Smoke rising from Scottish Police College is just the latest sign of SNP mismanagement
The SNP’s cries of ‘blame Westminster’ ring hollow when Labour is providing record sums of money to the Scottish Government
It’s a strange conundrum. Despite Scotland’s high tax rates – set to get even higher if the SNP decides to match Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ recent increases – the public realm appears to be crumbling all around us.
NHS waiting lists that only seem to get longer, outbreaks of violence in schools that will only add momentum to Scotland’s slide down international education league tables, universities teetering on the financial brink, potholed roads, shambolic ferry services... the list goes on.
Earlier this month, Jo Farrell, chief constable of Police Scotland – a force that has stopped investigating some ‘minor’ crimes – warned that, after years of funding cuts, it needs an extra £104 million simply to “stand still”. Without the cash, the number of officers could be reduced by nearly 1,000 – a move that would presumably require the definition of ‘minor’ to be expanded.
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‘Widespread under-investment’
Now David Threadgold, chair of the Scottish Police Federation, has spoken out about the state of the famous Scottish Police College at Tulliallan.
After smoke was seen coming from one of the main buildings, where officers do fitness training, it has been closed for two weeks with no date to re-open. Threadgold said: “We sell ourselves as an exemplar of policing worldwide, and in some respects, we are. But this particular example shows there has been widespread under-investment in the police estate generally...”
Hard-pressed public servants like police officers, doctors, nurses and teachers will surely wonder more than most where all that money is going.
Value for money
SNP ministers cannot escape the fact that the buck stops with them and their cries of ‘blame Westminster’ ring hollow when Labour is providing record sums of money to the Scottish Government.
Pet SNP projects like free tuition fees and free prescriptions may be politically useful, but do they constitute value for money? Are they affordable?
If ministers cannot find a way to grow the economy and thereby increase tax revenues, they should be moving heaven and earth to make efficiency savings in order to free up more funds for frontline services like the police, the NHS and schools. A slow death by a thousand cuts is no way to go.
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