Downing Street refurbishments revealed in government records, including £30,000 for a new kitchen
David Cameron has spent more than £680,000 of public money renovating Downing Street in the year that his government inflicted the biggest ever spending cuts across the public sector.
Records of all government spending reveal nine bills for the refurbishment of Downing Street including £30,000 for the work he and his wife Samantha carried out on the No 11 flat last summer. The centerpiece of their revamp was the new kitchen, which was revealed this week in official photographs of the Obama state visit.
Downing Street has confirmed for the first time that the full £30,000 grant for upkeep of the living accommodation, which is available to prime minister annually, was used for the refit of 11 Downing Street, after the Guardian discovered the payment published in the government's official spending records.
A spokeswomen said that the money was spent on rewiring, plumbing and decorating the flat but insisted that the Camerons paid for the extras. "No public money was spent on furniture, fittings or accessories," she said in a statement.
The other £653,192.34 was spent on external and internal renovation work to the offices and reception rooms in Downing Street, including cabling, plumbing and energy efficiency improvements. But No 10 declined to specify any further what the money was spent on and have previously refused Freedom of Information requests asking what changes have been made to the Grade I listed building since the election and the costs.
Tom Watson, the Labour MP for West Bromwich East, who has been campaigning for greater openness about the financing of Downing Street, described the £30,000 grant as a "hidden bonus for the PM" to supplement a flat he lives in rent-free.
He said: "£30,000 is more than a nurse's salary. People need to know what's gone in there and how much it's cost. It's not their building, it's the nation's building.
"The PM heralded the age of transparency and said we're in a for a period of austerity. Low and behold the taxpayers subsidised a £30,000 kitchen and he's refusing to give all the details. He's not living up to his pledges.
"He has to come clean about his own taxpayer's subsidy. He's supposed to be setting an example to rest of public sector."
The cabinet office's database of all items of spending above £25,000 (pdf), updated this week to the end of March, reveals that since the election the exchequer has funded a £683,102.34 refurbishment of Downing Street in total. There could be even more payments below that threshold.
The nine separate payments were made to Ecovert FM Ltd, the company that manages all cabinet office buildings, since November.
The Camerons occupy the four-bedroom flat above 11 Downing Street, as the Blair's did before them, because it is bigger than the one above No 10. The new kitchen is in addition to a second new catering kitchen in the property and a planning permission application for more structural work was lodged with Westminster council last year to move a doorway and build a wall. The work is particularly costly because of the historic nature of the building. English Heritage are involved in decisions about nearly all modifications.
The contracts for the renovations were only accessible because the coalition has begun to routinely publish details of all spending over a £25,000 threshold. But Watson said that the pledges of transparency were undermined by the government's refusal to give any detail on the payments.
Downing Street has separately refused an FOI request from Watson for more full details of the refurbishment costs. The Information Commissioner's Office, which is responsible for enforcing the Freedom of Information Act, has since issued a demand for records held by the Cabinet Office about the nature and the cost of the work.
A spokesman for the ICO said because the situation was ongoing, it would not comment.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/may/27/david-cameron-taxpayers-home-improvements
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