Synopsis
Governments do not provide value for money. In fact, they spend taxpayers' money wastefully and even stupidly. The UK government spends an unfathomable GBP660 billion every year - that's GBP11,000 per every person in the country, plus a further GBP13,000 each of accumulated debt. Although public spending is being curtailed, total government spending is still rising - it is only the rate of growth that is being slowed by cuts. In Conundrum, Daily Telegraph Senior Political Correspondent Christopher Hope and Richard Bacon MP, who sits on the Public Accounts Committee that examines the accounts of government departments, look at a wide variety of cases where hundreds of millions and even billions of pounds of taxpayers' money were spent on projects and programmes that went wrong, and where individual members of the public suffered as a result. Throughout the book the authors look at examples of failure which illustrate the problems facing governments trying to make things happen. They look at why massive and expensive public computer systems tend to fail universally; how ministers are expected to set the direction for government but are barely around long enough to warm their seats; why the civil servants who are supposed to deliver public policy are hamstrung by risk-averse behaviour; and finally, Conundrum examines what can be done to improve things, and asks why none of the many attempts to reform the system over the last fifty years have worked.
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About the Author
RICHARD BACON is MP for South Norfolk, where he lives. CHRISTOPHER HOPE is the Senior Political Correspondent for The Daily Telegraph. He lives in London.
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Conundrum: Why Every Government Gets Things Wrong - And What We Can Do About It
Published by
Biteback Publishing, London, UK, 2013
ISBN 10: 1849545529
ISBN 13: 9781849545525
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Hardcover
First Edition
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Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. 1st Edition. 372pp. 8vo. Original blue cloth boards with silver gilt lettering on spine. Previous owner's name and date on front free endpaper, else fine. Dust jacket now protected in clear Mylar sleeve fitted without use of adhesive. Powerful indictment of Government inefficiencies, told with humour and insight. Richard Bacon, the primary author was a Member of Parliament, serving on the renowned Public Accounts Committee. Seller Inventory # 000291