Letter: We can work our way through budget cuts

GEORGE Osborne is right to insist that Trident has to be paid for from the defence budget (your report, 30 July). Liam Fox has been trying to argue that it is really important to renew Trident, but not so important that he is willing to pay for it.

If this isn't in the defence budget then where should the money come from? Should the health and education budgets be plundered to pay for the next generation of nuclear weapons?

The Treasury is standing firm and demanding the cost of building new nuclear-armed submarines has to be borne by the Ministry of Defence (MoD). This opens up a window of opportunity for progress towards disarmament.

Many senior people in the MoD will argue the proposals for Trident must be scaled back or abandoned. One option which has recently been floated by the Royal United Services Institute is to take Trident off patrol. This would be a step in the right direction, even if it doesn't go as far as many would wish.

JOHN AINSLIE

Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

Barrland Street

Glasgow

WITH 60,000 public sector jobs set to be slashed, thousands more families will struggle to pay rent or mortgages while local authority-funded support services face a bleak future.

Making house building a national priority will create construction jobs and ultimately help keep our struggling economy afloat.

GORDON MacRAE

Shelter Scotland

South Charlotte Street

Edinburgh

Crawford Beveridge's Independent Budget Review has rightly identified an important opportunity to explore how best to ensure a public sector workforce that is suitably skilled to meet the future challenges. Scotland's Sector Skills Councils are ideally placed to help facilitate this work, providing critical analysis of existing and emerging skills gaps and shortages and working with employers to ensure these are suitably addressed.

I look forward to working closely with local and central government, employers and employees to ensure we continue to deliver the highly motivated, efficient and effective workforce our public services require.

JACQUI HEPBURN

Alliance of Sector Skills Councils, Scotland

Castle Street

Edinburgh

The Scottish public sector faces unprecedented cuts and unparalleled.

It is essential that strong leaders are in place to manage this transformation.

Sharing best practice with the private sector would give managers in the public sector more experiences to draw upon, given that it was only last year that many private sector managers were faced with shrinking budgets.

As the line between the two sectors blurs, the transfer of knowledge from the private sector may be an effective short-term solution to ensure effective leaders are in place to manage the transformation.

Managers need to think about how to support staff emotionally and practically during this period.

As well as identifying ways to redeploy staff, they may need to offer opportunities to retrain and provide advice and counselling.

Employers should use career transition services to help staff through this process and the focus should be on the practical aspect of finding them a new job quickly, which will ultimately save the public purse.

IAN EKER

Hays Public Services in Scotland

West Regent Street

Scotland

I AM very pleased the Independent Budget Review recognises the crucial role of capital expenditure in creating jobs and driving economic growth (your report, 30 July).

In this context, I wholeheartedly support an urgent review of the status of Scottish Water with a view to freeing up capital for re-investment in other projects.

This was something the Scottish Building Federation argued for strongly in its own submission to the review.

The report rightly highlights the significant cost of meeting emission reduction targets under the Climate Change (Scotland) Act - as much as 8 billion by 2020.

Investment in greening the built environment would also help the construction sector in terms of sustaining jobs, skills and capacity.

I also support enhancing the role of the Scottish Futures Trust.

However, sadly missing from the report, an increased focus on setting up mechanisms to mobilise private capital to help sustain capital investment during this challenging period is urgently needed.

MICHAEL LEVACK

Scottish Building Federation

Crichton's Close

Edinburgh