Monday, June 27

More bureaucracy in Scotland

A recent study has found that public sector salaries in Scotland rose by £1bn in 2004 despite an efficiency drive which aims to cut back on public spending.

A study by the Herald newspaper found that 11,000 new public sector posts had been created in just one year.

And it showed that the main culprit was increased bureaucracy - with the number of new administration jobs increasing by up to four times the rate of frontline jobs.

The Scottish Executive announced a £1.7bn economy drive in April of last year after the chancellor Gordon Brown said 104,000 public sector jobs had to go.

First minister Jack McConnell said the public sector was "too big" and was a "drain on economic growth" in Scotland, employing nearly 25 per cent of Scotland's workforce.

But the Herald study found that the wage bill at the Executive and its agencies had risen by £34.3m last year as staffing levels went up by two per cent.

SNP shadow finance minister Alasdair Morgan called for the Executive to cut unnecessary bureaucracy. "While the rises in the number of workers in policing, nursing and other frontline services are to be welcomed, the Executive must do more to reign in unnecessary bureaucracy," he said. "The Executive must honour its pledge to cut public sector costs and deliver greater efficiency and value for money to the taxpayer."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Now then!

Here's a question! Of polititions were honest would our nation fall apart. I mean how much of the stuff we're not told and I cannot mention on the net would then have to come out in the open