Debt: the spectre that dared not speak its name

Conferences like this have two benefits. They enable an audience to learn at first hand from some of the best policy analysts and commentators in Scotland. Then, once the initial sense of awe has passed, there is the chance to interrogate them into abject surrender.

Speakers yesterday engaged with the first and were spared the second. Professor John Curtice gave a masterclass performance showing why he is Scotland's leading opinion poll guru. Not only does he seem to know how we are going to vote before we vote, but why we vote the way we do before we vote. He did this fluently despite a glitch in the Powerpoint presentation. But who needs slides when the master is in full flow? "Devolution max", he argued, looks the preferred voter option. Who is going to seize and hold this ground?

John McLaren, now professor of public policy at the University of Glasgow, donned his signature BBC Newsnight midnight-black sweatshirt to take us through the budget problems that face the Scottish Government. Midway through his outline of medium-term prospects was a reminder that, once every ten years, there is a recession.

So, no sooner will we have pulled ourselves out of the legacy of the last downturn than the next one will hit.

The result of slower GDP growth is lower government revenues, so real-terms growth of public sector funds is unlikely to be much above 1 per cent a year - if that. A ripple of austerity fatigue ran through the audience. "No wonder", Curtice muttered to his fellow panellists, "they call it the dismal science".

CBI Scotland boss Iain McMillan set out the business priorities, while Universities Scotland director Alastair Sim delivered a rarely heard positive outlook for higher education.

Fanchea Kelly, from Glasgow Housing Association, highlighted the social as well as economic importance of social housing. The Scottish Government did not put up a minister but independent MSP Margo MacDonald helpfully laid down some mines for future detonation. Arguably the most forceful contribution came from Cosla chief executive Rory Mair, setting out the huge demand pressures building on public services.

Hanging over all of this - and over the administration - is the spectre that dared not speak its name: debt and debt reduction. That, in whatever guise it comes, is now the force majeure in virtually every area of public policy.

Here was one certainty the audience could take away: glib assurances of efficiency savings just aren't going to cut it.