By David Scott in Edinburgh
4 November 2009
A reduction in Scotland’s public sector workforce over the next few years is ‘inescapable’, Finance Secretary John Swinney has told MSPs.
Giving evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s local government committee on November 4, Swinney predicted that job cuts would be a consequence of real-terms cuts in revenue budgets up until the period 2014/16.
He warned: ‘I think it’s hard to dispute the proposition that there will be a reduction in public sector employment in the years to come. It’s almost inescapable in terms of the estimates of the future financial position, particularly on revenue budgets over the next five years.
‘My expectation, shared with Parliament on a number on occasions, is that we will have a number of years of real-terms reductions in the revenue budgets available to the Scottish Government up until about 2014, 2015-16.’
The finance secretary was responding to questions from Tory MSP David McLetchie, who asked him to confirm whether there would be any further job cuts after figures showed a loss of 6,700 full-time equivalent staff in local government.
Swinney confirmed that the Scottish Government was considering a scheme in which public sector redundancy costs would be financed through capital expenditure rather than by the normal means of revenue spending.
He told McLetchie that ‘capitalisation’ of redundancy costs was an option being considered, although this would need to be agreed with the Treasury.
Swinney was giving evidence in connection with the committee’s inquiry into local government finance and the impact of the economic downturn on council budgets.
4 November 2009
A reduction in Scotland’s public sector workforce over the next few years is ‘inescapable’, Finance Secretary John Swinney has told MSPs.
Giving evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s local government committee on November 4, Swinney predicted that job cuts would be a consequence of real-terms cuts in revenue budgets up until the period 2014/16.
He warned: ‘I think it’s hard to dispute the proposition that there will be a reduction in public sector employment in the years to come. It’s almost inescapable in terms of the estimates of the future financial position, particularly on revenue budgets over the next five years.
‘My expectation, shared with Parliament on a number on occasions, is that we will have a number of years of real-terms reductions in the revenue budgets available to the Scottish Government up until about 2014, 2015-16.’
The finance secretary was responding to questions from Tory MSP David McLetchie, who asked him to confirm whether there would be any further job cuts after figures showed a loss of 6,700 full-time equivalent staff in local government.
Swinney confirmed that the Scottish Government was considering a scheme in which public sector redundancy costs would be financed through capital expenditure rather than by the normal means of revenue spending.
He told McLetchie that ‘capitalisation’ of redundancy costs was an option being considered, although this would need to be agreed with the Treasury.
Swinney was giving evidence in connection with the committee’s inquiry into local government finance and the impact of the economic downturn on council budgets.
