Welcome to my Blog

I am a semi-retired former Scottish trade union policy wonk, now working on a range of projects. This includes the Director of the Jimmy Reid Foundation. All views are my own, not any of the organisations I work with. You can also follow me on Twitter. Or on Threads @davewatson1683. I hope you find this blog interesting and I would welcome your comments.

Wednesday 22 December 2010

Scottish Futures Trust

The Scottish Futures Trust has sneaked out its annual report just before Christmas. When you read it, you can hardly blame them!

The headline is that it spent £3.3m last year including more than £1m on consultants and external staff. We were told that the justification for the fabulous salaries for its leading officials, was their private sector expertise that we apparently need so badly. This includes £174,000 for the Chief Executive (part-year only), more than the Chief Executive of Scotland's largest local authority.

As Bill Butler MSP said today:
"These figures will do little to increase public confidence in this increasingly discredited quango. Instead, they have seen the SFT pay out over £2,000 a day on consultants over the past 12 months, and today's figures prove that the gravy train keeps on rolling."

There might be something to say if they actually came up with something new. Instead the Scottish Government, on the advice of the SFT, are returning to the discredited PFI model. Of course if you employ a former PFI consultant, you shouldn't be surprised if you get a one trick donkey.

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