Scots face constraints on public spending

15 Sep 05
The Scottish Executive is to call in external experts to advise on a root-and-branch review of public spending, the first significant cutback since devolution.

16 September 2005

The Scottish Executive is to call in external experts to advise on a root-and-branch review of public spending, the first significant cutback since devolution.

Finance Minister Tom McCabe told a Scottish Cabinet meeting in Edinburgh on September 14 that it was hoped the external advisers would bring a fresh approach.

McCabe also made it clear that ministers would face tough choices following Chancellor Gordon Brown's decision to delay the next Whitehall Spending Review until 2007.

A warning about the need for restraint was also given to the Scottish Parliament's finance committee by its budget adviser, Professor Arthur Midwinter.

Midwinter said that over the past eight years the Scottish budget had grown faster than the rate of economic growth and that this would be difficult to sustain much longer.

He added: 'The next Spending Review seems likely to bring the first experience of budgetary restraint since devolution and the first test of Parliament's capacity to make hard choices. The interim period should be used to prepare for that process.'

PFsep2005

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