By Professor John Robertson, OBA
The Scotsman yesterday, headlined:
Anger as SNP consultants bill hits £42m
Mr Robertson begins class on using maths with the above story – ‘Seems a big number doesn’t it boys and girls?’
Tommy (11) ‘Yeh, but it might not be, like that 40 000 extra NHS appointments Keir Starmer announced. That was only 0.5% more.’
Mr Robertson – ‘So, what other information do we need to be sure if it’s important or not?’
Nicola – ‘Is it bigger than last year or ten years ago?’
Maggie – ‘What was it in England?’
Mr Robertson – ‘Great, on you go, find out.’
5 minutes later, after P7 get their smart phones out:
Kate – ‘Found something! £3.4bn UK state spending on private consultants last year in the Guardian in August.’
OK, do the sums.
Harry – ‘I don’t think it should it should be ‘UK’. It talks about ‘the Government’ so it’s probably just NHS England’
Julie – ‘If NHS England was as good as NHS Scotland they’d just have spent 10 times as much – £420 million, but they actually spent £3.4 BILLION, more than 8 time as much per head of population!
Well done class!
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Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
While spending on private consultants for NHS England will be more than NHS Scotland, the £3.4bn figure is the total for private consultants spending by all of the UK Govt departments.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/aug/31/uk-government-private-consultants-spending
“The Department for Transport, Department of Health and Social Care, Ministry of Defence and Home Office were among those that contributed to a £3.4bn spend on consultants last year.”
Also,
“Since Labour won power, nearly £650m of new government contracts to consultants have been awarded, many agreed before the transition to a new government.”
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Looks like the Private ”donors” to Wes Streeting et al are paying off !
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Hi hope you are well and thanks for all your work, just wondering if you will joining BlueSky as there is a mass exodus from X
Thanks
Catriona
Sent from Outlook for iOShttps://aka.ms/o0ukef
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I take your excellent point John. but a google for the headline ” Anger as SNP consultants bill hits £42m ” comes up empty save those commenting elsewhere on the exact same headline by Alistair Grant in the Scotsman – Does such a search your end turn up the same results ?
I can only presume Alistair is a Maccabi FC supporter, and any criticism of his lunacy is henceforth classified as antisemitic…. Oy vey…
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