The Civil Service: how do you spell "accountability"?

It's beyond satire. How did the Department of Transport come up with the figures that gifted the multi-£billion West Coast main line franchise to First Great Western? Nobody knows, because they lost the spreadsheet. After all, it's not like there would have been any formal review process on that spreadsheet; with a mere few £bn at stake, who would care?

I'm honestly not sure which of these is the more depressing:

The PwC report shows revenue forecasts were not correlated with how many passengers could actually fit on the trains.
A DfT spokesman said: "We are not going to give a running commentary on what went wrong."

I imagine not, Mr. DfT spokesman, or you'd never get anything else done. Mind you, if this is representative of your general quality of business, perhaps that would be a good thing.

Honestly, if the Government wants to make a slam dunk against a potential claim for unlawful dismissal by the hapless Ms. Mingay, all they have to do is ask her to produce the revision of the spreadsheet which her team reviewed. I mean, frikkin' heck, does anyone at the DfT understand the concept of "accountability"?