Of course, the Unions will bail out Labour’s expenditure sooner or later, but who will pay for all the extra expenditure incurred by local councils in preparation for an autumn election? This must have taken a significant amount of staff time alone, never mind any additional expenditure and disruption caused?
By my estimation - and it is a rough but conservative guess - election preparations may have cost Salford City Council up to £10000 in staff time alone. Salford’s elections office would have covered the two constituencies of Salford & Eccles and Worsley & Eccles South. If we consider the cost to be around £5000 per constituency, then if other local authorities incurred similar costs then the total cost of the non-election to the taxpayer would have been over £3 million.
Gordon, can we have our money back?
(Of course, this £3 million estimate does not include any time or money spent by civil servants in Whitehall or taxpayer-funded Parliamentary staff)
What Cost To The Taxpayer?
Today’s Guardian lead story that the Labour Party blew £1 million on the election that never was will cause a wry smile but no surprise amongst those of us who saw through Gordon Brown’s transparant reasons for calling off a snap poll. There’s analysis at PoliticalBetting and ConservativeHome - but funnily enough nothing at all on LabourHome. Now there’s a surprise.
Of course, the Unions will bail out Labour’s expenditure sooner or later, but who will pay for all the extra expenditure incurred by local councils in preparation for an autumn election? This must have taken a significant amount of staff time alone, never mind any additional expenditure and disruption caused?
By my estimation - and it is a rough but conservative guess - election preparations may have cost Salford City Council up to £10000 in staff time alone. Salford’s elections office would have covered the two constituencies of Salford & Eccles and Worsley & Eccles South. If we consider the cost to be around £5000 per constituency, then if other local authorities incurred similar costs then the total cost of the non-election to the taxpayer would have been over £3 million.
Gordon, can we have our money back?
(Of course, this £3 million estimate does not include any time or money spent by civil servants in Whitehall or taxpayer-funded Parliamentary staff)