At least they eat well at the Assembly>

The Wasting Mule is reacting with righteous Indignation with the news that ,

Taxpayers fork out £423,000 for Welsh Government workers' lunch: *are meals subsidised at Thomson House I wonder?)


The Welsh Government has been criticised for the level of subsidy it provides at staff canteens, where you can get meals like grilled Welsh pork loin steak with leek and black pudding mash for just £2.95.

The bill to the public purse for subsidising civil servants’ food has gone up by 61% in the last four years as the staff canteens have been rolled out in more Welsh Government offices.

To be fair to WM corespondent Graham Henry he may well be talking for the majority when he writes....

"....Frankly, I’ve never seen Carwyn Jones eating in the National Assembly canteen, with all smorgasbord of subsidised food. Ministers are a pretty rare sight, to boot. Mostly, it’s populated by civil servants, party researchers, Assembly staff and journalists.But there is a fundamental question raised by the hullabaloo over the £700,000+ price tag of keeping the cost of alleged gourmet meals for workers in the National Assembly and Welsh Government offices...should we be doing it at all?On the one hand – and contrary to Tory spokesman Nick Ramsay’s spin on it – the vast majority of people gorging on this publicly-provided food would be the above motley crew, rather than the Welsh Cabinet.As Mr Ramsay rather oddly points out himself (rather undermining his argument somehwat), most have had their pay frozen at 1% for years, so could argue they are by far the most in need of their food costs to be kept low.You can also legitimately argue that this is a principle that should be employed in more companies and more organisations. Reducing the burden on your employees is an admirable aim.But in the context of a diminishing Welsh budget, more than £700,000 of public funding is not small fry".

The argument over pay freezes is an interesting one  its a common  practise art times of austerity  that when at first it looks like all are taking the hit often the higher echelons get away with pay restraint by increasing bonuses to themselves and senior staff. Subesidises Canteens, Company Car  ot travel allowances ,  and of course shares 


Maybe we should be given a example of what the actual commercial price of the above menu espicialy with the many restaurants in the Bay.would be when making our judgement .You could probably double it  easily  so removal of the subsidy could add £15-20 pounds a week.

One other question from the menu it looks like the Assembly are sourcing local Welsh products if the subsidy was removed  would they sek cheaper products from further afield.

Maybe they should argue that they are backing welsh Farmers and Producers  in this way.

But it's will take a lot more spin than that for the majority of us to accept this.