OPINION
Civil servants have enjoyed a luxurious spending spree (Image: Getty Images)
Amid all the wrangling and wrestling over what should, or should not happen, to try to counter the burgeoning benefits bills in this country, one story has been allowed to slip through relatively unnoticed. But it deserves the full glare of the attention of all of us who fund this unjustifiable jamboree of bogus spending. It is simply: thousands of civil servants have enjoyed a “Spend, Spend, Spend” style of shopping spree that is normally only the preserve of lottery winners or ludicrously overpaid football players, and in the process racked up a bill of ￡675 million for one year alone. And that mind-boggling figure has more than quadrupled in just four years!
These vile chancers are on the Government payroll and have access to a GPC, or Government Procurement Card. Forget Mastercard or Visa, if you’re on the taxpayer payroll make sure you “never leave home without it”. For those of you who can remember the days of the conveyor belt on Bruce Forsyth’s Generation Game, here’s “what’s on offer tonight” that you and I have paid for: Foreign Office staff spending ￡2,493 on shoes at a fashionable store in Barbados; a total of ￡49,511 on beer, wine and other booze from July to October of last year and ￡2,479 of sound system equipment from the online shop DJ Superstore.
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When properly used, these cards are necessary. Military personnel refuelling tanks or aircraft, or scientists purchasing necessary supplies, for example. But a binge on shoes that wouldn’t have disgraced Imelda Marcos is not a good fit.
Rightly this ludicrous largesse has been reined in by the (relatively) new government, although it’s worth recalling that booze bonanza from July was on their watch. Now, many of the 20,000 people who had a “GPC” will find it missing from their wallet or purse and will be asked to justify why they deserve such seemingly unlimited spending power.
All of which is both very welcome and well before time. But what of the shocking excess that has been permitted to date. Do you imagine those who have clearly ripped us off and benefitted from this absurdly unaudited regime will be called to account?
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Me neither. But as long as this perk is permanently parked, we might have made some progress.
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RE. THAT supposed “crackdown on benefits?” Were they taking the PIPs?
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This time last week while you were reading this column I was on the sofa with my fiancée doing something we’ve only ever done twice before. And both times it made us late to go to bed and tired the next day.
Naturally, I refer to “binge watching” and this time it was the Netflix series Adolescence, which amazingly put us ahead of the pack as we were on to it before its deserved explosion in interest last week and viewing figures of 24 million in just four days.
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The filming and directing is without equal and every single actor is brilliant. But special mention must go to Owen Cooper who plays the teen at the heart of the story, and Stephen Graham, who is also the show’s co-creator. The closing sequence in his son’s bedroom melts the hardest of hearts.
They should take wheelbarrows to subsequent award nights to carry off the gongs.