£6m a day cost of state bungles

MORE than £2billion of taxpayers’ cash was wasted last year on “pointless splurges”, accounting blunders and botched projects at the heart of government.

Bungling officials at the Department of Health and Social Care were the biggest money wasters, writing off £501million, including £3.9million in costs when the pound fell against the euro.

The Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy got through £388million and the Ministry of Defence £140million.

Around £6million a day was written off by government departments – a total of £2.26billion – 19 per cent more than the previous year.

John O’connell, of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: “Taxpayers’ hard-earned cash is left lying on the scrapheap. This is only a small mound in the vast landfill worth of waste created by central and local government.”

“The Government needs to clean up its act and ensure that taxpayers facing a 50-year record tax burden are not paying for pointless splurges.”

The blunders were revealed by analysing each department’s losses and special payments section, under which all non-standard costs are written off. A computer glitch which went undiscovered for five years meant students were undercharged interest on loans to the tune of £14.7million.

The Home Office wrote off plane tickets worth more than £2million when asylum seekers were granted a last-minute appeal and the Ministry of Defence wasted £4.3million in cancelled travel bookings.

At the heart of government, the Cabinet Office spent £499,000 to clear debts on a closeddown information-sharing project.

HMRC lost almost £200million in personal tax credits deemed unrecoverable, as well as £5.5million in Child Benefit write-offs. A total of £12.1million was written off at the Ministry of Justice when an IT project was shelved and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy paid £700,000 to halt a contract for finance and HR services.

The Department of Transport paid £12.7million to settle 316 cases of industrial disease brought by ex-british Rail workers and £43million in unpaid fees and fines at the Dartford Crossing was lost. Officials also spent £5million exploring a Thames road crossing plan which was later scrapped..

And the Ministry of Defence was left with a £3million hole in its accounts after a Watchkeeper drone crashed into a tree near its Southwales base.

‘Cash left lying on scrapheap’