£55m of your cash ‘wasted’ in just a year

Ministers attacked over ‘shocking’ scale of losses

MORE than £55million of taxpayers’ cash has been ‘wasted’ by the Scottish Government on disputes, damages and losses to fraud.

SNP ministers were accused of ‘shambolic mismanagement’ as the shocking scale of losses and ‘special payments’ made by government agencies was exposed.

Public bodies including the NHS and Transport Scotland lost more than £6million due to fraud, embezzlement and damages in just one year.

Compensation and other ‘special payments’ cost the taxpayer another £49.7million. More than £850,000 was paid out in compensation – including £512,250 to former First Minister Alex Salmond following a judicial review.

The damning figures are contained in the Government’s accounts for 2018-19.

It reveals that over the 12month period to March 2019,

‘Such a mess of running things’

£55.7million was either lost or spent on payouts for compensation, dispute resolution and other avoidable issues.

Of this, £42.3million was paid out on clinical negligence, damages and unfair dismissal within the NHS in Scotland.

More than £1million in compensation also went to prison officers and inmates for injury, human rights actions and loss or damage to property.

Last night, critics accused the SNP of wasting millions of pounds of taxpayers’ cash.

Conservative MSP Annie Wells said: ‘This shows the scale of the SNP’s shambolic mismanagement of our public services.

‘The SNP have made such a mess of running things that Scotland’s NHS is paying tens of millions to mistreated patients, and the prison service is having to pay shocking sums of compensation to prison officers and prisoners themselves.

‘Let’s be clear that this isn’t the fault of overworked NHS staff or under-threat prison officers. This is the fault of a distracted SNP government obsessed with getting another referendum at all costs.

‘They are treating taxpayers’ hard-earned cash like Monopoly money, throwing it away at every turn. Time and again, the SNP have wasted money that could have been spent improving our schools and hospitals. It’s a disgrace.’

The figures also show the Scottish Public Pensions Agency spent £367,000 on reinstating an individual’s membership of the NHS pension scheme, while £7,139 went on compensation.

Tax Payers’ Alliance chief executive John O’Connell said: ‘Once again, this shows the careless disregard for Scottish taxpayers all too common in Holyrood.

‘There are of course occasions when compensation payments have to be made. But the sheer scale and regularity of these payments can’t be right. The Scottish Government and its quangos should redouble efforts to ensure that fraud and overpayment are eliminated.’

A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘The Scottish Government takes very seriously its obligation to deliver best value in terms of public services and projects.

‘For the 14th consecutive year, the Scottish Government’s accounts were given a clean bill of health by Audit Scotland.

‘In the case of the NHS, the combined cost of compensation and ex gratia payments represents less than 0.4 per cent of the total NHS budget.

‘Scotland has one of the most transparent healthcare systems in the world and our NHS learns constantly from care experiences that go well, and those where standards falls short.

‘Particularly in the rare case of clinical negligence, health boards and care professionals must learn from these situations and make improvements.’