Quote Originally Posted by Geoff Parkstone View Post
Not often I agree with you Swale but the 2.6m spend at Downing Street is a total waste, but in terms of cash it wouldn't change the 1% by very much if it were spent on NHS wages.

The current spend on NHS wages must be at least 50 billion (was almost 48 billion in 2016-17). Thus your inferred comparison is disingenuous: tossing another 2.6 million at the NHS wage budget would maybe give every staff member an extra £1 each after tax per annum.
The numbers are important here for context. If we take that £50 billion assumption, 1% equates to (back of envelope non accountant calcs):

£500,000,000 Salary
£69,000,000 (assumed 13.8%) ER NIC
£15,000,000 (assumed 3%) ER Pension Contributions
Total cost: £584,000,000

...and that's before the additional cost of increased rates for overtime and allowances.

No small change, and not a salary budget I'd want to be handling! Put it this way, every 0.175% is worth just over a million £s. It's staggering, especially as there's no (direct) income to offset it.