The pages to the left of this column are often filled with articles based on reports from the National Audit Office (NAO) and the Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

Accustomed to lambasting the Government's budgetary failures, issuing grave warnings over teetering major projects, or castigating Whitehall's all-too-familiar negative tendencies – misplaced optimism, lack of commercial nous – the spending watchdogs last week found themselves on the end of a verbal tongue-lashing.