By Keith Aitken in Edinburgh | 23 June 2011
Finance Secretary John Swinney has expressed his sympathy to public sector unions over the UK government’s pension reforms, but has said he cannot mitigate the impact on Scottish workers.
In a statement at Holyrood yesterday, Swinney made it clear that the Scottish government disagreed with the coalition’s plans to increase pension contributions by an average of 3.2% a year at a time when public sector pay is frozen.
But he dashed any lingering hopes that Scottish ministers could help civil servants and local government staff in Scotland. The Scottish Government would need to find an extra £400m a year if it went its own way on pensions, Swinney told MSPs.
The Scottish Trades Union Congress described his refusal to help as ‘disappointing if predictable’. It immediately threw its weight behind the strike action planned for June 30 by unions representing some 750,000 public employees. Swinney had said he saw no case for industrial action while negotiations were taking place.
Labour’s Richard Baker urged Swinney to continue seeking Scottish options with the unions, saying, ‘It is the Scottish Government’s responsibility to find a different way. They must offer more than just tea and sympathy.’
Tory spokesman Gavin Brown challenged Scottish ministers to specify their preferred contributions level.
Earlier, Swinney had welcomed latest Government and Expenditure Revenue Scotland (GERS) figures, which he claimed showed that in 2009/10 Scotland had had a stronger budgetary position than the UK as a whole for a fifth successive year.
The figures, which allocate Scotland a notional share of North Sea oil revenues, showed Scotland contributing 9.4% of UK public sector revenue, and receiving 9.3% back in spending. But Labour argued that oil revenues had halved in the year, and that this showed how precarious the finances of an independent Scotland would be.
