Well-heeled consultants and companies in the west are the beneficiaries of a global aid system which results in less than 40p in every pound helping to eradicate poverty in the developing world, according to a report out last week. Just over a month before Britain will make a doubling of aid a centrepiece of the Gleneagles summit, the charity ActionAid said the bulk of the money currently allocated was wasted, misdirected or recycled within rich countries. It found that 61% of aid flows were "phantom" rather than "real" - rising to almost 90% in the case of France and the United States.