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(can't you just imagine how much his Comrade in
our White House has spent.)
Sunday 4th Jun 2000
BLAIR'S POUNDS 1BILLION ON SPIN DOCTORS TONY Blair has squandered more than pounds
1billion of taxpayers' cash on private firms of expert advisers.
The cash would have been enough to build 14
hospitals or 1,000 new schools - or pay for 65,000 new nurses.
Many of the contracts for outside advice have
gone to firms employing New Labour cronies.
The scandal provoked a political row last night
over how the contracts came to be awarded.
Union leaders attacked the Government for
showing more concern for image than "front line care".
Ministers now face a barrage of Commons
questions over the use of outside consultants.
MPs believe most of the work should have been
done by Whitehall's 460,000-strong army of civil servants.
Some of the contracts have been ridiculed as
pointless.
The Department of Health, which has spent pounds
22million on expert advice since the General Election, recently asked Richard
Branson's Virgin Atlantic stewards to compile a report on how to make hospitals
more "consumer friendly".
And one consultancy firm was paid pounds
3million to produce a list of what makes a good teacher.
Teachers' union leader Nigel de Gruchy said: "We
could have told them that for nothing."
The revelations came as the Government faces a
deepening crisis over its handling of the National Health Service and education.
The controversial NHS "census" announced by
Health Secretary Alan Milburn last week was organised by two outside companies -
at a cost of pounds 500,000. Mary Maguire of the health workers' union Unison
said: "It is a lot of money to spend on consultants, especially if so-called
experts are lining their pockets at the expense of money going into front line
care.
"We in the front line know what the problems
are, but the difficulty is getting the Government to listen."
The list of firms include many with staff who
are close to the New Labour project, either as former party staff or aides to Mr
Blair or his ministers.
Among them is Bell Pottinger, which advises the
Home Office on youth crime and employs David Hill, the former head of Labour
Party communications. Since 1997 the Home Secretary, Jack Straw, has presided
over spending totalling pounds 5.7million on experts.
Commons statistics compiled by MPs and
researchers show that at least pounds 892million has been paid to the private
sector experts since Mr Blair came to power.
The figures do not take into account spending in
this financial year, or expenditure by other Government agencies.
Put together the bill is already over pounds
1billion.
Ironically the highest bill has been run up by
one of the Government's smallest bodies, the Department for International
Development run by "old" Labour Cabinet Minister Clare Short. Her officials have
paid out pounds 385,140,000 in the last three years.
A spokesman claimed last night that the cost -
one-tenth of Ms Short's pounds 3.2billion annual budget - was due to the need to
hire agencies around the world to pinpoint areas of most need.
The figure is more than the entire British aid
budget for Asia this year, which is pounds 362million.
But a spokesman for Ms Short said: "It is good
value for money on a global basis."
He said the figure was inflated because other
types of spending had to be included for "technical" reasons.
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott is the next
biggest spender. His giant Department of the Environment, Transport and the
Regions has spent pounds 46.3million on hiring consultants.
Foreign Secretary Robin Cook has splashed out
pounds 30million to prop up his ethical foreign policy and present his
department in a good light.
While outside experts have blossomed, the
Government has slashed civil servant numbers in a programme started under the
Tories.
A Cabinet Office spokesman said that the
contracts could "help to save money in the long run by streamlining projects".
Arguing that outside contracts meant that
permanent staff were not needed, she said: "This method helps to develop the
most efficient response to a problem."
But Liberal Democrat MP Don Foster, who is
leading the campaign for more open disclosures of New Labour spending, has
tabled a series of questions wanting to know if the contracts were awarded
legally.
He said: "The public has a right to know whether
these contracts were awarded by open tender or by some other means."
WHAT pounds 1BILLION COULD BUY
14 new hospitals at pounds 70m each or an extra
65,000 nurses on a starting salary of pounds 15,000 a year142,000 hip operations
at pounds 7,000 each or
100,000 heart by-passes at pounds 10,000
each52,000 more police officers (on a London starting salary of pounds
19,200)1,000 schools at pounds 10m each or 60,000 extra teachers or1.5m
computers at pounds 700 each.
No more corrupt Attorney Generals......
No more pinkos in our Congress...... No more Executive Orders...... No more rapists in our White House...... |
