Report on jobs not a political football

It has been said to describe the Scottish public sector as “bloated”, rely on out-of-date figures and attack the SNP’s proposals for lower corporate tax rates.

None of these accusations is wholly true.

Scotland was heavily reliant on the public sector for job creation during the decade up to the recent recession, but the same was true of many other parts of Great Britain.

However, the report does not describe the public sector as “bloated”, or make any value judgment about its size in Scotland. It seeks to establish the scale of the challenge facing the private sector across the UK if it is to create enough jobs to return the economy to full employment.

It is also wrong to say that the figures in the report are out of date. While some of the analysis focuses on the period up to the start of the recession in 2008, all the latest data are presented.

And there is no explicit attack on SNP policies – or even a single mention of the SNP or the Scottish Government – in the report, though it is true that we are sceptical about the record of corporate tax rate cuts in creating jobs across the UK in the 1980s.

The latest unemployment figures highlight how difficult it will be to create the jobs needed to return Scotland, and the rest of Britain, to full employment.

Our report attempts to understand what policy-makers could do to hasten things along. We regret that it has become a political football in Scotland.

Tony Dolphin

Institute for Public Policy Research

Buckingham Street

London