John Swinney's new Cabinet signals beginning of bitter but necessary fight with unions
Scotland’s new Public Service Reform Secretary will need his Cabinet colleagues to help, not hinder, his hugely important task
Ivan McKee may not be a household name, but he could quickly become one, given he’s just been handed the toughest job in John Swinney’s Cabinet: Public Service Reform Secretary. A newly created post, it thankfully signals a degree of seriousness about tackling the looming £5 billion black hole in government finances.
However, the First Minister’s insistence that there would not be “cuts” but instead “reform” sounded like wishful thinking. It’s hard to see how significant savings can be found without a reduction in public sector staff, which is likely to lead to bitter fights with the unions.
Efficiency savings are necessary not just to make the government’s books balance but also to free up more money to improve crumbling frontline services like education and the NHS. We hope McKee will hear the calls from across the political spectrum, and indeed The Scotsman, to make savings by reducing the ridiculous number of quangos.
He could also recommend changes to universal benefits, which offer considerable scope for “reform” if the SNP can summon the political bravery required to means-test at least some of them. The SNP’s fondness for handing out ‘free stuff’, paid for by taxpayers, is one reason why Scotland’s finances are in trouble.
The slimmed-down Cabinet sees Jenny Gilruth become Finance Secretary and Deputy First Minister, with her education role handed to Màiri McAllan, who would have been busy enough given Scottish schools’ shameful slide down international league tables and appalling levels of classroom violence, but who will also have to deal with Culture and Gaelic. Edinburgh’s festivals may struggle to get a hearing.
Angela Constance and Neil Gray have, bizarrely, swapped jobs with the former taking over health and the latter moving to justice. Obviously, knowledge of a sector is to be discouraged among government ministers, in case they ever threaten to actually do anything. Expect further drift and delay, longer NHS waiting lists, more prisoners on early release.
But the most important task for them all is to help McKee do his job – and not make it harder by spending money on policies that sound good but achieve little. The SNP tried that, and it doesn’t work.
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