by Joanna Marchong, investigations campaign manager
From ministers jet-setting to the multi-million-pound bin strikes that have plagued Birmingham, the last few months have shown once again that Whitehall and town halls alike treat taxpayers' cash like Monopoly money. While families are still counting pennies, the public sector seems determined to splash the cash in ever more bizarre ways.
Ed Miliband has been leading the way in the departure lounge. He’s managed to spend ten times more on foreign trips than his Conservative predecessor, Clare Coutinho. £62,712 already down the drain on flights and hotels, all while he’s lecturing us about net zero. Jet-setting Ed seems to think climate leadership means burning a bit more jet fuel than the rest of us.
Every year, the TaxPayers’ Alliance runs an investigation into public servants being allowed to work from home. Each time, we are surprised that instead of cutting down on these beach view workers, they double down. This year is no different. Thousands of public sector staff have been allowed to “work from home”, with “home” apparently meaning Spain, Italy, Singapore and even Chile. You couldn’t make it up. If you thought your local quango was hard to get hold of, maybe that’s because your caseworker may be answering emails from a beach bar in Barcelona. Some of these mandarins are on over £70k a year, working in a completely different time zone.
Meanwhile, in the UK, taxpayers are footing the bill for a PhD project that sounds like a rejected sketch from The Thick of It. £72,177 for interpretive dance and soft sculptures exploring “worm-like, phallic and invaginated forms”. Yes, really. This included a crochet workshop where audience members would join the student to create what she branded as a phallic blanket. And naked dances so that people can feel more in touch with each other. Not to mention her previous projects where she danced amongst trees…
Birmingham hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory either. The bin strikes have dragged on for more than 100 days, rubbish is piling high, and giant rats are roaming the streets. Pest control costs, already over £416,000 this year, are rocketing, with hundreds of complaints on Easter weekend alone. And yet, in proper negligent and disorganised form, the council officially classed the health risks of festering rubbish and rat infestations as “tolerable”. Tell that to families living among cat-sized rodents, who open their windows to the fresh smell of rotting food.
Now the quango exposé:
Ofgem. While households are hammered with record energy bills, staff at the regulator have been enjoying woke quizzes and Pride movie nights, all on the public dime. Nearly £67,000 was splurged on staff networks and after-hours entertainment, though apparently not after hours, since many of the events were held on Tuesday afternoons. Priorities, eh?
Not to be outdone, Angela Rayner’s housing quango has clocked up nearly a quarter of a million pounds in directors’ expenses since 2021. Hotels, hospitality and travel all generously funded while ministers claim they’re laser-focused on fixing the housing crisis. Taxpayers might be forgiven for thinking that Homes England is more concerned with the homes of its executives than with the people it’s meant to serve.
And then there’s Ofwat. The water regulator has a remit that stops firmly at Dover, yet somehow officials managed to rack up 38 international flights in two years, at a cost of £8,110. Canada, Portugal, Belgium, you name it, they’ve been there. All while water companies are dumping sewage in rivers and imposing hosepipe bans at home.
So there you have it. From the glamour of first-class flights to the grime of Birmingham’s bin strikes, taxpayers are once again paying an arm and a leg. The waste takes many forms, bureaucrats on beaches, quangos on jollies, and yes, even interpretive worm-dancing, but the mindset is always the same: it’s only money, and it’s not theirs.