A bargain

In the Herald today:

THE annual cost of ministerial offices has almost doubled under the SNP, Scottish Labour has said.

Excluding the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister, the yearly cost of ministerial salaries, office staff and advisers has risen from around £2.4 million in the SNP’s first government in 2007 to more than £4.5m in 2021, the party said.

https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/19653527.annual-cost-ministerial-offices-has-almost-doubled-snp/

So, first that ‘doubling’ is not 100% correct. It should be 87.5%

Second, UK inflation from 2007 to 2020, has been around 42% and averaged 2.7% so by 2021, 44%.

So, we have a ‘real’ increase in spending of around 44%.

What might justify that?

  • The Scotland Act of 2016 which ‘which devolved further powers to Scotland including significant areas of income tax and welfare’ and has 73 items listed.
  • The Scotland Act of 2012 which ‘provided the largest transfer of financial powers from Westminster since the creation of the UK’ and has 45 items listed.
  • The pandemic measures.
  • Numerous initiatives by the SNP Government to improve Scotland’s prospects from minimum pricing to economic links with the Arctic Circle nations.

44%? A bargain?

Sources:

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2016/11/contents/enacted

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2012/11/contents/enacted

14 thoughts on “A bargain”

  1. This sums up Labour in Scotland. The soor faced cavilling, embodied by ‘hide in a fast food shop’ Iain Gray. They are even more trivial that the two clowns Rennie and Coco Hamilton.

    What does Labour in Scotland actually stand for?

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      1. I noticed that in the recent bye election in Falkirk Council, Labour was the only party to lose vote share. SNP, Greens and Tories all gained. Around half of those moving from Labour went to the Tories, with the next largest group to SNP and the Greens a small but significant amount.

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  2. “So, we have a ‘real’ increase in spending of around 44%.” – Only if you use 2007 as a baseline. If refactored to 2021 allowing for inflation it’s just over a 30% increase.

    On top of the additional costs you’ve mentioned, let’s not forget the multiple committee investigations, additional reports requested, FOI requests, etc., etc..

    HOWEVER, what is crucially missing from this misrepresentation is that all additional costs have to be justified in advance and are accounted for annually irrespective of which party is in power.

    Mind you, it’s been so long since Labour were in power, they’ve probably forgotten…

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      1. Change the change the datum to 2021 – 2.4M becomes 3.46M, the balance is measured against the 3.46, that’s the ‘real’ increase.

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  3. This increase in costs is more than compensated for by the reduction in Labour MSPs who have contributed little to the public good since – whenever !

    Not forgetting the other intangible benefits . James Kelly leaving has raised the quality of debate by at least 47% !

    Liked by 5 people

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  4. Doesn’t the English in Scotland office cost a quite few millions and didn’t that bill (just invoice the people of Scotland) go up hugely over the past few years? That brand new English civil service butchers apron adorned building, they built for themselves smack in the centre of Edinburgh cost quite a bit as well they English civil servants don’t work for free either, another large cheque you will pay Scotland like it or not.

    Scotland is having to pay masses just to be in the club, they call it the UK, membership is compulsory and a tad costly.
    Independence could save Scotland a lot of money!

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    1. I seem to remember reading, but can’t for the life of me find a link for confirmation, that a previous Secretary of State for Scotland once complained that there was very little work for him to do in the Scotland Office. Which tends to suggest that the whole organisation may be superfluous. Is it really only there to help drain Scotland’s financial resources?

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    2. “Independence could save Scotland a lot of money!” Perhaps we Yessers need to point that out on the side of a bus

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