The National Audit Office has prepared the first comprehensive report on Government spending on Brexit preparations. It estimates absolute minimum spend of £4.4 billion out of the £6.3 billion allocated. At least £1.9 billion was burnt up on 22,000 staff.
nao.org.uk/wp-content/upl…
nao.org.uk/wp-content/upl…
The report is laden with interesting figures, so I'll just pull a few out here...
- Even though not all the money was spent, some individual government departments overshot their budgets by £301 million total, meaning Brexit took away from the other work they were doing.
- Even though not all the money was spent, some individual government departments overshot their budgets by £301 million total, meaning Brexit took away from the other work they were doing.
- £288 million went to external consultants, so the big consulting firms will have been rolling in Brexit loot
- Meanwhile, local governments received a relatively lean £104 million across the whole country.
- Defra spent the most; a lot went on duplicating EU regulatory regimes
- Meanwhile, local governments received a relatively lean £104 million across the whole country.
- Defra spent the most; a lot went on duplicating EU regulatory regimes
- Even though the size of the civil service has shrunk since 2010, it has grown since 2016 because of Brexit hires, and the number of senior civil servants is up nearly 10% on 2010.
- Over 1,500 people were moved around between departments
- Over 1,500 people were moved around between departments
- Operation Brock in Kent soaked up £69 million. (Part of that will have gone on the motorway dividers which were installed at great expense, and have since been dismantled again - I assume they'll have to be reinstalled if the talks break down and we don't reach a deal)
- £49 million was spent on "advertising and communication" including the rubbish "Get ready for Brexit" campaign that dumped people onto the infamously inept Government website.
- A whole bunch of money was wasted because of all the different Brexit dates (p.23) including on those ridiculous ferry contracts, building and running down stockpiles, etc.
- £92 million was lost lost, i.e. identified as genuinely wasted on fruitless initiatives (p.24)
- £92 million was lost lost, i.e. identified as genuinely wasted on fruitless initiatives (p.24)
Finally, the report notes that there has been relatively little transparency, including little public domain information. Also, departments did a lousy job of recording who was working on what, and they didn't necessarily keep track of Brexit work separately to their normal work.
