- Red light for green energy - 31st December 2024
- Rule breaker (X marks the spot part two) - 30th December 2024
- Breaking Christmas China… - 27th December 2024
During 23 years with The BBC, and a 41 year journalistic career (when he was trained to use clear and simple language, avoiding jargon), for our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, stories about the illegal or wasteful use of public money have always loomed large, and this is now put centre stage by Elon Musk’s preparations to lead the new ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ when Donald Trump formally takes over as US President next month.
How public money is used matters.
For example the Welsh Government (WG) has a budget of £23 billion for the year April 1 2024 to March 31 2025, and it seems inconceivable that there is no room here for efficiency savings.
A report by the Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee (PAPAC) of the Welsh Parliament/Senedd Cymru (WP/SC) raised many controversies about the accounts for 2020/2021.
It was discovered that:
- £155.5 million was lost to Wales due to poor account management.
- There were serious concerns about record keeping relating to an £80,000 payment to a former Permanent Secretary (PS).
- The then PS’s salary exceeded the advertised amount.
- There were major worries about the level of fraud and error in the COVID-19 business grants scheme.
Chair of the PAPAC, Mark Isherwood MS, declared:
“Our report highlights a number of serious issues within the Welsh Government’s Consolidated Accounts 2020-21, which was not only significantly delayed and signed nine months later than the timetable originally agreed, but qualified by the Auditor General on three separate issues.
“We are very concerned that significant funding was lost to Wales as a result of the underspend in 2020-21. This money could have been used to fund essential services and it is especially frustrating now when there are such pressures on public funding.
“It is one of many examples where poor record keeping and mismanagement of public accounts has cost the people of Wales.”
It’s not just in Wales either that our taxes may be being misused.
In a recent report the think tank Policy Exchange (PE) found that fewer than 20 per cent of the hospital trusts or care boards it had surveyed across the UK had fired any manager for doing a bad job.
I know from my own experience how wastefully resources can be allocated.
My wife recently broke her foot, and was issued with TWO Zimmer frames – one for the bottom of the stairs, and one for the top (for which I was eternally grateful).
However there was apparently no record in the hospital about what had been given out, and when she was well again I dutifully took one of them back (although I wasn’t asked), but kept the other, because it helped mobility with my Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP).
This situation seemed extraordinary.
On the other hand (I am always keen to see the other side of things!), I am nervous of people who urge that ‘red tape’ should be cut.
‘Red tape’ actually means regulations that are put in place to protect people.
In many cases these rules have been built up over centuries.
They have been designed (for instance) to stop wicked employers forcing children to go into chimneys, and are in place now to prevent the importation of chlorinated chicken.
So when Elon Musk says he can cut federal spending by “at least” $2 trillion (£1.6 trillion) (roughly a third), watch out.
He may have his eye on cutting ‘red tape’ that is there to stop children being forced into chimneys…
The memories of Phil’s astonishing, decades long award-winning career in journalism (when stories about the waste of public money were all-important) as he was gripped by the rare neurological disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A Good Story’. Order it now.
Tomorrow – The Eye show how business leaders are warning that renewable energy targets may be missed, and environmentalists in Wales are highlighting recent trends which appear to undermine the so-called ‘green revolution’.
