Exclusive:SNP warned not to use workers as 'scapegoats' for cutting services in budget
Shona Robison has been warned against making public sector workers “scapegoats for decades of under investment and empty promises” amid fears spending cuts are being lined up in this week’s budget.
The SNP finance secretary will deliver her budget on Wednesday, the first under John Swinney’s leadership, after being handed a £3.4 billion boost from Westminster.
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Ms Robison’s government has set out a pledge to mitigate the UK government’s cut to universal winter fuel support amid a warning from the Fraser of Allander Institute that public pay pressures mean there will be "little room for manoeuvre”.
In September, Ms Robison signalled £500m of cuts to this year’s budget to pay for public sector pay deals that had not had funding allocated - raising speculation that upcoming negotiations could be used as justification to wield the axe again.
It is understood that, rather than cut budgets, funding may be paused or delayed until the following financial year.
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Hide AdSTUC general secretary, Roz Foyer, told Scotland on Sunday that Wednesday’s budget was “an opportunity for the finance secretary to be bold and honest with the public”.
She added: “If we want high-quality public services with, rightly, well-paid public servants, we must pay the piper.
“Given the STUC has already shown the Scottish Government how to use their powers to raise an addition £3.7bn in additional revenue, not withstanding the almost £5bn extra they’re set to receive as a result of the Chancellor’s statement last month, it’s a complete red herring, if not dangerously disingenuous, to presume spending cuts are required by ministers in order to balance the books.


“From a £3bn squandered spend on a small business bonus scheme that, according to the Scottish Government’s own analysis, doesn’t seem to work, to regressive council tax freezes over years and years, public sector workers shouldn’t carry the can for, charitably speaking, poor decisions made by the Scottish Government over recent years.
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Hide Ad“This upcoming budget can begin to shift the dial after 14 years of Tory UK government austerity. We need the finance secretary to stand behind our workers and not cut the legs from under them with unjust and unnecessary spending cuts.”
The GMB union previously criticised Ms Robison after she admitted forecasting 3 per cent public sector pay increases despite expecting higher settlements.
Louise Gilmour, GMB Scotland secretary, said: “To suggest fair pay for workers is to blame for the long-running and ongoing crisis in our public services is an easy excuse but a travesty of the truth.


“Are we saying that public sector workers should not be paid fairly? That they alone should accept the unacceptable?
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Hide Ad“These workers deserve better than to be made scapegoats for decades of under investment and empty promises.”
Ms Robison said this week’s budget will begin “laying the foundations for Scotland’s long-term success”.
She added: “The First Minister has made clear his focus on delivering on the priorities of people across Scotland – whether that is improving the NHS and other public services, growing our economy, tackling the climate emergency or eradicating child poverty. His first budget will deliver progress on the issues people care about most.


“It is also a budget for hope, that puts in place the investment that will set us up to win big in the years to come – creating more and better jobs, putting more money into people’s pockets and introducing a universal Pension Age Winter Heating Payment. It will ensure that we create the conditions for every person in Scotland to thrive.”
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Hide AdThe Finance Secretary suggested that her government has “engaged seriously and constructively with other parties” as negotiations continue.
It is likely that the budget Ms Robison tables in Holyrood on Wednesday will not be the final spending plans that fund the 2025/26 financial year - due to the Scottish Government’s need to win support of opposition MSPs for it to pass.
The two parties realistically in the frame to prop up the SNP’s budget are the Liberal Democrats and the Greens - but it is unlikely either will agree to back Ms Robison’s spending plans before they are published on Wednesday.
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Hide AdThe mood music had appeared to shift from the Greens to the Lib Dems, but the Scottish Government published a key ask of Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater’s party last week, an appraisal of dualling the A96, in an apparent move to keep a deal with the Greens within reach.
A Greens source said SNP ministers “certainly seem closer to the Lib Dems”, but added that publishing the A96 appraisal that pointed to measures short of full dualling before the budget and announcing it will not be dualled by the 2030 target “seemed far more geared towards us”.
They added: “All the rhetoric about being committed to dualling in the longer term is just a way to kick it beyond the elections and avoid putting money in the budget for something we would struggle to vote for.
“We told them publishing that statement ahead of the budget was a precondition for our support and it's hard to see why they would do it now unless they wanted to keep that option open.”
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Hide AdBut SNP backbencher, Fergus Ewing, has called on his colleagues to turn their backs on the Greens and focus on currying support from other opposition parties.
He said: “I would strongly urge the SNP leadership to negotiate seriously with the other main parties and not the Green extremists.
“Even now the leadership seem to woo the Greens constantly despite the fact that the deal with the Greens caused us massive loss of support and our MPs reduced to single figures.
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Hide Ad“Almost all the Green policies are impractical, undeliverable, damaging and deeply opposed by a large majority of the people.
“I was the sole SNP MSP who opposed the deal from the outset, and the only one to point out that Nicola Sturgeon never told the electorate in 2021 at the election that she would deal with these extremists, because she well knew that would have cost us a massive loss of support.”
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