No 10 mandarin’s £175,000 expenses
WHITEHALL’s most powerful mandarin has cost the taxpayer £175,000 in expenses in just one year – on top of his £205,000 salary.
The expenses for Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill include the use of a taxpayer-funded limousine costing an average of £250 a day.
A four-day trip to China last May, where he led a dozen UK officials, cost more than £72,400.
Sir Mark’s chauffeur-driven car from the ministerial fleet cost the public purse £22,000 every 90 days last year. That was an average of £10,000 more per quarter than the bill incurred by his predecessor, the late Sir Jeremy Heywood.
Sir Mark also claimed £15,000 for additional ‘travel to meetings’ not done in his car.
Explaining the large bills, his defenders say that he is ‘very active in getting out of Whitehall’.
Some of his costs are missing from Government transparency data, meaning his exact bill for his first year in the job remains unclear.
Whitehall officials said the missing data was ‘cock-up, not conspiracy’ and would be published in due course. But James Roberts, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: ‘Taxpayers don’t expect their money to be wasted on Whitehall opulence, flying government functionaries to China and giving mandarins free rides in ministerial limos.
‘With a Budget on the horizon and departments being probed for potential savings, these perks seem like a good place to start.’
The Cabinet Office said: ‘As the leader of over 400,000 civil servants, the Cabinet Secretary visits teams spread across the UK. The Government
Car Service provides his official transport.’