SNP need to get an urgent grip of huge public sector pay bill

Some 22 per cent of people with a job in Scotland are employed in the public sector, compared to 17 per cent in England. Theoretically, this should have some benefits, although they are hard to discern, given the current state of public services.

However, this higher number of state employees also comes at an obvious cost. And this cost has been inflated further, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), by the "relative generosity of public-sector pay deals in recent years in Scotland compared with England".

For example, a newly qualified nurse receives £31,892 a year in Scotland, compared to £29,970 in England, while a newly qualified teacher gets £33,594, rather than £31,650 in England.

Finance Secretary Shona Robison and John Swinney can simply demand more money from Westminster to pay for Scotland's extra large public sector (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell) | Getty Images

It is true that public employers need to offer pay and conditions that are competitive in the job market, otherwise the vacancy crises in many key services would be even worse.

However, a new IFS report has concluded there is "no evidence" that the bigger pay packets have improved staff retention rates: "Indeed, if anything, retention has fallen (with the leaving rate rising), both in absolute terms and relative to England.”

This is perhaps further evidence that it is the stress being placed on NHS staff and teachers in particular, which is a more important factor in the widespread discontent among both.

Few would argue against decent pay for nurses and teachers and surely no one would say they don't deserve it. However it is a simple fact that the public sector is proportionately much larger than in the rest of the UK. And this means that higher rates of pay place extra pressure on the public purse.

Apart from relying on the ‘Union dividend’ and making regular demands for even more money from Westminster, the SNP don’t seem to have given adequate thought to how all this can be afforded.

The Budget crisis of last year was only averted by Labour’s big-spending UK Budget, although the SNP would have you believe the extra billions were somehow trivial. John Swinney and co need to start taking the nation’s finances far more seriously, or we will all pay the price.