Financial sector hit the hardest

JOBS shed by nationalised banks accounted for the majority of around 10,000 public-sector jobs that have been axed in Scotland over the last year, official figures revealed yesterday.

Around 6,800 positions went from the Lloyds Banking Group, RBS and Northern Rock, which have been redefined as public- sector employers as a result of the Treasury bail-outs. Even when the banks were excluded from the statistics published by the Scottish Government, public-sector employment in Scotland fell by 2,800 when figures at the end of 2009 were compared with the previous year.

But the number of civil servants employed directly by the Scottish Government increased by 600 from 5,000 to 5,600 and the number of people employed by quangos rose by 200.

In 2008, there were 12,700 people employed by "non-departmental public bodies" or quangos, a figure that rose to 12,900 in 2009.

Conservative finance spokesman Derek Brownlee said: "Alex Salmond's much-publicised pledge to reduce the number of quangos by 25 per cent is meaningless if the number of people employed by them constantly increases.

All this at a time when teacher numbers have fallen."