Civil servants spent £1 billion on taxpayer-funded credit cards

Civil servants spent £1.1 billion using taxpayer-funded credit cards last year to pay for items including gourmet meals and fine wines, it has been disclosed.

More than 137,000 officials used the ‘government procurement cards’, pushing up the bill for 2012-2013 to four times that of 2002 – despite David Cameron’s pledge to curb their use.

The money spent on the cards could have paid for 52,000 new nurses.

A total of £1,655 was spent by Home Office staff on a stay at the luxury Hilton Rose Hall resort and spa in Jamaica’s Montego Bay.

Officials at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport spent £927 on a single picture frame, while the Planning Inspectorate spent £646 on a ‘specialist ergonomic chair’.

It has become harder to scrutinise what the cards are being spent on - Buying Solutions, the agency previously responsible for the charge cards, displayed charts and tables on its website but these are no longer available.

£7,500 on wages, £5,000 on pension..and it’s on the House

PUBLIC fury erupted yesterday over plans to raise MPs’ pay to £74,000 a year — and give their pensions a big boost too. 

Deputy PM Nick Clegg and Labour leader Ed Miliband both vowed not to take the extra cash — but No 10 refused to say what David Cameron would do.

 Last night it emerged a pensions windfall worth up to £5,000 EXTRA a year is hidden in the small print of the plans.

The backlash came after the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority unveiled proposals to increase MPs’ pay from the current £66,396 to £74,000 in 2015.

The 11 per cent hike will cost taxpayers £4.6MILLION

But in a little-noticed move, IPSA decided the new £74,000 wage will be the final salary for any pension built up before 2015.

The decision means some MPs will pocket an extra £5,000 a year in retirement and cost taxpayers at least £10million.

There was also criticism of IPSA’s call for MPs to produce their own “annual report” on what they have done for constituents.

Mr Miliband said: “I don’t think MPs should be getting a ten per cent pay rise when nurses and teachers are facing pay freezes or very low increases.”

And Mr Clegg said it was “about the worst time in which you seek to advocate that MPs should get a double-digit pay increase.”