Friday 22 January 2010

Tell Me About It, Glenys!

Baroness Kinnock, Minister of State, complained yesterday that the Foreign Office is facing a £110 million budget shortfall as a result of currency fluctuations i.e. the value of the pound has fallen against other currencies. It used to be that The Treasury protected the Foreign Office against this difficulty because most of the Foreign Office's expenditure is overseas and they were thus vulnerable to currency fluctuations, making long-term financial planning a tad tricky. But The Treasury have recently gone all hard-headed and mollycoddle them no more.
When El Presidente and I began the planning process for our building project in Cyprus, the pound was worth 20% more against the Euro than it is now. So I know how you feel Glenys; we're having to find more money than originally budgeted and we've cut back on our plans! Of course, what makes it doubly difficult to stomach is that it is mostly the Treasury's ineptitude that has caused the fall in the value of the pound. Moreover, if they hadn't been so paranoid about the Euro and had joined the Eurozone when we should have, there wouldn't be a problem!
When I worked for the Government, we used to have a phrase that kept cropping up - 'The Dead Hand of the Treasury'. No change there, then.

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