The £1m expenses bill for quangos
Updated on 30 October 2009
An exclusive More4 News investigation reveals an expenses bill from the boards of 24 quangos totalling almost £1m.
In the past three years, the taxpayer has paid for, amongst other things, the membership of an exclusive Pall Mall club, worldwide business class flights, and £5,000 on alcohol for just one organisation's board meetings.
More4 News sent Freedom of Information requests to 24 of the biggest quangos within the three government departments which spend the most on these bodies including the Communities and Local Government Committee (CLG), the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).
The investigation found that their board members had claimed £969,690.50 in expenses from 2006 to 2009. This figure represents a fraction of the total claimed in expenses by government quangos which number 790 in all.
The investigation uncovered:
Travel expenses totalling £670,254.57 including tens of thousands on taxis
A total of £48,188.06 spent by the Science and Technology Facilities Council on flights in the last three years for their chief executive. This includes £6,546.10 spent on domestic flights
The Science and Technology Facilities Council told More 4 News: "As the CEO of a major science organisation, Professor Keith Mason is often required to travel, both within the UK and overseas. Professor Mason endeavours to keep expenses to a minimum. For example, he does not claim travel expenses from his home in Surrey to STFC's head office in Swindon, where he is based, or to the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, where he is also required to spend a major portion of his time."
A total of £184,967.89 was claimed for hotels and living expenses
Entertaining claims came to £114,468.04, which included £5,570.14 on 'wine and pre-dinner drinks' for the five-yearly board meetings at the Natural Environment Research Council
The Council told More 4 News: "We allow a small amount of alcoholic or soft drinks to be included with dinner during our Council meetings, usually around two drinks per person. Over the past three years we have had 28 days of meetings with an average of 23 people attending each day. The cost of drinks per person per day works out at £8.65, which we feel is reasonable and within our policy."
The chief executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) included annual membership of the exclusive Athenaeum club in his expenses, which cost £920 in 2008 and £855 in 2007
The HEFCE told More 4 News: "The HEFCE board agreed to David Eastwood's membership of the Athenaeum when he was appointed considering it represented value for money. It was used by him for overnight accommodation and holding meetings with senior representatives of the HE sector and business."
Nick Hurd MP, the Conservative Shadow Minister for Charities, and formerly Shadow Cabinet Office Minister, said he was concerned by the findings: "The public will be quite rightly shocked that one million pounds' of public money has been spent by the boards of just 24 quangos over the last three years. It is probably a symbol of a bigger problem inside quangos about attitudes towards spending public money."
He said the Tories will look at extending the reform of MPs expenses to cover quangos should they get into power next year: "The gravy train is over. It's time for much greater clarity and transparency about public expenditure and what quangos can and can't do."
The More4 News investigation results relate to the board members of each quango. The board includes a full-time chief executive, while the other members work approximately 20 days a year for which they receive a salary of up to £8,000.
There are no central regulations stating what board members of quangos can claim on expenses. Each quango decides its own policy, so some quangos are far more stringent than others.
Paul Lander, director of Corporate Services at the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, said: "Because we are working with public funds, we take the view that we should be looking to minimise our expenses. Therefore all travel is second class rail, unless there are very exceptional circumstances for doing otherwise. And whilst we are prepared to reimburse people for food, we don't reimburse people for alcohol."
Dr Tony Wright MP (Lab), head of the Public Administration Select Committee, called for more standardisation of expenses rules between quangos: "There ought to be some pretty clear rules about what you can spend money on, what you can't spend money on, and what level of expenditure you can have on these things. And all this should be published annually, at least annually, in a report so the public can see it."
More 4 News asked the Cabinet Office, which is responsible for the administration of quangos, for a response to the calls for more centralised regulation of quango expenses, but they declined to issue a statement.
