News Archive
DFT Under Fire For Under-Spending
March 9, 2012
The House of Commons and the AA have both critisised the Department for Transport (DFT) for under-spending by more than £1 billion over the course of 2011.*
These figures highlighted by the committee in a recent report accused the DFT of overly focusing on London and the South East of England, upsetting car insurance holders around the UK who feel they have lost out as a result.
According to the report the DFT were able to channel £486 million of left over money into transports by the end of 2011, however, they were forced to hand back £543 million to the Treasury.
This under-spend came during a period when the department had already accepted a £683 million budget cut.
Authors of the report commented:
“We were surprised to learn that the Department had ended up in a position where it was required to return over £500million to the Treasury.”
They added that the amount was more than the estimated cost for the entire Northern Hub project - a plan to improve and revamp the Northern England rail network.
They went on to question why the DFT had accepted a significant cut to it's in-year budget but then went on to underspend by over £1 billion - which raised the obvious question - why was the cut necessary in the first place?
According to the AA car insurance policyholders have lost out as a result of the DFT's primary focus on London and the South East of England rather than all areas of the UK.
The AA have stated that the Asphalt Industry Alliance have predicted that it will cost around £10 billion to fix the UK's roads. In addition to this many A-Roads and Motorways around the country are having lights switched off to save money... yet the DFT are handing back a significant amount of budget.
Source: http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/autoexpressnews/279691/dft_underspends_budget_by_1bn.html