Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #949 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-24
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Daily Telegraph, April 2008
Dominic Sandbrook, Daily Telegraph
`...David Craig's chilling audit of government spending for the last 10 years - a book much more readable and entertaining than it sounds...a genuinely important book. It is no exaggeration to say that if the right people read it, take it seriously, and take appropriate action, this book could not only save the taxpayer billions, it could save lives....This is a terrifying book, but a brilliant and necessary one. Please read it

Jeff Randall, Daily Telegraph
'Read this book and prepare to weep.'

Synopsis
Over the last ten years, New Labour has boosted public spending by around a trillion pounds - that's GBP1,000,000,000,000 of our taxes - over GBP50,000 for every household in Britain. But what have we got for our money? Effective and responsive public services that are the envy of the world? Or the creation of a vast, self-serving bureaucracy that has presided over the greatest waste of money in British history? With so much money, a tsunami of extra cash, being thrown at public services - health, education, policing, defence, social services and public administration - there have been some successes. Nevertheless, the results of the Government's tidal wave of extra spending have been worse than pitiful. In department after department, it is the same sorry story - a triple whammy of incompetence, cover-up and cuts that have all but decimated public services, while those responsible have lavished money and honours on themselves.David Craig exposes the sometimes tragic, sometimes comic story of how New Labour's years of mismanagement have led to a bureaucratization of Britain that has squandered almost unimaginable amounts of taxpayers' money, caused irreparable damage to all our lives and rewarded the man responsible with the keys to Number 10.

Customer Reviews

You'll suddenly want to withold your taxes
There's a quote from a review printed on the book itself along the lines of "It's impossible to read this without becoming angry" and that pretty much sums it up. Most of us are all too aware of how governments of all stripes waste vast sums of our hard earned money, but to have such a catalogue of incompetence set out before you in such stark terms really will make you want to devise a way - any way - of keeping more of your money out of the hands of a self-enriching political 'elite'.

It's not really addressed in this book, but if we moved to a new monetary system - one which didn't allow privately owned central banks to create money out of thin air and lend it out at interest - the ability of the government to plunge us all so deeply into debt would be severly curtailed.

The negative reviews of this book basically accuse it of being polemic and biased at that. However, although many of the references cited are indeed to newspaper articles, there's nothing to stop the interested reader checking the facts for themselves. What 'Sqandered' does do is set out in a short, eminently readable format, the dire state our public finances are really in and the colossal waste that continues to undermine them.

Enjoyable Enough, with Reservations
I read this book on a train journey as it is fairly short. At times I felt overpowered by the profusion of figures, and I think here caution is called for.

After having worked in the field of healthcare IT for about 20 years, I like to think I know something about it. In his previous book "Plundering the Public Sector" Mr. Craig made at least one large arithmetical error favouring his general argument about the NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT).

What's more, William Faulkner said "kill your darlings" referring to being ruthless in revising drafts, but Mr. Craig seems to have been unable to do that and still perpetuates the inaccuracy from his previous book that NPfIT was "sexily renamed" Connecting for Health. It wasn't.

Nonetheless, though this book doesn't present many reasoned options, it does give food for thought and is enjoyable enough.

Brilliant attack on misapplied spending
David Craig, a management consultant, wrote the excellent Plundering the public sector, which showed how the Labour government paid consultants billions to loot and wreck our public services. In his new book, he shows how the government has wasted more than a trillion pounds. But this is no pro-Conservative account: he also condemns the Conservatives' closure of the coal industry, their privatisation of railways and utilities, their three recessions and their three million unemployed.

He looks at area after area of our national life and shows how taxpayers' money is being misapplied. He shows how the costly regulatory quangos are not doing their jobs. For example, Ofwat issued no enforcement orders or fines on Thames Water, which loses a third of its water through leaks. In 2006, Thames raised its prices by 21% and its CEO got £6.3 million, without a squeak from Ofwat. Ofgem does nothing to curb the big six energy firms, which raised their prices by 15% this year. Foreign energy companies make 30-40% profit on their British operations, but only 5-10% elsewhere. The National Audit Office has praised the £180 billion PFI/PPP programme, the NHS IT fiasco and the soaring Olympics budget. It even praised the Financial Services Authority's performance, just weeks before it oversaw the Northern Rock debacle.

Craig points out that there are far too many quangos, initiatives and advisers. Spending on quangos rose from £79.6 billion in 2003 to £123.8 billion in 2006. The bosses of the 100 largest quangos get £110K each; the head of the Tote gets £350K a year. Labour's health quangos cost £426 million a year. Spending on NHS management consultants has multiplied by ten to £600 million a year, while beds have been cut from 250,000 to 180,000, increasing the rate of infections. The government has wasted £12 billion on a useless computer system for the NHS.

2.7 million people are on disability benefit - the highest proportion of people of working age in the developed world. In total, eight million people are economically inactive, more than in any slump in the last 70 years. This costs £40 billion a year.

The government has raised spending on the police from £8.5 billion a year to £12 billion, employing 62% more admin and support staff but only 11% more police officers. The Home Office budget rose from £7 billion to £14 billion, while it lost control of immigration and prisons.

The government modernised the Ministry of Defence's HQ at a cost of £2.347 billion over 30 years. MoD projects worth £34 billion are over-budget and late. The Ministry is top-heavy, with more admirals than ships, more brigadiers than regiments and more air marshals than squadrons.

Britain's Olympics bid of 2004 was based on a £4 billion estimate, with the taxpayer paying £1.8 billion. The 2007 estimate was £9 billion, with the taxpayer paying £7 billion. Now the estimate is £14 billion. The National Lottery's contribution has risen from £1.5 billion to £2.175 billion, which has meant taking £125 million from the bodies that actually train our athletes. In 1972, after the estimated costs of holding the 1976 Winter Olympics had tripled, the US city of Denver had a referendum on whether it should still host them. 60% voted against, so the Games were handed back to the International Olympics Committee and held in Innsbruck, which had hosted the 1964 Games. Perhaps we should give the Olympics back to the IOC, who could give them to Athens.

Craig notes that Blair negotiated our contributions to the EU's budget up from £3.3 billion a year to £5.6 billion a year until 2013. The Common Agricultural Policy's costs will rise 10% by 2013, so we will be paying for its higher costs! The CAP subsidises the rich - a quarter of its funds goes to the richest 2% of farmers and companies. For example, in 2004 Tate & Lyle got 178 million euros and the Duke of Westminster got 500,000 euros. For every pound of EU aid to Africa's farmers, the CAP takes away two by unfair trading.

The eight EU-originated Regional Development Agencies, with 300 staff each and CEOs on £175,000, cost us £200 million a year. MPs' salaries and expenses rose from £100 million in 2001-2 to £155 million last year, £240K per MP per year. Britain's MEPs get £380K each a year in salary, pension and expenses.

We could save billions by scrapping most quangos, the NHS IT scheme, the Regional Development Agencies, the unworkable ID card scheme (saving £5 billion), and renationalising the railways and the utilities. Craig ends by proposing that we reassert our democratic control over society by holding a series of referendums on key proposals like the EU Constitution, ID cards and the Olympics.