Teflon civil servants who never feel the heat Not everyone gets this magic Teflon coating. Yet by lining up the different spending scandals side by side, we were able to watch senior officials moonwalk through Whitehall suffering barely a scratch. Take Sir John Gieve, permanent secretary at the Home Office from 2001 until 2005, when the department's administration collapsed and the National Audit Office "disclaimed" the accounts - after discovering they were adrift by £26.5 trillion, almost 2,000 times higher than the department's gross expenditure for 2004/5 and approximately one and a half times higher than the estimated gross domestic product of the entire planet. "This suggests something has gone seriously awry," the NAO said dryly. Sir John went to the Bank of England as deputy governor in charge of financial stability in the banking system and was at the helm when the first bank run in Britain for 140 years took place. Sir John was replaced at the Home Office in 2005 by Sir David Normington, fresh from the Department for Education's £90 million "Individual Learning Accounts" fiasco, a web-based adult training scheme with zero security that was closed down after spivs had siphoned off millions without even breaking the rules. Police were called in but few people were charged with anything. At the Home Office, Sir David glided over the foreign national prisoners scandal which finished Charles Clarke as Home Secretary and then, after initiating the police investigation that led to the arrest of Damian Green, now a Home Office minister, he became First Civil Service Commissioner, protecting Whitehall's independence and running its recruitment. In Birmingham, Lin Homer was the returning officer during a postal vote-rigging scandal that an election court said "would disgrace a banana republic." Tesco carrier bags of uncounted votes were discovered in council offices. The court cleared her of the most serious allegations but found considerable failings in Miss Homer's management of the process. She became chief executive of the UK Border Agency, where the Commons Home Affairs Committee criticised her tenure for its "catastrophic leadership failure." Miss Homer then popped up as permanent secretary at the Department for Transport. She was among officials accused by Sir Richard Branson, head of Virgin Trains, of ignoring concerns about the franchising competition for InterCity West Coast, whose collapse will probably cost £100 million. Miss Homer was then appointed chief executive of HM Revenue and Customs, criticised recently for its poor customer service. Permanent secretaries - as Whitehall's official Accounting Officers - do have to put up with uncomfortable grillings before MPs on the Public Accounts Committee but, as one mandarin admitted: "The PAC can be very difficult, but it is not hard-edged accountability... we are not fired as a result of a bad performance. Indeed, appearing before the PAC doesn't change the price of fish. Other officials are allowed to slip away after mishaps, leaving the Civil Service with barely a ripple. The enthusiasm in Whitehall for confidentiality agreements signed as part of financial settlements - effectively gagging more junior officials from discussing at a later date what went wrong - means that few civil servants are held publicly accountable for presiding over major mis-spends. Ministers know this, and are trying to let sunlight into the darker recesses of Whitehall. The Major Projects Authority report, giving out information about progress which has hitherto been a closely guarded secret, was a case in point. But other changes need to be made too - especially a deeper understanding by ministers of what encourages the right behaviour from civil servants. Commentators warn that the Coalition cannot afford to waste political capital on costly reforms which fail to deliver in time for the 2015 general election. Yet therein lies the rub: projects should not be driven by arbitrary political deadlines. Ministers have to work out what is realistically deliverable, and by when, and commit not to tinker with projects when they are set - before we can solve the conundrum of why some of our best people in politics and the Civil Service keep getting it wrong. Conundrum: Why Every Government Gets Things Wrong - And What We Can Do About It" by Richard Bacon and Christopher Hope is published by Biteback on June 18. It is available from Telegraph Books at £12.99 + £1.35 p&p. Call 0844 871 1514 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk/conundrum