Free universal health services should not be spared cuts - report

NO public services should be protected against the prospect of looming cuts in spending, a report recommended today.

An immediate review was called for into all free universal services

including personal care, as well as concessionary travel and eye exams.

The council tax freeze should also be looked at being "discontinued" and does not appear "sustainable" in the long term, today's report by the Independent Budget Review Group said.

Chairman Crawford Beveridge said: "There are very difficult decisions to be made over the next few months, requiring strong leadership not

just in their making but also in their subsequent implementation.

"Clearly there are significant short term challenges.

"However important decision need to be taken about the future.

"Scotland needs to decide what form and shape of public services it desires and can afford."

The group was set up by the Scottish Government to examine where savings could be made, and its report makes a number of recommendations to ministers.

It comes against a background of a looming 42 billion squeeze in public spending over the next 16 years, as Scotland faces its first real terms budgetary cut since devolution.

The Government is also being urged to look at the possibility of introducing tuition fees at university and colleges, as well as changing the status of Scottish Water, possibly to a public interest company.

An immediate recruitment freeze should also be looked at across the public sector, as well as suspending the final stage of the abolition of prescription charges, which would see these scrapped completely.

A reduction in public service employment of 5.7%-10% by 2014/15 should also be considered by ministers, according to today's report.

The report focused on four areas for possible cuts – the public pay bill, efficiency savings, universal benefits and capital spending.

It states all areas should be subject to scrutiny without any "presumption of protection" for any of the major services.

The prospect of ring-fencing an area like health from cuts – as the UK Government has promised in England – would leave other departments in Scotland facing a budget cut of more than 20% by 2014/15, according to today's report.

"We suggest the people think very carefully before they try and squeeze that sort of number out," Sir Crawford told a press conference in Edinburgh today.

The NHS – with a budget of about 11.5 billion – accounts for 30% of public spending in Scotland.

Sir Crawford said the report did not contain a "nice easy formula" for the Government to make the cuts needed in the coming years, but instead set out a range of options.

He added: "It's going to have to be a mixture of what they think they can achieve in efficiency, the overall pay bill, what can be done in terms of universal spending and capital spend.

"They're going to have to take all of those and get to some reasonable picture."

The "huge numbers" are contained in the public pay bill which accounts for 60% of spending in Scotland, while efficiencies are becoming "harder to find".

The group's remit was to recommend options for cuts while maintaining current levels of frontline services.

But Sir Crawford added: "It is going to be difficult – we are going to have to make difficult choices in other areas if that's what we're trying to do."