’Tis the season to squander taxpayers’ money on Christmas parties for people just doing their jobs

The Financial Services Authority has set aside £180,000 for its festivities this year

(Rex)

Since the recession, the mindset of the well-paid people who work in our financial services industry doesn’t seem very different, in spite of a government that says it wants to clamp down on excessive behaviour.

The old regulatory body, the Financial Services Authority, was deemed ineffectual, and was replaced by the Financial Conduct Authority – funded by taxpayers. Note that word “conduct”. Recently, the FCA has imposed huge fines on British banks for rate-fixing and unacceptable behaviour. Closer to home, what kind of example does the FCA set to those it seeks to monitor?

It’s the festive season and “custom and practice” in the City of London means setting aside a tidy sum of money to celebrate with a staff party. Wine bars and restaurants are packed with drunken revellers. The FSA was heavily criticised for spending huge sums of money on parties at expensive venues during the financial crisis – more than £270,000 in 2007 and almost £230,000 in 2008, a time when the banks were in meltdown.

Since then, the economy has grown slowly, but the gap between rich and poor is wider than ever and food banks are headline news. So you might think that the FCA would take soundings from its public relations department before deciding how to mark Christmas. Sadly, moderation seems to be an unfashionable word in the Square Mile.

A Freedom of Information request reveals that this year the FCA has set aside £180,000 – about £60 a head – for staff parties for its 3,000 workers, at a range of venues. It justifies this expenditure by saying it is less than the tax-free limit of £150 per person set by the Inland Revenue.

I don’t want to be a killjoy, but why are any publicly funded organisations funding staff parties this Christmas? That includes the various government departments, Number 10, the Foreign Office and the BBC. In the private sector, some bosses may want to reward staff for hard work and loyalty. But when it comes to the public sector – and I include council workers – why are taxpayers funding their turkey, paper hats and prosecco?

If I want to give my local road sweeper a fiver, then I do. He has a particularly drab job, trying to eradicate fag ends, gum, takeaway food wrappers, vomit and bottles. But the people at the FCA are only doing their job, just like the rest of us – no more and no less, and it’s in a cosy office.

The feeble reason given to justify Christmas parties is that they are part of a “PR exercise”. In fact, they are the most stupendous waste of cash going. The FCA is in business to protect customers, so why isn’t it forcing banks that have treated clients unfairly to send those affected a turkey and a bottle of bubbly?

When banks get fined millions, the money goes back to the Treasury. Somehow the customers get left out of the loop. But the staff at the FCA will be enjoying £60 worth of food and drink. Maybe they should donate it to Crisis at Christmas.

Get your photocopiers out for the lads

The most riotous office Christmas party I can remember took place in the office of London Weekend Television’s current affairs department, under the leadership of John (now Lord) Birt, who went on to become BBC director-general and then did some “blue sky thinking” for Tony Blair.

The attendees worked on the London Programme, Weekend World and in the minorities programme unit, and many have gone on to become distinguished media commentators. John served only one beverage – a cocktail of industrial strength, usually a whisky sour, which was mixed by underlings in a large plastic dustbin and then dished out in plastic beakers.

During one of these parties, a man who is now a famous television presenter started photocopying his member on the office photocopier, and persuaded several women to sit on the machine with and without their knickers on. I’m sure it was all done in the name of “investigative” journalism, and don’t worry, only the shareholders of this extremely profitable company paid for our revelries.

A female member of staff was discovered in flagrante with a senior producer – and promptly put a litter bin over his head to avoid identification. It didn’t work.

Can we send our judges to work on an empty stomach?

Spare a thought for our 600 circuit judges who are having to take their own sandwiches to work as they travel around the country presiding over the crown courts.

As part of a cost-cutting exercise, the Justice Department has abolished the contract with the catering service which used to serve them a hot lunch. Now, judges are being told to bring their own food, and if there’s no kitchen on site, it will be something cold in a packet.

A couple of years ago I attended a very grand lunch with the former Lord Mayor of London, Fiona Woolf, at the Old Bailey. It was served in a panelled dining room, and afterwards I listened to a couple of detectives giving a very lacklustre performance in the witness box in a robbery trial. Luckily, the glass of good burgundy and delicious pudding I’d scoffed 30 minutes earlier made proceedings more bearable.

It seems rather inconsistent to insist that primary school children must eat a hot meal for their well-being and to improve concentration in classes, but not the learned men and women who decide the future of rapists and murderers.

Why can’t one canteen serve jurors and judges? Only a measly £1.3m is being saved by this petty gesture – probably the cost of the fine wine and taxi bill at the Ministry of Justice.

Watch out, or you’ll be shirtfronted, mun

Diminutive Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is regarded by the smart locals I know as an embarrassment – especially after he used an Aussie rules football expression to attack President Vladimir Putin over his alleged involvement in the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 which crashed over Ukraine, killing everyone on board, including many Australians.

Abbott declared: “I’m going to shirtfront Mr Putin … you bet I am.” Shirtfronting is a head-on tackle, hardcore even by the standards of the AFL, guaranteed to bring opponents crashing to the ground, euphemistically referred to as a “bump”.

Naturally, when the two leaders of reduced stature actually met at the G20 summit in Brisbane last month, no aggressive physical contact took place and President Obama upstaged them both.

Soon, though, “shirtfronting” was taken up by cartoonists and commentators, and other political leaders, including the Indian PM and our own man of the people, David Cameron. (Remember, he thought LOL at the end of a text meant “lots of love”.) Keen to get on the bandwagon, Cameron declared he thought he was going to be “shirtfronted” at a meeting of foreign ministers in Italy recently.

The Australian National Dictionary Centre has chosen shirtfronting as its word of the year, but I prefer the other shortlisted contender, “man bun”: that repulsive knot of hair at the nape of the neck so favoured by trendy fellows, usually allied with a “Ned Kelly” – a full beard. Australian youths shorten man buns to “muns” – a fabulous putdown.

I’m off for a Christmas break. Season’s greetings to you all.