BREWDOG founder James Watt has launched an unofficial government watchdog which he has styled after Elon Musk’s programme in the US.
Watt said in a post on LinkedIn that his venture would assess UK Government spending using Freedom of Information (FOI) requests and a hotline for whistleblowers to highlight waste.
The former BrewDog chief executive said the project could be thought of “as the unofficial, underground cousin of America’s Department Of Government Efficiency [Doge]”.
In the US, Musk’s Doge has introduced brutal spending cuts with far-reaching consequences across the globe, including to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Department of Education.
In a post on LinkedIn, Watt said that the Labour Government had made the UK economy worse and pledged to work on identifying similar cuts.
He wrote: “It’s time to actually do something.
“I’m sick of talking about how broken our government is. And I'm sure you're sick of hearing about it. So, I am introducing Shadow Doge.
“You can think of it as the unofficial, underground cousin of America’s Department Of Government Efficiency.”
- Use “extensive Freedom of Information requests to public bodies to delve deeply into how carelessly our tax money is being spent”.
- Put an “anonymous hotline in place for public sector workers to report waste”.
- Publish “a monthly report which shows all the ways we have found that the government could be more efficient with how they spend your hard-earned taxes”.
- Take an “entrepreneurial approach to the public sector and highlight billions of pounds of potential savings”.
- Publish a “league table of the worst offending public bodies when it comes to wasting our money”.
Watt added: “Labour inherited a mess – but Rt Hon Rachel Reeves has made it worse: Hundreds of thousands of people are losing their jobs. Growth has tanked. Inflation is spiking. Our entrepreneurs are leaving in droves.”
Watt claimed that he wants to show that the UK Government “can become significantly more frugal with how it spends our money”.
He said: “The UK Government will spend £1.276 trillion this year. If we save just 1%, we could fix our budget deficit.
“If we save 10%, we could build the strongest economy in the world. (A good place to start would be the £749 million the government blows on PR every year...)
“And by the way, this isn’t about party politics. I remain agnostic. 14 years of Conservative government left the country in a mess. Labour is making it worse. This is about fixing the system. I am open to work with any political party to help make our country better for everyone.
“The more badly spent tax money we can help identify and save, the more we can invest in the things that are most valuable to us – job creation, education, and our NHS.”
An HM Treasury spokesperson said: "The Chancellor has asked all departments to deliver savings and efficiencies of 5% of their current budget as part of the first zero-based Spending Review in seventeen years.
"Every pound of government spending is being interrogated, to root out waste and get the best value for taxpayers as we deliver on their priorities set out in the Plan for Change.
"We have also created an Office for Value for Money that is underpinning our work driving out waste and inefficiency, alongside cutting out hundreds of millions of pounds worth of consultancy spending in government over the next few years.”
