Aid cash is being dispatched overseas in a last-minute frenzy each year to meet spending targets, a watchdog said yesterday.

Whitehall departments are dishing out as much as 98 per cent of their budgets in the final three months of the year, according to the National Audit Office.

Theresa May pledged at the election to keep David Cameron’s commitment to funnel the equivalent of 0.7 per cent of national income into overseas development.

Keeping the target in line with economic growth means ministers have to find new ways of spending ever greater sums of money.

Theresa May pledged at the election to keep David Cameron’s commitment to funnel the equivalent of 0.7 per cent of national income into overseas development

The cash pot is now so large – £13billion a year – that the Department for International Development (Dfid) is asking other ministries to help dole it out.

In a major review, the NAO said ministers were failing to ensure officials could cope with the extra expenditure. It raised concerns over accountability and whether the success or failure of schemes was being assessed properly.

The watchdog found there were problems with officials splurging cash shortly before end of year deadlines – with five government departments using half or more of their overseas development budget in the last three months.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change, which was given £311million last year to help poor countries become more environmentally friendly, spent 98 per cent of the money in the final quarter.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was allocated £67million to promote sustainable farming overseas and to tackle the illegal wildlife trade. Figures show that 64 per cent of the cash was rushed out of the door in the last three months of the year.

The Department of Health, which received £45million for international stop smoking projects and vaccine programmes, used 57 per cent in the final quarter. That figure was matched by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which received £1million to protect cultural heritage sites in war zones.

The NAO said some of the departments that had seen a sharp spike in their allocation of aid money had not been properly prepared for the surge.

The Department of Health’s expenditure under Jeremy Hunt rose 177 per cent from 2014 to 2015

The Ministry of Defence’s expenditure rose 335 per cent from 2014 to 2015, the Department of Health’s by 177 per cent, and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills by 157 per cent.

The NAO warned that only one of the four objectives for UK aid spending was supported by measurable targets, which include ‘strengthening global peace, security and governance’ and ‘promoting global prosperity’.

Sir Amyas Morse, head of the NAO, said: ‘Meeting the target has become a more complex undertaking and the resulting gaps in accountability and responsibility require more effort to manage.’

Charities and aid groups last night joined the criticism.

Richard Pyle, of Oxfam, said: ‘The UK public rightly expects the Government to be clear about where aid money is spent and for it to be spent effectively to help those most in need.

‘This report shows that too often other departments – to whom the Government is giving increasing volumes of aid – are falling short in this respect.’

A Development Department spokesman said: ‘Dfid is responsible for 74 per cent of the Government’s overseas spending.

‘Other government departments have direct responsibility for their share of the development budget and are accountable to Parliament and UK taxpayers for how they spend.’