Latest news with #quangos
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
A £1bn bonfire of SNP quangos and bloated public sector? Don't hold your breath!
Quangos will be merged and jobs axed under SNP proposals to strip £1 billion a year of costs from Scotland's 'bloated' public sector. In a blueprint described as 'word soup' by unions and opposition politicians, measures considered will include cutting spending by a fifth on the 'corporate functions' or backroom costs of the Scottish Government and other public bodies over the next 10 years. Public Finance Minister Ivan McKee said it included proposals to 'remove, amalgamate or change' the number of public bodies, as well as sharing backroom services between different organisations. New guidance on redeployment and severance policies for public sector bodies will also be introduced, while there will be a greater shift towards digital services and communications. Opponents dismissed the proposals as a 'wish list' and condemned the lack of details about where the savings would be made and which quangos will be asked. Scottish Conservative finance spokesman Craig Hoy said: 'After much hype, the SNP government has produced a 49-page wish-list of word soup that fails to mention waste once. 'It begs the question as to why the SNP have not thought to make these savings at any point over their 18 years in power while they have been wasting taxpayers' money on a colossal scale. 'There is still an astonishing lack of detail as to where these savings will be made, or what quangos will be axed. The public simply will not trust the SNP to suddenly tackle the enormous waste they have presided over.' McKee said: '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, and that equates to an annualised £1 billion 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. 'This is about delivering significant change - including structural reform in government and for public bodies, where that is needed.' He said there needs to be 'better joined-up services' and the public sector needs to be 'ready to reshape our workforce', and added: 'Everyone recognises that things must change, but that creates challenges, as well as opportunities, for employees. 'So we will work with partners, staff and trade unions to ensure we have the right number of people in the right roles to deliver real and meaningful change, and that staff very importantly are empowered to make services better.' During his speech, he also admitted that 'despite increased investment, public satisfaction with services has fallen'. The document published yesterday set out 18 different 'workstreams' where reforms can be introduced, as well as some specific proposals. Most of the measures still lack full details or costings and will continue to be worked on by officials. One proposal is to 'remove, amalgamate or change the number of public bodies where doing so will increase efficiency, remove duplication and improve service delivery', as well as to 'identify duplication across public bodies and work with those bodies to share processes/services'. Other plans propose to share services between different bodies, while the document also promises to consider new 'ways of working' for staff. It proposes 'a collective approach to recruitment, promotion and performance management' across public bodies, and a review of reporting and scrutiny requirements. It also promises a shift towards digital services, with 25 per cent of all Scottish Government, agency and quango correspondence by digital means by 2030, which it said would save £100 million a year. A pilot of a Scottish Government app as 'a gateway to personalised public services' is also proposed for this financial year, with the first use expected to be for 'proof of age'. Data on corporate function costs will be collected and published on all public bodies to 'drive efficiencies' and remove duplication, while new financial targets will be set for operating and staff costs. The plan also talks about 'promote best practice guidance for workforce change', including the approach to redeployment and severance policy. The Scottish Government will also 'further develop our shared services thinking and propositions across a range of services'. Trade union leaders hit out at 'illogical' cuts to staffing at a time of growing pressure on services. STUC General Secretary Roz Foyer said: 'Whenever government ministers speak of public sector 'efficiencies', workers anxiously hold their breath. 'These cuts, prepacked as reforms, miss the mark entirely. Simply put: you can't fix public services by cutting the very people who keep them running. '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.' As Mr McKee unveiled the proposals, fiscal experts demanded a full roadmap to public sector reform. At an event hosted by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, Stephen Boyle, Auditor General for Scotland, said: 'The Fiscal Commission and others are pointing out that we have a significant gap in the way we spend public money compared to the money that we're receiving, so there are difficult choices coming our way as a country.'
Daily Mail
7 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Tory version of Trump's DOGE 'will save £650m in red tape and waste'
Scotland's 'bloated' public sector will be cut back to save taxpayers £650million under plans to be unveiled by the leader of the Scottish Tories. In his keynote address to his party's conference in Edinburgh today Russell Findlay will promise to cull quangos, bring in business leaders to find cutbacks and slash red tape in the NHS and other public bodies. The proposals are part of a new 'taxpayer savings act' which would cut costs by £650million. The savings would be used to pay for cutting income tax rates for hard-pressed Scots. In his first Scottish Tory conference speech as leader, Mr Findlay will say: 'Putting a stop to wasteful spending is top of our agenda. 'We need to urgently streamline bloated government. 'Improving services means treating people's money with respect. Today I can announce that our party would introduce a Taxpayer Savings Act to get the books in order and deliver better value. This proposal would save £650million by cutting red tape, getting a grip on spending, and harnessing business expertise. 'We would then use that money to bring down people's taxes. By doing that, we would start to restore trust. 'We would shut down quangos that don't deliver value. We'd tackle the SNP's culture of cronyism through strict new rules on public appointments. No more jobs for the boys, and we would reduce the number of ministers and advisers.' He will promise a 'Scottish agency of value and efficiency' would be set up to find cutbacks, which is similar to Donald Trump's DOGE, and would be run by 'people in the real world who know how to get things done'. Mr Findlay will say: 'They would be tasked with wielding a claymore on waste. 'We would introduce an Accountability and Transparency Index. This would shine a light on every organisation that receives public money, and would begin to dismantle the SNP's toxic era of secrecy.' Earlier this week, Mr Findlay unveiled proposals to cut income tax rates to provide a saving of up to £444 a year to workers. The Scottish Conservatives would abolish the current 20 per cent and 21 per cent rates of income tax and instead ensure that a 19 per cent rate applies on all taxable earnings up to the higher rate threshold of £43,663. The plan is likely to cost around £500million a year in lost tax revenue, but could also make it easier to attract skilled workers to boost revenues from tax. As of March 2025 there were 550,000 people employed in Scotland's public sector, which had grown slightly compared to the same month last year. More than 47 per cent worked in local government, while just over a third worked for the NHS. Official figures show that the devolved civil service saw employees rise by more than 2 per cent – with an extra 650 positions taking the number of people working for the Scottish Government to 28,800. But Scotland's public corporations – such as CalMac and Scottish Water – have seen numbers rise the most. The Scottish Government figures, which were released this month, revealed there were 9,000 working in that part of the public sector, up more than 6 per cent in 12 months. Public Finance Minister Ivan McKee said: 'The Scottish Government is making real progress in reforming the public sector: the number of Scottish public bodies under government control has shrunk from 199 in 2007 to 131. 'However, we know there is more to do, which is why I will soon unveil our Public Service Reform strategy. 'Unfortunately, this work has been made more difficult by the UK Government's decision to pursue Brexit, which in 2023 alone led to an estimated cut in public revenues of about £2.3billion.'
Daily Mail
30-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Quangos tasked with deciding farmers' futures allowing staff to work from other side of the world
They are the bureaucrats charged with protecting Britain's natural environment and those who toil away on it. Yet while hard-pressed farmers face an uncertain time thanks to Labour's inheritance tax plans, staff at three rural-focused quangos have been logging in to work from the other side of the world. An investigation by the Daily Mail has discovered taxpayer-funded staff at Natural England, NatureScot and the Rural Payments Agency have worked from Asia, North America and even Australia. Bosses at the three bodies – which employ about 6,000 staff and receive hundreds of millions of pounds of Government cash a year – have allowed employees to work abroad more than 300 times in the last three years, according to figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Staff were allowed to spend at least 1,174 days working abroad, although the total figure is expected to be much higher given NatureScot refused to provide the full information. Natural England, which added £100million to the bill for HS2, building a bat tunnel because the creatures are protected, was involved in 150 approvals, totalling nearly 1,000 days. This included 20 separate foreign stints each lasting at least ten days – the equivalent to two working weeks – with one staff member logging in for 15 days from Egypt. One employee at the York-based organisation was allowed to work from Australia for seven days, while Natural England also allowed eight staff to spend at least ten days working from Slovenia. Another was permitted to spend ten days in France, Belgium and Germany and someone spent nine days in Japan. The largest period of working away for a member of Natural England staff was a 28-day stint in Ireland. That was a drop in the ocean compared with the time a member of staff with the Rural Payments Agency, the body repeatedly castigated for the failure to pay farmers the subsidies they were owed on time. The body has a number of UK regional offices. Its data showed a geospatial services team member, who is listed as a senior executive officer, spent from August 5 last year to January 3 this year in Germany, accounting for 66 working days. Another spent 14 days in Sweden. NatureScot, based in Inverness, would only reveal there were 137 approvals granted in the last three years. This included nine trips to the US, two to Canada and India, and a stint in Chile. Alex Burghart, shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said: 'One wonders how much work will get done on the beach.' A Tory spokesman said: 'Those making peoples' lives a misery should at least live with the consequences rather than swan off to far-flung corners of the globe.' A Natural England spokesman said: 'As the Government's adviser on the natural environment, we provide practical advice, grounded in science, on how best to protect and restore our natural world. 'On occasion, staff are required to work abroad for business reasons, including attending international conferences such as COP16.' An RPA spokesman said: 'Staff are required to travel overseas for official government business – helping the RPA in its role to deliver a range of services to farming and rural businesses.' This year, the Mail revealed a senior executive at crisis-hit Windsor council was working from Kyrgyzstan.
