UK police slammed over wasting $24,000 on talking clock, directory enquiries

UK police slammed over wasting $24,000 on talking clock, directory enquiries:
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) made 35,000 calls checking timeand contact details between 2010 and 2012, data revealed under theFreedom of Information Act showed.
However, GMP defended its actions: “Prior to widespreadaccess to the internet and in common with originations and thegeneral public officers and staff had to use directory enquiries toobtain contact details,” Chief Officer Lynne Potts told theDaily Mail. She did not comment on the exact nature of calls to thespeaking clock.
Last year it was revealed that London’s Metropolitan Policespent more than £35,000 (over $50,000) on calls to the speakingclock.
The Tax Payers’ Alliance (TPA) said that it beggared belief thatmoney was being wasted on calls when there is real pressure onpolice budgets. Over 24,000 jobs have gone as a result of policecuts with thousands of officers being made redundant.
“Taxpayers will be aghast that their cash has been spent likethat when there are plenty of other ways of checking phone numbersor the time,” said Matthew Sinclair, political director of theTPA.
The latest allegation of waste by civil servants involvesrelatively small sums of money it comes hot on the heels ofnumerous scandals involving tax payer’s money, at a time whenvoters are feeling the pinch on their pockets with ever greaterausterity, price rises and stagnant wages.
Last week it was revealed by Conservative MP Steve Barclay thatthe National Health Service (NHS) spent £14.7 million ($22 million)on silencing whistleblowers. This was done through gagging orderswritten into staff contracts where they were paid ‘specialseverance payouts’, which induce potential whistleblowers to signaway their rights and not take their complaints anyfurther.
But this is small change compared to the £6.4 billion ($9.6billion) wasted on the NHS’ new centralized computersystem.
The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee issued a reportin August 2011 that found British Telecom was paid £9 million bythe NHS to install the same systems it usually charges £2 million($3 million) for.  Auditors also found that governmentofficials were spending ten times the market rate forlaptops.
MPs in the Public Accounts Committee also described a nowshelved plan to create a network of regional fire stations as a“complete failure”, which has cost the tax payer £469million (up to $710 million).
The project was launched in 2004 but seven years later, eight ofthe purpose built centers were empty white elephants costing £4million ($6 million) a month to maintain. The MPs found that a newIT system for the fire service “was simply never delivered”because government departments didn’t coordinate their work withthe needs of local fire services.
But it is perhaps the Ministry of Defense (MoD), which hasoverseen the most scandalous waste of public resources in recentyears.
16 of the MoD’s largest contracts are now more than 11 yearsbehind schedule and costs have shot up by almost half a billion bythe beginning of this year.
The £32 million ($48 million) Falcon communication systemdesigned for Afghanistan will not be ready until after the troopsleave, while £787 million ($1,190 million) has been blown pluggingthe gap caused by delays to the Royal Air Forces (RAF’s) FutureStrategic Tanker Aircraft and the A400M transport plane, withelderly VC10’s, some of them almost 50 years old, flying on untilthe new tankers are ready.
Other areas in which the government has squandered taxpayersmoney include half a million on renting fig trees to put outsideMPs offices, £4 million ($6 million) on advertising Britain onBritish television and £450 million (circa $ 680 million) in aid toArgentina.