David Alexander: This shivering by the edge of the sea of cuts will leave us all wet

There's the individual who, arms clamped firmly around his chest, enters at a snail's pace, and whose every step is accompanied by sharp intakes of breath. Then there is the bather who will make a mad dash from the beach and plunge in.

The Scottish Government is the first type. While Westminster has already taken the plunge in tackling public debt, Holyrood has decided to paddle at the water's edge for another 12 months. How I wish that Scots politicians would show the boldness for which the nation is historically famous and get their heads under the water as quickly as possible, because the quicker the discomfort, the less likely it is to be lasting.

While sympathising with any public sector worker whose job may be in danger, concern needs to be focused on the effect of delay on the private sector.

In the south-east of England, the private sector is big enough to at least cushion some of the effects of reductions in public spending. In Edinburgh that "cushioning" used to be provided by the financial services sector, but this can no longer be relied upon.

Meanwhile, the inadvisability of building a city's economy on shopping centres will become apparent in Glasgow when the core market - those living within a 20-mile radius of Buchanan Street - no longer have money to spend or, if they do, are reluctant to part with it because of perceived job insecurity.

In Scotland the growth in national and local government has been such that there is now a quasi public sector - private firms whose balance sheets are largely, and sometimes wholly, dependent on state and council contracts. In my capacity as owner of a residential letting business, I frequently come across examples of private sector employees whose work is related either directly or indirectly to the public sector.

Scotland is in greater danger than England from a "double-dip" recession, because of the delay in taking unpalatable decisions on public spending. This in turn makes private firms hesitant because the future has become even more uncertain.

One consequence of the decision by the Scottish Government to ring-fence spending for a year will be to kill stone dead any revival in the property market this year. Neither should one count on a seasonal revival alongside the first snowdrops of next spring, either - how can that be likely when public sector job losses may only just be starting to bite, with private employers still in the dark about how cuts will filter down to them?

Banks and building societies will have already factored in the Scottish Government's 12-month delay on spending cuts with regard to mortgage lending north of the Border.

Indeed, only this week The Scotsman reported the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors as saying that the number of new housebuyer inquiries in Scotland was at a 22-month low. In these circumstances it could be at least 2015 before property prices return to their 2007 level.

All that is keeping many Scottish businesses - and indeed families - afloat just now is historically low interest rates, something over which a Scottish Government has no control. Therefore our ruling politicians are not doing this nation - and its business community - any favours in the long term by delaying cuts, especially when there is no viable alternative to reducing public sector debt.

• David Alexander is proprietor of the Edinburgh- and Glasgow-based letting and estate agency, D J Alexander..