03 June 2005
The Scottish Executive's claim that spending on frontline services will grow by 5% as a result of efficiency savings has been challenged by the Holyrood Parliament's finance adviser.
In a report to the finance committee, Professor Arthur Midwinter said his own calculation suggested that the real growth in spending would be 3.4% and that the Executive's 5% estimate 'looks very optimistic'.
He also rebuked Finance Minister Tom McCabe for describing as 'semantics' a question about the difference between financial management savings and efficiency savings.
Midwinter told the committee: 'The minister appeared not to care. The committee's request for an intellectually rigorous approach does not mean that we are entering into semantics. It is important that we obtain clear definitions, otherwise we can never properly hold the Executive to account.'
Midwinter pointed out in his report that the Executive already acknowledged it could not directly link the resources released to specific service development, but had asserted that, when combined with the growth in funding from the Treasury, cash for frontline services would increase by more than 5%.
The committee will urge McCabe to publish details of how the figure was calculated.
Midwinter also said there was a need to clarify the number of jobs that might be lost in Scotland as a result of the efficiency review.
He said there was uncertainty over some projects and called for information on the actual number of jobs lost to be contained in the annual report on efficiency that the Executive plans to publish.
PFjun2005
