A QUANGO was blasted last night after using taxpayers’ cash to send civil servants on a treasure hunt game for “team bonding”.
LocatED – part of the Department for Education – splurged over £1,500 on the jolly last summer.
Over 50 staff members were sent to a training centre to play Eldorado – a game where teams have to solve riddles and complete tasks to find treasure.
The Northgate training centre in Bath says the game is one of its most popular and teaches staff “the value of seeing the organisation as one big team”.
The ‘training’ centre also boasts its own escape room and an array of other games.
But critics slammed the quango for wasting hardworking taxpayers’ money on kids’ games while schools complain they are cash-strapped.
A Labour source fumed: “This is yet another example of Whitehall waste, and it has got to stop.
“The government should make sure taxpayers’ cash is not being wasted solving riddles and looking for buried treasure, but sent on solving the nation’s actual crises.”
But a LocatED spokesman doubled down on the spending.
He said: “The training event in question was a team building exercise.
“It focused on encouraging critical thinking and discouraging silo mentality in the workplace.
“The aim was not only to improve productivity by eliminating inefficient working practices and foster better ones, but also to improve collaboration after colleagues had spent a period of time working from home during the pandemic.
“The cost of the event paid not only for the session on the day – which involved more than 50 staff – but also for repeated use of the materials for future sessions.”
Ministers have repeatedly promised to crack down on Whitehall waste.
