Where's our money going?

More about that ripping noise you're hearing:

The Lyon Court
Fees are currently

New Grant of shield alone, with or without motto £1,184
New Grant of shield and crest, with or without motto £1,816
New Grant of shield and crest, with or without motto to a commercial organisation £2,833
New Grant of shield, crest, motto and supporters £2,502
New Grant of shield, crest, motto and supporters to a commercial organisation £3,474
Matriculation of previous Grant of shield and crest £597
Matriculation of previous Grant including supporters £892
Matriculation of previous Grant, with new supporters £1,288

In 2006 76 new grants of Arms were made, 63 to individuals (up to 63 times £2,502 = £157,626), 11 to corporate bodies (11 x £3,474 = £38,214) 2 to local authorities (2 x £3,474 = £6,948), and 28 matriculations from existing grants (28 x £1,288 = £36,064).

Apart from asking why they're taking money from local authorities to give out a wee badge, that adds up to £238,852 - and that's before any fines are added, or any fees for adjudicating on who's a clan chief. It's enough to mak ye splutter so it is.

I'm also informed by those lovely people who have dropped me an email or left a wee comment "not for publication" about this:

Prisons - £1.2 billion spending from reserves on prisons down south should have resulted in a 100% programme match for Barnett, leading to £120 million coming to Scotland. Never happened.

Health - Darling changed Scotland's baseline before the spending review so that Scotland missed out on the increase in English spending (a wee bit like your boss saying "I know you think that you were paid £5 last month because that's what was in your pay packet, but you were really only paid £4, and that means that this month's pay of £4.50 includes your pay rise of just over 11.1%, well above the rate of inflation). That wheeze cost Scotland £342 million a year.

Lottery - apparently I was a bit short on how much money they're skinning from us here - £150 million is what is being demanded back but £184 million is what was nicked - up £34 million.

Olympics - because the money for regenerating the area around the Olympic sites for 2012 has been accounted for in a manner different from that of the Olympics itself Scotland will lose out on £165 million in Barnett consequentials.

G8 - never mind our policing costs for the beano at Gleneagles, the MOD is demanding £370,000 in security costs - from our police forces in Tayside and Fife!


So the figures I already had showed £278.1 million in one-off costs and £477 million annually. Let's add today's figures:

One-off theft - £278.1m + £120m + £34m + £165m + £370,000 = £597.47m
Repeated theft - £477m + £342m = £819m

So Brown and Darling have made off with £597.47 million of Scotland's money and intend to keep ripping us off to the tune of £819 million a year.

Is that all, I wonder?

This Barnett formula should go, they just ignore it anyway.