Lessons will be learned etc . . . or not

Well I never. The Commons Public Accounts Committee has worked out Worcestershire defence research outfit QineticQ was flogged off too cheaply and the top ten managers - public servants in what was a public body - made a wallet busting £100 million out of the deal or £200 for each £1 invested according to the committee.

The committee reckon that little lot cost you and me £90 million - and the rest one might add. No one loses their job or gets admonished and the managers who negotiated their own deal can probably cope with any fingers pointed in their direction as they raise the champagne glasses.

It would not be so bad if it were merely an isolated incident but this obsession for flogging off things which have no need to be sold and allowing civil servants to make themselves overnight zillionaires in the process is endemic.

The Commonwealth Development Corporation saga which trundles back to 1999 could well be the next to hit the fan. This was a department to oversee aid invested in projects in the third world until it was turned into a plc overnight. That little deal actually cost you and me money while making the civil servants in charge very rich in the process. Meanwhile investment priorities also seem to have changed from helping the third world to making as much money as it can from some of the poorest countries on earth.