Sunday, 2 August 2009

It's like our Olympic bid all over again

If any half-way self-respecting back-of-envelope calculation shows that a certain spending program will cost £3 billion, why does the government suggest that it will 'only' cost £1 billion, asks Captain FF.

UPDATE: A few minutes after posting this, we set off in the car for today's Funpacked Family Outing. I woke up while navigating the country lanes and realised that Captain FF was out by a factor of ten, but no matter - the government is still out by a factor of three, as they are proposing to spend £1 billion on something that should only cost £300 million. As the Cap'n himself has pointed out.

3 comments:

John B said...

Most respectable back-of-envelope calculations aren't out by a factor of 10, however: the actual number (that CFF even *gives*, ferchrissake) is gbp280m. Allowing for government inefficiencies, overheads and sundries, gbp1bn sounds about right for total programme cost.

manwiddicombe said...

I miscount a zero late at night .. .. .. be thankful I'm not a politician running a huge budget?

I've corrected the error

Mark Wadsworth said...

JohnB, fair play, see update.