Another Waste Of Overseas Aid

[lindapalmara]

Further to my thread yesterday about cutting Overseas Aid and spending it on our elderley. Just another massive waste.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4031268/The-damning-verdict-285million-aid-wasted-useless-airport.html

[mikey4444]

Much as I agree with you about the St Helena Airport, £285 million would keep the social care budget going for about 3 seconds.

[TWR]

Linda, there is a lot of wastage that need to be addressed including the £300 given to the lazy MPs that sign into the H.P. just to sleep, all MPs should use the cheapest form of travel, the Izz up bar should be shut, what other job has a bar that can be used during working times for drinks / food whilst some struggle to feed their children.

[youngmafbog]

Mickey, ever heard the saying ' Take care of the pennies and the poonds will take care of themselves' ?

[Baldric]

Slightly confused as to how the Houses of Parliament's Izz Up Bar equates to the Overseas Aid Budget tbh.

[TWR]

When you go out for a pint / Lunch Balders you have to pay the full price I presume, the MPs have a Bar that is subsidised indirectly by you, why should that be? Alcohol!!

[lindapalmara]

YMB

//Mickey, ever heard the saying ' Take care of the pennies and the poonds will take care of themselves' ?//

My sentiments exactly !!!

Add this to the savings I noted yesterday we could make a difference eventually and many more corrupting including tax evasion.

[ichkeria]

Surely what is needed here is better management of how the money is spent.
If you just cut the aid it will still get misused.

[Baldric]

Still not sure how it equates to the Subject of the OP which is Overseas Aid though, still never mind eh?

[TWR]

Ich, the UK should come first, I don't see why we should help the likes of some African countries that have a food shortage & their children are starving, stop the sha--------- they are causing it themselves, I could only afford to feed two children & that's we kept to, heartless I don't think so.

[anotheoldgit]

Britain spends more on overseas aid than any other EU country, in fact we are the second highest contributor in the World.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/01/05/00/2FCCA15C00000578-3384689-image-a-18_1451954531826.jpg

Why is this, when we have food banks, can't care for our elderly etc, etc, etc?

[anotheoldgit]

mikey4444

/// £285 million would keep the social care budget going for about 3 seconds. ///

Read the real facts mikey.

/// The average weekly UK nursing home fee is £726, or £37,752 a year. The £285.5million squandered on the St Helena airport could have paid for a staggering 7,560 care home places for an entire year. ///

[Zacs-Master]

I think you're confusing two things there AOG. Care home fees are quite often, privately funded. Social Care spending 2013/14:
Looking at the different types of service4, the greatest area of spend in 2013-14 was day and domiciliary provision5, which made up 46 per cent (£7.9 billion) of total expenditure. This compares to a real terms figure of £7.7 billion (43 per cent of the total) in 2008-92, an increase of 2 per cent in real terms spending.
The largest area of spending by client type6 in 2013-14 was on people aged 65 and over, which made up 51 per cent (£8.8 billion) of total expenditure. This compares to a real terms figure of £10.1 billion (56 per cent of the total) in 2008-96, a decrease of 12 per cent in real terms spending.
Spending on direct payments7 rose to £1.4 billion (eight per cent of total spending) in 2013-14. This represents a 103 per cent increase in real terms spending on 2008-9 when direct payments made up £680 million (four per cent of total expenditure).

I make that £18.1 Billion in total.

£285m = 0.0016389% of the overall budget.

[Zacs-Master]

Source:
http://content.digital.nhs.uk/article/5261/Spending-on-adult-social-care-statistics-publishede:#

[fiction-factory]

Hi Linda- a lot of the arguments have been exhausted following AOG's thread a few days ago covering the money wasted on the same airport project.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4031268/The-damning-verdict-285million-aid-wasted-useless-airport.html

The foreign aid budget is currently fixed at 0.7% of GDP and there is no appetite among the major parties to seek to reduce it, so there is no prospect for some years, if ever, of diverting money from the aid budget to fund important areas like elderly care .

The issues for now are really how we ensure the money committed to foreign is spent in the best way and how we fund important areas domestically. Going forwards though I think there is a case for reviewing whether we should spend more or less on foreign aid in the 2020s, although reducing it would be sending a signal to the world that we are not a major player in economic matters and that we don't want to try to secure business in the future from these developing countries in the future or have any influence on them politically..

[sp1814]

What does 'spending it on our elderly' mean?

Housing, social care, health visitors?

Or do you think as I do (being a child of Thatcher) that the elderly should have provided for themselves whilst they were working?

[fiction-factory]

Hi Zacs- I'm not sure where your figure of 0.0016389% is from. If it's £285 million expressed as a percentage of £18.1 billion I make that 1.57%

[TTG]

You are deluded if you think most of the UKs oversees aid actually reaches the people that need it.