SPINNING AROUND

There has been a lot of coverage over the latest Special Advisers list from the government.

The interesting thing is that, yes numbers have gone down, but the thing is - why does a government need that many advisers? What do they all do? Most are comms experts but I worked in organisations that had one or two PR people, not 18.

Also, how does less people cost more? Then again I suspect there has been some dodgy accountancy in the past considering how stable the figure was previously.

In this age of austerity, surely the numbers could have been cut even further.

Anyway, for your enjoyment here's the breakdown from 2003 to 2010 of No. 10 SPaDs and SPaDs in total:

David Cameron
2010 -
Number of No10 SPaDs: 18
Total Number of SPaDs: 61
Total Cost: £6.8m
Hansard: 10 Jun 2010 : Column 34WS


Gordon Brown

2008-2009
Number of No10 SPaDs: 25
Total Number of SPaDs: 69
Total Cost: £5.9m
Hansard: 16 July 2009 : Column 74WS


2007-2008
Number of No10 SPaDs: 23
Total number of SPaDs: 73
Total Cost: £5.9m
Hansard: 22 July 2008 : Column 100WS

2006-2008
Number of No10 SPaDs: 18
Total number of SPaDs: 68
Total Cost: £5.9m
Hansard: 22 Nov 2007 : Column 149WS

Tony Blair
2005-2006
Number of No10 SPaDs: 22
Total number of SPaDs: 74
Total Cost: £5.9m
Hansard: 24 July 2006 : Column 90WS

2004-2005
Number of No10 SPaDs: 20
Total number of SPaDs: 68
Total Cost: £5.5m
Hansard: 21 Jul 2005 : Column 159WS

2003-2004
Number of No10 SPaDs: 26
Total number of SPaDs: 76
Total Cost: £5.3m
Hansard: 22 Jul 2004 : Column WS41