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Public sector up by 50,000 posts since devolution

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Published Date: 18 June 2009
By HAMISH MACDONELL
Scottish Political Editor
THE public sector in Scotland has grown by almost 50,000 jobs in the ten years since devolution, according to new figures.
The creation of a Scottish Parliament and a Scottish administration has been accompanied by a rise of almost ten per cent in the size of the public sector to 579,600.

This represents a rise of 47,900 – or nine per cent.

In the last year alone
the public sector headcount has risen by 3,400.

Ministers have claimed repeatedly that much of the overall rise in numbers over the last few years has been because of more frontline staff – nurses, doctors, teachers and police officers – rather than extra managers and back-office bureaucrats.

Successive administrations have pledged to reduce the size of Scottish Government and its agencies.

And yesterday Finance Secretary John Swinney said that the detailed figures showed the success of Scottish Government efforts in simplifying public services while increasing the number of frontline staff.

He said that the number of NHS staff had gone up by 3,600, to 160,500, since early last year, and the number working in police and related services had risen by 800.

Meanwhile the number of people working in Scottish Government quangos and some other national bodies had fallen by 500 since 2007.

"We are making public services simpler, better co-ordinated and more responsive, crucial to support Scotland's economic recovery," he said.

But opposition parties warned last night that a burgeoning bureaucracy would be a drag on the success of the private sector.

Derek Brownlee, for the Tories, said there was a "valid distinction" between frontline and back-office staff but he warned that there had to be a positive move to shrink the public sector and grow the private sector, to help get Scotland out of recession.

He said: "I don't think anybody would suggest doing anything so radical as reduce the headcount in the middle of a recession but the government has to change its attitude so we can prepare to come out of recession.

"We have to reduce the size of the public sector and grow the private sector to get the wealth creators who are going to pay for all these new public sector jobs."

However, another change in the statistics has been the inclusion in the general public sector statistics of the bank workers from the part-nationalised banks.

Nearly 44,000 workers with the Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group and Northern Rock in Scotland are now classed as public sector employees.

If these are taken into account, then that 579,600 public sector total goes up to 623,300, compared with 1.883 million in the private sector.

The public sector now accounts for about a quarter (24.9 per cent) of total employment if the banking jobs are included and 23.1 per cent if they are not.





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  • Last Updated: 17 June 2009 11:59 PM
  • Source: The Scotsman
  • Location: Edinburgh
  • Related Topics: Devolution
 
1

Brianwci,

18/06/2009 01:36:59
OIL AND GAS: £20BILLION SHORTFALL

Marvellous what you can do with numbers. Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Qatar etc can be transformed from desert economies (i.e. have to build a modern civilisation from scratch....goats the main resource)but Scotland, above all other countries in the world discovers Oil and gas and yet somehow or other would not have enough to live on for most of the years Oil has been flowing!

Many words spring to mind, none of them printable.

The sooner the Independence debate gets going so we can nail this sh*te into the ground the better. This is absolutely lunacy.

No, worse, it's downright LIES!!!

I comment here because we are not allowed to challenge this 'filth' in the original article.



2

Scotindy,

Los Angeles 18/06/2009 02:34:43
# 1 Dito
Yes what a shower of lieing thieving barstewards. Ask them to call the Norwegian Government and ask them HOW COME YOU ARE THE SECOND RICHEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD TAKING OIL FROM THE SAME SECTORS OF THE NORTH SEA AS SCOTLAND????? The answer will be that they ARE NOT SUBSIDISING THEIR GREEDY THIEVING NEIGHBOUR.
Roll on the REFERENDUM ON INDEPENDENCE AND BE DONE WITH THE union with england.
3

ScottishIndependence,

Glasgow 18/06/2009 03:36:18
<<<< Beware if you fill one of these posts >>>>

As the number of tax payers has and is going to fall due to Labours disgraceful management of the Credit Crunch.

The Unionist's intend cutting £5 Billion from the Scottish Budget and expect the Scottish Government to make it up from Scottish tax payers who can manage to hold on to their jobs.

When Westminster impose the Billions to be cut from the Scottish Budget in the years to come, it will mean the loss of NHS and Government jobs. Making it even harder for the Scottish Government to make up the £5 Billion slashed from the Scottish budget.

This £5 Billion figure is based on the current working population, not the working population after the full effects of the credit crunch and government spending cuts announced on the 23rd of April 2009 by Jim Murphy come into place.

On the same day, Westminster announce credit crunch plans to increase Scotland's North Sea Oil production by 20% adding another £2.6 Billion onto revenues that London takes away from Scotland, which was £13 Billion in 2007.

Therefore the plundering of Scotland's VAST Oil and Gas Revenues will increase to over £15 Billion. Nearly 50% of Scotland Current Budget

The solution is simply vote for SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE and a budget of in excess of £45 Billion not the Unionist's slap in the face reduced £25 Billion budget.

For the truth not lies, facts and figures visit

http://www.oilofscotland.org
4

Oregon Scot,

Salem 18/06/2009 05:11:36
The Oil "story" is ridiculous.
Of course we haven't seen the Report yet.
But going by the story and reading it clearly. Then Scotland has had a total deficit for the past two decades of 20 billion TOTAL. Now that really isnt too bad ,BUT and it is a big BUT they seem to be using figures that give SCotland only 10% of the oil revenues,this is crazy.Snake oil time.
The last GERS report and apparently this one gives Scotland 80% of the revenues just as it would be if Scotland were Independent..both show surpluses even in the last year of bad economic times.
I can see why no comments are permitted.
Also wondering if any other revenues ,such as from whisky were taken into account...nah.
Blatant and childish propaganda.
A newspaper with a storied history likeThe Scotsman should be ripping government propaganda like this to shreds.
5

Unimpressed one,

18/06/2009 08:12:12
Salmond's success story - more swill for the trough-feeders.
6

Linda,

Edinburgh 18/06/2009 08:22:41
Why are we not allowed to comment on Scotlkand Office's fiddled figures on Scotland's Oil.

STV 6 o'clock Scottish News Wednesday 17th's edition

Employment: the rise in Scottish unemployment was analysed. Expert opinions were sought from Jim Murphy and Theresa May... naturally. Given it was unemployment in Scotland, you would have expected someone from The Scottish Government to be interviewed. I suppose the editor didn't want to hear an SNP person telling Scots that unemployment in Scotland is lower than in England.

Scottish Futures Trust: this article gave air to Andy Kerr, Murdo Fraser and Mark Hellowell, from Edinburgh University's Centre for International Public Health Policy, all talking down the Scottish Government's SFT.
Yet again there was no SNP spokesperson.

Last night's coverage of the demonstrations in Iran by the Iranian State Broadcaster ISB was better balanced than this bilge from STV. The ISB showed the opposition demonstrators marching through Tehran whilst in Scotland our own STV didn't let anyone from the Scottish Government speak. Is Scotland the only country in the world where it's the elected government that can't get air time?
7

Linda,

Edinburgh 18/06/2009 08:38:24
And on BBC Newsnight last night discussion on Broadcasting and digital revolution there was no SNP representative.
Can you imagine any debate on "national" TV without a Labour representative being invited.
8

mr broon,

Edinburgh 18/06/2009 10:08:24
According to the Local Government Association of England and Wales, since 1997, an extra 68,000 staff have been employed on a full, part-time, or temporary basis. This included over 2,300 consultants.

According to the Taxpayers Alliance website, in the past 15 years the number of new civil servants employed in Whitehall departments has increased by over 88,000.

Strangely, the European Parliament and Commission has seen a drop of 1,400 members of staff from a much smaller civil service during the same period? (Source: The Times)
9

FLUB,

a rocky outcrop in eastern central Scotland 18/06/2009 10:31:04
Surely it cannot be that difficult to publish, for public examination every post (but not individuals in those posts) employed within all strands of the public sector.

The catch-all term 'public sector' is indistinct and needs to be dropped in favour of more specific terminology, such as civil service, local authority, etc.

When the posts are published, voters can then find out what they are, what they do and why they have them and can then determine whether their elected representatives can lobby to do away with some of them.

I'm sure we can all name jobs whose existence we find inexplicable, but some of these are forced on the public sector by external forces, such as EU legislation.

We can't disband the public sector, but we can take an interest in making it work for us for what we need, as opposed to what we think we want.
10

Alan B,

18/06/2009 14:07:41
the headline could equally have been public sector up by 50000 since labour took over from the tories.

while we needed more doctors etc we all know labour threw money at the public sector and bloated it without the results you would expect from the increased spending.

11

pwd,

Hawick 18/06/2009 14:37:08
It is an observable truth to Scots of my generation that the stature of Scots in general has somewhat diminished this last 20 years. There are a number of reasons for that, not least a drop in the standards of civilised discourse and an increase in the use of disrespectful, intemperate and abusive language, such as you might find in Mein Kampf. This sad tendency is personified in the tenor and mentality of your posts and an unfortunately high proportion of those of your fellow nat bloggers. What kind of country, I ask myself, would Scotland become in the hands of such people? Not a very attractive one I think. But, there again, I never expected anything else to arise from ill-tempered, narrow, chip on the shoulder nationalism.
12

pwd,

Borders 18/06/2009 14:38:45
# 1 & # 2

It is an observable truth to Scots of my generation that the stature of Scots in general has somewhat diminished this last 20 years. There are a number of reasons for that, not least a drop in the standards of civilised discourse and an increase in the use of disrespectful, intemperate and abusive language, such as you might find in Mein Kampf. This sad tendency is personified in the tenor and mentality of your posts and an unfortunately high proportion of those of your fellow nat bloggers. What kind of country, I ask myself, would Scotland become in the hands of such people? Not a very attractive one I think. But, there again, I never expected anything else to arise from ill-tempered, narrow, chip on the shoulder nationalism.
13

Campaign Lawer,

Elgin 18/06/2009 14:50:51
#1 Brianwci,18/06/2009 01:36:59
OIL AND GAS: £20BILLION SHORTFALL
Very disapointed that the Scotsman hasn't let us comment on the above article

Don't belive a thing Gordon Brown or the Treasury say.
I watch the river of black gold flowing below my feet every day straight into 11 Downing Street. Some simple maths for you:-
One oil platform alone producing 220,000 barrels / day @ 70 dollars / barrel equates to 15,400,000 dollars / day.
We could wipe out Scotlands supposed debt of £20,000,000,000 in just over 3 years and thats just from one platform.

This of course does not take into account the revenue from the taxation that the oil company's have to pay or the over inflated taxation that you and I pay at the pumps.


Wake up Scotland, support your country's future
14

,

07/07/2009 01:12:45
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