Dear Mr Welsh,Can you please explain to me why Tayside Police have top of the range VW Passats with leather interior as patrol cars?
I appreciate the Police do need fast response vehicles, after all pedestrians don't just mow themselves down but it doesn't take much effort to find vehicles in a similar performance bracket at a more realistic price.
It does seem indicative of an attitude that money magically appears from above. I can provide them with payslips to demonstrate effectively that it does not.
Were I a little wealthier I would perhaps not mind the Police having a few luxuries but when Dundee and Angus is an employment blackspot and I am more likely to bump into a unicorn than an NHS dentist I feel I am being cheated somehow.
Rumour has it that Tayside Police, like any other government agency is in a rush to clear its budgets before April renewal and well over half a million is up for grabs internally. Are we to see Police offices kitted out with HD plasma screen TV's like the MOD?
At a time when government spend is well north of 40% of GDP, on the brink of an economic catastrophe I'll wager the people of Angus need their money more than you (the government) does.
I have not lived here long but I have already witnessed farcical internal waste with regard to software procurement in the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care, prompting an expensive mopping up operation.
This in the same month Tayside NHS Service Improvement, a quango of sorts, books out the entire Apex hotel for a consultation session it will most likely ignore and Tayside NHS proudly announces it's so flush with resources it can cater for the peoples of Kenya too.
Meanwhile, I'm considering booking a budget flight to Budapest to have a tooth filled because no dentist in Arbroath can take me.
Can I have my money back?
Yours sincerely,
Peter North.
