'Sir Nicholas Macpherson, Permanent Secretary of the Treasury, had been giving evidence to the Public Accounts Committee on changes to Whitehall governance.Earlier I said:
He said spending at the Ministry of Defence under the last government was "out of control", adding it had been put into "special measures" and ordered to report on a month-by-month basis on spending.
The committee then asked if this had been the case at other departments and Sir Nicholas admitted the Department of Health and Department of Education had problems with their finances during the last decade.
Looking back to the previous system, Sir Nicholas said: "There was a point in the last decade when the Ministry of Defence lost control of public spending."
Challenged by Conservative MP Jo Johnson over whether he would say the MoD was the only major department to have lost control of its spending, Sir Nicholas replied: "No, I wouldn't."
Sky's Deputy Political Editor Joey Jones said the comment was "very important", adding: "The reason that this is significant is because this is absolutely at the core of the economic argument that is going on at the moment.
"Ed Miliband has acknowledged there were certain failings in the way in which the Labout government ran the economy, notably in terms of their lax regulation of the banks.
"But he absolutely refuses to admit spending was not under proper control, saying national debt was at a low level and the deficit was running at a low level before the banking crisis.
"This is important because he is such a senior figure and civil servant."'
'So far no mention of this story on the BBC. I wonder if they will report the story and if they do then where they will bury the story and who they will quote to contradict Sir Nicholas Macpherson.'
As of 18:36 I can see nothing about this story on the BBC news website yet, I wonder how long it will be before the BBC will cover the story or will they really ignore it...
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