Out of curiosity I had a look at what sort of budget the above department has. I came across some interesting figures such as:

"We are able to provide the cost of taxi travel claimed by Departmental officials from administrative budgets for 2007-08 and 2006-07 as follows:"

2007-08 £247,738
2006-07 £268,857



"The data provided is based on rail bookings dealt with by DCSF's Business Travel Provider Carlson Wagonlit Travel. Location details are not recorded for travel using hire car and grey fleet, only the mileage is recorded.

The annual travel costs for rail travel between sites are as follws"

April 08-Feb 09 - £840,984

2007-8 - £834,433

2006-7 £1,254,536



"Details of expenditure on private sector consultants incurred by the Department in 2007-2008 is £4,863,000.00.

The expenditure recorded relates to admin costs and does not include costs that may be charged to a programme account."



"The Office for Government and Commerce (OGC) framework agreements for Organisational Consultancy ? Organisational Development Education and Children?s Services, provide rates across a range of consultancy grades including Junior Consultant, Consultant, Senior Consultant, Principal Consultant, and Managing Director/Partner. The daily rates differ for each organisation, but, across all the agreements, the range is £475 to £1900, as at April 2008."



So we are all losing our jobs because we are not "economically viable" but the department can spend almost £5 million on consultants in one year. The more I look at stuff like this the angrier I get.

With all the talk about budget restraint and belt tightening while supply teachers see their jobs fly out the window I had an interesting look at the deadweight GTC's budget for 2009-10. Read them and weep:

Registration: £4.4m

Communications - £3.7m

Regulation: £3.6m

Governanace, fee collection and administration: £3.5

Networks and the TLA: £3.4m

Policy and research: £2.5m

So that's a total of a staggering £21 million of teachers' registration fees. Of that they are spending £3.7m on "communications" which I assume means advertising etc. Then there all the other departments such as OFSTED and ESTYN, the TDA, the DfES, the Department for Children, Schools and Families, and so on. If it wasn't serious it would be funny.