MPs fear for health of staff as they battle crisis

The Commons Treasury Committee says that the Treasury is pressing ahead with "efficiency programmes" when staff are having to take on additional workloads.

"It is important that departments do not take this commitment for granted and continue to monitor for signs of burn-out and over-stretch," the committee warned.

With public borrowing at a post-Second World War high, the committee said it is still unclear how successful the measures taken by the Treasury in the wake of the banking collapse of 2008 have been.

"It is very difficult to draw final conclusions regarding the level of success that should be attributed to HM Treasury and its associated bodies for 2008-09 – too much remains unfinished business," the MPs said.

The committee was dismissive of the Treasury's new target to manage down the national debt "once the economy emerges from the downturn".

The report suggested that the new statement was "full of motherhood and apple pie but not a lot of meaning" and questioned whether it served "any real value".

The MPs also highlighted the "dire" state of staff morale at HM Revenue and Customs after a cross-Whitehall survey found just 11 per cent believed it was well-managed and the same proportion had confidence in its senior managers.