The best waste of £200,000 of our money meme
Dear Daily Referendum,
Like Blue Eyes in my previous post, you should be ashamed of making me think at such a disgracefully early hour of the morning. Apparently, I have to name the biggest waste of £200,000 by the government in recent memory – which inevitably led me towards the Taxpayers’ Alliance publication on the quango culture. From this I found some excellent material, but if £200,000 is the meme then here are my suggestions for some spectacularly stupid wastages:
The Pesticides Residues Committee – staffing: 1 person, cost: £100,000
The Zoos Forum – staffing: 2 people, cost: £100,000
And no, I have no idea what they could be spending £100,000 on and how they can possibly justify these in terms of value for money.
Mind you, the clear winner out of the whole publication by the TPA was surely…the British Potato Council which has (wait for it) 49 members of staff and spends £6.5 million a year of public money.
I now pass the batton to Andrew Allison, Bill Quango MP, Not A Sheep Maybe A Goat, and Tony Sharp.
Witanagemot Blogs
I am, as you know, a member of many Quangos.
My time is spent unequally between
“The fly fishing Quango” which examines the shape of fishing hooks and flies.
“The Carpet Underlay Council” Invaluable work discussing the thickness of different underlays and the best sort of adhesive for laminates.
“Tractor and Digger committee” this is a new Quango in association with the arts council of Great Britain that is discovering ways to promote a different colour scheme instead of the traditional yellow or green for construction or agricultural vehicles.
“Kitchen Quango” is a very useful board, of which I am the chairman, that does assessments of how far a sink should be placed from a cooker in government owned staff rooms and council housing. Our remit has just been increased to include discovering “the optimal distance of a toaster from a fridge, fridge/freezer.”
Soon we will also be looking at the EU regulation 167/h6734 and will assess the impact of this law on sandwich makers and espresso machines.
All very very worthwhile stuff I’m sure you will agree.
[well, worthwhile for me anyway]
Boy, am I hoping the Conservatives go after quango fans like you after the next election….