Crudely, I would estimate one professional to cost £100k per year. Outsourcing money used for hiring would equate to 2,400 staff. That could be a mix of skills, such as radiologists, nurses, SW/ML engineers and data scientists. I’d argue you can get a lot done with that money if you know what you are doing.

I’m sure they’ve done decent cost/benefit analysis instead of saying building our own capability is too difficult. I’m sure my taxes are being wisely spent.