Research suggesting the UK Government “wasted” more than £120billion last year has been condemned by trade unions for including nurses’ salaries and benefits for better-off families and pensioners.
The TaxPayers’ Alliance, which campaigns for lower taxes, said it believed that one in every six pounds of public spending was unwarranted.
It highlighted offices left empty, an aborted TV series, lost military spares, unused Olympics hotel rooms, a whisky tasting, pot plants and the hiring of a bunny outfit.
But around a fifth of the total “waste” was identified as the “£22.5billion cost to taxpayers of overpaying on public-sector pay and pensions compared to the private sector”.
Other significant factors were given as £8.9billion in extra housing benefit caused by the “broken” planning system, £2.7billion in “contributory benefits for those who don’t need them” and £2.3billion on “income-related benefits going to the richest fifth of households”.
But the report drew strong criticism from TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady.
She said: “These made-up numbers are based on extreme views, such as every nurse is overpaid and that people who have worked hard and paid into the system should not get benefits. It’s a spectacular own goal.”
The alliance’s total “waste” sum – the equivalent of £4,560 per UK household – is two and a half times the amount it calculated 10 years ago. It put the rise down to more public spending being published and a large increase in overall spending. TPA chief executive Jonathan Isaby said: “Politicians and bureaucrats are still squandering our cash.”
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