- Joined
- Mar 23, 2005
Having worked for many years in social care, I got to wondering how the government can/will be able to afford to pay everything they currently pay. After all it is estimated we will soon have a population where the majority of people are over 50. Think for a minute about what the government cover through taxes
Military, hospitals, (NHS as a whole) schools, prisons, prescriptions, civil servants, care homes, care in community. Roads, bridges, all forms of benefits including housing benefit, customs, coastguard, Parliament, Police, expenses, Royalty etc etc and I have probably only scratched the surface
Now if we achieved independence we might be able to slash military and Royalty spending: however we still have an ageing population and quite a hefty NHS bill due to bad health and drug/alcohol abuse, and medication for depression also costs millions a year.
I will also say at this point councils are quite adept at wasting money. For example having worked in a homeless hostel, one example of waste saw was a guy who had a house fire in his council tenement flat. A year later at a cost of almost £1k a week he was still living in the hostel awaiting the council to fix the smoke damage to his flat. They could have built a brand new house for the money used to keep him in a bedroom! I know of many people who have been on Methadone for over 20 years.. where is the programme to get them drug free? Care in the community involves on average 4 health visitors for every 4-5 clients as they work shift patterns. Sadly aa lot of the people visited are living very lonely and isolated lives and would actually benefit from being in care homes, but that is a different debate.
Scotland unlike England also give out free prescriptions and do not take tolls for bridges, but these costs are simply raised through taxes. In 2012 it cost on average £92 per day to hold one prisoner..more than double our European counterparts. This based on 6k prison population of Scotland equates to £190.5m a year.
Anyway the point is, going forward, despite the fact we hear the government saying they will find an extra billion or so for various projects...are we going bust ?
Military, hospitals, (NHS as a whole) schools, prisons, prescriptions, civil servants, care homes, care in community. Roads, bridges, all forms of benefits including housing benefit, customs, coastguard, Parliament, Police, expenses, Royalty etc etc and I have probably only scratched the surface
Now if we achieved independence we might be able to slash military and Royalty spending: however we still have an ageing population and quite a hefty NHS bill due to bad health and drug/alcohol abuse, and medication for depression also costs millions a year.
I will also say at this point councils are quite adept at wasting money. For example having worked in a homeless hostel, one example of waste saw was a guy who had a house fire in his council tenement flat. A year later at a cost of almost £1k a week he was still living in the hostel awaiting the council to fix the smoke damage to his flat. They could have built a brand new house for the money used to keep him in a bedroom! I know of many people who have been on Methadone for over 20 years.. where is the programme to get them drug free? Care in the community involves on average 4 health visitors for every 4-5 clients as they work shift patterns. Sadly aa lot of the people visited are living very lonely and isolated lives and would actually benefit from being in care homes, but that is a different debate.
Scotland unlike England also give out free prescriptions and do not take tolls for bridges, but these costs are simply raised through taxes. In 2012 it cost on average £92 per day to hold one prisoner..more than double our European counterparts. This based on 6k prison population of Scotland equates to £190.5m a year.
Anyway the point is, going forward, despite the fact we hear the government saying they will find an extra billion or so for various projects...are we going bust ?
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