Jimlad
So how many people are you away with? Is it just you on your own or are you part of a group of 200?
If you'd taken the time to read my post instead of taking your blinkered view of the world you'd notice that I said it works well for an individual.
The admin is not quite as easy as you think it is. It's not just a matter of showing a receipt. It's the ridiculous forms that have to be filled out showing every meal and how much was spent as well as the receipts. Multiply this process by 200 and you have many wasted man hours alone. Now imagine the job of the adminer who has to read the form, check it is correct, calculate how much money is now to be issued to that individual and issue it. Multiply that by 200 as well. Now multiply all of the above by the number of weeks of the detachment and you get many more wasted man hours. Don't forget the audits after the detachment as well.
Does this process save money?
Not quite as easy as you showing your receipts to someone is it?
As I said I would have accepted a cut in allowances to prevent the advent of this system. There's your saving.
As far as calling people pathetic how about you pull your head out of your backside and put yourself in other people's shoes for a minute.
I'm sure you are awesome and your life is easy. The fact is that this sytem is a pain in the rear end and it gets up everyone's nose. If that's pathetic then so be it.
I fully disagree with people using rates to supplement their salary. But to be honest I never went on detachment with anyone like that. I did see young blokes spend it all on alcohol though. They were far happier!
Your inability to listen to others is painful. If you are representative of civil servants then do you really wonder why they get such bad press.
BV
Standing by to be called nasty names.