Latest news with #ShonaRobison
Scotsman
13 hours ago
- Business
- Scotsman
SNP ministers to axe public sector jobs as near £5bn funding black hole emerges
Shona Robison has warned compulsory redundancies will be considered if 'no other route' to cutting jobs is available in order to balance the books. Sign up to our Politics newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... SNP ministers are poised to shed public-sector jobs after bracing for a near £5 billion funding black hole by 2030 - amid a warning 'more than 10,000 workers could be tossed on the scrapheap'. The Scottish Government's medium-term financial strategy has revealed public services pressures and 'the cost of achieving statutory net zero and child poverty targets' will put strain on the Scottish Government's finances. The door has been opened to compulsory redundancies if not enough jobs are cut through other means. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad STUC general secretary Roz Foyer labelled the strategy as 'scything cuts to Scotland's public services'. St Andrew's House is the Scottish Government's headquarters, based in Edinburgh. | TSPL Savings worth £2.6bn will be needed to balance the books for day-to-day spending by the end of the decade. The document also predicts an additional funding gap of £2.1bn for capital investment plans. Capital spending is forecast to increase from £7.2bn in 2025-26 to £9.2bn by 2030, with more money poised to be allocated to affordable housing, public transport and a flagship strategy to decarbonise buildings. Finance Secretary Shona Robison blamed the deficit on less money being handed to Holyrood from Westminster than to core UK government departments, but Labour has accused the Scottish Government of having 'spectacularly mismanaged Scotland's budget'. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The Scottish Government is poised to see its social security bill rise to almost £9bn by 2029. Funding gap could reach £3.5bn The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) warned the funding deficit could be closer to £3.5bn - rather than just £2.6bn - due to 'optimistic' forecasts in the strategy that 'assume earnings grow significantly faster in Scotland than in the rest of the UK'. A Fiscal Sustainability Delivery Plan (FSDP) sets out that a Scottish Spending Review will set a savings target of between £300m and £700m a year over five years. Efficiency and productivity improvements, alongside reforming public services, is forecast to see savings grow from £600m to £1.5bn a year over the five-year period. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Compulsory redundancies on the table A target of cutting the public sector workforce by an average of 0.5 per cent every year until 2030 is expected to see savings grow from £100m to £700m a year. Ms Robison told MSPs the Scottish Government will 'reshape and reform our public services'. She said: 'We will set a public sector workforce managed reduction target to reduce staffing levels by an average of 0.5 per cent per year until 2030. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'This will be achieved by reforming our public services as set out in the public services reforms strategy and through natural attrition and recruitment controls. SNP Finance Secretary Shona Robison 'By taking this action, we will protect valuable frontline services and continue to offer a progressive pay policy, which recognises that our public sector workforce is our most valuable asset.' Ms Robison insisted 'no compulsory redundancies maintains to be the default position'. But she added: 'As a last resort, once all steps have been taken through voluntary severance, through redeployment - if there is no other route and there are no jobs for those people involved, then the compulsory redundancy can be considered.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The delayed document warns 'without action, the difference between projected funding and estimated spending is set to grow from a balanced budget in 2025-26, to £2.6 billion in 2029-30'. Net zero, poverty and services pressures It adds that 'day-to-day government spending … continues to face pressures from growing demand for public services and the cost of achieving statutory net zero and child poverty targets'. The document says: 'The devolved public sector wage bill is also a significant driver of projected costs, recognising the proportionately larger and better paid public sector in Scotland. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'This is due to investment that Scottish Government has made in our workforces over many years. However, the wage bill needs to be more sustainable going forward. Spending pressures in health and social care are particularly acute.' David Phillips, associate director at the IFS, stressed 'tougher financial choices lie ahead, including public sector job cuts'. He added: 'By 2029-30, a funding gap of £2.6bn a year for day-to-day spending is projected. That is roughly equivalent to spending on Scottish police and fire services, or the revenue from increasing all rates of income tax in Scotland by around 4 percentage points. 'Current forecasts for the contribution of devolved tax revenues to the Scottish Budget are likely optimistic, as they assume earnings grow significantly faster in Scotland than in the rest of the UK from 2026–27 onwards. All else equal, if earnings instead grew at the same rate as in the rest of the UK, the 'funding gap' for day-to-day spending would be closer to £3.5bn.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad STUC general secretary Roz Foyer | Andrew Milligan/PA Wire Ms Foyer said: 'They may dress it up as efficiencies, but this strategy proposes scything cuts to Scotland's public services. Over the next five years, more than 10,000 workers could be tossed on the scrapheap. 'At a time when ordinary people are crying out for help, our population is ageing, the climate crisis deepens, and public services are starved of funding, this strategy should have been a turning point towards a fairer, more progressive taxation system. Instead, we got cuts to our public services presented to us as some form of salvation.' Political 'courage' demand The trade union leader added: 'It's hollow to keep talking about improving schools, hospitals and care homes without acknowledging that it will take serious, sustained public investment. You cannot cut the staff who support these services and expect them to improve. 'We know Scottish ministers face fiscal constraints, but we need vision and political courage to build a better Scotland. Unfortunately, today ministers have chosen to cut public services rather than use their powers to help redistribute wealth, tackle inequality and invest in our collective future.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Scottish Labour's finance spokesperson Michael Marra Scottish Labour finance spokesperson Michael Marra said: 'This SNP Government is gearing up to make cuts because it has spectacularly mismanaged Scotland's budget. It is SNP ministers and their choices that have created a structural resource deficit of £2.6bn.' He added: 'The SNP's plans mean a funding cut of at least 12 per cent to Scotland's NHS and huge reductions in frontline workers – cuts to mitigate their incompetence. 'All of this comes at a time when A&E waiting times are atrocious, cancer waiting times are at their worst point on record, ministers are admitting lives are being lost, domestic abuse statistics are at a record high, and housebuilding rates are plummeting.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Scottish Conservative shadow finance and local government secretary Craig Hoy branded the strategy 'too little, too late to address years of gross financial incompetence'. He said: 'Thanks to the nationalists' mismanagement Scots will be facing continued tax rises or cuts to public services in the coming years.
Times
a day ago
- Business
- Times
Reality bites for SNP's spendthrift teenagers
T he Scottish government does not always answer questions but it is itself the answer to the remarkable query: 'How is it possible to do less with more?' These should, by rights, be years of fat for John Swinney and his colleagues. Total funding for the Scottish government is 6 per cent higher in real terms this year than it was last year and it is forecast to enjoy increases in day-to-day resource budgets in each of the five years after that. And yet, to hear ministers speak you might think Scotland — a land in which public spending amounts to 55 per cent of onshore GDP — is somehow blasted by the chill winds of 'austerity'. Last week Shona Robison, the finance secretary, delivered a medium-term financial strategy which confirmed what has long been suspected: the Scottish government is running out of money. Barring some remarkable spurt of economic growth of a sort not seen in nearly 20 years, the government will dig itself a £5 billion financial hole by the end of this decade.
Scotsman
2 days ago
- Business
- Scotsman
SNP accused of deceitful strategy after 'grotesque' plans to cut 12,000 jobs
Sign up to our Politics newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Scotland's most senior trade unionist has accused SNP ministers of deceitful behaviour amid claims thousands of job cuts will take place alongside public service improvements - in a strategy branded 'grotesque'. Trade unionists have been put 'on alert' and have hit out at Finance Secretary Shona Robison effectively ending the Scottish Government's policy of no compulsory redundancies. This came after she admitted that if not enough jobs were cut over the next five years through other means, workers would be forced into losing their employment. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Finance Secretary Shona Robison (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell) | Getty Images Ms Robison made the admission as she set out almost £5 billion of savings and cuts needed by 2030. These include £2.6bn for the Government's day-to-day revenue budget, with the gaping hole emerging due to spending plans significantly outweighing the funding Holyrood is poised to bring in, largely from Westminster. The strategy includes controversial plans to whittle down the devolved public sector workforce, which stands around 550,000 employees, by 0.5 per cent every year for the next five years - losing around 12,000 roles. The Finance Secretary has stressed 'no compulsory redundancies will be maintained as the default position'. But she added 'as a last resort ... compulsory redundancy will be considered'. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Scotland's devolved workforce includes NHS and college workers. STUC general secretary Roz Foyer told The Scotsman that rolling back the policy on no compulsory redundancies was 'a kick in the teeth for public sector workers' and pointed the blame at choices made by John Swinney's Government. STUC general secretary Roz Foyer with First Minister John Swinney | Jane Barlow/PA Wire She said: 'To reverse this policy after 14 years, while UK government funding is increasing, will only undermine faith in genuine public sector reform. 'It's due to the Scottish Government's own inaction – their own failings - on progressive taxation and redistributing wealth to pay for our public services that we are now in the grotesque situation of up to 12,000 workers paying with their jobs.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Ms Foyer rejected a claim in the long-delayed medium-term financial strategy 'the wage bill needs to be more sustainable going forward', alongside a warning it would be 'essential to constrain this growth in spending to affordable levels'. She said: 'The idea that Scotland's public sector is full of largesse is simply not borne out by the facts. In the last 15 years, Scotland's public sector has fallen from 24 per cent of the workforce to less than 22 per cent.' The STUC chief has warned Mr Swinney's Government that 'to govern is to choose'. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad She said: 'We know the public finances are tight. But to simply cut jobs and make our public services weaker, despite their insistence to the contrary, is a duplicity that should make ministers blush. 'Whilst we embrace technological advancements that make the world of work more streamlined, we don't accept this should mean a reduction in headcount. 'Whether it be reducing NHS waiting times, providing dignified social care, tackling violence in our schools, or restoring faith in local government, our public services need more people, not less. That requires a commitment to increasing tax revenue, something this financial strategy was sorely lacking. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Trade unionists have been put 'on alert' over the Scottish Government's threat at removing its no compulsory redundancies policy 'The Scottish Government should be on notice that unions are on alert and are clear that any reforms must be centred on improving and protecting the quality of our public services and the conditions of our vital public sector workers.' The Scottish Government's public sector pay policy states 'Scotland's public sector is larger and better paid when compared to the rest of the UK and has had a commitment to no compulsory redundancies since 2007'. The document adds: 'The larger size of the workforce is both in terms of the share of the economy and the share of total employment. The public sector accounts for 22.2 per cent of employment in Scotland, compared to 17.8 per cent across the UK. ' The Scottish Government's bill for public sector pay, including local government, is estimated to reach almost £29bn in 2025-26 and is expected to soar to £32bn by 2030 without intervention to cut the size of the workforce. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad A spokesperson for the First Minister told The Scotsman that 'over the course of 15 years', Holyrood had experienced 'some very difficult settlements from the UK government'. The spokesperson added: 'We're disappointed with the most recent settlement as set out by [Chancellor] Rachel Reeves. If our funding had kept up to pace with the average of the UK government departments, I think we'd be about £1bn better off within three years.
Scotsman
2 days ago
- Business
- Scotsman
Silence of the Goats: Slaughtered animals reveal how SNP is creating £4.7bn black hole in public finances
Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... My MSP of the week, she might be surprised to learn, is Rachael Hamilton, the Tory who represents Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, for an eloquent plea on behalf of goats, in a Holyrood committee. In a week when the SNP admitted it has dug a £4.7 billion black hole for itself – or rather, for all of us – it is a significant story not only for goat-lovers but as an illustration of how money is squandered without any understanding of what it is intended to achieve. I'll get back to the goats. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The bleak warning from Shona Robison, the hapless Finance Secretary, was slipped out in time for MSPs to go off on a two-month break. If I were taking a scythe to public expenditure, Holyrood and its countless apparatchiks would be a symbolically good place to start, before moving on to the quangos. A feral goat with a kid in the Tarras Valley near the town of Langholm | Katharine Hay Bad spending decisions For openers, Ms Robison promised cuts of £1bn a year to 'administration costs'. These are a symptom of the malaise as well as a cause but at least it seems to have dawned that spending money they don't have, then blaming 'Westminster' for not sending enough, has hit the buffers of credibility. The mission of the devolved government should be straightforward if the rules are observed – ie, you have a fixed budget, plus tax-raising powers, and your job is to spend it efficiently and effectively. The SNP have never respected these rules because they crave for entirely different ones. That conflict is incapable of resolution. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad By any reasonable standard, the Scottish Government is very well funded and receives far in excess – £22bn at the last count – of the revenues raised in Scotland. So get on with it. Instead, there has been no real fiscal discipline because the escape clause will always be to blame someone else. The £4.7bn black hole is made up of hundreds of spending decisions, few of them open to meaningful challenge at Holyrood, and many devolved to quangos which control massive budgets. There is no equivalent of the Public Accounts Committee at Westminster, which might penetrate the culture of waste and obfuscation. Ancient, wild herd But let me return to the goats of Newcastleton, whose plight is deserving of attention in its own right. They are, Ms Hamilton explained, victims of the Scottish Government's efforts to promote a market in 'natural capital' which requires large areas of Scotland to be flogged off to 'green' speculators intending to make large profits out of carbon credits. To be fair, she didn't put it like that, but it is a fair summary. In this case, an Exeter-based outfit called Oxygen Conservation Capital acquired 11,400 acres of Langholm moor in 2023 and now intend 'to cull 85 per cent of the ancient herd of wild goats on the moor'. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad This, Ms Hamilton told the Scottish Parliament, 'is causing distress in the community. Those goats are not only of ecological importance but are of significant cultural and heritage value. More than 12,000 local residents have signed a petition for the goats' protection'. Alas, Ms Hamilton reported, the cull was already underway and 'the goat meat is in the butcher's shop'. Then came the nub of her argument. 'I do not think that the issue is really about goats, though… my point speaks entirely to the fact that grants from the Scottish Government have gone to an offshore investment company that is creating very few jobs and has upset 12,000 people,' she told MSPs. She added: 'The government needs to look at this, because we are at the very start of the natural investment process. Pension companies will buy up swathes of land and do pretty much what they want, without the say of communities.' Well spoken, Ms Hamilton. Carbon credits That, in SNP terms, is what passes for 'land reform' and, of course, it is also inflating land values to make Scotland's land ownership structure even more grotesque. Simple question: Why are many million pounds of Scottish Government money encouraging this speculative process rather than taking community interest as the starting point? Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad I can find no trace of that fundamental question having been debated at Holyrood before it became an assumed good that subsidising speculators in carbon credits should be the preferred approach on the road to net zero. Once that silo was created, it was there to stay. For the sake of completeness, I should acknowledge that Ms Hamilton moved an amendment to the Land Reform Bill calling for an 'ethical framework for natural capital investment... developed in consultation with individuals and communities that have a legitimate interest'. That sounds pretty reasonable but it was defeated by five votes (four SNP, one Green) to four. Greens Against Goats, apparently. Proper funding for high priorities The Scottish Government's approach to spending imposes no requirement to take an overview of priorities in order to review them. Just keep adding… more commitments, more quangos, more civil servants. It has taken nearly 20 years to embed these silos and they have no intention of being disturbed. Ms Robison certainly isn't going to do it. A day-one commitment by the SNP's opponents must be to a Comprehensive Spending Review, with no line of expenditure exempt. The highest priorities must be funded properly. However tenaciously guarded by vested interests, the spending silos, large and small, must be challenged. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad There has to be a real sense of change from a devolved government which respects the rules and has no agenda other than to deliver for Scotland. And if that involves not handing money to 'green' speculators to slaughter much-loved goats, I will make sure Ms Hamilton gets her share of the credit.
The Herald Scotland
4 days ago
- Business
- The Herald Scotland
Scotland's public sector cuts and a stinking metaphor
They had to pee in the showers, which was fine until the drifting ship hit choppy waters and the overflowing shower trays spilled into the cabins and hallways. The trickiest choice for passengers was over what to do with number twos. The hen party interviewed in the documentary mainlined Imodium, while the young man trying to impress his father-in-law-to-be spent an age searching the boat's 13 decks for the last working bog. Others tried to hold it in, but most opted for the small red carrier bags doled out by the ship's crew. They left them filled and tied up outside their doors, leaving the ship's corridors like a Glasgow city centre street ahead of a major event. Sometimes circumstances leave you with nothing but poor choices. Take, for instance, the near £5 billion black hole in the Scottish Government's finances. Shona Robison is opting for Imodium, hunting for the one working loo and using the red bag all at the same time. To plug the gap, the Finance Secretary is hoping for growth, searching for efficiencies and cutting the number of public sector jobs. The red bag option here is the threat of compulsory redundancies. The minister believes she should be able to reduce staffing numbers by 0.5% annually for five years, through retirements and general churn, eventually saving £700m per year. Read more from Unspun: But when asked if she could rule out compulsory redundancies, she could not. You'd be right to think that 0.5% of roughly 460,000 devolved public sector workers isn't actually a huge amount, particularly when the workforce is now up 39,000 on pre-Covid levels. But what makes this choice tougher is that the government probably isn't going to be looking at the frontline. NHS staff, for example, will likely be protected. It'll be back office staff who are targeted Suddenly, that makes the pool much smaller. Will retirements, voluntary severance and a recruitment freeze be enough to get the Scottish Government to their target? As Professor Graeme Roy, the Chair of the Scottish Fiscal Commission told journalists on Thursday morning, if this "doesn't get you the number that you need, then you're going to have to find it either through direct redundancy policies or by trying to find and free up resources elsewhere from the non pay budget." Basically, if ministers don't want to fire public sector workers then they will need to find the money from somewhere else. Where this properly awful metaphor that I've hammered to death over 500 words falls down is that the Carnival Triumph was eventually towed to safety. There's no tugboat on the horizon for the Scottish Government. The messiest situations demand the toughest choices — and sometimes, even the best options still stink.
