John Swinney's new top team has a tough job ahead to win over voters
People are fed up with not being able to afford to live comfortably - and it is a hard task for John Swinney’s new cabinet to tackle.
The new-look Scottish cabinet has a finance secretary, an economy secretary and a public service reform secretary - but is this top team enough to tackle the growing cost-of-living crisis?
During the Scottish Parliament election, the NHS was understandably the top concern for voters no matter which part of the country you were in.
But a new economy tracker survey suggests this has now been supplanted by the cost-of-living crisis and inflation worries.
It found Scots are having to stop all non-essential spending, cut back on leisure activities, and dip into their savings for day-to-day costs.
The tracker also showed Scots are seeing no signs of hope for the future, as 73 per cent of Scots believe the economy is only going to get worse.
There is good reason for this pessimism - the outlook does seem pretty bleak. Over the next parliament, the Scottish Government is going to be faced with a massive £5 billion black hole in the public purse.
The Scottish Government has very limited borrowing powers, so it has to balance the books every year. This means the country cannot just go £5bn into debt - it has to save this money somewhere.
As Scottish Conservative MSP Meghan Gallacher pointed out this week, we cannot have Scandinavian levels of spending while delivering Scottish levels of economic growth.
There are a couple of options the new top finance team could take. There could be massive tax rises so more money is coming into the pot. There could also be massive cuts to public services so less money is going out.
While this might all sound a bit abstract, either decision will have a direct impact on people’s lives here in Scotland.
I spoke to a few financial experts about this last week and they suggested the cuts could fall hardest on local government. It is one of the biggest expenditures for the government, and as was pointed out by these experts, ministers are unlikely to cut funding from other large spends such as the NHS.
Local government is responsible for some of the basic services we all rely on day-to-day, whether that is social care or getting the bins collected on time.
We have seen the impact of these cuts already in recent years, with swimming pools and libraries closing down, and extra charges for things like garden waste collections being introduced.
First Minister John Swinney is clearly aware of the challenge ahead. He is of course a former finance secretary himself and has delivered several Scottish budgets in the past, so knows what the projections mean.
This is most likely why he has created this new cabinet position of public service reform, and why he has promoted Ivan McKee, the man who masterminded some of the previous budget cuts, to the position.
He has people on hand to help with the task - Finance Secretary Jenny Gilruth, Economy Secretary Stephen Flynn and Public Finance Minister Hannah Mary Goodlad.
This top team needs to take count of the results of this economy tracker and realise just how scunnered everyone is with the cost-of-living. Turns out, people like being able to afford things.
It is a delicate balancing act - close the £5bn funding gap while also not hitting people too hard in their pockets.
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