The auditor general and Saudi arms deals

To date there have been no indications of ministerial disquiet with Sir John Bourn, Britain’s comptroller and auditor general. Ministers speak of him in glowing terms, insisting that he is the embodiment of rectitude. Conservative front-bench spokesmen take the same favourable view.

This is very striking in view of the stream of revelations concerning this guardian of our public finances. Embarrassing details emerged last week, courtesy of the Freedom of Information Act, concerning Sir John’s personal extravagance. To put it mildly, they showed that he does not manifest the same hair-shirt attitude to taxpayers’ money that his National Audit Office demands of other public bodies.

It is not so much the £27,000 racked up over three years on meals, many at London’s best restaurants, that is a cause for concern. Indeed, a bill of £500 for four at Wiltons in Jermyn Street argues a certain restraint. It is not even the size of Sir John Bourn’s spending on first-class flights, often accompanied by his wife. His total travel bill since 2004 comes to £365,000.

The main problem concerns Sir John’s hospitality from companies he is supposed to monitor. For instance, he attended a polo match on 29 July funded by the computer company EDS, a controversial business which is partly dependent on government contracts, some of which have gone wrong.

A National Audit Office report, for example, brought to light the EDS role in Gordon Brown’s tax credits fiasco. The computer firm was also heavily embroiled in the Child Support Agency disaster. It is disconcerting to discover that the auditor general has been accepting corporate hospitality from a company over which he is called to sit in judgment.