Our starting point  is that the £33m is a one-off cost. And therefore to fairly compare spending that money we should look at a 30 year period.

Education and teachers

The average salary for a teacher £40,000 See StatsWales

Admin and other costs will add 40% to this to cover NI, sickness, pensions and other direct staff costs. Note that this excludes buildings, materials, etc.

This therefore amounts to £56,000 per annum for 30 years which totals £1.68m

So for the one off spend of £33m it would be possible to have 20 additional teachers in the Welsh education system.

There are 1,536 schools in Wales. This would therefore equate to 0.013 teachers per school or 1 additional teacher for every 77 schools.

And with there being 500,000 children in Wales then this would equate to 0.00004 teachers per child, or approx 1 additional teacher for every 20,000 children.

NHS and nurses

The salary for a nurse with 5 years experience is between £35,000 and £38,000, average £36,500. See nurses.co.uk

Admin and other costs will add 40% to this to cover NI, sickness, pensions and other direct staff costs. Note that this excludes buildings, materials, equipment, etc.

This therefore amounts to £51,100 per annum for 30 years which totals £1.53m

So for the one off spend of £33m it would be possible to have 21 additional nurses in the Welsh NHS.

Wales has 84 NHS hospitals, so that is 1 additional nurse on a single shift for every 4 hospitals and even fewer if you spread that over 24 hr care.

In conclusion

When looking at capital one-off costs across a whole country then the temptation to say "lets spend it on this good cause" may seem attractive, but when considering such an investment you need to compare over the life-span of the investment. The spending of £33m or £10 per head as a one-off cost to implement a 20mph limit for most urban/village roads does actually present great value. This is especially the case when set against the advantages of lower casualty rates, lower noise levels, better public health, greater mobility equality, and protection for our vulnerable young and elderly. It is not up to say which is preferable. But we have been able to make a valid comparison between the cost of those benefits and either 1 additional teacher for every 20,000 children or 1 nurse across 4 hospitals.