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The government’s new Value for Money chief has headed up several big projects that went massively over-budget.<\/p>\n
David Goldstone has previously worked as a top executive on the London Olympics, Parliament’s restoration and HS2 high speed rail.<\/p>\n
He will now head up the government’s new Office for Value for Money (OfVM)<\/a>, advising Chancellor Rachel Reeves on “how to root out waste and inefficiency”, according to the Treasury.<\/p>\n Downing Street defended his appointment, saying Mr Goldstone is a “highly experienced public sector leader” with a “track record of working on complex high-value programmes”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Asked if he represented value for money, a Number 10 spokeswoman said “yes”.<\/p>\n Reeves announced his appointment saying it’s “vital that we are driving efficiency and reducing wasteful spending” and his role would “help us realise the benefits from every pound of public spending”. <\/b><\/p>\n However, <\/b>responding to the Budget on Wednesday, Reform UK leader and Clacton MP Nigel Farage said Mr Goldstone had “served for many years on the board of HS2, which I would suggest is the very opposite of value for money”.<\/p>\n The resurrected high speed rail project, HS2, had an initial budget of \u00a338bn in 2009, but is now expected to cost at least double that<\/a>. <\/p>\n Mr Goldstone’s LinkedIn page lists a position on the HS2 board from January to June 2012 and again from 2024, where he is a Treasury nominee, although he does not appear to have been in post in the intervening years.<\/p>\n He was the finance and programme director of the\u00a0 Government Olympic Executive, delivering the 2012 London Olympics that cost three times as much as expected<\/a>, coming in at \u00a39bn.<\/p>\n