Hundreds of Whitehall mandarins are being offered "bribes" of up to £40,000 a year for life and golden handshakes of £150,000 in a job-cutting package described as "the most generous redundancy scheme in history".
The astonishing offer has prompted a stampede to grab the money among staff as young as 50 at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).
Bizarrely, the £300 million "voluntary retirement" scheme was devised as part of emergency measures to save money after Defra was fined £300 million by the EU for failing to pay farm subsidies on time.
The department's budget has come under further strain as a result of foot-and-mouth disease, bird flu, the floods and a failure to meet earlier job-reduction targets.
But some officials say the job-cutting scheme is so generous that Environment Secretary Hilary Benn is "throwing good money after bad".
Defra Permanent Secretary Helen Ghosh appealed for 300 staff to leave.
**Yep, trust New Labour to firstly fuck it up, then to piss away millions of taxpayers pounds on attempting to "resolve the problem".
In the lavish expenses news this week:
Met chief spends £15 grand on drinkies- "Andy Hayman, the Metropolitan police anti-terrorism chief, has been questioned over thousands of pounds spent on hotel expenses and drinks for his staff. He has been asked to explain at least £15,000 expenses that included claims for “inordinate amounts” of drinking with colleagues. “Apart from the money, what happens if they are all out drinking when a bomb goes off?” said one Met official. The married father of two has been quizzed about his relationship with Sergeant Heidi Tubby, his former staff officer. Tubby is said to have accompanied him on foreign business trips at public expense." (Sunday Times 25.11.07)
£330 grand for MOD ducking stools and champagne- "DEFENCE officials entrusted with ensuring troops are properly equipped in Iraq and Afghanistan have spent £7,000 to go on a team-building event, featuring hot tubs, ducking stools and celebratory glasses of champagne... the Defence Equipment and Support division has allocated £330,000 for civil servants to go on courses." (Sunday Times 25.11.07)
Regional quangos blow £8m on boonies- "Nine regional development agencies... free-spending habits are revealed in documents obtained under the freedom of information (FOI) act, which show that expenses claims reached £8m (read the documents: click here and here). Eight of the nine development agencies decided it was essential to send a contingent to a property trade fair in Cannes. Seeda took 13 staff to Mipim, a four-day event based in the Palais des Festivals, spending £24,000 on dinner, brunch and other events at the exhibition. Meanwhile, the LDA flew in 14 people, allowing staff to stay at four-star hotels. The South West of England Regional Development Agency spent £61,000 at Mipim and the body promoting the West Midlands held an £8,000 cocktail reception in Cannes. Claer Barrett, managing editor of Property Week magazine, said Mipim was “basically a four-day party” with “loads of lobster and champagne” on yachts. Staff at Yorkshire Forward had an even more glamorous assignment: to mix with Hollywood actors, including Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Bollywood stars such as Preity Zinta and Shilpa Shetty, at the International Indian Film Academy weekend in Dubai in 2006. It cost £20,000 to fly 15 staff, 10 of whom flew business class, to the four-day jamboree." (Sunday Times 25.11.07)
Defra books into £310 hotel rooms- "GOVERNMENT officials sent to contain the avian flu outbreak have enjoyed the luxuries of some of Suffolk's most prestigious and expensive hotels it has been revealed. Critics have rounded on the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) for spending thousands of pounds housing staff at The Ickworth, describing the move as a “grotesque extravagance”. Standard double rooms for bed, breakfast and dinner at The Ickworth, near Bury St Edmunds, cost £310." (Evening Star 23.11.07)
£1.4m Home Office art fiasco- "An annual competition would invite members of the public to describe, in 150 words, what it means to be British. The winning entries would be engraved on the pavement outside the Home Office in Westminster. Yet four years after the "artwork" was dreamed up, at a cost so far of more than £18,000... only three stones have so far been engraved, and the words are almost unreadable. No work has been done for the past 12 months.... Funding has come from a £1.4 million budget for artworks in and around the Home Office's £311 million Marsham Street headquarters, which opened in 2005... This is the second art project to run into trouble at the building... a £125,000 deal to buy a six-storey high abstract sculpture by Eva Rothschild collapsed because it was too heavy to hang in the building's atrium." (Sunday Telegraph 25.11.07)
2 people have spoken:
After reading that, the only artwork I can picture for the moment is the Scream. We should just plant stakes in the pavement outside every one of their palaces and impale the cunt with the largest expenses form each and every week. This would also help with the redundancy expenses and create jobs for skilled impalers, simple.
Sounds like a rather good idea to me Jgball, where do I sign up for an impalers job?... :-)
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