Leslie Chapman - Telegraph Invalided out with leg wounds in 1945, he returned to the ministry, rising through the ranks. In 1967 he was appointed its southern regional director, with a £10 million budget for maintaining government and military buildings across five counties. Suspecting that the job could be done better, more cheaply and by fewer people than his staff of more than 4,000, Chapman asked for a report on the organisation's effectiveness and was told that "not a penny" was misspent. Doubting this judgment, he visited ministry depots unannounced - and found staff engaged on unnecessary tasks, doing work below their skills or doing nothing at all. A detailed survey confirmed this. Patches of grass at military depots were being maintained like golf courses; large stocks of expensive equipment were being held for tasks seldom undertaken; and hundreds of stokers were employed to fire boilers that were not needed in summer, or at all. Working with the unions, Chapman cut staffing by 55 per cent and costs by more than a third. But he found his superiors strangely unenthusiastic, and adamant that only "local circumstances" had enabled the cuts to be made. Even when he persuaded ministers (Labour and Conservative alike) of the scope for cutting waste nationally, instructions from them were either blocked in Whitehall or watered down. Chapman decided he had had enough, and retired to mid-Wales. Before Your Disobedient Servant appeared, Whitehall was nervous about what he might say. Unprecedentedly, specialist reporters were briefed in advance by Sir Robert Cox on the PSA's side of the story. The book indeed made uncomfortable reading: 12 dockets having to pass through 82 bureaucratic processes before a tap could be mended; the use of ministerial cars by junior staff when taxis would have been cheaper; and welfare officers travelling 200 miles to see staff who did not want to be visited. But what was dynamite was Chapman's account of how officials at the top of the PSA had prevented the saving of taxpayers" money he had achieved from being rolled out nationwide. Most seriously, Sir Edward du Cann discovered that a sharp drop in spending by Chapman's region had been the result of concerted economies - and not, as Cox had told the PAC three years before, of a one-off movement of troops from Aldershot. Cox, who had belatedly given the correct reason, was forced to apologise in person. Mrs Thatcher had long had her suspicions about the Civil Service, and these were not allayed by her spell as Education Secretary. When Chapman's book appeared, she took inspiration from it, and on taking office she appointed the Marks & Spencer executive Sir Derek Rayner to bring about efficiencies in Whitehall. Chapman lamented that Rayner, as a part-timer, would be no match for full-time obstructionists, adding that the Civil Service would be "most helpful, very cosy and nice, and completely bloody ineffectual." Rayner and further exercises during the Thatcher years did achieve some efficiencies, though never on the scale Chapman considered possible. Moreover, Your Disobedient Servant was influential in establishing the Government Accountancy Service in 1982. Several Tory-controlled councils asked Chapman for advice. Berkshire identified savings of £1 million a year in heating and lighting costs, and located thousands of acres of land plus 192 staff houses that could be sold. Sir Horace Cutler, the maverick Tory leader of the Greater London Council, installed Chapman on the London Transport Executive with similar intent. Chapman arrived in January 1979 with an axe slung over his shoulder, and that December sent Cutler a memo highlighting "disgraceful" waste and extravagance, with senior officials sharing 26 chauffeur-driven limousines and dining free of charge. In all, he reckoned, £50 million could be saved. Ralph Bennett denied that there was any waste, and ordered officials not to give Chapman any further information. The GLC, unconvinced, sent in the auditors Deloitte, and on the back of their assessment gave LT two months to come up with savings. A further report from PA Consulting declared LT's top management "weak in the skills required to run a large business." Bennett was dismissed, but early in 1981 Chapman was ousted for refusing to keep silent about continuing extravagance. In the same year Chapman launched the Campaign to Stop Waste in Public Expenditure. He also returned to the attack with Waste Away, which chronicled further examples of profligacy. Leslie Chapman married, in 1947, Beryl England; their son predeceased him. Leslie Chapman, born September 14 1919, died August 25 2013