This morning, the National Audit Office revealed their riveting report on the Civil Service Workforce. Three of the 16 main departments – Defra, HMRC and the Home Office – could not say how many underperforming staff they had. Apparently, they missed the memo in the HR standard mandating data collection on performance management outcomes and poor performance measures. Almost two-thirds of departments have no idea what happens to staff once they’re deemed underperforming – probably not much…

Total civil service salary expenses have had a consistent increase year on year since 2016, primarily attributed to the growing workforce. As of March 2022, the annualised cost has escalated to £16.6 billion. HMRC reported £26 million spent on recruitment costs for hiring the best bean-counters. The Government Recruitment Service tried to cut back on expenses, slashing its staff by 40% in 2022, but a year later, the cuts were rescinded to avert the substantial risk of service failure. They couldn’t resist the allure of new hires…

The so-called Festival of Brexit – actually called UNBOXED, for reasons unknown – has finished and the National Audit Office (NAO) has published its report into the nine-month, £120 million horlicks. It cannot conceal the scale of the absurdities the taxpayer stumped up for. In this post-referendum festival, planned as a celebration of British creativity along the lines of the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the Festival of Britain 1951, approved projects included:

• A grow-your-own food initiative taking place across Scotland – and reimagining harvest for the 21st century: £8 million.
• A garden of proportions (sic) taking over Birmingham city centre. A celebration of colour, beauty and natural diversity that ends with a spectacular party: £7.6 million.
• A multimedia installation in Paisley, Luton and Hull celebrating our connection to everything around us – past, present and future: £8.1 million.
• A multi-platform, multilingual story set in a possible future world of 2052: £6.3 million.
• A journey to explore the potential of your mind (on-line citizen science data collection): £8.6 million.
• Tour de Moon: A journey into the possibilities of tomorrow, live shows, nightlife, digital experiences and more created in collaboration with the Moon (sic): £7.3 million.

The report goes on to conclude that the festival failed to meet its audience engagement targets, despite all the cash: “In aggregate, the target for audience engagement was 9.2 million people under the base case.” The project was overseen by DCMS via a Programme Board with reps from the Treasury, Cabinet Office and DCMS staff.

A definitive sketch of the festival was written by Stuart McGurk for Politics Home (now 404’d). He reported that Oliver Dowden was the minister who first folded when organisers demanded that no mention of Brexit be allowed anywhere, for anything. McGurk’s account of the subsequent hustles, muddles and misconceptions causes jaws to fall. In his conclusion, he recalls watching footage of Tour de Moon’s finale musical act. It was, he says, “as perfect, in my mind, an artistic response to our current times as one could imagine. It is four people, in front of four microphones, simply screaming at the top of their lungs.  

“ARGGGGHHGHHHHHHHHHH!” comes the sound from her MacBook Air as it begins to vibrate.  “ARGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!” it continues.  

British creativity – the envy of the world.

The National Audit Office (NAO) estimates the cost of the pandemic has risen to a stupendous £372 billion, up £100 billion since its last report in January. £172 billion has already been spent and £26 billion worth of guaranteed loans are expected to be written off when businesses collapse after the financial support is withdrawn. The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and the Bounce Back Loan Schemes alone have cost £151 billion. The health and social care sector needed £97 billion. Programmes such as the Self Employment Support Scheme came to £55 billion and £65 billion will be spent on support for other public services and emergency responses.

The £372 billion cost of covid to the taxpayer amounts to spending of over £5,000 per head of population. Spending that will inevitably translate into higher taxes…