HMRC wasted £2 million paying staff to sit at home because a spanking new IT system didn’t work for three months. According to Accountancy Age, 600 newly recruited staff were paid 75% of their wages to clock in to the office just once a week to see “if the system was operational yet“.

The staff were taken on as part of a £75 million, three-year contract by HMRC with service provider Concentrix. Tasked with looking for fraudulent working tax credit payments, they couldn’t work from September to November last year because their computers couldn’t “talk” to HMRC’s computer network from Concentrix’s offices in Belfast.

Nice work if you can get it…

UPDATE: HMRC say the IT cock-up was entirely Concentrix’s fault and the company will be shouldering the costs.