£11,000 roaming bill for “parliamentary use?”
What a load of bollocks. Even at EE’s extortionate rates (I’m guessing that they aren’t big enough to negotiate decent roaming packages) that’s ~15GB of data.
This is basically a load of Netflix* streaming while roaming abroad. Which I could actually live with as a taxpayer, had he been honest about it and just admitted the mistake.
* insert your choice of movie or fetish streaming service here
Some context would help 🙄
Constituency business my arse. Does he look like he is so committed he works night and day even when on holiday? jeez it’s hard to run up 11k on a sat phone ffs
I just can’t stand this generation of politicians - and no t knowing or caring about these charges is no excuse and not ok. You’re paid a lot of cash not to be an idiot. If you are then do something else where the tax payers are not subsidising your stupidity
Absolutely ridiculous. How can the bloke hold such a high-level position yet apparently be so clueless? I feel this is a huge problem with public-sector stuff generally, you see it in local councils etc all the time - it's not their personal money so they don't care about wasting it, and there are never any lasting consequences either (for them!)
TBF, I have some colleagues who would not have a clue about such things.
Yes he is a fool and has not responded to email about new contract etc.
It also says a lot about the extortion that is some companies charges.
I feel this is a huge problem with public-sector stuff generally, you see it in local councils etc all the time – it’s not their personal money so they don’t care about wasting it, and there are never any lasting consequences either (for them!)
It's not just public sector stuff. Plenty of private companies waste significant sums on senior management vanity projects (or end-of-year budget blowouts) that could have used that money to improve staff wages/conditions (or increased dividends for shareholders)
Presumably the contract was a business one with his employer… being unaware just how bad the charges would be isn’t impossible if it’s not your own contract. Also… where’s the uproar that EE can charge this…?
I feel this is a huge problem with public-sector stuff generally, you see it in local councils etc all the time – it’s not their personal money so they don’t care about wasting it, and there are never any lasting consequences either
Don't believe everything the press tell you.
He had an old sim from a previous contract in the ipad that should have been changed apparantly. More info here<br /> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-67363645
Its the old cheese theory of cockups. Not just one cockup here his but also others
He didn't get any warning that he was running up this huge bill
However I do not believe it was all for official business. thats just not credible.
as context on my big bike ride I was using well over 10gb a month and thats without any streaming - just some browsing and uploading of pictures
Just a shame there wasn’t some sort of agreement that meant roaming charges don’t apply, can’t see any form of union doing that though.
Morrocco
They said: "As the member was still using the parliament's previous mobile provider, and hadn't yet switched to our present contract, he incurred significant data fees over and above its 'rest of the world' tariff rate.
Makes sense. It's still insane that they can bill someone like that, for that kind of money. Alarms should be going off, and warnings issued, thousands of pounds earlier... or just have a reasonable cap on the bill.
just some browsing and uploading of pictures
Do you think the SNP minister was uploading shed loads of pictures for his constituents to be in awe of?
Nah, didn't think so.
How/why was an "old" mobile contract still active?
.... Because they didn't actually cancel it so they must have still been paying.
I don't blame EE one bit. I'm sure there would have been earlier data use warnings as I'd imagine they are all automated.
Mr "kids not watching films, honest" (or his kids) just ignored them.
Amazing waste of Scottish taxpayers money...... Oh, and a liar to boot.
Oh, and did you see the bit where he said he’d repay £3000, and claim it on his own expenses?
I think phone companies have a responsibility here... It shouldn't be physically possible to rack up an £11k bill on a mobile phone just whilst on holliday, regardless of user error.
His employer, as it was a company phone by the sounds of it, also have questions to answer, he shouldn't have been able to use the sim if it was outdated and on a silly contract.
Is this a Brexit dis-benefit now that roaming charges have been re-introduced?
I’m sure there would have been earlier data use warnings as I’d imagine they are all automated.
No warnings until too late apparently
I do not believe it was all official use. Yousaf being weak here. should have been more decisive
£11,000 roaming bill for “parliamentary use?”
crikey, talking about taking the liberty of public money.
Pretty sure he'll be connecting to Wi-Fi from now on 🤣
No warnings until too late apparently
Yeah riiiight.
Kids watching Netflix in their hotel bedroom on the "company" iPad - that's not been back into work for a very long time (i.e. he's adopted it) so hasn't had the SIM changed - stupid warning about data usage pops up blocking part of the screen.
Tap to dismiss, carry on watching.
Presumably the contract was a business one with his employer… being unaware just how bad the charges would be isn’t impossible if it’s not your own contract. …?
This.
And why hadn't whoever 'manages' telecoms cancelled the old provider SIM's?
Think we’ve all had similar in our work life, but we are told about work phones and laptops and roaming charges, we’re also told of rollouts and what we have to do, it’s part of being trusted with IT and managing it within internal policy.
The guys done something daft, and in his position I’d say part of his back room staff has failed badly, bet he’s not the only one who has an old sim as well, weirdly we have the opposite in our area for sims, they cancel them before switching us over, loads of folk lost their phones last month so mayhem all over 😂
The guys done something daft, and in his position I’d say part of his back room staff has failed badly,
and probably someone in the national party responsible. sounds to me like multiple errors
Perhaps he visits STW - with all the crap ads and autoplaying videos on this site he could probably manage that in a week!
Realistically whilst he's a muppet, some junior/middle ranking procurement/it person is even more stupid for signing up to a deal with no caps/warnings etc for someone who clearly didn't need the capability. Probably someone in scot gov security insists they use sim card rather than wifi because "bad people might get your data"...
Deffo kids watching Netflix, lying bastard. Why not just log on to the wifi like everyone else does when they get to a hotel!
Business accounts are very different to consumer accounts
Probably being public sector there was no data allowance on the phone with an expectation to use wifi. It could have been as simple as they thought they were on WiFi
Ive seen bills over £1,000 on business accounts from numpty people using business phones abroad
EE Sshould have stopped that level of spend
Deffo kids watching Netflix
11 grand during a holliday to Morocco? were they using the phone as a public netfilx hub for the entire country?
I could understand being caught out on accidental data roaming, and getting a phone bill of a few hundred quid, but not to the tune of £11k.
I guess he didnt pay the extra ten quid for international roaming, hahah!
Business accounts are very different to consumer accounts
Probably being public sector there was no data allowance on the phone with an expectation to use wifi. It could have been as simple as they thought they were on WiFi
Ive seen bills over £1,000 on business accounts from numpty people using business phones abroad
I've seen this before too, phone bills (company wide) got too big so they blanket banned international calls...
...with no consideration that most of my department make international calls several times a day, so that was basically a day off for us. Which was nice.
As mentioned, business accounts are very different to consumer accounts. Roaming to North Africa is never going to be cheap and will be costed based on what ever agreement was signed up to which could be excruciating rates per mb and probably without any included allowance. £11k wouldn’t take very much if its £20 per mb or something equally daft. It all depends on the contract signed, unlikely to be direct to EE and more likely through a reseller with specific tariffs not associated with EE’s.
As mentioned, business accounts are very different to consumer accounts. Roaming to North Africa is never going to be cheap and will be costed based on what ever agreement was signed up to which could be excruciating rates per mb and probably without any included allowance. £11k wouldn’t take very much if its £20 per mb or something equally daft. It all depends on the contract signed, unlikely to be direct to EE and more likely through a reseller with specific tariffs not associated with EE’s.
I totally get that, but if it's a private phone, you'd check, because it's your bill.. if it's a 'work phone' then you'd just use it..
Especially if your work involves, I dunno, making international calls and using data internationally. Something you might expect, say from someone who works in politics to require by default.
I'm not defending this person, he probably was using the 'company phone' as usual and not thinking too much about it. I'm just saying there's no way anyone should be charged eleven grand, for being on the wrong mobile contract, if anything, the mobile phone company should have just switched the tarrif to a more suitable one on the spot, with or without the permission of the account holder, No one is going to complain about dodging a £10.5k bill.
Or simply stopped the bill once it rose significantly above normal usage patterns.
I agree, and for consumer accounts there probably would be levels of protection but this is probably a business account through a reseller on a tailored tariff or bulk account that’s weighted for UK use and likely with decent rates for UK use. But the weasley detail in the account will hit hard in the bills for the edge cases outside of the UK, for things like EU roaming being a bit tingly, US being quite violent and Africa being properly trousers down/bomber/weeing in your shoes.
And you are right, there should have been limits imposed if the procurement teams had it in the contracts and it was implemented correctly. Sounds like a whole gang of people missed stuff on this one..
Yeah, I think we are both on the same page..if the person in question had managed to use several petaflops of data from a mobile device, then an 11k bill wouldnt be too bad.
If he went over the 30gb monthly alowance, or whatever, then I'd expect the mobile provider to put a stop on the account, or take the hit whilst the contract is re-negociated...
...not just sit back and watch the bills rack up.
Due dilligence, etc.
and probably someone in the national party responsible. sounds to me like multiple errors
National Party? It's Scottish Civil Service or maybe even UK Civil Service as I've no idea how telecoms procurement works.
Our telecoms at work is managed at Group level, I'm in a small sub and there's no 'discussion', we just use whatever Group negotiate, and pay whatever the bill is.
Ok. someone at national level ie whoever did procurement
Multiple errors as is usual in cockups like this. Each error in itself makes no difference - when they align it makes a huge differnce
In reality it does make no difference. Gov probably wasted as much money fielding enquiries from the media about this and all the FOI requests etc that go with it, the accounting and internal investigation etc. He's the health minister for Scotland - they are wasting more money than that on a daily basis on things which were actual decisions rather than not being aware - but the media/opposition would rather try to make it personal than policy.
At std rates these things rack up! On 9/11 I got stuck in Canada on the tarmac for ages after we got turned back from the USA (I was in the air over the US when it all kicked off). As one of the few people with a properly roaming sim and multi network phone back then I let what seemed like most of the plane use my phone to call home (albeit briefly). When I got back I got stuck for a bill of nearly £3000 in phone calls from O2.
To O2s credit I called, explained the situation and they credited a lot back to the bill, and my company picked up the rest without so much as a whimper of complaint. I guess if it had just been Netflix though they'd be less impressed. Beware the roaming charges!
At £7.20 per mb (quickly googled roaming charges in Morocco), you rack up a bill of this size with 1.5 GB of data. That’s quite feasible in a week.
I can't imagine they're paying £7.20 per mb, even with EE.
I can’t imagine they’re paying £7.20 per mb, even with EE.
They've now published the daily usage and associated costs. This led some switched on people to notice that the biggest usage would have been the day of the celtic-rangers match and apparently Mr Matheson is a bit of a football fan... ...now today he comes to parliament with his tail between his legs saying "my sons have just told me they use the ipad to watch the match". Oops. Now is it credible that he didn't know if other people used the ipad - maybe but hard to believe when a bill like that has come in that you wouldn't at least ask how it was so big. What's less credible to me is that if he's a known football fan, that on 2nd Jan in Morocco that his sons watched the match but he didn't and he was seemingly unaware they had. Then we have the issue of a "scottish parliament" laptop being used by people other than the MP. Security/privacy issue? I hate it when these things become a vendetta - but I presume Humza is currently looking for a new Cabinet Secretary!
Once again its the cover up that gets them.
If he had said " it was on an old sim card and i stupidly didn't realise and I watched the match on it running up a stupid bill, I'll pay it out of my pocket"
then it would have been a five minute wonder. Now? Stupidity on Stupidity
I did wonder at the time what UK-based sporting activity was on and would he need a UK IP address granted from a roaming digital mobile provider to watch it? And there was one. Ask me how I know this - wasn't there a recent Rugby World Cup? Well the ITV-X app needed that UK IP address on my phone.
Once phoned up to question an unexpected bill and the helpful lady on the other end of the phone asked if I'd been watching the Wimbledon Final. I hadn't, but someone in the family had... bugger.
Was only about £20 though.
On my phone contract (I appreciate its a personal contract rather than a business plan encompasing maybe hundreds of sims)..
If I go over my roaming allowance (which comes out of the same pot as domestic data), I get directed to three's website and can't do anything else.
It then give me an option to buy additional one off data top ups, or change my contract for one with more data.
He's doubling down on the bullshine though...
The kids set up a hot spot partly circumventing the 'why did you let them watch wendyball on the company idiotPad?' question but not 'Why did you let them piss about in the config?' (and why was the config not locked down - oh ITSec, how could you...).
Then he didn't say it was his kids doing last Friday as he was protecting them. Yeah right...
I wonder if he's due an eye test near Durham soon... Sounds like the same level of incredible bullshine...
I'm with TJ on this.
Hold your hands up, apologise, pay the bill. The world moves on.
Instead he's going to face losing his job, likely more journalists looking into his and other MSP affairs, and be forever the chap who lied about abusing parliamentary IT equipment while on a family holiday....
He might have downloaded Debby does Dumbarton for all we know, this probably goes on all the time wasting public funds while getting a very good salary
Look at previous 1st minister ex East Fife player , got caught and had to pack in but on a fantastic pension
What a simpering, lying, disgrace of a of a human being, not fit to represent his cat’s litter tray, never mind a constituency. The excuse ‘I was protecting my family’ is risible and shows complete disregard for the intelligence of the people he is supposed to be represent. Assuming it was his sons that used his iPad, there’s no way they would have got the flack. He should have had the balls to say ‘I allowed my family to use it, it was a mistake, I shouldn’t have done it, I’ll pay the bill’ and move on. Instead we had the pathetic charade played out over the last week, ending in crocodile tears and a contemptuous excuse. Filed under ‘MPs will be MPs.’
I'll let him off as he was watching Celtic games 😁
The funny thing is that at Marakech airport arrivals there is an army of staff from a local mobile network who will put in their sim and set it all up for you with enough data for your holiday for £20 or similar.
I wouldn't expect him to put that in his works ipad as Govt security would do their nut but why wouldn't you have personal devices for family use?!
Up there someone said it was a backroom failing that the old sim wasn't swapped. I bet IT support have been at him for ages asking for the ipad to come back and he's just too busy...
Not like he wasn't warned.
Last year I drove to Denmark via the Harwich ferry. Whilst waiting for boarding I had the bright idea of downloading the Google map areas for the route whilst in the UK so avoiding excess roaming charges.
It was a night crossing so I basically parked the car and the famy went to the straight to the cabin and to bed. Next morning I looked at my phone and the fitst message was you have used £150 of data roaming. Wtf! Then I saw the sign on the dressing table that warned about the onboard roaming charges. Those couple of mb that must have been Google maps finishing uploading was the only data I used. So much for saving on roaming charges!
Amazing that this is the lead story on the BBC, over and above Gaza and Rwanda – meanwhile, the billions that was ‘lost’ by the Tory government through dodgy PPE contracts to their mates and fraudulent COVID loans gets quietly forgotten about.
Not really sure what the point is here.
Corrupt politician lies and deceives then gets caught out but it's probably OK because some other lying deceitful politicians did some other equally reprehensible things, got caught but weren't dealt with as the poster sees fit?
Is that it? 🤔
Well I'm not seeing that. I dont care what the BBC do or don't do. I see corrupt politions being corrupt regardless of their flavour. Degree dunt matter. It's like you're a murderer or not. You can't be a bit of one...
Could just be the tip of the iceberg and he got caught out and lied about it so he's capable of having told a few fibs in the past. Like the CMO for Scotland who got caught driving 80 miles to her second home in Fife when she was telling us to stay indoors 2020.The cringy apologies they have to do on camera , it doesn't seem to have done too much harm to her career £90k instead of £120k
He should walk instead of bubblin on the radio saying he's a family man
£Billions of Tory politician corruption / incompetence = BBC silence or positive spin until shamed into being journalists.
£11,000 of SNP politician corruption / incompetence = BBC journalists like a Jack Russell down a rat hole.
Agreed.
Now, about that camper van that was removed from oooor Nicola's yard?
Humza missed a golden opportunity to draw a line under past SNP corruption. Instead back his lying minister to the hilt. More of the same.
Now, about that camper van that was removed from oooor Nicola’s yard?
Not being a tory, her head rolled right out of office, quite deservedly so. Virtually all politicians are corrupt, self serving and lobbied to the gills by dark money but the media treatment of erring tories when compared to other parties is laughably imbalanced. Just ask Alec Salmond, Ed Miliband, Diane Abbot or Jeremy Corbyn.
As for Humza, he's Nicola's continuity candidate, now tarred with the same brush as the Murrells and will oversee an SNP decline and Labour resurgence in Scotland. Idiot's like Mathieson don't help and it's all good SNP baaad fodder for Auntie Beeb.
Alec Salmond, Ed Miliband, Diane Abbot or Jeremy Corbyn.
now that’s a dinner party you wouldn’t want to go to.
Oh, I wish the SNP would stop ****ing up. Making the voting choice a bit tough - a Labour party I broadly support apart from the independence intransigence elephant in the room and some rolling back on environmental commitments Vs greens who will Def not claim my constituency in a fpp system.
