More civil servants who fail to perform should be sacked, the chairman of the Commons spending watchdog said on Thursday.

Speaking in a Commons debate on the work of his committee, Edward Leigh, chairman of the public accounts committee, said the government should make Whitehall more accountable for expensive failures. 

Opening the debate, the Conservative MP said: "I do not think there has been a more important time than the present to prod, press and pursue those who run our public services to make sure they get the most bang from our buck."

Leigh said the pressure on public finances would continue even when the economy starts to recover. "Even should the government be proved right and economic spring begins to bloom next year, there will be no escaping tough fiscal choices.

"To meet the expectation of those who fund and use public services without adding to the burden of debt, we need more than incremental reform. I believe that we need a Whitehall revolution."

The Conservative MP claimed the rewards for senior civil servants had improved in recent years, and had to be matched by penalties for failure. “The whole culture of Whitehall is changing now and maybe the traditional way of doing things - that civil servants are never sacked - has got to be thought about again by government.”

Among the other contributors to the debate, Liberal Democrat member John Pugh said there were “few disincentives for poor performance” in Whitehall. But Treasury minister Angela Eagle said there were examples of officials being fired for poor performance, as with the fiasco over the Department for Transport shared service centre. "I understand some officials actually were dismissed, which Members doubted actually happened," Eagle said.

Labour committee member Austin Mitchell criticised the amount spent by Whitehall departments on consultants and also hit out at the handling of private finance initiative (PFI) contracts.

Such contracts contained "all kinds of excesses", he said, highlighting one which contained charges for changing lightbulbs.