Letter to the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, 28th
January 2011
Pointing out the usual abuse and deceit by
mandarins and civil servants
Dear Ministers
I as an old vet, having been corruptly handled by civil servants and ombudsman, I became interested in just how much neglect, fraud and corruption there really was within the public sector. I learnt how serious neglect of ‘good governance’ was an occurring theme across all departments.
It comes as no surprise that public sector fraud runs at some £21b a year, and is obviously extremely time-consuming; it’s a pity Whitehall lacks the same amount of industry and creativity when it comes to fulfilling its public duties.
The Civil Service and their unions purposely deflect attention away from the public sectors gross fraudulence; they have a stranglehold on transparency that plagues Whitehall, such impudence of office has a ‘Mafia or secret society ring about it’.
There is a systematic ‘couldn’t give a damn’ attitude towards the work ethic, whilst abuse of the public purse occurs virtually everyday, there are continuing scandals from the inept HM Revenue and other dysfunctional departments such as the MoD, the Home Office, the MoJ and Treasury etc. There is a cosy dereliction of honest endeavour within the corrupt system, where officials and civil servants lacking in ability, are often promoted above their capabilities. For instance poor awareness re information technology amongst public sector managers is the main reason why so many IT projects fail, costing untold billions.
There is a scandalous lack of worldly know-how within government machinery, this allied with layers of public sector fraud and corruption - intermixed with debilitating layers of seriously inept bureaucrats, form a quagmire of inefficiency that makes the delivery of honest government impossible.
There is no more time left for politicians to ‘look the other way’ Whitehall is largely responsible for such fraudulent abuse of ‘good governance’ and must be cleansed.
For instance the long-term contemptuous MoD intending to get itself ‘off the hook’, once claimed that innocent dead pilots were to blame for the crash of a faulty Chinook helicopter purchased by its entrenched procurement failures. The Commons Accounts Committee referred to this particular MOD contempt towards our troops as, ‘civil service bigotry of the highest order’.
The public felt the pain on learning how the MoD buys inferior war equipment; after all it’s their sons who face death and injuries through such neglect. It beggars belief that parliament allowed our troops to be so neglected, whilst having over the years numerous politicians nominated as Ministers of Defence? The appalling figure of £21b in public sector fraud is only half the story! It’s the long term failure by civil servants to deliver projects that’s also destroying the nation.
Much public pain was felt when the Revenue, the worlds most dysfunctional and most stupid of departments paid themselves millions in bonuses. While untold million of us pay the wrong amount of tax?
The public pain at the MoJs numerous errors, its latest, the failing to collect £1.5m in fines unpaid by criminals etc. The pain caused to society in general by the overcrowding of our nation because of the Home Office’s gross negligence re immigration and criminal control.
Governmental fraudulence never ceases, departmental ministers, especially those ‘managing’ the failed MoD, the failed Home Office, the failed MoJ and Treasury etc along with many other MPs were heavily involved in the ‘snouts in the trough’ saga.
Its all indicative of the overall ‘systematic corruption of good government’ that has somehow become the norm within Westminster and Whitehall. The public sees the failure to tackle the public sectors ‘inner squalor’ as being due to an ‘unholy acquiescence’ between uncaring Politicians, uncaring civil service and the uncaring public sector unions.
As an ex front-line soldier, a war pensioner I became sickened on learning how the criminally negligent MoD officials purchased inferior arms at excessive cost, when better equipment costing much less was available. That the purchasing of such inferior arms caused death and terrible injury to our front-line troops.
My wife and I claimed that the MoD was a corrupt department, and because of untold billions lost in treasonable ‘inferior arms procurement’ and the dodgy formation of Qinetiq, that ‘kickbacks’ within the MoD was a distinct possibility!
The abuse within the sub-standard ‘government machinery’ is also seen where, despite the MoD being in dire need re qualified defence personnel; a somewhat inept Home Office mandarin (Sir) Bill Jeffrey was parachuted into the MoD as a senior official. He of course having little or no idea about the Defence of the Realm - more evidence that no one ‘gave a toss’ about our front-line troops!
The somewhat inept Bill Jeffrey was at the forefront of the ‘unfit for purpose’ HO failure to deal with the inflow of large numbers of immigrants and criminals` etc. Then in order to placate citizen’s fears, the ever-deceitful Home Office issued false immigration and crime statistics. This is one of the grossest crimes ever perpetrated against the British people!
Eventually Jeffrey proved to be ‘out of his depth’ within the MOD as proven when he was questioned by the Public Accounts Committee as to his methods of reducing
costs.
Much of his ‘savings’ came about by deferring schemes; he was informed ‘that every time you defer a scheme all you do is massively add to the cost!’ He was asked ‘Is this a sensible way of doing business? He replied ‘No it’s not.’ He was also criticised for his part in creating a MOD ‘black hole’ of some £34billion. He was also criticised by the PAC for prioritising costly renovations of leisure facilities (tennis courts etc) for the MoD elite, while unacceptable housing conditions had been imposed on our troops through MOD neglect. There were some 19000 soldier’s homes found to be in serious disrepair. Another indication that neither Jeffrey nor the MoD ‘ gave a damn’ re our soldiers either at home or abroad. For whom the bells toll indeed?
It is claimed that the self-serving Jeffrey, in a desperate last throw of the dice was complicit in an attempt to suppress the highly critical and explosive Gray report showing an exhaustive catalogue of MoD ineptitude, neglect and gross stupidity.
Despite Jeffrey’s somewhat inept career, Whitehall’s cover up culture went out of its way to give him some ‘brownie points’. As if on a propaganda scam, Gus ODonnell asked Paul Jenkins QC HM Procurator-General Treasury Solicitor etc, “What was your highlight of 2010?” And as if on cue Paul Jenkins answered, “Being asked to follow Bill Jeffrey as the civil service diversity champion was a big highlight”.
Orwell and Kafka would have been impressed by this governmental ‘old pals’ propaganda machine. Public sector corruption of ‘good governance’ is thriving.
One begins to see the worrying magnitude re collegiate power within the public sector, where mandarins and lawyers show contempt for honest representation and are ready to defend the indefensible.
The likes of the civil service chief Gus ODonnell specialise in promoting the inept that has proved to be costly to the nation. So much so that Edward Leigh when chairman of the PAC, showing his concern re the quality of permanent secretaries, once asked Gus ‘When are you going to promote people who know how to run projects? (2008)
With £21billion of public sector fraud, Parliament must give itself the power to dismiss all the entrenched unworthy managers such as the likes of Gus ODonnell, the Bill Jeffreys, David Normingtons and Dave Hartnets, and all the other inept Whitehall officials. These are effectively the mandarins who have sat upon the steaming cauldron of public sector fraudulence far too long. Such powerful posts should be appointed on strictly limited terms through parliament, so that there is no danger of ‘long term despotism’.
Politicians have also a lot to answer for this abomination re democratic audit.
Despite the fact that the MoD’s corrupt procurement procedures helped cause death and appalling injuries to our troops, the highly overstaffed and seriously dysfunctional MoD shared out some £40m in bonuses amongst themselves (2010), not quite as much as in the previous year?
The world’s most dysfunctional dept, HM Revenue shared out some £13m.
We ask of Sir Gus ODonnell and the civil service unions, just where is the integrity in rewarding public sector failure with such enormous bonuses, such long-term deceit by
the civil service and its associations are unsustainable – something has to give.
The public purse continues to be abused throughout Whitehall, for instance the Daily Express claimed how Britain’s army of pampered mandarins run up yearly bills of some £11m for taxis, £51m on office furniture and £56m on spin doctors.
A.N Wilson the historian bewildered by the fraudulent moving of taxpayers money into civil servants pension funds asked, ‘How many more mistakes will it take to make us realise we need a wholly different approach to public administration?
In order to help clean up and publicise the ‘inner squalor’ that abounds within Whitehall, we once suggested to Gordon Brown that it would benefit the nation if we published League Tables showing the most corrupt dept.
- Tables showing the most inept mandarins/officials.
- Tables showing the most dysfunctional dept.
- Tables showing the most corrupt officials etc
- Tables showing the many ingenious ideas that individual civil servants think up to rob the public purse.
- And League Tables showing who's stealing the most laptops and I-phones etc
We once rebutted Gus ODonnell statement re his ‘honest civil servants’ and pointed out that in 2002 civil servants using elaborate scams swindled untold thousands from the public purse, one used false identities to claim some £180,000.
We pointed out to Gus how 7 years later in 2009 nothing had changed; large-scale internal corruption still existed. The Independent disclosed that one civil servant had stashed away some £350,000 by creating false records, while another robbed his badly managed department of some £246,000.
We reminded Gus how The Independent revealed Dec 2009, that crooked civil servants have cost government departments more than £12m over the past 3 years… it disclosed that “Not all the corrupt perpetrators are reported to the police or confronted with internal disciplinary action.” This meant that crooks were allowed to remain in situ, straddling the unprotected public purse? No wonder public sector fraud comes to £21billion!
We suggested to Gus, Feb 2010, how the government should take civil service crooks by the scruff of the neck and squeeze all the systematic fraud and corruption out of every department. £21b fraud? Even Al Capone could not have taken as much!
It is said of the numerous public sector failures, mandarins etc, that none ever let failure go to their head, they all know that within the cosiness of the corrupt Whitehall system, another position – even promotion - is just around the corner.
AW & I Tanner cc to all interested in political corruption