“However, the public sector is still not working properly to drive down the costs of bog-standard office items. 

“For example, some government departments are paying more than twice as much for paper as others, while the difference between the cheapest and the most expensive toner cartridge purchased by the public sector is a whopping 745 per cent. 

“Wasteful public sector procurement is, sadly, nothing new.  In 2006, it was discovered that civil servants were turning up their noses at cheaper, centrally purchased items and that even the most frugal bureaucrats were buying Post-It notes at more than double the price on the high street. 

“The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) was supposed to be bringing this sort of crazy paper chase to an end, but so far its efforts appear to have had limited success. 

“The OGC needs to raise its game dramatically.  We simply cannot go on paying for personalised pencils or overpriced envelopes for tiny fiefdoms across the public sector”.