“Indeed McDonald.

Not just Labour members with noses in the trough then?

Sometimes I just wonder if any member of the Labour Party be trusted by the public these days?

With sincere apologies to the countries that actually grow bananas, am I not the only one thinking that the longer this Labour lot at national level are in power, the more this country actually gets like a banana republic?

I seem to remember when abuses of power were met with public outrage, so powerful that it completely disolved the last Conservative Government thanks to cries of sleaze from the likes of Blair, Brown and Prescott.

These days though under Labour all of this and worse seems to be just par for the course.

Yet so long as this government limps on Gordon Brown and the rest of his Old Labour apparatchiks will continue to think that they are better than we outsiders.

Well Gordon, as the European Elections will hopefully prove, you are sadly not!”

“M C Donald - When I was employed as a civil servant, the tools for the job, i.e. pens, sellotape etc, were of such a cheap nasty quality, that I chose to supply my own. And to cut down the stationery bill they even stopped supplying post-its, paper clips were not bought in either.”

“I appluad the County Council for dedicating the necessary resources to unearth these scams.
.
Lets hope it acts as a deterrent to others
.”

“'Let's face it most people take home the odd pen or roll of sellotape, but this is theft on a grand scale.' Lynn that may be true, but think about it, if every one of the council's 16,000 employees took home just one pen or roll of sellotape a year to a value of 50p. That would amount to £8,000. If everyone fiddled their expense claims or time cards to a value of £10 over a year. That would mean £160,000 had been pinched. What might seem small and insignificant on an individual basis, soon mounts up. Theft is theft.”

“Oh in this day and age Lynn im fairly certain they will land on their feet. It certainly looks like people have moved on from wanting the odd pen or a roll of sellotape.”

“Let's face it most people take home the odd pen or roll of sellotape, but this is theft on a grand scale. These fraudsters have made themselves unemployable, at the end of the day was it worth it?”

“Very good Joe, i like that one.
Like another reader say's though if the government did the same there probably wouldn't be enough still working to fill a phone box.
I also see the story say's they expect it to get worse as the recession goes on.
It would seem their a nice trusting bunch in there.”

“Probably because the Council have a duty to report it where as a private company do not. If a private company have anything like this going on, they may well struggle to survive. In the Council this would mean more money needed to cover the mistakes.”

“Abuse of sick pay, holiday pay, working hours, fiddling of expenses, back-handers, sweetners, false accounting, over invoicing and embezzlement, all this goes on in the private sector as well as the public sector. The difference here is where a public company will try and hush it up the county council has been honest and open and says it happens. It is being proactive and tackling the problem. Even if the investigations cost more than they recover the deterrent factor is worth it. How much would be pinched if things went unchecked? Well done Lincolnshire County Council.

Now only if the Government did the same to keep its own house in order.”

“At least they'll be well qualified to get jobs as MPs, though. There's a vacancy coming up very shortly in Lincoln.”