THREAD:

Just how much money has the UK govt overspent on Test&Trace and PPE because of the – ahem – *particular* way that it’s chosen to procure them?

You know, Dido H, contracts to businesses (coincidentally, obvs) run by mates, and the rest
1/

I think we can put a number on it

As an absolute minimum it's £8,900,000,000

Let me explain
2/

The problem with answering this question is that we know that T&T/PPE were/are urgently required. And all of this was without precedent. So, tbf, what are we comparing with? How much should/could this have cost if it had all been done another way?
3/

The solution comes courtesy of this report that allows us to make a direct comparison between what the UK government spent in England and what Welsh Govt spent on the equivalent (indeed, as we shall see, better) services in Wales
4/
https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/2512610/election_outlook_2021_health_08_04.pdf

But first, the report itself (written by my @WalesGovernance colleagues) is on the spending pressures facing the incoming Welsh Govt in area of Health. It’s excellent, highly recommended and paints a very worrying prospect
5/

Back to the thread...

Given the way that public spending allocations are made across the UK, spending decisions by the UK govt for England lead to allocations for Wales depending on whether that spending is in a devolved area

(Yes, it's hello Barnett formula!!)
6/

Which brings us to this table. Note the estimated spend on both T&T and PPE for England and the Barnett consequential generated for Wales. In this case, it’s £18.4B for England >> £1.1B for Wales
7/

And how much did the Welsh Government end up spending on the equivalent services in Wales? As per @WalesGovernance report above, £533M. That is, just under half of the sum it would have spent if it had spent at the same rate as the UK govt for England.
8/

Put another way, if the UK govt had spent at the same rate as the Welsh govt on these aspects of T&T/PPE (and remember there's a lot more that's reserved UK govt spending) it would have saved itself a staggering £8.9B

And here’s the real kicker…
9/

Not only did the Welsh Govt spend *much* less but where we can compare it got a substantially better result for its money. Certainly, T&T in Wales (in which local govt has been heavily involved) has outperformed England’s system
10/ https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/wales-test-trace-system-working-18910956

Even now with the English system much improved, for the last week I can find details, Wales achieved a contact rate of 98% compared to England’s 90.2%.
11/
https://gov.wales/test-trace-protect-contact-tracing-coronavirus-covid-19-3-april-2021-html

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/976956/Test_and_Trace_Week44.pdf

Unfortunately, we will end up (over)paying for the reserved bits of T&T and PPE spending. But even as it stands, all of this clearly represents a huge ‘devolution dividend’ for Wales.

The money not wasted on this will be spent on other things.
12/

As for England, I’ll leave it to others to decide to whom and how to describe the dividends that have accrued there.
/FIN