The Treasury is making a lot of its insistence on cutting costs as the spending review. Chief Treasury Secretary Darren Jones said yesterday that “a different approach is needed to ensure taxpayers’ cash is spent effectively” and government spending is overdue a “reckoning.” We’ve heard it all before…
Some in Whitehall find the constant Treasury signals a bit rich seeing as HMT is far from lacking in wasteful pet projects. MPs have hilariously concluded that Reeves’ new “Office for Value for Money” is a waste of money as it just duplicates the work of other organisations and has no clear focus…
Guido can reveal the Treasury also spent a whopping £34,000 on executive search services to help it find its vaunted Covid Counter-Fraud Commissioner. It eventually convinced former Middlesex hospital executive Tom Hayhoe to take the job a few weeks ago. The Treasury hasn’t been too keen to identify which of its own spending it will cut down before taking the scythe to the rest of Whitehall…
Sarah Pochin at Reform Scotland’s manifesto launch event: “I really wanted to come on in a Reform tartan burka, but apparently I wasn’t allowed… One day let’s do one of these events not live-streamed. We’ll do all the naughty stuff…”