Cost of Whitehall bureaucracy soars

The Government's "war on waste" was under fire today after new figures showed the cost of Whitehall bureaucracy soared by £1 billion last year.

Both Labour and the Tories will fight the general election with pledges to reduce administration costs and

plough the money either into public services or tax cuts.

But annual public spending statistics from the Treasury showed that total spending on administration had rocketed by 11 per cent from £20.2 billion to £21.3 billion in 2003/4. Ministers had forecast the figure to fall slightly.

The cost amounts to 4.6 per cent of all Government spending, the highest proportion since Tony Blair came to office.

The £1 billion figure is

equivalent to hiring 30,000 nurses and 40,000 teachers.

Shadow Chancellor Oliver Letwin said that the only explanation for the rise was that Gordon Brown had "created a culture within Whitehall of spend, spend, spend and waste, waste, waste".