Dispatches

How They Squander Our Billions

Jane Moore

As the country enters a nasty recession and we feel the need to tighten our belts, journalist and broadcaster Jane Moore examines how the government is wasting billions of pounds of taxpayers' money each year.

Jane investigates a variety of controversial public projects that have had millions, if not billions, spent on them and attempts to discover where the money went, who sanctioned the spending and why so little appears to have been done to prevent massive waste and excess.

Dispatches also highlights the findings of a report that details the escalation in government public sector spending and sets out what needs to be done to stop the waste. Public spending wastage is reported to have cost every household nearly £50,000 over the past 11 years.

Clips from How They Squander Our Billions

On TV

First Shown

Date Time Channel
Monday 09 March 2009 8PM Channel 4

Last Shown

Date Time Channel
Friday 13 March 2009 3.05AM Channel 4

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  1. This was overly simplistic, populist and bordering on irresponsible. No doubt the Labour government has squandered money. But this programme didn't really begin to scratch at the surface of why money gets wasted, and the extent to which we all back that 'waste' when it happens to benefit us or our employer. The defence projects which are over budget and overdue, for example, have often been allocated to companies that are not the cheapest or most efficient, but that maintain jobs and defence engineering expertise in the UK. The public sector generally gets poor value for money in its procurement - but the private companies that rip it off are the ones that employ us or whose shares our savings and pensions are invested in. And ultimately, the question is not does the government waste money, to which the answer is obviously yes, but could the next government (of whatever political persuasion) do better?
    Posted by Kathy on 07/04/2009 15:07:16
    Offensive? Unsuitable? Report this comment

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