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Daily Mail
a day ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
'Sleekit' Swinney slips out £1.7m bill for army of spin doctors during by-election
The First Minister has been dubbed 'sleekit' after the average £100,000 bill for each of his 17 spin-doctors was slipped out under cover of the Hamilton by-election. The 'shameful' details were quietly released as Scotland woke up to Labour shock win over the SNP on Friday. An obscure parliamentary written answer showed taxpayers were charged more than £1.7million for 17 special advisers, known as SpAds, in the last financial year. Appointed by the First Minister, SpAds are temporary civil servants who are not bound by neutrality rules and offer explicit political advice and brief the media. Scottish Tory finance spokesman Craig Hoy said: 'The SNP have wasted a shameful amount of taxpayers' money on their army of spin-doctors. 'You'd be forgiven for thinking sleekit Swinney snuck out these bombshell figures on a day when people's minds were elsewhere.' Labour narrowly won the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse byelection in the early hours of Friday morning by 602 votes, defying expectations that the SNP would hold the seat. The SpAd costs were released via a 'Government inspired question', a device that lets ministers make information public with minimal fanfare. On June 5, the day of the byelection, a question tabled in the name of SNP loyalist Rona Mackay asked the total cost of employing special advisers in 2024/25. The next day, as politicians pored over the result, minister for parliamentary business Jamie Hepburn, who was SNP campaign coordinator in the byelection, replied. He revealed the total cost was £1,745,042, which included salary costs, employer national insurance, and employer pension contributions. Nine SpAds were paid between £71,393 and £78,719, seven between £84,983 and £97,644, and one - most likely chief of staff Colin McAllister - between £108,781 and £116,435. Ministers are currently paid £109,584. When Ms Mackay, the MSP for Strathkelvin and Bearsden, asked the same question last year it was not until September that she received a reply. Scottish Labour deputy Dame Jackie Baillie said: 'Scots are sick of footing the bill for an SNP government that is still failing to deliver. 'And this sleekit attempt to sneak these figures out during a by-election won't hide the fact that the SNP cannot be trusted with taxpayers' money.' Lib Dem MSP Willie Rennie added: 'The SNP are investing more effort in making excuses for their failures in government.' The SpAd bill has more than trebled since the SNP came to power in 2007, when Alex Salmond had seven full-time special advisers costing £566,000. However the cost last year was lower than 2023/24, when Humza Yousaf employed a record 19 SpAds costing £1,906,963. SpAds are exempt from political neutrality rules and can advise ministers on everything from political strategy to speech-writing and policy. Critics believe they have been central to creating a 'secret Scotland' culture within the SNP Government. In 2022, the Scottish Information Commissioner found 'significant and systemic failures' in the way the SNP Government responds to freedom of information (FoI) requests. This included evidence that many FoI responses were sent to SpAds for comment before they were issued. A Scottish Government spokesman said: 'Due to the appointment of a new First Minister in May 2024, there were several changes to the Special Adviser team. 'The number and total cost of special advisers reduced in comparison to the previous year.'
South Wales Argus
14-05-2025
- Business
- South Wales Argus
NatWest faces 100 million cyber attacks every month, MSPs told
The bank also blocks around a third of emails coming into its system, Holyrood's Criminal Justice Committee heard. Police and cyber crime agencies are increasingly dealing with fraudsters operating online, with gold scams and romance fraud becoming particularly prominent. The trend increased sharply during the pandemic – in 2020 Police Scotland recorded 7,710 cyber crimes, but in 2024 that increased to 18,280. Rona Mackay, right, said the scale of the issue is 'staggering' (Andrew Milligan/PA) Chris Ulliott, head of cybersecurity at NatWest, told the committee on Wednesday: 'We analyse every single email coming into our estate, looking for malicious content. 'About a third of the emails, millions a month, we actually block because they are believed to be the start of an attack against our staff. 'If I look outside our network at the attacks that are probing our estate, we're averaging about 100 million attacks per month just trying to break past the defences we have in the organisation'. He said this has led to a cybersecurity team with hundreds of staff and a budget of millions. Mr Ulliott said there is growing concern about fraudsters using artificial intelligence (AI) to make their approaches to people seem more credible. The technology could even be used to alter a fraudster's appearance in a real-time online call to look like an 'elderly British gent' to gain trust with a victim. Mr Ulliott said Scattered Spider, the group which may have been behind the recent attack on Marks & Spencer, is likely a loose international group in their teens and 20s who are sharing ideas on online forums. SNP MSP Rona Mackay said the numbers revealed by the NatWest official were 'absolutely staggering'. Ben Macpherson said cyber criminals have even impersonated himself (Lesley Martin/PA) Police Scotland Assistant Chief Constable Stuart Houston said law enforcement agencies around the world are collaborating to try and catch cyber criminals, with the FBI sharing intelligence on fraud and ransomware groups. Adam Stachura from the charity Age Scotland said many elderly people are not confident users of online technology. He said the impact of cyber crime can be devastating for the elderly, saying: 'It can create financial destitution – that hit to confidence and self-worth.' David Keenan, chief information officer at Arnold Clark, discussed the serious cyber attack which crippled the car company's network at the end of 2022. He said recovery was a months-long effort and the attack came despite the company having 12 staff dedicated to cybersecurity. The SNP's Ben Macpherson said cyber crime is 'the criminal justice issue of our time'. He said cyber criminals had even impersonated himself in order to contact constituents in Edinburgh Northern and Leith.
