Thread 7 - No pitch forks or Pom Poms - Scottish political shenanigans

[TheShadowyFeminist]

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It does seem ridiculous but I have no idea what it covers or what these kind of services cost. As I say, it would be interesting to see the figures for another country. Ideally another similar country.

Does it matter if another country is spending similar? If it's too much and money is being wasted then whether another country is also doing so is largely irrelevant albeit possibly interesting. I think that there needs to be some accountability to see if the money being spent is value for money and affordable as that is more important.

I don't disagree that the cars/contracts should exist and it may indeed be more economical to have cars and drivers available than it is to use ad hoc transport. Sometimes the cheapest option isn't the one that is value for money. I'd argue in the example above that 14 hours of a staff members time is worth more than an extra £100 etc on the price of a ticket, but maybe the meeting didn't have to be attended at all?

We work a lot with offshore so you learn pretty quickly to carry out even very important meetings by teleconference or video conference. Is it ideal? Probably not always, it's good to be there in person sometimes, however there isn't any option other than medium to long haul travel.

An old huffington post article suggests that the UK government spend £500,000 a year (2016/17) transporting documents alone. So not including driving people like the PM, the cabinet, foreign dignitaries, visitors etc. Just for documents. Documents including, apparently, IDS's resignation letter. They refused to release how much they spent on driving people and no longer publish the info.

@RedactedTaeFeck well yes it matters because I have no idea how much these things cost / should cost so it would be nice to see a comparison.

Do you work in transport that you can authoritatively say that it's too much?

I didn't say it was too much - i said that it should be looked at to see if it's value for money. Whether another similar country spends similar could also be that they are overspending.

If the national average weekly spend on groceries for a family like mine is £150 a week and I spend £200, then whether my neighbour in a similar family also spends £200 doesn't matter. We are both probably spending more than we need to. In this scenario though it's my own money and if I choose to overspend it's no-ones business, but if it's tax payers money then there should be transparency and accountability applied. Maybe there is?

Someone above mentioned £900,000 for a year. £17.3k a week does seem pretty excessive tbh. So maybe I do think it's too much.

I’m really sick of the answer to any criticism of the SG bring “but other countries are corrupt and profligate”.

This tweet summed this concept up:

“Hungry children in Glasgow are not comforted by the fact there are more hungry children in Birmingham”

Amy Lee Fraioli today

Again, what documents need transporting??

Or indeed people during a Stay at home order?

@WouldBeGood

Or indeed people during a Stay at home order?

Yes, i shouldn't have divided that £900k by 52 weeks as we were only actually allowed out for about 3!

@WouldBeGood

I’m really sick of the answer to any criticism of the SG bring “but other countries are corrupt and profligate”.

Not sure if you mean me but as I have said many times now I was only interested in what other countries spent because I have zero clue what this generally costs. Zero clue. I thought it would be interesting to have a comparison. There's no point is speculating as to the cost of 1. We don't know what these services cost generally 2. We don't actually know what the bill covers.

I was quoted £2000 to tile my kitchen (labour only). I thought this was ridiculous. Got other quotes and it turned out to be a bargain. I wasn't suggesting other countries were similarly overspending, I was trying to work out what something like this should cost.

@WouldBeGood

Again, what documents need transporting??

Who here would really know unless someone works for the government?

@RedactedTaeFeck

Someone above mentioned £900,000 for a year. £17.3k a week does seem pretty excessive tbh. So maybe I do think it's too much.

You can think it's too much all you like. It may well be, but unless we see what it covers and how much services such as this are supposed to cost then how can we possibly say whether it does or doesn't.

Yes I can think it's too much. Thanks for allowing me to have an opinion on what my taxes are spent on.

That's an exorbitant amount of money and I cannot fathom what a country of this size could be spending that amount on for transport, especially during a pandemic with a stay at home order in force for much of that year. .

If the SG were really stupid, is that they would insist on having a literal ministerial box content printed out, and then ferried to an individual minister each time. That would possibly account for it.

More flippantly, you might find "official documents" means something else entirely; official documents borne by mistress during lockdown, lover transported to your door with an official excuse... yes, I received a delivery of "official documents".

See also "fruit and flowers" or "midnight pillow service"

@RedactedTaeFeck

Yes I can think it's too much. Thanks for allowing me to have an opinion on what my taxes are spent on.

That's an exorbitant amount of money and I cannot fathom what a country of this size could be spending that amount on for transport, especially during a pandemic with a stay at home order in force for much of that year. .

Just because you can't fathom it doesn't make it too much.

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't 🤷🏻‍♀️

Yes, just me with my tiny wee brain can't fathom what they can spend the equivalent of someone's annual salary on every week.

@LexMitior

If the SG were really stupid, is that they would insist on having a literal ministerial box content printed out, and then ferried to an individual minister each time. That would possibly account for it.

More flippantly, you might find "official documents" means something else entirely; official documents borne by mistress during lockdown, lover transported to your door with an official excuse... yes, I received a delivery of "official documents".

See also "fruit and flowers" or "midnight pillow service"

All of the above entirely plausible.

No idea why you're so defensive. I didn't say you had a tiny brain. I said that we have no idea exactly what the bill covers and none of us commenting so far, myself clearly included, seems to have a clue what this type of service generally costs. How can we then draw a conclusion as to whether it's too much or not.

I'm defensive as everything you say is a snipe. I shouldn't bite.

I think the point is reasonably made that very unusual government business would mean paper documents being transported. Governments, like everyone else, use email, and for secure information then they have special networks for transmission of documents which classified etc. Printing it out something they do not do as it is not secure.

So yes, it does seem very odd to have such huge costs of transporting files of paper.

It does seem odd, as does the fact that if it were not it would all be easily explained by the SG.

If someone was being naughty in the SG they would use government resources for SNP party purposes - but that would be really outrageous thing to do!

@LexMitior that's not the cost of transporting paper. It's the yearly bill for all government cars.

According to the article sometimes cars are utilised for transporting documents but it does not specify how often or what type of document.

@RedactedTaeFeck nothing I've said here was intended as a snipe but I have no control over how you interpret it of course.