Look After The Pennies,

and the pounds/dollars will look after themselves, is an old saying, but not so in government circles I fear, take the building above, the Department of Health headquarters, to make it look nice for the workers inside 125 potted plants were added to enhance the ambiance, no great problem there, until you realise that not one worker could or would water them, not even the office cleaners or maintenance department had the necessary skills, so private contractor Resource (UK) Ltd had a deal to tend the 125 plants located at the Department of Health's four main offices in London and a fifth in Leeds, at a cost of £140 per plant! £17,123 a year, it would have been cheaper to replace them every two weeks than water them! the good news is that it was scrapped in December as a new firm was brought in, the bad news no comments on how much the new firm charges, a Whitehall source last night blamed the previous Labour Government for negotiating "over-priced contracts" after a Freedom of Information request, the source said maintenance bill contracts, including spending on plants, had now been cut "by over £1million", well that's a relief, speaking of saving money here is a nice little earner for Eugene Sullivan, the £180,000-a-year chief executive of the Audit Commission – motto: ‘protecting the public purse’ – that others could earn, sorry I mean learn from, the Quango (quasi nongovernmental organization; an organization that is financed by the government yet acts independently of the government) chief charged with curbing wasteful public spending is being paid a £4,070-a-year ‘travel allowance’ – even though his daily commute is a one-minute walk between his office and a four-star hotel, I have read that it works out at £25 a yard a year! he also charges taxpayers £18,000 a year for his stays at the luxury Westminster hotel, plus more than £5,000 a year in train fares, taxis and car mileage, the fashionable £160-a-night Mint Hotel Westminster Mint, where Mr Sullivan stays, boasts an award-winning restaurant and offers suites equipped with ‘Apple iMac computers, floods of natural daylight and White Company luxury toiletries’, together with his hotel, travel and transport perks, Mr Sullivan’s total package comes to more than £250,000 – not including hundreds of pounds to pay for ‘subsistence’ meals while away from home,

Conservative MP Aidan Burley said: ‘every week it seems the Audit Commission finds a fresh way of wasting taxpayers’ cash, why should the public pay for a vanity travel allowance and bankroll luxury accommodation in a top hotel, I find it deeply concerning that the Audit Commission appears to have boosted the chief exec’s salary to an eye-watering £250,000 with a series of perks, Mr Sullivan needs to do the right thing and immediately pay back his “walking allowance”, well yes, but I doubt if the tax payer will see a moral decision like that being made, after all he is the Quango chief, answerable to only himself,

in another case of 'do what I say, not what I do' Sir Hugh Orde, President of the Association of Chief Police Officers, told ACPO’s conference last summer that police must ‘share the pain’ of public-sector cuts, adding that ‘hard choices’ must be made, he said: ‘the harsh reality is that, depending on the severity of the cuts ahead, it would be misleading in the extreme if we were to suggest that the size of the service is sustainable,’ well it must have been so painful for him when he received a pay increase of £27,186, from 2009 to 2010,

the increase will infuriate front line officers, some of whom are likely to suffer salary cuts of at least £3,000, Cannock Chase Tory MP Aidan Burley said: ‘We have just lost our dedicated town centre beat officer in Cannock because of the cuts and the ACPO president’s pay rise would pay for his post, I doubt Sir Hugh would like to work Saturday nights dispersing drunks and breaking up fights, so I suggest he forgoes this bloated and insulting pay rise at a time of national austerity’ er, planet earth to Tory MP Aidan Burley, not much chance of that happening!