By David Scott in Edinburgh
3 February 2010
A leading civil servant has warned that public spending cuts could reach 20% over the next seven years and that compulsory public sector redundancies cannot be ruled out.
Sir John Elvidge, permanent secretary at the Scottish Government, predicted that the shape of some public services in the future will ‘look completely different’.
‘It’s obvious that we can’t simply continue to run the models that we run for delivery of various public services,’ he said.
Elvidge was speaking in a video interview shown to public sector leaders at a conference in Edinburgh on January 29.
He stressed that the shorter the period over which change had to be managed, the harder it was to do in a way that did not cause some pain.
He added: ‘Our task, I think, has got to be to look longer term and make sure that we are aiming at delivering better services over time within the financial constraints.’
He cited Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates, which show, across the UK government, the average real-terms reduction each year would be 3.2%, resulting in cumulative real-terms budget cuts of around 10% by the end of the three years.
Of the prospect of similar constraints continuing, he warned: ‘If, instead of four years, it lasts for seven years – and plenty of commentators have suggested that it could – then we’re at 20% real-term reductions.
‘That’s an enormous challenge for any system – and it tells us that the right thing for all public sector managers to be doing at the moment is to err on the side of pessimism in their forecasts and radicalism in their thinking.’
On workforce issues, Elvidge pointed out that Scottish ministers had given a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies for as far ahead as they had certainty about the budgets they were working within.
But he added: ‘I think it’s a common-sense point that you can’t give guarantees when you don’t know what budget you’re working with.’
3 February 2010
A leading civil servant has warned that public spending cuts could reach 20% over the next seven years and that compulsory public sector redundancies cannot be ruled out.
Sir John Elvidge, permanent secretary at the Scottish Government, predicted that the shape of some public services in the future will ‘look completely different’.
‘It’s obvious that we can’t simply continue to run the models that we run for delivery of various public services,’ he said.
Elvidge was speaking in a video interview shown to public sector leaders at a conference in Edinburgh on January 29.
He stressed that the shorter the period over which change had to be managed, the harder it was to do in a way that did not cause some pain.
He added: ‘Our task, I think, has got to be to look longer term and make sure that we are aiming at delivering better services over time within the financial constraints.’
He cited Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates, which show, across the UK government, the average real-terms reduction each year would be 3.2%, resulting in cumulative real-terms budget cuts of around 10% by the end of the three years.
Of the prospect of similar constraints continuing, he warned: ‘If, instead of four years, it lasts for seven years – and plenty of commentators have suggested that it could – then we’re at 20% real-term reductions.
‘That’s an enormous challenge for any system – and it tells us that the right thing for all public sector managers to be doing at the moment is to err on the side of pessimism in their forecasts and radicalism in their thinking.’
On workforce issues, Elvidge pointed out that Scottish ministers had given a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies for as far ahead as they had certainty about the budgets they were working within.
But he added: ‘I think it’s a common-sense point that you can’t give guarantees when you don’t know what budget you’re working with.’
