20/07/2010

An austerity conundrum

In these days of austerity and tightening of the public belt the ConDem Westminster government tells us that there is a need to cut all sorts of costs out of public service provision in order to reduce costs and to provide better services for less money. A very laudable ideal that many will support.

But yet, when the Plaid /Labour coalition spends less per head on education, or on health or on social services than is spent per head in England the Assembly Government is accused of short changing the people of Wales and of underfunding services in Wales by Conservatives and Liberal Democrats!

I can't understand this!

If we need to cut public service costs why isn't the Westminster Government looking at the Plaid/ Labour Government in Cardiff and saying Wales has proved that you can deliver a decent education for £xxx per pupil less than is spent in England etc rather than the same parties who want to reduce spend per pupil / patient / service user in England complaining that the spend per person isn't as much in Wales as is, according to their own mantra, overspent per head in England?

2 comments:

  1. Good point! On the one hand they want state spending to dramatically increase in Wales, but at the same time they won't dream of providing the extra £300m we are entitled to.

    For all its faults, is the education system in Wales really THAT bad? We can talk about 'funding gaps' all day but really, children growing up in Wales are probably amongst the luckiest in Europe if not the world.

    We should also criticise the lack of self-confidence that leads the Lib Dems in particular to constantly comparing us to England. We don't need to validate ourselves by trying to emulate our neighbour.

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  2. This reminds me.

    Health spending in the U.S. is around $7500 per person, in Wales it's about $3000 per person. Who has the best health care? We do, by miles.

    Colwyn.

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