Bill Carmichael: Spending spree with your cash

No cheap stuff from Tesco, mind, where you can pick up a tablet for as little as £60 with Clubcard vouchers. No, these guardians of the public purse have naturally chosen the most expensive option – top of the range Apple iPads that cost £400, more than six times as much as the cheaper alternative.

Isn’t it strange the way that councillors, who are invariably as tight as a Scotsman’s sporran when it comes to their own personal finances, suddenly turn into the very souls of generosity when it comes to spending other people’s money – especially when they can spend it on themselves?

The council argues the new “paperless system” will save money in the long run. Ah yes, the old “it will save money in the long run” trick. We’ve heard that once or twice before. Every public body from the NHS, to the Passport Office, the Child Support Agency and the BBC have introduced hugely expensive IT systems that “will save money in the long run” before eventually abandoning them at the cost to the taxpayer of many billions of pounds.

Of course technology can help us work more efficiently, but most of us manage to use smartphones, tablets and laptops for work and leisure without adding to the burden of public spending.

What is it about being elected to public office that renders councillors – and MPs – incapable of buying their own IT kit?

What we have here is a classic example of what I call the “spending culture” that infests both local and central government. Newly-elected councillors and MPs rub their hands with glee and immediately start dreaming up exciting new ways of spending ever increasing amounts of taxpayers’ money.

Wouldn’t it be marvellous if our politicians instead dedicated themselves to reducing spending, rather than increasing it, by finding ways to make government leaner, smarter and more efficient?

Well now help is at hand. This week Harry Phibbs, a councillor from London, has published 201 Ways to Save Money in Local Government with the TaxPayers’ Alliance.

It highlights many money-saving ideas, from sharing services with neighbouring councils, to selling surplus assets, publishing corporate credit card spending online and getting rid of the army of climate change officers, Fair Trade coordinators and diversity advisers.

By following Mr Phibbs’ advice maybe some councils could actually start cutting council tax, which has nearly doubled over the last decade – and perhaps then hard-pressed residents could think about buying an iPad for themselves.

Held to account

If you think the “spending culture” is out of control in local and central government, things are infinitesimally worse at the EU.

Last year, after 18 consecutive years when the auditors have refused to sign off the EU’s accounts because of waste, bad record keeping and downright fraud, we were promised a big change this year.

Well, we certainly have got that – because things have actually got much worse. EU bosses wasted almost £6bn on fraudulent, illegal or ineligible spending projects last year – a rise of 23 per cent on the previous year – and the auditors have once again refused to sign off the accounts.

The pro-Europe brigade are going to have to go some to convince us that this corrupt racket is reformable and worth us staying inside. And it is worth pointing out that a private company would never get away with this sort of illegal behaviour for 19 years, because all the directors would have been put in jail by now.