Fury at Whitehall staff's £145million splurge

Fury at Whitehall staff’s £145million splurge: Civil servants disguised luxury goods like bottles of fizz as ‘computer equipment’ and gourmet meals as ‘bookkeeping’

  • Rishi Sunak has been accused of overseeing ‘a scandalous catalogue of waste’
  • 14 departments spent at least £145million using government debit cards in 2021

Whitehall civil servants disguised sparkling wine purchases and five-star hotel catering as ‘bookkeeping services’ and ‘administration’, as part of £145million of government debit card spending.

Rishi Sunak has been accused of overseeing ‘a scandalous catalogue of waste’ as it was revealed how officials splurged on alcohol, luxury furnishings and expensive meals abroad.

Opposition MPs said the Labour Party’s new report has revealed a ‘culture of lavish spending’ while the nation suffered in the cost of living crisis.

Rishi Sunak has been accused of overseeing ‘a scandalous catalogue of waste’ in a ‘culture of lavish spending’

The dossier revealed:

  • Ministers and officials eat in high-end restaurants costing up to £115 per head even when no dignitaries are present.
  • Boris Johnson and his entourage spent £4,445 on dinner at Smith & Wollensky in New York, where a steak main course costs up to $115 (£95), despite no foreign dignitaries being present.
  • Liz Truss and her team ate out twice on Remembrance Day in 2021 in Jakarta, Indonesia, costing £1,443, but she failed to pay her respects to the war dead.
  • The Foreign Office racked up bills of up to £18,000 with high-end and designer furnishing, lighting and rug shops.
  • Thousands were spent on ‘corporate branding’, such as branded USB cables which are never seen by the public.
  • Departments spent £1.4million with Amazon on government debit cards.
  • The Department for Transport paid £5,388 for training, using animal examples to help analyse service models, with questions such as: ‘Do you hoot, growl or wave your feathers?’

At the start of the pandemic the Conservative Government relaxed rules around taxpayer-funded debit cards, first introduced under Tony Blair, allowing them to be used more widely, the report claimed.

‘Key users’ were allowed to spend up to £20,000 in one go, with an overall monthly spending limit of £100,000.

But the Labour Party, which compiled the report, has claimed the Government ‘black cards’ have less transparency than ordinary invoice procedures. This is compounded by failure to correctly categorise payments for controversial items, such as alcohol.

The report found officials spent £3,158 on catering from the five-star Gulf Hotel in Bahrain, but filed it under ‘Accounting, Auditing and Bookkeeping Services’. 

The Foreign Office spent £3,266 on goods from luxury lighting designer Marc Wood Studio, but this was filed under ‘Computer Software’.

In July 2021 the Treasury spent £3,217 at the five-star Hotel Danieli in Venice

A bill of £1,190 at The Marina Crossroads leisure complex in the Maldives and £1,282 spent on bubbly from Bluebell Vineyard Estates were described as ‘Computer Equipment and Services’. The Foreign Office also spent £3,680 at Coates & Seely, another English sparkling wine producer, which was put in the ‘Consulting, Management & Public Relations’ category.

A government source said: ‘The descriptions reflect the standard merchant category groups assigned by Visa/Mastercard to individual companies. As such they often are not representative of the actual purchases.’ The report said the miscategorisations make controversial spending ‘look almost deliberately hidden’.

The dossier also revealed how, in July 2021, the Treasury spent £3,217 at the five-star Hotel Danieli in Venice. Meanwhile, in March last year the Foreign Office paid £3,240 for a Heathrow VIP suite which Ms Truss used on her return from Mexico six months previously.

It also spent just under £500,000 on home furnishings in the UK in the twelve months up to the end of August 2022.

UK Visas & Immigration, and the Passport Office, together spent £1,552 on purple ‘corporate-coloured’ coffee cups.

Fourteen departments spent a total of at least £145million using government debit cards in 2021, £60million more than in 2010, the report said.

Angela Rayner, deputy leader of the Labour Party, said: ‘Today’s shocking revelations lift the lid on a scandalous catalogue of waste’

Angela Rayner, deputy leader of the Labour Party, said: ‘Today’s shocking revelations lift the lid on a scandalous catalogue of waste, while families worry about whether their pay cheque will cover their bills.’

A Foreign Office source said: ‘Most governments know diplomacy is not free, but it benefits the country and the economy far more than it costs.’

The Conservative Party branded Labour ‘hypocrites’, saying ministers in Gordon Brown’s government had their hands in the ‘taxpayer-funded cookie jar’. A source said the Conservatives ‘swiftly cut the number of cards’ and ‘introduced a requirement for spending to be publicly declared’.

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