A mountain of bad news was buried by the Government today as it rushed out a series of reports and 26 ministerial statements on the day before MPs go on holiday.
Whitehall sources said many of these reports were ready to be published several weeks ago and would normally be released in stages but ministers had insisted they be delayed until today.
The dangerous state of public finances was laid bare with figures showing the Government’s tax take had plummeted by £32 billion last year.
Figures from Revenue and Customs showed that income tax, national insurance, VAT, stamp duty and corporation tax had fallen by £21 billion and other debts and legal liabilities had cut income by a further £10 billion.
The figures were disclosed as the National Audit Office (NAO) refused to sign off six sets of Whitehall accounts because of large-scale fraud and error, overpayments and IT problems.
The accounts, which cover tens of billions of pounds of taxpayers' money, included those for the Ministry of Defence, the Treasury, the Inland Revenue, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Home Office and the Equalities and Human Rights Commission.
In addition the Government slipped out critical reports criticising its training programme and announced delays in several key policy areas.
Philip Hammond, the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said: “It is a disgrace that the Government is apparently trying to sneak out these very important reports at the fag end of the parliamentary session. It gives no time for MPs to hold Ministers to account, but presumably this is exactly what Mr Brown intended.”
Today's revelations included:
* Stamp duty receipts dropped by £6.1 billion from 2007-08. Corporation tax take fell by £5 billion, and VAT went down by £5 billion. Income tax and national insurance contributions fell by £5.7 billion, as the Government increased personal allowances to compensate those hit by the abolition of the 10p tax rate.
* A faulty IT system handling the army payroll had resulted in £140 million of net errors, according to the MoD accounts. The NAO said that limited checks had allowed a rise in suspected fraud. The document also showed the MoD had been unable to account for £155 million worth of secure radio sets issued to troops fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.
* The Treasury has failed to stem fraud and error in the tax credit system, which rose from 7.8 to 8.6 per cent last year. This included 50,000 cases of fraud in the system administered by HM Revenue and Customs, accounting for between £100 million and 200 million. The Government insisted it was still aiming to cut the rate of fraud and error to 5 per cent by 2011.
* A highly critical report on the new Equalities and Human Rights Commission criticised the organisation’s decision to hire consultants who had already been paid hefty redundancy payments by the Government when three equality commissions merged.
*The Treasury accounts revealed that it had spent £24 billion bailing out the banks last autumn without getting parliamentary approval first. Lloyds Bank and the Royal Bank of Scotland had bad loans guaranteed under the Asset Protection Scheme to stave off a banking meltdown. A Treasury spokesman claimed there was no time to seek MPs' backing.
* A government training scheme has been condemned as a waste of money. The National Audit Office says that Train to Gain needs to be better managed, does not provide value for money, and sets unrealistic initial targets. At least a third of people failed to complete their course, at a quarter of the colleges providing the training.
* A review of the impact of housing development on gardens has been delayed "because of the larger than expected volume of responses". Ministers will not say whether the evidence suggests that there is a threat from developers to garden land.
* Ministers will consult on whether to extend free HIV treatment to foreign nationals beyond just diagnosis and counselling. Free NHS care is to be extended to failed to destitute asylum seekers and those with children.
* Reforms to family legal aid are being postponed. The £528 million annual bill has increased by 25 per cent in real terms but the number of people represented has dropped by 11 per cent. The consultation on a new fee structure ended last March but Jack Straw said in a statement yesterday that "further analysis was needed'
5 comments:
It's all going jolly well then!
Their incompetence is breathtaking.
That'll also explain why Damian McSmear was smearing himself all over the press and radio then. At best a diversion tactic and at worst, a sure sign that he does actually still work for Gordon behind the scenes. That's assuming that he ever stopped in the first place of course.
wv: unshi
Damian is certainly that!
With those disgraceful statistics, I would want to bury it too. Trouble is, its not a mistake, its sheer incompentence combined with arrogance.
What an incompetent shower.
How much longer?
If Philip Hammond makes these reports public, we can feast over them during the recess, and roast the government.
We might even be able to kick up enough stink to have Parliament recalled!
Go for it, Philip.
Post a Comment