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June 13, 2010
What were the Audit Commission doing?
Everywhere you go and almost every political commentary to which you listen there is a view that there are susbstantial improvements in efficiency that can be made in local government. No one denies it- they nod in agreement. So the extent of the wastage is enormous and ubiquitous. "How should we make a proper budget?" I was asked last week. "Can you give us some tips?"
But this is over £100bn of the national public expenditure-- and one has the feeling that the same might easily be said of other areas of national public expenditure. Vast amounts of money have been and are being spent without any proper scrutiny of whether they are or were worthwhile. We all know it, we hear and read of horrific examples every day. This isn't to do with political parties at all- it is to do with the basic mechanisms of the state. It has been the great public rip-off. This is the unfair society that we really should be bringing down.
Applause is given to those who can find yet more money to spend. I was told proudly of a project in which several million pounds of lottery money will be spent on basic public infrastructure "as long as they can get it through before anyone spots it" .. Lottery money is not for public infrastructure -we already pay taxes for that.
So what on earth have the bodies charged with protecting the public purse been doing for the past ten years? In the case of Local Government this question has to be answered by the Audit Commission. Over bloated, over paid, over bureaucratic, and totally useless. You only have to read the Tax Payers' Alliance output to wonder what dream has been going at the Audit Commission. It is quite astonishing Let sleeping watchdogs lie - because they have been.
Posted by Perkins at June 13, 2010 9:08 AM