On March 18 Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden announced with great fanfare a bold “crackdown on wasteful spend” by freezing all Government Procurement Cards (GPCs) from that week to free up cash. As promised, Guido’s been keeping tabs on the pen-pushers’ expenses. Spoiler alert: the ‘crackdown’ is going as well as Labour’s mythical ‘bonfire of the quangos’…
In February, before Labour’s supposed war on waste kicked off, the Cabinet Office racked up £144,673.67 on its GPCs. In March that figure soared to a whopping £224,789.78. That’s a 55% jump in spending. Over £5,500 went on hotels alone. Not exactly penny-pinching…
McFadden insisted that GPC holders would need to reapply and justify their spending. Apparently Whitehall’s finest had no trouble passing that test. Business as usual, then…
Paula Barker, Liverpool Wavertree MP backing Andy Burnham, told Times Radio there wouldn’t be trouble from the markets under Burnham:
“The markets will have to fall in line.”