Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Office of Fair Trade Bollocked for Waste


Wat Tyler at Burning Our Money has slightly beaten me to this story, but I'm going to run with this all the same.

The Office of Fair Trade managed to get a huge 70% budget increase to enforce Gordon Brown's new laws to deliver more competitive markets. Frankly it beats me why anybody would believe that an Old Fashioned Scottish Socialist would have any knowledge of markets and how they can be made more competitive. But it went ahead nonetheless...

The results are now here for us to see - the Public Accounts Committee have blasted the OFT for:

Underpaying - while we may envy the OT lawyer's salary of £39,000 any decent silk can get 5 times that in the private sector, so the OFT is left with crap lawyers.

Delays - 75% of investigations should be completed in 9 months. None have managed this timeframe.

and this is the tip of the iceberg - Wat has more.

The question I have to ask is if this group is aimed at making sure that there is competition all around us then why is their only one?

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