Cabinet Office Taxpayer Credit Card Spending Increased After ‘Freeze’ – Guido Fawkes

Cabinet Office Taxpayer Credit Card Spending Increased After ‘Freeze’

mdi-fullscreen

On March 18 Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden announced with great fanfare a bold “crackdown on wasteful spend” by freezing all Government Procurement Cards (GPCs) from that week to free up cash. As promised, Guido’s been keeping tabs on the pen-pushers’ expenses. Spoiler alert: the ‘crackdown’ is going as well as Labour’s mythical ‘bonfire of the quangos’…

In February, before Labour’s supposed war on waste kicked off, the Cabinet Office racked up £144,673.67 on its GPCs. In March that figure soared to a whopping £224,789.78. That’s a 55% jump in spending. Over £5,500 went on hotels alone. Not exactly penny-pinching…

McFadden insisted that GPC holders would need to reapply and justify their spending. Apparently Whitehall’s finest had no trouble passing that test. Business as usual, then…