Those damned Tory spending cuts

[DimPrawn]

So where are the spending cuts? - MoneyWeek

Clues can be found in the detailed spending figures published by the Treasury in November (part of the coalition's pledge to be more transparent on spending).

This describes 194,000 payments made by every government department between May and September.

Spending included such items as giving £40,000 of taxpayers' money to Eton College to work with state schools, £1.17m on in-cell TV for prisoners, and £6.6m on free coal for ex-coalminers. HMRC ran up a £170,000 bill on bottled water, and the Ministry of Defence spent £820,000 on hotels in Kenyan game parks. Whitehall paid £271m to one firm, Aspire, which runs IT for Revenue & Customs. It paid £3.3bn to Capita for a range of outsourced contracts – more than several government departments get in a year. Some £1.43bn was spent on school-related Private Finance Initiative (PFI) projects and a further £1.25bn on other PFI contracts. Oh, and £55,000 was spent on decorating 10 Downing Street.



Off to a good start then.

[AtW]

Why did you pick low cost stuff like £55k on redecoration (those sofas ain't cheap) and ignored 3.3 bln kind of figures? Cretin.

[TimberWolf]

The Conservatives/Libs appear to have decided to kick the can down the road for another 5 years and have an easy time of it. Assuming they don't get found out before their time is up that is.

[scooterscot]

Feels like the country is run by crooks. Cable TV in cells? I don't even have a TV here, been living without one since I moved out. It's nice.

bottled water £170K - Get the employees to buy their own $@£%$^£$£@$% water!!

Calm, phew, calm...

[scooterscot]

wait a minute

So where are the spending cuts? - MoneyWeek

By Simon Wilson Jan 21, 2011

[AtW]

bottled water £170K - Get the employees to buy their own $@£%$^£$£@$% water!!

HMRC is a big entity that generates net profit (it's not a loss leader), they employ around 100k people - that's around £1.70 water bill per employee per year. It's nothing basically, especially considering huge waste on poorly implemented IT projects done for them measured in billions.

[scooterscot]

HMRC is a big entity that generates net profit (it's not a loss leader), they employ around 100k people

100 000 people to manage a glorified excel spread sheet? Stone the crows.

[AtW]

100 000 people to manage a glorified excel spread sheet?

They work in a profit center that generates a lot of dosh - £450 bln turnover or £4.5 mln per employee.

Source: HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) | Trade Sector and Transfer Pricing Specialists, Taxation and Finance Jobs and Career Opportunities, UK Nationwide - London, Leeds, Bristol, Manchester, Solihull, Glasgow, Newcastle, Reading, Milton Keynes, Oxford, Notting

[d000hg]

Feels like the country is run by crooks. Cable TV in cells?

Probably cheaper than the riots when they are confined with only a bunch of criminals for company.

[Waldorf]

Even if the government budget was frozen at the current levels, there would have to be cuts in spending in the departments due to the increasing debt.

This year the government expects to borrow another £135 billion (£135,000,000,000), over £5000 per house!

The interest on this will be about £4-5 billion, so to pay this we will need to cut back on other spending.

And this is just for 2011-12.

The total interest bill is expected to run at over £70 billion by 2015

So once we have eradicated the deficit we then need to turn to the debt, this is going to be a long haul