Scottish Government's £1bn public service reforms branded 'reckless'
Public finance minister Ivan McKee has led a drive to cut waste, resulting in the publication of a 49-page document on Thursday.
The plans would reportedly save £1 billion annually over the next five years.
The report does not explicitly say what parts of the state will be cut, or the number of jobs likely to be lost in the civil service as a result of the changes.
However, it pledges to make public services more efficient and work better together, along with a greater emphasis on prevention.
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The Scottish Trade Union Congress (STUC) criticised the plans and said 'you can't fix public services by cutting the very people who keep them running'.
Ministers can 'remove, amalgamate or change the number of public bodies where doing so will increase efficiency, remove duplication and improve service delivery', the document said.
Addressing MSPs, McKee said the Scottish Government recognised that, despite increased spending on public services, satisfaction with them has fallen.
'We must rapidly increase the scale and pace of reform, building on the strong foundations we have in Scotland – our shared vision and shared values,' he said.
'We need to intervene earlier to prevent expensive crisis interventions later.
'This strategy sets out a bold, system-wide approach to changing how we think and how we behave across the public service system. It maximises impact across the whole system, not just in individual organisations.'
He added: 'Through the tools at our disposal, the efficiency workstreams in our strategy will reduce identified costs on Scottish Government and public body spend on corporate functions by 20 per cent over the next five years, which equates to an annualised £1bn cost reduction by 2029-30.
'This will require every part of the public sector to reduce the cost of doing business to prioritise the front line.
'All public bodies are already required to deliver best value, but this is about going further, and faster. It is about taking all available opportunities to introduce and embed efficiency through automation, digitisation, estate rationalisation, and changing the delivery landscape.'
Earlier this week, First Minister John Swinney said it was 'inevitable' that the number of civil servants would reduce, a sentiment the minister did not shy away from, saying reductions in the workforce would 'continue' in the coming years.
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McKee insisted that public sector staff are 'key partners' and ministers can't deliver change without them.
STUC general secretary Roz Foyer said that the announcement was 'cuts repackaged as reforms' and 'miss the mark entirely'.
'Talk of reducing headcount while NHS waiting times spiral, A&E departments are overwhelmed and social care is in crisis is as reckless as it is illogical,' she said.
'Scotland deserves public services that are properly funded.
'That requires investment in people, not an overreliance on technology to plug staffing shortages.
(Image: free)
'We are not opposed to changes in our public sector structures but genuine reform means learning from the Christie Commission and the brutal lessons of the pandemic — not repeating past mistakes by stretching workers past breaking point.'
Foyer argued that Scottish ministers should be adopting progressive taxation policies to raise revenue rather than push forward with cuts.
'Before racing ahead with changes, the Scottish Government must engage in serious dialogue with the trade union movement,' she added.
'We've been clear: we will not support any programme that threatens jobs, conditions or the quality of the services our communities rely on. That position remains the same.'
Scottish Tory finance spokesman Craig Hoy attacked the announcement as 'word soup'.
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In the Holyrood chamber, Hoy pushed McKee on what tangible actions will be taken, as he urged the Government to 'start swinging the axe'.
Responding, the minister said: 'I think it's important to understand that if you're serious about making real change and having delivered transformation programmes in the private sector and elsewhere, you need to understand the drivers that are causing barriers to prevent you doing that.
'Just swinging a big axe isn't going to deliver services, we've seen that across the Atlantic, where Elon Musk, who's no longer with the Trump administration precisely because he went in with a big axe and started cutting stuff and it immediately backfired because he didn't know what he was doing.'
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