By Bill Heaney
Scottish Labour has accused the SNP of being ‘addicted to wasting public money’ as the party has revealed the eye-watering cost of public board members.
New analysis by Scottish Labour of Scottish Government data has revealed that at time of publication almost £9 million a year is being handed every year to board members of Scotland’s many quangos.
In total the data suggests there are up to 838 positions on executive boards of public bodies in Scotland, with these board members being handed an estimated £8.9 million a year for their time.
According to figures published by the Scottish Government, many of these board members receive eye-watering sums for a few days of work, with more than a dozen getting over £800 per day and one member even receiving the equivalent of £2,300 a day.
Bodies relating to the delivery of health and care rack up the largest bills, with members of Scotland’s 14 territorial NHS Board members alone raking in over £1.8 million a year.
Despite the fact that local hospitals including the Vale of Leven Hospital and local health centres plus the Health and Social Care Partnership have been the subject of serious critisism in recent years, we have hardly heard a word from Cllr McGinty, Labour, who stood for the Provostship and was defeated by the SNP’s Cllr Karen Murray Conaghan, who now pockets around £50,000 a year for doing that “job”.
Cllr McGinty will currently be receiving around £8,000 a year plus expenses for attending health board meetings and this is in addition to her basic councilor’s pay which will be supplemented by even more monery for a council convenersip.
She is just one of the councillors in Dumbarton who rake in extra money for additional responsibilities which can amount to no more than taking a seat at a meeting.
Scottish Labour has previously criticised the proliferation of quangos under the SNP, which they claim has failed to deliver improvements to public services.
While the UK Labour government is taking action now to tackle governmental waste, the SNP is adding to the public bill, according to Scottish Labour.
Scottish Labour is pledging to cut the number of NHS Boards in order to re-direct resources to the front line and deliver value for money taxpayers.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said “Under the SNP, the number of quangos has soared while standards in our public services have plummeted.
“Public bodies are being used as shields by the SNP government as it attempts to dodge accountability for its failures, and taxpayers are footing the bill.
“While frontline services were cut to the bone by SNP Ministers, millions of pounds of public money was being handed to board members on Scotland’s labyrinth of quango.
“The SNP’s addiction to waste is bad for taxpayers, bad for public services and bad for trust in politics.
“A Scottish Labour government will end the SNP’s quango culture and cut red tape across government so that public money goes where it is really needed.”
“It’s a bit like the teapot calling the kettle black,” one ex councillor told The Dumbarton Democrat.
“If you add up all the money going into the political slush fund for West Dunbartonshire alone from the MP to the MSP to the councillors and then add the eye-watering figures for the council’s chief officers, which has only just come into the public domain, plus the cost of sending people to the House of Lords, it takes you to well above £1 million.
Loadsamoney – but services are poor and people overpaid at every level of government.
“Maybe it’s time people paid more attention to the people they are voting for in an attempt to ensure they get value for public money.”
- The estimated cost of payments to members of Scottish public body boards, based on the most recent data published by the Scottish Government, is approximately £8.93 million per year.
- There are 838 positions on Scottish public body boards, consisting of 836 members with 2 vacancies.
- The two highest rates of pay are the equivalent of £2,319 per day and £1,852 per day.
- 15 board members receive more than £800 per day.
- Members of the 14 NHS Territorial Boards receive £1.8 million a year.
Source: Scottish Labour analysis of Scottish Government data on public appointments on public bodies. All appointments on the Scottish Government spreadsheet are included in calculations; in cases where the Scottish Government failed to remove members no longer in post this may result in some double counting.