govt. ‘willful ignorance’ cost £38 B

“Fraud, error and debt. It’s incredible how uncoordinated, how casual, how willfully ignorant government has been about tackling losses in this area,” Maude said in an address to the Institute for Government, which is a charity working to improve government effectiveness.

Maude said the government departments should “drive out old ways of working” and any “resistance” to that line of action “must be knocked down” to curb the waste of public cash.

“It is only now that we have figures showing how much the public sector loses to fraud, error and debt – a staggering £38 billion last year,” Maude added.

However, the Conservative minister tried to blame the lack of efficiency at government departments for wrong methods institutionalized in the past.

He said the current government has already made £3.75 billion in efficiency savings by and is planning another £20 billion by 2015 through introducing new management information systems to monitor different departments’ work on a monthly basis.

“Our reforms to Whitehall go beyond cutting costs. We must drive out old ways of working and resistance must be knocked down,” he said.

Maude’s comments follow revelations in April that only the Ministry of Defense, under the coalition government, wasted £6.1 billion on 15 items despite MPs warnings that the items could be purchased at lower costs.

Shadow defense secretary Jim Murphy said at the time that “the country will be shocked at this total inaction from ministers.”

AMR/GHN/HE

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