Swinney warns of £3.7bn cuts in next four years

SCOTLAND faces £3.7 billion of cuts over the next four years, finance secretary John Swinney has warned.

•John Swinney pointed the finger at Westminster

He made the prediction ahead of a series of planned meetings with councils, NHS workers and business leaders over the next few days, and after the Independent Budget Review group warned that up to 60,000 public sector jobs faced the axe.

Mr Swinney blamed the crisis on the UK government, pointing the finger at Labour and the ruling Tory-Lib Dem coalition. He called for full powers for the Scottish Parliament over the economy.

"The current financial situation underlines the urgent need for the Scottish Government to secure financial responsibility and have the same economic powers that other nations have - enabling us to boost economic growth and grow tax revenues to invest in quality public services," he said.

"In dealing with these Westminster spending cuts, we have already said our budget priorities are economic recovery, protecting front-line services and developing a low-carbon Scotland as part of our efforts to drive forward the country's massive renewable energy potential."

Mr Swinney said the Scottish Government's budget would be published in November and "will reflect the feedback we receive" from the meetings with councils and other bodies. He added: "We will not know the Scottish Government's budget until the UK Comprehensive Spending Review in October."

However, the finance secretary came under pressure to spell out what his budget would be from opposition parties at Holyrood.

Scottish Labour local government spokesman Michael McMahon said: "John Swinney needs to come clean over his plans and tell us whether he intends to cut 70 million from local authorities.

"Local councils have come to rely on this money to pay for vital local services."

Lib Dem finance spokesman Jeremy Purvis said: "I have tabled repeated parliamentary questions asking what the Scottish Government believes should be the right level of debt that the UK has, but John Swinney is refusing to answer.

"He has little credibility in critiquing the Westminster Government on the level of budget deficit when he has a simply cowardly position in not stating what the size of the deficit should be."

A spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives said: "It's time that Mr Swinney said what he was going to do and brought some ideas to the table."