£11.3 Billion of Aid Since 2010 Bypasses the Poor for Private Firms

Taxpayers handed £113 billion in foreign aid since 2010. Government data shows £11.3 billion of that—10 per cent—flowed to private consultants and firms. Instead of direct help for the world’s poorest, recipients bought five-star hotel stays and golf resort trips.

DAI, a top earner with £763 million, provides the clearest spending records. Under a £51 million project to improve Nigerian public accountability, staff spent £1.2 million at Abuja’s Sheraton and Hilton hotels. The firm hosted 2,000 experts over nine years at £81 per night, yet chose luxury amid security risks.

Golf resorts, country clubs, and spa hotels drew tens of thousands more. A £20 million Niger Delta jobs programme paid £2,500 to a bridal events company for catering and workshops. These included training for Nollywood hair and makeup artists.

Refugee aid in Ethiopia funded £15,000 at a deluxe furniture store and £28,000 for 4x4 off-road trucks from a specialist supplier. DAI defends choices as secure and value-driven in high-risk areas. Outcomes remain unquantified beyond general claims.

Transparency crumbles further with other firms. PwC, with £1.2 billion, routes funds through its Evidence Fund, listing £1.29 million of £8 million as “de minimis” payments—too trivial to detail. Mott Macdonald aggregates £658 million as “disbursements”; Adam Smith International lumps all as “project expenditure.”

Outsourcing Accelerates

Government departments outsourced as their own staff shrank. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) now plans 25 per cent staff cuts, pushing more reliance on consultants. Baroness Chapman, international development minister, admitted £4 million annual savings—24 per cent of one budget—by hiring FCDO staff instead.

Sarah Champion, International Development Committee chair, questioned five-star stays amid staff axe. Consultants take knowledge and contacts upon leaving, eroding institutional memory. Private firms captured a business model from aid dependency.

This spans governments. Coalition launched much post-2010 spending; Conservatives sustained it; Labour now defends outcomes over delivery methods. No party reversed the private sector tilt.

Domestic Costs Mount

UK taxpayers fund this while domestic pressures build. Foreign aid hit 0.5 per cent of gross national income under recent cuts, yet private channeling persists. Critics like TaxPayers’ Alliance label it a “feeding frenzy” for pen-pushers, not emergencies.

Richard Tice of Reform calls for ending non-contingency aid. Publish What You Fund ranks aid transparency low due to inconsistent private disclosures. Mandates exist, but enforcement lacks.

Functional governance would direct funds transparently to recipients or use in-house expertise. Instead, intermediaries skim 10 per cent with minimal scrutiny. Value for money dissolves in aggregated ledgers.

Ordinary citizens see the disconnect. Potters Bar to Plymouth, families face council tax hikes and NHS waits. Their money buys Nigerian spa hotels, not local relief.

Aid’s private pipeline reveals entrenched pathology. Governments outsource accountability, firms obscure spending, and waste compounds across parties. Britain’s decline embeds in such unexamined transfers—public wealth to private gain, with no reckoning.