Simon English: HM's cashiers blackened by White report

Outlook Also taking a kicking are the cretinous, badly paid, naive staff at Her Majesty's Treasury.

The White report into the 2007-2009 financial crisis doesn't quite use these words to describe Treasury employees. But it may as well have done.

The Treasury staff were entirely unprepared for what occurred, says the report. There weren't very many of them and those that there were didn't know what they were doing.

They had "limited capacity" (thick as you like) and were (rightly by the sounds of it) the lowest paid officials in all of Whitehall.

As the crisis grew, resources were stretched in ways that "put pressure on workloads and had an impact on staff well-being" (they all went nuts and turned to self-harming).

At an average age of 32, they lacked sufficient experience or expertise to do anything useful (about anything).

Sharon White, the civil servant who compiled the report, is presumably keeping her head down for fear of retribution. Or else she figures the tools at the Treasury won't even be able to find her office.

s.english@independent.co.uk