Leader: Means testing is fairer in tough times

MEANS testing of welfare benefits has never been popular in Scotland. Spending lobbies and politicians have been united in opposition for fear of losing electoral support. But with the relentless pincer movement of longer life expectancy and an intensifying squeeze on public budgets, a reconsideration of the dispensing of “free” personal care and other universal services is inevitable.

MEANS testing of welfare benefits has never been popular in Scotland. Spending lobbies and politicians have been united in opposition for fear of losing electoral support. But with the relentless pincer movement of longer life expectancy and an intensifying squeeze on public budgets, a reconsideration of the dispensing of “free” personal care and other universal services is inevitable.

The Scottish Parliament was warned at the time of the introduction of “free” personal care for the elderly about the costs of sustainability, but the projections were brushed aside. Now Holyrood’s finance committee has been warned by Strathclyde University professor Robert Wright that more means testing looks inevitable, describing it as “ridiculous”, for example, that his fellow professors should be getting free bus passes.

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Scotland is facing an increase in the ratio of pensioners to people in work from 32 per 100 at the moment to 38 by 2035. According to public spending watchdog Audit Scotland, the cost of services like free personal care, prescriptions and concessionary travel totalled almost £900 million in 2010-11 and is set to rise 54 per cent by 2031. Barring some economic transformation that pundits and futurologists have missed, this is not on the cards.

Spending elsewhere will have to be cut or benefits curtailed. And many current recipients earning £40,000 or over or who are able to make some contribution to their care in old age should be invited to do so. Most would concede that a curtailment or withdrawal of “free” benefits would make more sense than having to attack vital health services elsewhere.