Premier Paula Cox admitted yesterday it was “an embarrassment” that the Department of Financial Assistance spent almost $10 million more than its $25 million budget for this fiscal year.The Finance Minister was responding to harsh criticism in the House of Assembly including an accusation from the Opposition of “total, blatant ineptitude” about the overspend of almost 40 percent.MPs approved the supplementary estimate of $9.9 million for 2010-11 for the Department, but not before lengthy debate about how Government could have got its figures so wrong when setting the budget last year. Ms Cox said: “This is an embarrassment, whenever we have to come for a supplementary. There have been supplementaries prior to the PLP Government. And regrettably, there will be supplementaries continually with the PLP Government.“Sometimes there will be situations outside our control. The Opposition is right: where we have issues within our control, we’ve got to do a better job. It’s simple.”Youth, Sports, Families and Community Development Minister Glenn Blakeney, who is responsible for the Department, also acknowledged the disapproval of MPs. “I do hear the concern,” he said. “I think everybody would be concerned.”He explained that demand for state-provided financial aid from needy Bermudians was on the increase. The annual number of applicants had risen over the past six years from 650 to about 1,600, he said.The Minister said the extra $9,995,000 was spent on:l helping former patients of the indigent clinic pay increased basic health insurance premiums;l assisting seniors pay for FutureCare health insurance premiums;l Government’s childcare allowance for low-income parents; andl paying for extra claims for financial help due to the recession.He said the Department was obliged in law to help those Bermudians who qualified for help with childcare costs and financial assistance.But he said his Ministry would amend the legislation governing both this year to tighten up the eligibility requirements. Ms Cox also pledged tighter controls, saying some handouts were going to the wrong people. “We’ve got to stop those scallywags who are walking out the door and stealing from the purse,” she said. The Premier said there had been increased pressure on the Financial Assistance budget in recent years because of programmes such as the childcare scheme.Now, she said, Government had to work to achieve cost savings and optimum efficiency.Shadow Finance Minister Bob Richards said: “You are slipping some extra in through the crack of the door but for $10 million to get through the crack in the door, you have to jar that door open pretty wide.”He suggested Ms Cox’s remark about doing a better job seemed “squarely addressed to her Ministers”. The fact she’d quoted figures demonstrating how the Financial Assistance budget had risen over the past five or six years, he claimed, showed she must have anticipated the need for the extra cash.Mr Richards said this was especially true in light of the current recession. “This was foreseeable, budgetable and wasn’t done,” said the UBP MP. “The Premier has put out a challenge to her team that they have got to do better. I support that view 100 percent.”Environment Minister Walter Roban accused those objecting of insensitivity to the needs of Bermudians during the financial crisis. “This is real money going to real families to provide real support,” he said.But Shadow Public Works Minister Patricia Gordon-Pamplin said: “What we have here are Ministers of the Government defending the indefensible. What is indefensible here is how wrong you got your budget.”She asked why mention on the overspend wasn’t made in the latest annual Government Budget released last month, when the revised estimate for the Department’s spending was still put at $25 million. Ms Gordon-Pamplin questioned how the Department could still have been underestimating the figure by so much so late in the financial year.Describing it as “total, blatant ineptitude”, she warned: “If we don’t take care in the budgeting process, we will find that the people of Bermuda will end up having to dig deeper into their pockets each time to fund a runaway government.”The budget for the Department for 2011/12 is $23.9 million and Shadow Education Minister Grant Gibbons told the House: “We have not heard why or how we can really believe that the budget for the coming year will not again overshoot by a significant margin.”Opposition Leader Kim Swan said the overrun was “a classic example of a government gone wrong when it comes to the social agenda”.He said the reason there were more people in need of help was because “the Government is just acting willy nilly socially”, adding: “The proof of the pudding is what we are living on a daily basis: a social nightmare.”PLP backbencher Wayne Furbert defended the overspend, arguing: “We live in a time when there are people in Bermuda who are in need, who need assistance. “We know there is unemployment in our community right now. Because we live in these uncertain times, there will always be unexpected cost overruns.”Shadow Attorney General Trevor Moniz said reliable employment figures were needed, otherwise it was not possible to budget correctly, and Bermuda did not have them.Bermuda Democratic Alliance MP Donte Hunt said the needs of the people weren’t necessarily best met with money. “The need is education: understanding how not to be on financial assistance.”He asked of the original $25 million estimate: “How did we get it so wrong?” He added that taxpayers would lose faith in Government’s ability to budget if such underestimates were regularly made.Shadow Health Minister Louise Jackson repeated her criticism of the FutureCare scheme, claiming: “It’s not just this $10 million. The people of this country are paying far more than that. FutureCare is not working.”Minister of Government Estates and Information Services Neletha Butterfield asked how it was possible to measure demand from the needy. She said some people couldn’t work because they were sick and even professional people were finding themselves unemployed these days.She said rather than just saying no to them, Government was trying to help with the supplementary estimate.