But you’ll be glad to hear Nicola’s getting HER bins lifted!
And guess who’s paying for that?
BINS at the First Minister’s official residence are being emptied by a private waste removal firm funded by taxpayers.
Across the country, the ongoing strike action means households are being forced to store bags of uncollected rubbish and recycling.
Nicola Sturgeon, however, need not worry about her own waste piling up. For at Bute House – the Edinburgh residence of Scotland’s First Ministers – the bins are emptied by a firm which is paid millions of pounds from the public purse.
Her private binmen are supplied by Mitie which was last year awarded a £43 million facilities management contract. It means that they are responsible for removing rubbish from 70 different Scottish Government buildings, including Ms Sturgeon’s official residence.
Details of the contract were revealed as millions of people around Scotland face another week without bin collections.
Last night, opposition politicians said the public would be angry to learn about the private bin men cleaning up for the First Minister.
Miles Briggs, Scottish Conservative spokesman for social justice, housing and local government,
‘It’s small wonder that she seems unflustered’
called on Ms Sturgeon to urgently resolve the rubbish crisis, which has seen pensioners in Edinburgh forced to store rubbish in their baths.
The MSP said: ‘It’s small wonder Nicola Sturgeon seems unflustered by the rubbish piling up around Edinburgh, while she’s off in Copenhagen.
‘It turns out that Scottish Government offices have their own arrangements, which explains why Bute House looks spick and span while the rest of the city turns into a landfill site.’
In a scathing attack on Ms Sturgeon, Mr Briggs added it was unfair that taxpayers – who are being denied waste clearances due to strikes – are being forced to fork out for Ms Sturgeon’s private fleet of rubbish trucks.
He added: ‘Taxpayers who stump up for her bin collection to the tune of millions of pounds also pay for a proper council service, which they are being denied thanks to her government’s cuts and dithering. She urgently needs to clear this mess up.’
As well as being Ms Sturgeon’s home when she is in Edinburgh, Bute House is used for her official meetings and dinners.
As Scotland’s first female First Minister, Ms Sturgeon also insisted on refreshing the artworks hanging on the walls in the grand Georgian townhouse, replacing some of the portraits of male politicians with paintings of – or by – women. Mitie, founded in 1987 and headquartered in London, is described as the UK’s leading facilities management and professional services company.
Announcing its contract with the Scottish Government last year, the company, which has more than 70,000 employees, declared: ‘Mitie has won a seven-year contract to provide facilities management services for 70 of the Scottish Government’s sites, including research centres and the First Minister’s residence.’ The deal is due to cost the taxpayer £43 million in total.
As part of the contract, the public purse shells out £258,000 a year for the firm to remove waste from Bute House and other Government buildings – a total of £1.8 million over the seven-year period.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘Bute House is not just a residence but also functions as an office for officials and the Cabinet, so it’s appropriate that the facilities management contract removes waste from the site.’