How Cameron can expose the long tail of waste

TomTom

One of the Tories' most encouraging plans is to force the disclosure of every item over £25,000

Wow £25,000....the Tories are really getting parsimonious on the petty cash items ! That should catch out the iPods and plasma TVs....

AndyLeeds

All for it. The people seem to be very very angry, but if they had access to the public accounts and could see how their money was wasted I'm sure we could make a great start at reducing public expenditure by 20+%. That can't be a bad thing.

Cogito Ergosum

Hear, hear!

And, despite my own pseudonym, they should be published in plain English, not jargon, so we can understand what the expenses relate to.

Austin Barry

Great post. To me this whole squalid affair is epitomised by Mr Shahid Malik, his forehead beaded with excitement, being slowly vibrated in his massage chair and inwardly leering at the hapless taxpayers who funded the joyous wobbling of his moribund parts.

Chestcracker

You know this could turn out to be one of the best things to happen to public governance in the UK. I am a cardiac surgeon and in 2005 the Guardian decided to use the FOI act to publish outcomes and mortality rates for individual surgeons. There was alot of breast beating and angst within the profession but 5 years later public disclosure is accepted, results have improved and some people argue that this was the best thing to happen to cardiac surgery in the UK. Incidentally we are still the only specialty that does this.

Lance Grundy

A ‘Bean Counter Act’ is just what this country needs to restore the people‘s faith in our public servants and our public services.

Every item of expenditure made by a government department, a Local Authority or a quango should be published on-line along with the name of the person signing it off. Nothing less than total transparency of all state expenditure will appease the electorate.

If Cameron has the balls to combine this with a ‘Tax Transparency Act’ whereby all retail prices showed the pre-tax and post-tax price, then he would set in motion what can only be described as a revolution in the relationship between the British state and the British people and history would judge him accordingly.

Go on Dave. Sort it.

kbp61

I was discussing the current situation with a friend and a question arose, that I hope someone will be able to answer.

Hazel Blears waved a cheque that she said would be paid to HMRC for capital gains. This is capital gains that HMRC has apparently determined already is not owing. Therefore, will this merely be put against the Hazel Blears future tax liability? In other words, she has not 'repaid' but simply paid in advance for future tax liabilities.

It seems to me that the issue at the heart of this is probably an agreement of some nature between HMRC and Parliament regarding the treatment of expenses.

At this stage my lack of knowledge means I am unsure how to continue the comment, other than to say that further investigation along this path will surely highlight one element at the core of this scandal: an unseemly pact between HMRC and Parliament

Sue

MPs seem to fall into 3 groups:

Those who haven't or wouldn't cheat.

Those who did and continued to do so.

Those who saw the writing on the wall and at least made an attempt to put things right long before the scandal broke.

What is more worrisome about the middle group (more so than their fiddling) is that they don't have any political nous whatsoever or they would have acted as McCartney did.

Edward

Lance.

How can Dave "sort it" ?
You (presumably) amongst others, coughed-up for the trimming of his wisteria ?
So he's repaid ?
So what ?
Isn't repayment an admission of guilt/abuse, or are we prepared to forgive and forget, just because he's "Dave"?
He's in no position to "sort" anything.
He's tainted too.
He's one of "them". The Troughers. Like a science fiction film... "Planet of the Troughers".

This is not a political issue - it's a moral issue.

I completely agree with Margaret Beckett on QT.
The public "DON'T understand".
The public don't understand institutiona corruption within Parliament. And she DOES.
Therefore she feeds at the same trough, opposite the fragrant Dave.

Please spare us the "Dave can sort it" rhetoric. He's as bad as the rest.

As we turn to "Dave" as our saviour, we should all wear a sprig of wisteria on our lapels. Just to try to keep our collective feet on the ground about how deep-seated the abuses have been.

It was easy to be swept to power in 1997 on a manifesto of "whiter than white". Although in retrospect, we were shafted.
Not so easy in 2009.

TGF UKIP

Fraser, you are being hopelessly optimistic if you believe that Dave won't let himself be diverted by civil servants' obfuscation, obstruction and diversion. Dave is above all things very much an establishment man as his stance on Martin bears witness.

Meanwhile, one of your other pals and one of Dave's best mates, Vaizey, has been fingered by the Telegraph for nicking £2,000 of furniture from the taxpayer.

Like Gove and the others, no doubt, all that will be required is for him to write a cheque and the Speccie will be composing another hymn to their patron saint Dave for his "action."

I'm not sure who's moral compass is more adrift, the MPs or yours.

Hawkeye

It is a fantastic idea, but I would lower the limit way down to £0.00.

Publish every receipt - just like the rest of us have to do. In our case, HMRC look it over. It should work both ways.

Owen Morgan

TomTom says, "One of the Tories' most encouraging plans is to force the disclosure of every item over £25,000

"Wow £25,000....the Tories are really getting parsimonious on the petty cash items ! That should catch out the iPods and plasma TVs...."

TomTom, get your mum to read you Fraser's comments again, until you get the point.

Kevyn Bodman

Lance Grundy makes a very important point:
'the name of the person signing it off.'
And
'Nothing less than the total transparency of all state expenditure...'

I hope this is an idea whose time has come; get on with it,Cameron.

But when I read the original post I thought that this must be a misprint, £25,000 is far too high and even Cameron should be able to see that.

mitch

The first thing Cameron needs to do after gaining office is a proper accounting of our financial state.We need to know exactly where we stand and who is to blame.A freeze on hiring would help and no more adverts in the Guardian,stick em in the job center that's what its for.

Diswiss

Chestcracker It was thanks to Steve Bolsin, Bristol for exposing the dreadful outcomes
in paediatric cardiac surgery.
Unfortunately, he couldn't then
get another post in UK due to the 'old boys network' who didn't approve of his exposed stats (and thereby,saving lives lives )so had no choice but to emigrate. Shameful.

Diswiss

Fraser, why has no-one talked about investigations and prosecutions of staff in the Fees Office, who authorised
illegal claims? Surely they bear responsibility for sanctioning such fraud?

TomTom

TomTom, get your mum to read you Fraser's comments again, until you get the point.

I would but she's dead. You obviously didn't know before making stupid comments.

£25,000 is perfect for salami slicing bigger amounts and evading scrutiny on pojects. If you have ever exercised Financial Control in corporates trying to circumvent the rules you will find £25,000 is ideal for hiding leases and breaking down larger sums into discrete items.

There is simply no reason for £25,000 to be such a high hurdle - it would allow the MoD to buy 25 of its wonderful armchairs before identifying what they were - or hide leasing on operating leases of huge items of expenditure.

Owen Morgan should stop making silly comments about my deceased mother and start to learn how finances are run in large dysfunctional organisations

Anon

£5000 won't buy you much tuition at Eton, I'm afraid - they were probably hiring Queen's Eyot for a function or something.

Anyway, excellent idea, although it will generate an immense amount of information to trawl through even at the £25k threshold.

AndyLeeds

kbp61

As I understand it Parliamentary expenses are not subject to taxation. As to your point about the second home allowance, again as I understand it an MP nominates a home as his/her main home and a second home. Again this is no effect on 'Principle Private Residence' status used for Capital Gains Tax. Per the press the Inland Revenue are 'looking at this' but I would doubt very much anything will come of it.

Liz Brown

@kbp61 -when the chipmunk was brandishing her cheque did either you or your friend notice whether she had actually written Inland Revenue in the payee section? The top line appeared blank to me - I wonder if anyone else noticed the omission?

Chris

What Owen Morgan said, with the rider that Fraser could have written that passage more clearly. Hey, nobody's perfect (aka the Speaker Martin defence.)

Mark C

kbp61 and AndyLeeds,

I think that Hazel Blears had to tell the Revenue that the property she had sold at a profit was her main residence in order not to pay CGT. She did so despite the fact that she was telling the House of Commons authorities that it was her second home. If she now pays tax, the Revenue could AND SHOULD proceed on the basis that the tax was always due. This could lead to interest charges, extra tax, penalties and even prosecution. I say nothing as to whether it would do, of course.

Forlornehope

My understanding was that the trick was to nominate a property as the additional accommodation and charge the maximum to expenses. By switching it to the principal residence for six months there would then be no capital gains tax payable on the sale. I understand that the six months is a general rule and can be used by anyone with more than one property. Of course, you have to be able to demonstrate that it was your principal residence for those six months or you could be in serious trouble.

Andrew

Guardian advert, June 2010

"...Upper Borsetshire District Council.

We are seeking to appoint a new Head of Transparency to put in place those systems required to assure all stakeholders that our expenditures are in line with the objectives of the new Financial Transparency (Local Government) Act.

You will head a new department of some 500 dedicated professionals, responsible for the correct allocation and characterisation of all our spending, broken down by function, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, eco-objective and European Directive compliance.

Salary (excluding performance bonus and housing allowances) in excess of £350,000..."

oldtimer

Now I wonder why Mr Blair arranged to have all his expense claims shredded on leaving office? Does it sound as fishy to you as it does to me?

TrevorsDen

Vasey and others (labour or lib or tory) - have not stolen money from the taxpayer. They have claimed expenses for their second homes. Thats legal.

It there was no second home allowance then the costs of hotels and hotel meals and laundry and probably extra travelling would probably cost the tax payer more.

The sums of money are quite small, non existent compared to the billion pounds being wasted by Ed Milliband in announcing carbon capture coal power stations. Countless billions are being wasted by govt every year.

We need MPs who can speak out against the nonsense of that. And I do not mind paying for the privilege of good governance. I am not going down the nihilist anarchist route of Guido Fawkes and others - what we need are constituency selection committees who are sensible not thick who can select sound MPs. I have no intention of getting involved (just like every other commentator) so not being a hypocrite I intend to keep a sense of proportion.

The real fraud is where MPS behave like Smith and make wrong declarations. the real fraud is where, despite being given a grace and favour house people like Brown can then declare his real house as a second home and claim against it. Thats the system thats grown up and needs abolishing.

If you put a kid in a candy store what do you expect?

Ethan

You put too much faith in the idea of "tranparency". Take the example you quoted of Windsor & maidenhead. Just on page 1 (out of 32) - they spent £133727 with Abba Cars. But this firm does both executive limos and school buses, so we cannot tell if the item is reasonable without more information. They spent £114182 with Access Infrastructure, which "specialises in providing regional, high speed managed networks and ‘Last Mile’ network connectivity for the Public Sector." How can we tell if this is reasonable?

You exaggerate the potential benefit of this sort of disclosure.

Rhoda Klapp

Etahn, it's not that every line must be examined to find the truth, it's that the spenders don't know which lines will be examined. So the idea is that they will be careful with all expenditure for fear that their line will be looked at, by some idle reporter on a local rag looking to get a story to go national. This won't stop people determined to cover up profligacy, it just makes it harder for them.

I think this is an idea whose time has come. If Cameron made it a major tory policy, at a threshold way below £25k, that would be good for him.

Merlin L

Chaytor was in Washington when the story about his claims broke. I have struggled to see the relevance of this trip to his Bury North constituency and it is more than likely that most had no idea he was there. On-line publication would mean that questions could be asked immediately rather than months, years later.
Will repeat my question from last week; food allowances are claimable in second home context so if the Balls/cooper household is claiming £600 pcm for food they are eating more in their primary residence - say £700 pcm. If that is right, it is troughing on a majestic scale. Can this be right?

TGF UKIP

Andrew 9.05 am, just loved your Guardian ad. Bang on!

HJ

As Anon says, the £5k to Eton is likely to be for facilities hire (e.g. Queen's Eyot) or perhaps a nominal contribution towards the many sporting facilities that Eton so generously makes available to local state schools.

Susan Hill

CHESTCRACKER... (in spite of your somewhat alarming username ..) Agreed absolutely. Excellent analogy.Transparency is all and as I am always always boringly saying 'If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.'