Scottish spending review: SNP cannot simply blame Westminster for huge public service cuts – Scotsman comment

As Kate Forbes set out the Scottish Government’s spending plans for the next four years, prompting warnings of “brutal” cuts to public services, the Finance Secretary described the sea of troubles that has been bringing a storm to our shores.

Finance Secretary Kate Forbes needs to ensure the Scottish Government's finances are on a sound footing (Picture: pool/Fraser Bremner/Daily Mail)

Covid, the Ukraine War, rising global energy and food prices, generally soaring inflation, and Brexit – all factors outside of her control.

However, it is the job of any government to run its affairs so that when crises occur, it is capable of navigating a course through them with the minimum difficulty.

While the 2008 financial crash began with the collapse of the American subprime mortgage market, it was not the US that paid the highest price, but countries like Greece, which was unable to service its debts as borrowing costs rose.

Athens had to seek vast bailouts from the EU and International Monetary Fund, which were paid on condition the government inflicted harsh austerity programmes to help balance the books. Greece’s ministers, like most people, were caught unawares by the crash, but they should have been in a better position to deal with it.

Scotland’s situation is nowhere near as dire, but Greece’s plight remains a worst-case example of what can go wrong that all politicians must heed.

So any attempt by the SNP to blame outside factors entirely for the alarming scale of cuts to many public services heralded by the spending review – with an eight per cent real-terms reduction in spending outside health and social security by 2025/26 – will not wash.

Some hard decisions were inevitable, but the electorate has a right and a duty to hold the Scottish Government to account for them.

Labour and the Conservatives accused the SNP of years of economic mismanagement; and the Ferrygate fiasco – in which two ships being being built by a Scottish Government-owned shipyard are now five years late and £150 million over budget – is worrying sign they may be right.

If only some of that £150 million had been available for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, whose budget is set to stay at £294 million from 2022-23 to 2026-27, a real-terms reduction.

Any government that cuts such vital public services does so at their peril. Simply pointing the finger at Westminster and beyond is not good enough.