Is Whitehall developing a loadsamoney culture? This week brought revelations that outsiders recruited into the top ranks of the civil service are being paid up to £100,000 more than the advertised top rate for the job. Now I learn that some £6m a year is being spent on commercial headhunters whose job is to seek out candidates in the private sector – or other parts of the public sector – for Whitehall jobs. What’s raising hackles is that the candidates can sometimes negotiate shedloads more cash than the maximum rates offered in the adverts.

Before you start tut-tutting about market forces, going rates, monkeys, mandarins and peanuts, there are a few things to bear in mind. First, Whitehall appears to be making no attempt to check whether these inflated salaries give value for money to the poor taxpayer. All too often the evidence is the other way. Whitehall’s highest paid outsiders are often in specialist areas such as information technology. Yet when it comes to IT disasters, Whitehall could win prizes.