All 20,000 civil service credit cards frozen in spending crackdown
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/government-credit-cards-frozen-treasury-cuts-gn7nsgxxh
Posted by BestButtons
All 20,000 civil service credit cards frozen in spending crackdown
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/government-credit-cards-frozen-treasury-cuts-gn7nsgxxh
Posted by BestButtons
25 Comments
Article contents:
*Geraldine Scott, Senior Political Correspondent, March 17 2025, The Times*
Thousands of government credit cards are set to be cancelled after hundreds of millions of pounds was spent without proper scrutiny.
The Cabinet Office will freeze all 20,000 procurement cards used by civil servants on Tuesday, with those who need them having to apply to get them reactivated.
It comes after The Times revealed that thousands of pounds had been spent on meals at private members’ clubs, crystal glassware from a company featured in Downton Abbey and premium English sparkling wine.
Pat McFadden, the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said: “We must ensure taxpayers’ money is spent on improving the lives of working people.
“It’s not right that hundreds of millions of pounds are spent on government credit cards each year, without high levels of scrutiny or challenge. Only officials for whom it is absolutely essential should have a card.”
Only a handful of cards will be exempt from the freeze if they are used for specific purposes such as by diplomatic staff working in unstable environments.
All other cardholders will need to justify why they need the cards or they will be cancelled at the end of the month.
Spending on the procurement cards jumped from £155 million in 2020-21 to £675 million in 2024-25.
In opposition, Labour often criticised the use of the cards. In February 2023, Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, criticised the Tory government for similar spending, accusing them of a “scandalous catalogue of waste” that showed money was being “frittered away across every part of government”.
However, the practice continued after the election.
Times analysis showed the Foreign Office spent £2,400 at Cumbria Crystal, where a set of four Grasmere wine glasses costs £500. The luxury glass company, founded by Lord and Lady Cavendish, also supplied crystal tableware for the set of Downton Abbey.
Another £1,400 was spent at the London department store Fortnum and Mason’s, £600 on Chapel Down sparkling wine and £741 on bespoke shoes from Carreducker.
Spending marked as “leisure events” was also a source of extravagance. Taxpayers fronted an £810 bill for Home Office staff to do a team-building exercise at an escape room in Kent, £872 on trophies for an awards ceremony, and the Foreign Office paid £623 for tickets to the South By South West music and tech festival in Sydney.
Five staff from the Department of Transport (DfT) were put up in the Hotel Claris, a five-star hotel in Barcelona, costing £5,237 for four people, when they attended an IT conference.
The Cabinet Office also spent £1,050 on training resources from the Plain English Campaign, a campaign group that fights “gobbledygook”.
The move comes after Sir Keir Starmer vowed to reshape the “flabby” state and slash the cost of bureaucracy.
The government expects to reduce the number of civil service credit cards in use by at least 50 per cent.
New spending controls will also bring down the maximum spend for hospitality from £2,500 to £500, with anything over the new limit requiring approval from the director general.
Civil servants will also be barred from using cards for common goods and services that can be dealt with at scale instead — such as booking official travel, training or buying office supplies.
McFadden added: “Our clampdown on government credit cards will deliver savings that can be used to drive our plan for change — securing our borders, getting the NHS back on its feet and rebuilding Britain.”
So the Foreign Office bought something as a gift and some people went to mid-range hotel on a work trip?
What?
Good start. Next thing should be investigating personal purchases to claim the tax payer’s money back.
£155mn in 2020-21 to £675mn in 2024-25 is a massive increase but I would like to know the spending in a different initial year because I’m sure covid had a effect that year.
If £150mn was the norm before that then an extra £500mn in spending is absolutely eye watering.
A good news story. Huzzah. It will capture headlines, save no money and after the chaos dies down in a few months, the ship of state will sail serenely on.
Small spending decisions will now be referred upwards. Sure this might cut out some extravagance but will waste a lot of management time.
>*Civil servants will also be barred from using cards for common goods and services that can be dealt with at scale instead — such as booking official travel, training or buying office supplies.*
I’ve only worked in the private sector where travel and training were commonly booked by the people needing them. In-house travel agents largely disappeared in the 1980s.
You might think team-building retreats a waste of time and money and I might agree with you but the costs quoted do not look exceptional and nor is it outrageous that HMG should serve English Sparkling Wine rather than French champagne. As for one of the suppliers also selling to Downton Abbey, who cares?
This smacks of naive political and journalistic opportunism from people with no idea how the real world works.
One of the biggest indicators of big recessions is the strip club and golf club revenue. These tend to get particularly hit hard when large company and government credit cards get turned off.
This to me is another canary in a coal mine that we may have another if not worse 2008 starting this year. Hope I am wrong but the signs are not good.
Personally think this is great. Some depts spending (wasting) taxpayers money on shoe shops and fancy coffee FFS! It all adds up.
When I worked in the police we had one for diesel until we moved back to sourcing it ourselves.
It was only able to be used in petrol stations and was audited. Really useful to have, as claiming back on expenses was a bit of a pain and leaves you out of pocket. Guessing other parts of the public sector have been taking the piss.
Time to properly scrutinise the big spenders and start recouping some taxpayers money
Credit cards are a red herring, the biggest issue is spending on consultants. My old civil service team engaged in a 6 month consultancy contract which cost nearly £6m, in return they produced a bunch of waffly PowerPoints which have since been _completely_ forgetten.
all they did was interview staff in our own department and… wrote up what they were told (for a £6 **million** contract) – but the consultants knew nothing about our subject area, so their interpretations of their “stakeholder interviews” was total garbage. And then seeing some early 20s consultants literally fresh out of university telling senior staff (some with operational experience!) what to do, an absolute farce.
I think the rule should be any consultancy contracts where the end result will be a PowerPoint or Word document should simply be banned.
Credit card use in the civil service however in my experience is tightly controlled and and very difficult to get away with abuse unless both you and your manager are in on a scam.
I have a purchase card through work. I have to get every transaction pre-approved by budget holders beforehand. I have purchased things that would seem extravagant if you don’t know that they were for entertaining high-profile guests, etc. At the end of the month, I submit a report with approvals, receipts, etc. and each transaction goes to auditors for review, then to my line manager for approval.
It’s just not possible to abuse. Do civil servants really have more lax rules than my company? That doesn’t seem like it would be the case, but I’d be happy to be told otherwise.
So when trump does it, bad! When Starmer does it, good! Got ya.
Watching the country fall apart at the seams, I can’t help but think people are getting what they deserve.
Somewhere along the way, people collectively voted against their best interest and, after being whipped by their oppressor for close to 2 decades, they continue to point their finger at the people trying to stop the ship from sinking.
But how will they buy their football season tickets ?
They simply don’t have enough personnel to check/approve spend on all those cards. Instead of just cancelling they could have provided additional staff to monitor and reduce the abuse of these cards.
Tbh with that many cards to manage it is probably the best way to figure out genuine need for the card.
Any important cards will be activated again pretty quick, I imagine there will be some lower level cards that are cancelled entirely.
That being said majority of the things listed in the article seemed pretty reasonable to me. The shoes and hotel rooms are potentially a bit iffy.
Always makes me laugh when people criticise places like the foreign office for having posh glasses. Politics is not just about substance, you have to look the part too.
Not needing approval on gifts worth up to £2500 is insane. Most companies set their approval limits between £50-£200.
Seems like Starmer has taken a leaf out of orange man’s book
There’s lots of waste that is by design. Take employing a supply teacher or agency nurse. In the past and in other countries, it’s done in house. A teacher may register with the LEA for supply work and schools rang to request a teacher as required. Total cost would be two or three people’s jobs.
That‘s all gone. We now have many private agencies who charge at least twice what they pay the teacher. The private sector leech off the public purse.
In this case what will happen is that current stock of paper, pens etc will be used and they’ll say look we saved money until it runs out and work stops and a big order needs to be made to put things right. The disruption will cost more than any savings.
Companies are much tighter than they used to be in controlling how corporate credit cards are used and who has one, so it makes sense that the civil service catches up.
It’s not just about the amount of money saved, I think it’s about encouraging a more frugal working culture and attitude to money in the civil service.
Are MPs going to have their expenses frozen as well? It’d only be fair
Well this will make my job harder. GPCs are very useful for ordering low value items from Amazon or other online retailers where it’s often cheaper and with much faster delivery – or simply just stock items that our contracted standard procurement suppliers do not. They are also extremely useful for dealing with external specialist suppliers for higher value items who do not want to faff around with the red tape from the standard civil service procurement procedure, where we require receipt of delivery of the item *before* the supplier is paid – you can understand why most companies flat out refuse to do business this way.
Let’s kick those pesky civil servants and instead employ consultants and a private company to manage travel expenses at three times the cost! Civil sServants are spending 4 times more since the year 2020-2021! Yes public transport was pretty much banned, yes everyone was working from home and yes expenses were at an all time low but let’s use that as a justification to make such a pathetic decision! /s
Pathetic government clutching at straws for a cheap headline which will ultimately cost the tax payer more
This is one of those headlines that sounds good and practical, but actually makes “just getting on with the job” more difficult.
There’s loads of stuff our local government department needs access to a card to buy, because many suppliers don’t accept purchase orders; they want payment first.
This is such a massive red herring. I would flat out refuse to work at the civil service based on their office and Travel/Entertainment Expenses culture alone: no cutlery, no free coffee/tea, no cups, no socials that work pays for (unless it’s an away day), £6 allowance for breakfast, £18 allowance for dinner when away, as well as quite low hotel price ranges, being guilt tripped to fly for work on 20+ hour flights in economy
Yet people get mad that the government had to buy gifts from posh vendors and think that’s your average civil servant spending it on work trips 😂😂😂
It’s the lower end of the pay scale civil servants I feel sorry for. Quite a lot of them have expectations to travel as part of their role (although there’s currently a travel freeze too), and without a credit card, they are expected to pay up front for train station parking, taxis, their lunches, and evening meals. They can claim it back, but you’re relying on managers to approve the spend quickly, then for the money to go back into your bank. I’ve had to wait three weeks before. A couple of days away for work can end up over £100. If you’re at the bottom of the pay scales, that’s a lot of money to be paying out.