Meeting of the Parliament 11 January 2024
No.
Other examples are the spending of £7 million per year on pretend overseas embassies, millions of pounds on a failed deposit return scheme and hundreds of millions of pounds on ferries—I could go on.
While we lament the performance of the SNP-Green Government, we must stress our admiration for Scotland’s amazing public sector workers, who deliver vital services. The trouble is, those workers are undermined by the SNP Government’s mismanagement, year in and year out, and by the SNP’s failure to properly support local government. To deliver well and stay true to public service values, we need to do things differently. We need to recognise a reorganisation of Scotland’s public sector that prioritises efficiency, preventative care and productivity.
No one is saying that reform is easy. The Scottish Parliament Finance and Public Administration Committee has been tasked with conducting an inquiry into such reform. That is important work. Audit Scotland has called for urgent reform and highlights that the SNP-Green Scottish Government has made no progress since 2016. It is vital to deliver reform in order to deal with long-term financial pressures.
The Scottish Conservatives believe that the principles of the Christie commission on the future delivery of public services are as important today as they were when they were published in 2011. Back then, the Scottish Government was told:
“Unless Scotland embraces a radical, new, collaborative culture throughout our public services, both budgets and provision will buckle under the strain”,
with a
“fragmented, complex and opaque”
system hampering the collaboration between organisations, and an approach that is
“’top-down’ and ... lacks accountability”,
while failing to deliver to meet the needs of individuals and communities.
The Scottish Government has not heeded what the Christie commission said. Instead, the SNP has the highest taxes in the UK, despite receiving around £2,000 more per Scot than is received from the UK Treasury for people in the rest of the United Kingdom.