Citizen Smart

29 Mar 2009

A NATIONAL DISGRACE: £1.5 million payoff for 8 parly bosses

This is a national disgrace, a symbol of how far we have fallen short of these high aspirations we had of our new parly only ten years ago.. I re-produce below in full the article in today's Sunday Herald on payoffs to 8 senior parliament staff totalling £1,5 million below. I intend to post much more later, but I already know what is going on.

I worked at the parly fot 7 years, know exactly the set up, who's who's and how they inter-relate - indeed who appointed them, and what they were paid in the first place. So if you are a bemused MSP wanting more info please to contact me.

But you probably won't, as it will beg the question what 129 of you - no, 128, I'll exclude Margo - have been doing for 10 years, other than presiding over one of the worst public sector bodies in Scotland. And you can blame nobody but yourselves. It has been the all-party Scottish Parliamentary Corporate body - one Labou,r one SNP, one Lib Dem and one Tory - that has been in charge from day one. And Sir David Steel, George Reid and now Adam Fegusson - your senior statesmen, the consensual pick of your bunch.

Yet you, all 129 of you, are meant to hold the entire public sector in Scotland to account, but can't even hold your own place of work to account, don't seem to have the slightest clue, are propably reading about these obscene payoffs for the first time in the Sunday Herald.

As a result, in my eyes anyway, you have no credibility demanding efficiencies, even the accountabilty of Scottish Goverment departments , local councils, quangos and the rest of us, as you preside over one of the worst public sector bodies in Scotland. And set up only 10 years ago, by the Convention parties and with belated SNP and Scots Tory buy-in. Nae Maggie T, these English and co to blame for this mess.

And in the name of people of Scotland

But just do any reasonable like for like comparisson with the costs of running Holyrood with any parly in the world - even fully independent ones, and you will see instantly just how inefficient Holyrood is. ( something in my time the senior officials point blank refused to do, indeed they even rubbished an Irish Parliament consultants report that put Holyrood as bottom of their international efficiency league table)

We know what they wasted on that building- we got a disfunctional building worth £150m tops, but paid £450m. But the very same people who mismanaged this, still blow close to £50 million every year, year on year and rising just running the place. Ask how much it costs the Catalans - population 6 million, many more powers than Holyrood, check out a comparable sized Lander in Germany, a US state, or even the Irish Dail.

And our democratic reps don't seem to care - indeed they are in on the act. Did you for example know one of seven Bills currently going through Holyrood is one to improve MSP pensions? A national priority of course in these trying times, these poor put upon impoverished MSPs worried about their future ( well some should be!) . And these new improved pensions all set up by the senior parly staff , who are in turn benefiting from these obsence payoff. Nice wee number, nice cosy arrangement.

Nigel Griffith only screwed one person in the Commons. This mob are screwing 5 million of us every day at Holyrood.

Enough for now, but here's the Sunday Herald article to be getting on with.

Holyrood boss under fire as eight staff share £1.5m pay-off
By Paul Hutcheon

HOLYROOD CHIEF EXECUTIVE PAUL Grice has been criticised after eight senior parliament staff shared an early retirement pot of at least £1.5 million. The deal is worth the equivalent of £190,000 for each of the Holyrood bosses.

The redundancy round was sparked after Grice accepted recommendations from his colleague Carol Devon to cut the number of senior management posts. Devon ended up as the main beneficiary of the plan after her application for redundancy landed her up to £270,000.
Holyrood's head of personnel Ian Macnicol, head of security Bill Anderson and Ian Perry, head of the external liaison unit, all negotiated deals. Patsy Richards, head of the parliament information centre, and three clerk team leaders will also benefit.
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These seven include two employees at grade seven, who earn up to £71,327, and five at grade six, whose salary reaches £58,022. Devon's salary, according to parliament accounts, came in at up to £95,000.

The £1.5m is a combination of lump sums and pension payments. If Devon's sum is taken out of the equation, the seven others stand to benefit from an average gain of £175,000. The Sunday Herald understands one of the seven had a short length of service and is unlikely to have received a large sum.

The payments have led to criticism of Grice, who approved the early retirement applications, although the parliament insists the plans will yield savings. Grice has already been rebuked over his role in the cost overruns surrounding the Holyrood project.

The payments raise further questions about public-sector bodies paying out hundreds of thousands of pounds to senior staff in pay-offs. North Lanarkshire Council has spent almost £2m on early retirement and severance since 2007, while Scottish Enterprise (SE) paid over £20m in lump sums. Within that total, four individuals received severance lump sums of over £250,000.
Glasgow City Council paid almost £19m in similar deals, while NHS Lothian confirmed spending around £1.3m in redundancy payments since 2007.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: "At a time when many taxpayers are having to postpone their own retirement, or have seen their private pension reduced out of recognition, these pay-outs are totally unjustifiable. Mr Grice has some serious questions to answer."

John Wilson, an SNP MSP for Central Scotland, said: "While large sections of the workforce are concerned about their future, senior parliament staff are leaving with golden goodbyes prior to their normal retirement age. No doubt they will end up on other public bodies, picking up other salaries."

A parliament spokesman confirmed that £1.5m had been allocated for eight staff, adding: "The full expectation is that the team changes will pay for themselves within five years and thereafter deliver annual savings."

Pay No Poll Tax !

It is 20 years ago, 1st April 1989 to be precise, that the Poll Tax was introduced in Scotland. That legal requirement to pay, and a year ahead of England, was of course preceded intense campaigning, and Scotland on Sunday has done a good feature on it all today.

I would recommend it to those too young to remember or so old we have forgotten!

In particular, I like the paper's slideshow- here's a direct link to it.

Strange days, in hindsight great days, but they just felt like any other day to me and I guess most folks living through them at the time But we won! - the beginning of the end for Thatcherism

And a campaign led from Scotland - but let's not forget finished in England.

But a big hats off to the tens of thousands of Scots who led the way, refused to pay.

If only Sandi Thom had done likewise

28 Mar 2009

Sandi Thom's £581 Breakfast - and 'a that

From Today's Scotsman
By David Maddox, Scottish Political Correspondent

THE SNP has been accused of providing one of its most high-profile celebrity supporters with "Scottish Government kickbacks" worth almost £10,000.

The money was paid to the singer- songwriter Sandi Thom as expenses for gigs she performed for the Scottish Government in 2007 and 2008. This included a flat-rate fee of £3,000 for a St Andrews Day event in 2007. In 2008, the Scottish Government paid a £860 hotel bill and £581.75 for breakfast and refreshments when she performed for another St Andrews event in West Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh. Flights for Ms Thom, her band and tour manager cost another £1,440.53, while she also received £404 for car hire and there was an agency fee of £750.

At the launch of the First Minister's Christmas card at Duff House in Aberdeenshire, she was paid an agency fee of £1,000 and transport costs of £1,478.30.

The information was revealed in a Scottish Government written answer to Labour delivered three months late. Scottish Parliament rules says answers should be given within 20 days. The answer also did not include Thom's expenses for 2009. These include being flown to Ayr for a Burns Night supper and being jetted to Washington DC to perform at a Scottish Government event close to the time of Barack Obama's inauguration. Ms Thom, who is from Banff, in the Westminster constituency of Alex Salmond, has been a high-profile supporter of the SNP and appeared on its 2007 election literature in a letter aimed at young voters. She also sang a duet of the song Caledonia with Mr Salmond at the beginning of her Homecoming tour this year, and the tour itself was promoted to SNP members in an e-mail from the party chairman Peter Murrell, the partner of Nicola Sturgeon, the deputy leader.

John Robertson, the Labour Glasgow North West MP, said: "These lavish expenses are kickbacks for helping the SNP election campaign. This stinks." He added that the SNP could not afford to "fritter away £500 on an expensive hotel" when it has cut 1,000 teachers in the past year. read full article

Nats - Indefensible

In the USA they call this pork barrel politics, but it is commonplace the world over, and of course New Labour has it down to an art form. So don't think I am unaware of their hypocrisy here. From the party of Tony McNulty, Jacqui Smith, Cheri Blair and hundreds more.

But that don't make what has happened with Sandi Thom right, remotely right.

If we are to succeed - win our independence - we must rise above these temptations of graft and corruption, some even put there deliberately as temptations so as the unionists can run stories such as these.

But did you fight to win office so as Sandi Thom and her pals could enjoy inflated fees and obscenely priced breakfasts at taxpayers expense? Real people , voters, the Scottish working class?

Get a grip of wee Eck I suggest rather than whinge at The Scotsman or an obscure Labour MP on this one - they are only doing their jobs. Do yours - Sort out your leader, no your king. Ask party HQ ( oh sorry, it's Peter Murrell, Nicola's man and Sandi's groupie), whit does Eck thinks he is playing at - other than slowly but surely blowing it?

And whilst you're at it, tell him he also needs to dump Sir George Matheson as his Government's Chief Economic adviser pronto - before the Edinburgh neds or the fraud squad get to him first.

It's a democratic and accountable government you are running, no a monarchy, a fiefdom, King Eck. And a minority one - so you are well exposed here - nae whipped votes will protect you.

In this regard these New Labour pork barrellers at least know whit they are doing. Not sure you do. But I didna see no "inflated fees for cultural nats - especially ones frae Banff" promises in that 2007 manifesto. Though I read plenty more

And mind what happened last time he was in charge and naeone asked him aboot his taxi fares - apart from that Party Treasurer he, Nicola and co did in.

And an important postscript: The Scottish Sun has the story too - plastered over its front page and beyond. For the uninitiated The Scottish Sun is now far and away the best selling newspaper in Scotland, in part because its younger more open minded readers were increasingly put off by the once dominant Daily Record's pro Labour, pro Government sycophancy. So this is what the younger, independence leaning, open minded masses will be reading in their hundreds of thousands today, Read web edition here

So ask yourself why?

And incidentally, Andy Nichol, The Sun journalist who wrote this is about as nat friendly as you could ever wish for. But he is a good journo and can spot a good story a mile off. Just one of the reasons. the Scottish Sun does so well compared to its much better resourced Record rival.

26 Mar 2009

BBC Brownose

I was inspired to make this post by tory(ish) blogger Wrinkled Weasel's World who has performed an excellent public service by posting in full the text of Tory MEP Daniel Hannan's demolition of our beloved Prime Minister earlier this week in the European Parliament. Go visit the wrinkled one's blog for the text, play this youtube clip above to view it

But the thing I really wanted to highlight, is not so much the speech - which is great, a classic - but the total failure of the BBC to report it, in contrast to the other networks and papers, most of whom gave it well deserved big licks. It even made some US networks - but not the BBC

The BEEB really has become more New Labour than New Labour - craven, sycophantic and completely without independent judgement. "Don't upset the Government, Gordy in particular" would be the honest thing to write down as rule number 1 of its famous Producer Guidelines these days. Soon auntie will be doctoring Raith Rovers results to ensure, in the beloved leader's mind, his team always wins.

And having just read the wrinkled one's post , I turn on BBC 1 to find it has sent its Political Editor Nick Robinson, and no doubt a large crew of lovies (and maybe Tony McNulty's parents too) all the way to Brazil to report on a non event of a visit there by GB. This from the same BBC that passed on freely available, electric, topical and truly engaging footage of Danny Hannan, with Gordy and the rest of Europe watching in Strasbourg only a few days earlier.

Yet this shower of pampered, inefficient and overpaid cheerleaders have the brass neck to claim they are short of money!

I can't wait for the BEEB's "Gordy is our Obama" stuff when the G20 comes to town next week. All conveniently ignoring that the last place Obama wanted his first big international outing to be was Brown's (in near every way) bankrupt Britain.

"Where's Cuba?", I bet Barack will be thinking - "a country with a future and a youthful leader!" And a freer national broadcaster? - no, that's pushing it. But we are getting there.