enjoyed expensive trips to Bali, Switzerland and Colombia since the Coalition came to power.
Almost £9,000 has been spent with ‘private VIP travel’ firm Ontro Ltd.
The Arts and Humanities Research Council spent more than £106,000 to pay for staff travelling to and from its Swindon headquarters, and thousands more on trips to Brussels, Rome, Washington and Warsaw.
It claimed that the previous government had agreed a ‘staff relocation package’ after the AHRC moved from Bristol that covered travel costs, and added that many foreign trips to meet international partners were contractual obligations.
The Intellectual Property Office charged taxpayers £153.58 for chocolates for staff, and nearly £75,000 for furniture and fittings for its chief executive’s office.
It said the latter ‘improved use of space’ in the office, part of which will now be let out.
Shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, Rachel Reeves MP: ‘The bonfire of the quangos looks more an more like business as usual.’
Staff at the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority spent £250 at The Cake Store on three separate occasions last summer, and £11.99 on iTunes, while board members at the Food Standards Agency spent £592 at the Hoxton Apprentice restaurant in East London in January.
The FSA said the dinner for 22 worked out at £27 a head, ‘which is very good value for money in London’.
Labour’s shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, Rachel Reeves, said: ‘David Cameron and Francis Maude said that this government would cut waste and not frontline services.
But at a time when 16,000 police officers and 6,000 nurses are being cut, it’s incredible that taxpayers are still picking up the bill for trips to swanky restaurants and plush fittings for people’s offices.
‘The bonfire of the quangos looks more and more like business as usual.
‘The Prime Minister and Francis Maude need to get a grip and provide value for money for the taxes paid by hard-working families.’
Ministers say their ‘bonfire’ will save £2.6billion and reduce the number of quangos from more than 900 to 650.
Just 72 have been shut down thus far, and the full cost of winding up the semi-independent bodies, including payoffs for staff, is expected to reach £900million.
A recent report from the Commons public accounts committee suggested that quango staff were often simply transferred to another part of the public-sector payroll.
At least 500 of those employed by the axed Regional Development Agencies have been taken on by other departments.
A Cabinet Office spokesman said: ‘When this Government came into office, we carried out a complete overview of the quango landscape and we are now delivering the largest overhaul of public bodies in a generation.
‘We have closed 72 quangos since May 2010 and have passed a law allowing us to close more and so to reduce the number of public bodies by a third.’
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For goodness sake Cameron, if you want a hope in hell of getting in in 2015 get rid of this useless baggage on taxpayers ,as you pledged. Do it now.
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Of course it’s business as usual. The problem lies with those who make the cuts. Instead of an independant body assessing where the cuts are to be made, more often than not their done in-house. Nobody is going to cut their freinds and collegues but are willing to cut frontline services. When they have to let an old pal go, its usually to the charity or voluntary sector which is seen as the new quangoland for the bosses. Like quango’s the charities and voluntary bodies are not accountable to the public on what they spend or on how they deliver their services, just to an administrator in government, who will overtly influencial how other funding organisations donate to the sector. The Lottery money being one of the big funders of the sector but controled by government administrators as to where the funding goes.
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