Foreign aid millions wasted on taxis and doing up the office (and that was the ONLY area to get increase in spending review)
By Tim Shipman
Last updated at 8:33 AM on 28th October 2010
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The extent to which Britain’s foreign aid budget has been wasted was laid bare last night.
A Mail investigation reveals how the Department for International Development, which distributes overseas aid, has thrown away millions on consultants, office refurbishments and private school fees.
But, although the existing budget is a catalogue of waste, the DfID’s front-line spending budget is to be increased by 37 per cent over the next four years – even as other departments face cuts of almost 20 per cent.
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Local Haitians receiving aid. DfId has thrown away millions on consultants, office refurbishments and private school fees
Last year, the department spent more than £255,000 on taxi fares in Britain – a total that has almost trebled in recent years.
Ministers also spent £19million on external private sector consultants last year – and a total of £65million in the last three years, a study of Parliamentary answers reveals.
Since 2002, DfID has spent £29million on office refurbishments, including £11million to overhaul its UK headquarters in London.
And £98,000 was spent last year on a project to design a new logo for UKaid, used to brand British-backed development projects in the Third World.
In 2009-10, stationery costs hit £52,000 and £90,000 was spent on newspapers, bringing the total over the last six years to £664,000.
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Tory International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell has launched an overhaul of the department since the election
And the official figures released by the department also reveal the favourable terms and conditions DfID staff enjoy.
The cost of performance-related pay has more than doubled from £4.1million to £10million over the last six years. Some 19 members of staff were handed bonuses of more than £30,000 last year.
Together, DfID workers ran up expenses totalling more than £713,000, with ten staff making individual expense claims in excess of £1,500.
The documents also highlight the generous education allowances which allow staff serving overseas to send their children to some of Britain’s top public schools.
Last year, 48 members of staff received a total of £1.3million in private school fees, including leading independent schools Winchester, Marlborough, Roedean and Fettes College, where Tony Blair was educated.
Details of the waste last night led to calls for the Government to abandon plans to plough yet more millions into foreign aid. Critics said the money would be better spent at home.
The increase adds nearly £4billion extra to the budget, at a cost of nearly £500 to every family.
Tory MP Philip Davies said: ‘These details emphasise why the first priority should be to spend the existing budget in a more sensible way.
‘You don’t go around increasing a budget that is wasting so much of its existing allocation.
‘Voters will see cuts to things that matter to them in their local communities but also expect to see the same restraint elsewhere.’
Seven out of ten grassroots Tories oppose the increase in the aid budget.
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Sam Bowman, of the Adam Smith Institute, said: ‘It makes no sense at all for the Government to tell us with one breath that cuts are necessary, which they are, and to then turn around and say we need to spend more on aid, which we do not.’
Tory International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell has launched an overhaul of the department since the election.
He blamed the waste on Labour: ‘Well-spent British aid saves millions of lives every year. But the previous Labour government weren’t tough enough on stamping out waste.
'That’s why I’ve instigated a tough value for money review at DfID to look at all items of spending.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1324322/Foreign-aid-millions-wasted-taxis-doing-office.html#ixzz13e0Fd4k5
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