Fiscally Responsible

Despite its recurrent urge to trace every email, observe every movement and keep us all safe in our beds by filling them with fibre-optic bugs, it appears that Whitehall is fairly intensely relaxed about monitoring the way its minions spend the taxpayers' money. Government procurement cards, which are meant to be used in speeding up official transactions, have come under scrutiny by the public accounts committee, and last year's expenses have been found eminently questionable. Expectably enough, the Department of Work and Pensions, in keeping with the vindictive rigour it shows towards the unemployed, the low-paid and the disabled, did not bother to keep receipts for a third of its payments. However, by far the biggest offender is the Ministry of Defence, which last December spent more than £20,000 on restaurants, bars and leisure activities, including three separate "group bookings" at £3400 each. Further sums of about £1200 went on swimming pool hire and on "bars, taverns, lounges, discos" for what is charmingly described as "pre-deployment training". One quails at the thought of what must have been going on while Adam Werritty was in charge.