Missing Disc Report Damns Brown And Darling

Brown and Darling were quick to point the finger of blame at an overworked and underpaid junior in the Tax Office, when two child benefit discs with highly personal details of 25m people went missing last autumn.  Now three reports highlight the real culprits - Brown and Darling. 

It was the undynamic duo who created an incompetent, inadequate and muddled mess at HMRC that caused the discs to go missing in the first place.

After the loss in November, Darling insisted to MPs that a "junior official" had been responsible for posting the information "contrary to all HMRC standing procedures".

Time and again the prime minister and his chancellor stood up and blamed the loss on this office junior for not following the correct security procedures.

Today the Poynter Report into the missing discs scandal does not blame individual officials at all, but instead highlights "serious institutional deficiencies" at HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) with "incompetence and systemic failure at the heart of this government".

And there's more. A separate report by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, said data security processes at HMRC were "woefully inadequate" with "a complete lack of any meaningful systems" and a "muddle-through" ethos.

And even more. The Information Commissioner, has waded in saying: "The reports that have been published today show deplorable failures at both HMRC and MoD.

The child benefit records, on computer disc, were just one of a number of personal records that went missing over the last few months.  The child benefit discs were posted from HMRC to the National Audit Office (NAO). When the disc didn't arrive, another disc was sent and that didn't get there either.

The lesson is clear. The next time there is a gold-plated cock up in one of Brown's government departments - don't blame the staff, blame him.

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Boris, The Olympic Messenger

When the 2012 London Olympics go pear-shaped, don't blame Boris. But we can already start to thank him for forcing New Labour politicians and their big business partners to start to own up to this financial shambles.

His forensic examination of the spiralling Olympics costs are already unearthing some of the skulduggery that went on behind the scenes to secure the bid. And forcing the government's main watchdog, the National Audit Office (NAO), to finally crawl out of the woodwork and do its job properly. 

Today the NAO highlighted the lack of a deal for construction of the Olympic Village, which is expected to cost more than £1 billion. And reported that plans for individual venues, including the main stadium and security costs were yet to be finalised.

The London Olympics is set to become one of the biggest financial disasters in the world. Its shameful legacy and financial repercussions will be there long after the the last team has flown home with their medals.

The true London Olympic cost has been full of deceit and spin since the beginning. The original bid put the cost at around £4 billion. This was later admitted to be just a number plucked out of thin air to secure the bid. Nothing like the true cost which no one can yet put a figure on. Officially it's around £9 billion but unofficially around £14 billion. It's rising by the week and there's still four years to go. 

As Mayor of London, Johnson can only observe from the side lines. The real driving force is the New Labour Elite - pushing though this fiasco as part of Blair's legacy.

Announcing a free party in the Mall in August, to 'celebrate' the handover of the Games from Beijing, London 2012 Olympics chairman, Sebastian 'Lord' Coe, described it as: "Starting the narrative of what we want to be saying about ourselves." 

Oh my goodness. It's that word 'narrative'. NewLabourSpeak. A reminder of the empty  language used for the empty Millennium Dome. An omen of what is yet to come. As for the cost? Just think of the Millennium Dome - then multiply that mess by a few thousand.

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Playing The Claim Game

We live in an expenses culture. It's not right. It's being abused. Claim for everything you can and everything you think you can get away with. Welcome to the Claim Game.

Many people use expenses as a perk and to boost income. Some are just more blatant and downright dishonest about it than others. 

It happens the world over in the world of business. But it's a different matter when public money is being used to fund the junkets and lifestyles. 

MPs, SMPs and MEPs are elected and accountable. Their expenses have to be written down somewhere and made public (unless they've been shredded). It is right they should be exposed but often they're just playing the system and will use the defence that 'they haven't broken the rules'. With Euro MPs that's even easier. There are no rules! 

With MPs and the like, what you actually claim for is often justified as spending as part of the job. Sort of. Not so for the Euro MP's gravy train. There anything goes. Just bung in a claim. No checks, just wait for the cheque. 

And it costs a fortune. Add up the expenses which can be claimed for all MPs, SMPs and Assembly Members (it's big). Then add in the Euro-MPs (it's very big). And finally the quangocrats and top civil servants (it's obscene). No wonder some London restaurants charge the earth. It's the expenses junket. 

The outrage recently has been on those elected and so it should be. But it's the non-elected, non-accountable civil servants and quango chiefs who can best easily get away with it. Fat chance of getting hold of their expenses. Unless you keep chipping away at it like Private Eye.

There's a plus side. Examining expenses are a great way of getting rid of people you don't like. Something dodgy usually turns up. People in the public eye are often exposed in this way. 

Maybe the recent expose of Conservative MEPs was a useful way of clearing out the deadwood. Peter Hain was never liked by the Labour Party. And Sir John Bourn, head of the National Audit Office, just wasn't independent enough. Expenses do have their uses.

The answer isn't just bleating about making expenses transparent and independently accounted. You can still play the Claim Game and be within the law and not break the rules.

The matter will only be settled when those in public office are actually instructed to only claim for real and legitimate expenses and they are only reimbursed when they can prove the spending really was part of the job.

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IT's A Disaster

Billions of pounds have been squandered in New Labour's love affair with big, hugely expensive IT computer projects. Can they be that gullible to be taken in by smooth talking IT salesmen?

Like salesmen the world over they promise everything and deliver just a huge hole in the pocket (and nothing on time and on budget). Maybe New Labour just likes spending billions of pounds of our cash. It makes them feel important.

In the last decade of New Labour, we've seen many of them crash and burn. Huge IT projects at the MoD and Dept of Work and Pensions end up as embarrassing financial fiascos.

But it is the NHS's Connecting for Health (CfH) computer that's the big daddy. The biggest non-military IT computer project in the world. Costing a staggering £12.7 billion (and that just the official figure).

The NHS IT programme, launched in 2002 in the heyday of New Labour, is already years late.

Until recently, the whole project was shrouded in secrecy, with all sorts of legal injunctions in place to stop reporting. The National Audit Office (NAO), supposedly the big public spending watchdog (well, big on the its previous bosses' expenses) dithered and delayed any report on progress or cost. 

Now the plans will face further delays after a contract with one of the big three key suppliers was terminated.

The Conservatives say the government's attempts to "ram through a top-down, centralised, one-size-fits-all central NHS computer system" has come "crashing down around their ears". That's putting it mildly.

Why not just scrap it and spend the money on, well, how about the NHS? 

Do something about the filthy wards (whatever happened to Johnson's Deep Clean gimmick - come to think of it whatever happened to Alan Johnson?), the appalling hospital contract food (don't even go there) and the third rate service (because the debt ridden hospitals have to spend the cash on paying off the PFI loans). 

£13 billion of our money down the drain and into the pockets of the international IT consultants. It's enough to make you feel sick.

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