No apologies at all for copying and pasting this priceless list of examples of public sector efficiency – even the union involved is sufficiently annoyed to have put it on their web site.

• South Wales –Workmen have travelled from Manchester and Coventry for window repairs and heating engineers have come from Somerset.  Local contractors could clearly carry out the job competently at a cheaper rate.

• Gwent – Staff reported a blocked toilet and asked for a response in two hours.  One month later and still no one had attended.  A complaint was passed up the management chain. Finally an electrician attended but was unable to do the job because it required a plumber.  Finally a plumber did attend and completed the job another three days later.

• Cumbria – Staff report an office in Cumbria has just had two new catches put on its windows.  The job was undertaken by two men from South Yorkshire over a seven day period including working a weekend.  Staff report there was nothing much wrong with the windows anyway.

• Gwent – Probation staff report that the helpdesk operators don’t seem to understand what they are saying.  For example: Probation Officer “the cold water tap in the kitchen on the first floor is not working”: Operator “where is it located?”: Probation Officer “on the first floor”: Operator “is that in the kitchen?”.  Another exchange is reported: Probation Officer “the manual security keypad on the door is not working”: Operator “is it electric?”: Probation Officer “no it is manual”.

• North West – A hostel is charged £29.50 for 12 cartons of juice – £2.45 a carton – while the local Tesco charges 89p. The company also charges £25 for a catering size 750 gram tub of coffee, yet a similar purchase in the supermarket would cost £14.99.  It also supplies the hostel with diluted orange juice (which is described as horrible) at £6 for three litres, yet three litres of juice from ASDA costs £2.99.  The company charges £11 a kilo for lamb, while the local butcher charges £6.

• South Yorkshire – A member of staff asked for a new keyboard in July 2010 because there current one was sticking.  Later that same day it arrived in a taxi from Dunstable.  The cost of the round taxi journey was at least £80.

• Devon and Cornwall – Heating problems were reported from a hostel in Devon to Interserve.  The first engineer arrived at 8.00pm having travelled from Nottingham and another turned up two hours later having come from Hereford.

• Devon and Cornwall – Interserve were asked whether they could open a grit and salt bin in the car park as the pavement and access road where covered in snow and ice.  The response was that they would get there after the thaw.

• Wiltshire – Staff report that roofers came from Birmingham on two occasions to fix a porter cabin.  Someone else came from Birmingham to fix a water heater.  The window cleaners emanate from Plymouth and an engineer who came to mend a door handle travelled from Poole.

• Thames Valley – Staff report that in early January 2011, one of the maintenance operatives drove all the way from Portsmouth to fix a light in one of the toilets.  Staff say however that there was nothing wrong with the light and they couldn’t understand why the operative arrived.  It was probably a mix-up over job numbers.

• Leicestershire – two toilets were blocked at the local hostel.  Staff estimated a maximum of an hour’s work but the plumber had to come from Norwich.

• Devon and Cornwall – In September, following a request for maintenance, a man arrived and started work on a switch inside the door of the ladies toilet.  He said the switch had been wrongly wired originally.  He was also to fix a fan which was supposed to start whenever the light was switched on.  He found that when that light was switched on or off, lights in adjacent offices also went on and off.  It took another seven days to put it right.

• Numerous other absurd examples were received by Napo including a 5amp fuse which was thought to have blown which had to go out for a quote and an operative then travelled a hundred miles to do the repair.  In another example in South Wales, two people travelled to survey windows at a hostel and to fit safety catches and safety glass.  At least one travelled from Newcastle upon Tyne and was involved in an overnight stay.