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MEP's Salary & Expenses - Eneida (26th May 2009 - 18:14:14) I came across this article and thought some of you may be interested to read it. It's written by a Lib-Dem MEP from outside our area and seems to give an honest, straight forward explanation of how the system works (or doesn't) without any politcal hype! www.winwithchris.org.uk/Pay...

Re: MEP's Salary & Expenses - Allan (27th May 2009 - 00:33:06) Very interesting, Eneida, but what about the others without the same moral conciense?

Re: MEP's Salary & Expenses - Mike Grimes (27th May 2009 - 00:35:06) Eneida, I agree, quite candid. The current focus is on incumbent MPs (and, to some extent, MEPs) and the amount of taxpayers money they are (not have been, are) trousering and how much respect and trust they have lost and are continuing to lose by remaining there. There is a much more significant financial problem. That is the amount of money that the public sector is now hosing at the private sector for dubious benefit. Management Consultants, IT consultants, Corporate Lawyers have never had it so good. Public sector management can not/will not make any kind of decision unless backed by endless "independent" private sector reports. Meanwhile their salaries are escalating to match "those in the private sector - to attract the right caliber of people". This government has been unable to see the difference between "Investment" and "Spending" and sees more of the latter as a good thing and will critcise any effort to "Save" as "Cuts". Have you ever been exposed to a public sector computer system or web application and said the "My son 10 year old could have done that, and it would have been easier to use" Well that is probably not true, as there are more constraints that your 10 year old son could envisage, but I suspect that a relatively small team of wise men could do a better job of computerising the NHS than the current £multi billion project which many have predicted will fail to produce any discernable benefit and may well be cancelled. It may be that those in the private sector that the "nearly right caliber of people" are trying to catch up with are unduly enriched by the proliferagacy of those that are not quite up to scratch. Sorry if I've gone "off topic" Eneida but I beleive that the MP thing is one of integrity but there is a deeper one underneath that has more to do with bankrupcy.

Re: MEP's Salary & Expenses - Eneida (27th May 2009 - 09:50:48) I wasn't trying to re-open the 'morality' aspect of MP/MEPs expenses etc. I was just curious to learn more about how the system works in the EU and although I'm not in any way a Lib-Dem supporter, I thought Mr. Davies's explanation was clear and straight forward...that's all :) Mike, It may be off topic, but I think you've raised some very valid points!! I've often wondered how many millions of tax payers money goes to a whole gravy train of so called 'experts' out there in the private sector contracted to set up systems and paid to sit on Quangos. The NHS database fiasco was only one of several wasn't it? This is certainly something I'd like a future government to address!! Eneida

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